Axel Rudakubana’s chilling attack on children 4 years before Southport murders

Former classmates of Southport killer Axel Rudakubana have told of the first time the depraved monster launched an attack on children.

Today, Rudakubana pleaded guilty to the murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a Taylor Swift themed dance workshop in July last year.

It can now be reported that just four years earlier, when Rudakubana was aged around 13, he left mainstream school after being found with a knife.

A short time later, Rudakubana returned to Range High School in Formby with a hockey stick which he used to attack children with before being restrained by two teachers.

A former pupil told the Mail Online: “I remember we’d come out of PE, the doors were always open so people could go out for football or whatever.

“He was just there, stood by the doors looking a bit weird.

“There was a teacher saying “I’m not going to hurt you, you’re not allowed to be here.”

Rudakubana is believed to have written the names of fellow pupils on the hockey and after forcing his way into the school, proceeded to assault children, leaving one with a broken wrist.

The former classmate added: “He only stopped when two teachers managed to get hold of him.

“He never went back to the school and we never heard about him again.

“When we heard it was Axel who had attacked the dance studio we all said ‘Oh my God!’

“Thank goodness it was only a hockey stick he brought in that day.”

It is not clear whether police were informed of the incident nor whether social services and deradicalisation programmes were aware of the attack when they came into contact with him in the following years.

But the attack paints a picture of a troubled young man, described as a “loner” by classmates who is believed to have spent hours each day in his room where he became obsessed about child killings and genocide.

The child killer was on the radar of counter-terrorism authorities after being referred to the Prevent program three times throughout his teenage years.

The then 13-year-old was referred to the Government’s deradicalisation scheme Prevent on the basis that he had been researching on a school computer for information about the killing of children in school shootings.

However experts deemed that there was no counter terrorism risk at the time and the aspiring child actor – who once starred in a BBC Children in Need Dr Who sketch – was considered not to be motivated by a terrorist ideology.

But he was subsequently referred on two more occasions in 2021 after viewing explicit material about the 2017 London terror attack.

It is understood Rudakubana was under the supervision of social services at the time of the slaying, with local authority workers insisting on a police officer being present at their meetings with him.