A teenager who stabbed three girls to death in Southport, England will be sentenced today

The trial of a teenager who killed three young girls and injured 10 others in a knife attack at a dance class in Southport, England last summer began on Thursday.

Judge Julian Goose, who presided over the case, told the attacker, 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana, that a life sentence would be inevitable after he pleaded guilty on Monday.

Mr Rudakubana appeared at Liverpool Crown Court wearing a gray tracksuit and a blue medical mask covering his mouth and nose. When asked to confirm his name by the judge, he refused to speak and silently put his head in his lap.

But shortly after the sentencing hearing began, as prosecutors read out the details of the case, Mr. Rudakubana began yelling from the defendant’s office at the back of the room: “I’ve got to talk to the paramedic because I’m feeling sick.”

The judge noted that medical professionals had examined Mr. Rudakubana that morning and found him fit to attend the hearing. His lawyer told the judge the defendant had not eaten for several days and continued to shout at Mr Rudakuban for several minutes.

Judge Goose said: “These proceedings are under my supervision, not yours, Mr Rudakubana. do you understand?” He then ordered Mr Rudakubana out of court, saying: “I will not disturb him.”

Before Mr Rudakubana’s sentencing on Thursday, prosecutors read out details of their case against him and laid out the horrific nature of the July 29 attack. He spread the greatest level of fear and anger, and he succeeded.”

He told the courtroom that when Mr. Rudakubana was being held at the police station after the attack, he was heard saying, “I’m glad those kids are dead” and “I’m so glad.”

Ms Heer told how she took a taxi to Hart Space, where a sold-out Taylor Swift-themed dance class for children aged six to 11 was held during the summer break from school.

Visual evidence shown in court, taken from CCTV footage and body cameras worn by police at the scene, showed Mr Rudakubana walking out of the dance studio, which was full of 26 children.

He entered the building and burst into the room, stabbing several children as well as Leanne Lucas, who organized the class. Moments later, screams can be heard on CCTV footage before the children start running from the building.

Some were covered in blood and collapsed before bystanders came to help. At one point, the dance teacher who was shielding one of the young girls in the bathroom was seen being helped out of the room by the police.

Several people cried in the courtroom while the footage was being shown, while others chose to leave the courtroom overcome with emotion.

Bebe King, 6, and Elsie Dot Stancomb, 7, were so seriously injured in the attack that they died inside the building. Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, ran outside with the other children but soon collapsed. He was taken to hospital and died the next day. Eight other children and two adults were injured during the attack.

Since Mr. Rudakubana pleaded guilty on Monday, a portrait of a deeply troubled young man addicted to violence emergedas he was on the radar of local authorities years ago A knife attack in Southport on July 29A town north of Liverpool.

After the attack, Britain was hit by a series of riots after misinformation about the attacker’s identity spread on social media and messaging apps. False claims that he is an undocumented immigrant or newly arrived asylum seeker far-right agitators. Mr Rudakubana is a British citizen born in Wales to parents originally from Rwanda.

Police and prosecutors said there was no evidence that he belonged to any political or religious ideology.

Between the ages of 13 and 14, he was referred three times to Prevent, Britain’s anti-terror programme, because of his propensity for violence, but these referrals were eventually canceled each time as he was found not to have reached the threshold for intervention.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said From Downing Street on Tuesday said the attack was a sign that terrorism was growing in the country and that young people were being radicalized by a “wave of violence freely available online”.

“We’re also seeing acts of extreme violence in the bedroom by loners, misfits, young men, accessing all kinds of online material, hungry for fame,” Mr Starmer said, noting that some were “indulging in this extreme violence, on the face of it, built on excessive violence. for its own sake.”

Mr Rudakubana was also convicted on weapons charges of possessing the knife used in the attack, producing a biological toxin and “obtaining information of a kind which may be useful to the perpetrator or the perpetrator”. After investigators discovered ricin, a lethal toxin, and a PDF file titled “Military Studies in Jihad,” Terrorism Against Oppressors: An Al Qaeda Training Manual” at the home.

The judge will not be able to sentence him to life in prison without parole because he was 17 at the time of the attack.

In 2019, Mr Rudakubana was expelled after bringing a knife to school and returned a few months later to attack a student with a hockey stick. Later, he was admitted to a school for children with special needs.

He had been he distanced himself from his family and society long before the attack and barely left the house.

A week before the attack, Mr. Rudakubana tried to go to his former high school, police said, when his father ran away and begged the taxi driver not to take him. Finally, the teenager returned home.

The case has raised questions about how authorities missed opportunities to stop the violence before it started. The government has said it will hold a public inquiry into the case to better understand what happened and what needs to change. But the case also highlighted the issue of youth addicted to extreme violence having access to images and messages online that lead to this obsession.