People 'blame counter terror services' for Southport murders

The vast majority of people blame Axel Rudakubana for the murder of three children in Southport last summer but some 70 per cent also blame counter terrorism services, according to a YouGov survey.

The killer, 18, was handed a life sentence yesterday (Thursday) and told he would serve at least 52 years behind bars for the attack at a Taylor Swift-themed class in The Hart Space in Southport in July last year, when he was 17. Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were killed and eight other children were hurt.

Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, also admitted possession of a knife, production of a biological toxin, ricin, and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism, namely a PDF file entitled Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual.

It has emerged that Rudakubana was referred to the government's anti-extremism strategy three times while he was at school because of his interest in violence.

His sentencing hearing at Liverpool Crown Court heard he had attacked a pupil with a hockey stick, used school computers to look up the London Bridge terror outrage and carried a knife on a bus and into class before he carried out the Southport murders.

Despite the wide-ranging devastation Rudakubana caused in the Southport attack, the judge Mr Justice Goose said he “must accept” his actions did not “meet the definition of an act of terrorism” under the law, but added: “His culpability is equivalent in its seriousness to terrorist murders, whatever his purpose.”

A YouGov survey published today (Friday) revealed more than nine in ten (91%) of respondents say Axel Rudakubana is responsible