The false claim that Southport trial was deliberately timed for Trump inauguration
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The claim echoes other posts over recent months which make various claims about the timing of both events. The claim made by Sir Jake Berry can be proven as false as the trial date is set by the courts, not the Government. The trial was scheduled months before Mr Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.
![[Sir Jake Berry (Aaron Chown/PA)]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/02/04/09/f816880d32e55eef342c0c10a55288d6Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNjc1NTg5Mjcz-2.70750545.jpg)
Trial schedules are set by the courts, never by the Government. – 2019. Axel Rudakubana becomes known to a range of local agencies due to anxiety, social isolation and challenging behaviour. In October he takes a knife to school, and in December attacks another child with a hockey stick.
![[Axel Rudakubana committed the Southport murders using a knife he bought online when he was 17 (Merseyside Police/PA)]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/22/07/3fad34734866f0556059510c23f34f24Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzM3NjE1OTgz-2.78748434.jpg)
He receives a youth justice referral order for the assault – a measure where juveniles who plead guilty to their first offence are placed under supervision to try to stop them reoffending – and completes this in 2021. Between December 2019 and April 2021 he is referred to the government counter-extremism scheme Prevent three times.
He is aged between 13 and 14. – October 2019 to May 2022. Lancashire Police have a series of interactions with the teenager, including being called to his house five times. He is assessed for an autism spectrum disorder, and given mental health and educational support.
– February 2023. Rudakubana has stopped engaging with mental health workers, is struggling to attend school and has anxiety that makes him unwilling to leave his house. – Monday July 29 2024. The teenager, then aged 17, murders Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and injures eight other children and two adults in a knife rampage.
