'I used to live next to Axel Rudakubana - one thing he did always creeped me out'
'I used to live next to Axel Rudakubana - one thing he did always creeped me out'
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The remote village of Banks was thrust into the spotlight in July last year as the home of schoolgirl killer Axel Rudakubana. Armed police stormed a cul-de-sac in the village in West Lancashire just two hours after Rudakubana went on a 12-minute rampage on innocent youngsters at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport.
The house they were focused on was now at the centre of a police probe after Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were slaughtered, with several more children left in critical condition. For seven years, the property had been Rudakubana's home. On Thursday, he was sentenced to more than five decades in the jail for his awful crime.
Rudakubana travelled from his home on Old School Close at around 11.30am on the hot summer day, wearing a green jumper, black tracksuit pants and a surgical mask, to a small business estate off of Hart Street where he unleashed horror and violence. Armed police rushed to the village and arrived at his home at 1.29pm, around an hour and a half after the then-17-year-old was detained at the scene, reports the Liverpool Echo.
Armed police stormed the properties surrounding the two-bedroom semi-detached house he lived in with his parents and older brother. One woman told the ECHO how the local Co-Op and Post Office on Hoole Lane were “locked down”, as police secured the scene and cordoned off the road.
Caroline, who lived next door to the Rudakubana family but has since moved away from the area, explained how she thought the now-18-year-old was just a “normal, moody teenager”. She said: “To us, it was just a family living next door who kept themselves to themselves, I thought the teenage son was a bit weird, like he just stared at you and didn't really say anything at all.
