Southport killer may have wanted to hurt societies, says brother

The brother of the Southport killer has told the public inquiry into the dance class stabbings he believes his sibling may have targeted children because it would “hurt society particularly badly”.

Axel Rudakubana, then 17, killed three children at a Taylor Swift-themed event in the Merseyside town on 29 July 2024.

Dion Rudakubana, 21, gave evidence from a secure location via videolink for a second day at the inquiry, sitting at Liverpool Town Hall.

Asked about his brother’s motivation for the attack, he said: “Children are very valuable to society in they are society’s future. This is only a thought I have had in retrospect.”

He told the inquiry he was upstairs on the morning of the attack when he saw his brother leave the house wearing a face mask.

Dion said he did not believe his brother had left the house since March 2022, when he was arrested on a bus with a knife.

He told the inquiry he “got a bit nervous initially”.

Richard Boyle, counsel to the inquiry, asked: “Your worry was that he wasn’t going on a walk, but would go out to carry out an attack?”

Dion replied: “Initially, potentially, yes.”

He said he became less worried as his parents appeared to believe his brother had simply gone for a walk.

He said shortly afterwards his mother showed him packaging from a knife, said to have been found in the washing machine.

In a statement, Dion said there were no discussions about contacting the police at that point.

“I did not believe he intended to harm anyone and thought if he was carrying a knife it was to protect himself, not to harm others,” he said.

Asked if he should have contacted police over his fears, he said: “It was not sufficient for me to do so.”

Dion told the inquiry he had returned home from university on 26 July last year and his father told him his brother had done “something bad”.

He said he could not remember when his father explained he had stopped his brother as he attempted to take a taxi to his former school, Range High School, on 22 July.

He said: “The reason why he gave any information at all about this was because he was telling me to be careful around him.”

The inquiry heard in a message to a friend on 27 July, Dion explained what his father had told him, writing: “Your brother is dangerous. He can kill you.”

He said: “I don’t think he directly said that ‘he can kill you’ but rather indicated there was a threat to life and I felt that.”

In a statement given to the inquiry, Dion also said he was and continues to be “devastated and deeply saddened by the immense pain, anguish and grief my brother inflicted”.

The inquiry later heard from the killer’s father Alphonse Rudakubana, who was asked about what information he shared with different agencies about his son’s “destructive” behaviour at home.

On several occasions Rudakubana had made outbursts in which he threatened to kill his father, the inquiry heard.

Nicholas Moss KC, counsel to the inquiry read from a statement given to the inquiry by Mr Rudakubana, which told how his son’s “attitude and behaviour at home can be very frightening”.

Around this time, his father remembered how his son had “poured a significant quantity of oil” over his head and threatened to kill him “in very menacing terms”.

Mr Moss asked what he meant by menacing terms.

Mr Rudakubana said his son had appeared to be in some kind of “mental pain” beforehand.

He said: “He came in front of me, he was poking me in my chest, saying if you get me out of here, in this house, it may take a week, it may be a month, maybe years, but trust me I will kill you.”

He said the reference to leaving the house was from a comment around a week earlier when he had suggested that in the future his son would have to live in a separate house.

Mr Moss reads from Mr Rudakubana’s statement, which said he and his wife were “very scared” of his son.

Mr Rudukabana also said the family “felt kind of lonely” after settling in the UK following the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s.

He said: “We made a decision to wait until they grow up and understand and be less affected. I was surprised – they came home and were talking about the genocide in Rwanda both of them, they were learning about it in school.

“We then told them a few things we thought they can handle.”

He said he did not believe this discussion affected his family life in the UK.

“I think what affected them was that we were a small family with two friends from Rwanda [in the UK],” he said.

“They could see that we are kind of lonely compared to their peers, their friends from school. So they’ll see that we are in a foreign land even thought they were born here.”