‘We hope it haunts you every day’: Southport families speak out at killer’s sentencing
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Axel Rudakubana has been jailed for 52 years for the murder of three girls aged between six and nine last year. Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been jailed for 52 years after brutally murdering three young girls in a frenzied knife attack last year.
![[Dashcam footage shows Rudakubana entering Hart Space in Southport, moments before he stabbed and killed three children and injured dozens of others]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/23/16/48bdd75d-14c0-4317-baab-3e97fc896c8b.jpg)
The “sadistic” 18-year-old, who had an obsession with violence, genocide and massacres, was given the life sentence at a packed out courtroom at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday. Throughout the sentencing, Rudakubana repeatedly interrupted the judge by claiming he needed a paramedic, as more than 30 members of his victims’ families sat in the public gallery.
![[Axel Rudakubana was removed from the court on two occasions after claiming he was ill (Elizabeth Cook/PA)]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/23/16/64248231b53e0e85e8d389ade7b841fbY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzM3NzM0NjE5-2.78774213.jpg)
Despite this, the court heard the heart-rending victim impact statements of parents of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, who died in the onslaught. The court also heard from a number of survivors, including the Taylor Swift-themed dance class instructor Leanne Lucas, 36, who said she has suffered scars she “cannot move on from”.
Here, The Independent has put together some of the heartbreaking victim impact statements read out at the court. Elsie’s mother, Jenny Stancombe, described the attack as “the act of a coward” and said Rudakubana was “cruel and pure evil”. Ms Stancombe said the attack had “stolen” her daughter from her but that it would “not take away our determination to honour her memory”.
