Innocent Southport victims ‘did not know evil’ before day of attack

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Innocent Southport victims ‘did not know evil’ before day of attack
Author: Eleanor Barlow
Published: Jan, 23 2025 16:30

The innocent victims of Axel Rudakubana had probably never known there was evil in the world until the day of his attack, the officer who investigated the case has said. The 18-year-old, of Banks, Lancashire, murdered six-year-old Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and injured 10 others, including eight children, when he entered a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on July 29 armed with a kitchen knife.

Detective chief inspector Jason Pye, who led the investigation, said no training course could have prepared his officers for the horror of what they saw. He said: “If you think about this, the majority of those children probably didn’t even know there was any evil in the world that day.

“We talked about this evil and good coming together. The world’s most evil, with some of the good in the world coming together. “It’s really difficult for anybody to try and understand, because we don’t. “We’ve not found out why he’s done it. Why would he pick them, the most vulnerable?”.

Mr Pye said Rudakubana’s guilty pleas, which came on Monday as his trial was due to begin, came as a “surprise to everybody”. He said: “There was absolutely no indication that he was going to co-operate with any part of the judicial system.”. Asked why he believed Rudakubana had decided to admit his crimes, he said: “Your guess is as good as mine. Has he tried to control this all the way through? Is he that clever? I don’t know.

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