2 hours ago
6
The parents of three girls murdered in the Southport attack have called for the killer’s parents to be “held to account for what they allowed to happen” after they gave dramatic testimony to a public inquiry.
The bereaved families told Axel Rudakubana’s father they had “complete disdain for your excuses” after he tearfully apologised for failing to alert the police to his son’s weapons and another attempted attack days earlier.
Alphonse Rudakubana told the public inquiry into the murders on Thursday that he knew about the teenager’s stash, which included blades, a bow and arrow, a sledgehammer, a jerry can and a substance that turned out to be a crude attempt to make the poison ricin.
He also knew that his son had planned to attack pupils at his former school seven days before he carried out the Southport atrocity. He failed to alert the police, he said, over a fear Axel would be taken into care or arrested.
Giving evidence via videolink from a secret location, Alphonse Rudakubana said he was “desperately sorry” to the victims’ parents for not having the “courage” to act. He said the teenager had “turned out to be a monster” and that he and his wife, Laetitia Muzayire, had “lost control” of him.
However, the parents of the three murdered girls – Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine – immediately hit out at the Rudakubanas, saying they “continue[d] to deny, deflect, and protect themselves, rather than face up to the truth”.
Elsie’s parents, Jenni and David Stancombe, said they found the family’s evidence “deeply distressing” and believe the pair knew Axel was “going to do something horrific”.
“We believe they should be held to account for what they allowed to happen,” they said. “They knew how dangerous he was, yet they stayed silent. They didn’t report their concerns, they didn’t act, and in doing so, they failed not only as parents but as members of our society.”
Their words were echoed by Alice’s parents, Alex and Sergio Aguiar, who said Axel’s parents should be accountable “for the actions and behaviours of their children when they fail to take reasonable steps to prevent harm”.
Lauren and Ben King, the parents of Bebe, accused Rudakubana’s parents of being “absent” and “turning away from their duties”.
“What we’re struggling to comprehend is not just their failure then, but their failure now – to acknowledge, to take responsibility, to face up to what they allowed to happen,” they added.
Alphonse Rudakubana, 50, had earlier told the inquiry he should have reported his son to the police when he stopped him getting into a taxi to his former school with a knife on 23 July last year, seven days before his attack on the Taylor Swift dance workshop.
Rudakubana said his son, then 17, had come into his bedroom that morning holding a knife and started to “lightly stab” the bed as he demanded to be given a another knife that his father had hidden.
Axel had also been asking for petrol, the inquiry heard, and had a jerry can in the living room. Rudakubana said he believed his son was planning an arson attack on his former school, Range high school in Merseyside.
Rudakubana said that after stopping his son from taking a taxi to Range, Axel told him: “Next time, if you stop me, there will be consequences.”
Answering questions from Nicholas Moss KC, counsel to the inquiry, the father said the incident was “really frightening” and that he was ashamed he did not call the police.
Moss told the inquiry that Rudakubana messaged his wife, Laetitia Muzayire, later that day, saying “our child needs to be protected” and that if he had gone to Range, “he could have been killed or in prison for life”.
Rudakubana, 50, denied he was discouraging Muzayire from calling the police, but admitted he had not wanted his son to be taken into care or jailed.
Muzayire, who claimed asylum with her husband in the UK following the Rwandan genocide, sobbed as she told the inquiry she hated knives “with all my heart” because they had “been used to kill my family in the past”.
Rudakubana had earlier admitted taking delivery of at least three knives for his son over the previous year. He claimed not to know that one of these was a machete despite the parcel being labelled Mach Panther and coming from Knife Warehouse.
Days before his son’s murderous attack, Rudakubana took delivery of another package of knives, left them in the landing and went back to bed.
Asked by Moss if he had anything to say to the families of the girls murdered and harmed by his son, Rudakubana said: “My deepest sympathy, my condolences for the beautiful angels whose lives were taken by my son.
“I am so desperately sorry to them and everyone else who’s been harmed. I cry for them all the time … because we have a reminder of my son, who turned out to be a monster.”
He said he had “lost the courage to save the little angels” and that he “could have done far more”.
“The love I had for him overrode [my] good judgment,” he said.
English (US)