People lay flowers on the first anniversary of the 2024 attack in Southport in July 2025. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPAView image in fullscreenPeople lay flowers on the first anniversary of the 2024 attack in Southport in July 2025. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPASouthport killer Axel Rudakubana charged with attacking prison staffRudakubana, serving life sentence for murders of three girls at dance event in 2024, charged with multiple assaults
The Southport killer Axel Rudakubana, serving life in prison for the murders of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event in 2024, has been charged with multiple assaults on prison staff, police have said.
On 29 July 2024, Rudakubana, then 17, launched a frenzied knife attack in Southport, north-west England, killing Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine.
Rudakubana injured 10 others in the attack, which was followed by days of rioting across the country. He was jailed for a minimum of 52 years after he admitted to the killings shortly before trial last year.
View image in fullscreenLeft to right: Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar. Photograph: Merseyside Police/PARudakubana, now 19, has been charged with attempted grievous bodily harm relating to an incident in May 2025 and assault on an emergency worker two days earlier, the Metropolitan police said on Friday.
He is also charged with possession of an offensive weapon in prison and assault on an emergency worker and will appear at Westminster magistrates court on 11 September.
Rudakubana was recently moved from prison to the Broadmoor top security psychiatric hospital after it was concluded he could not be managed safely in a prison environment. The families of the three girls described the move as an attempt “to manipulate the system”.
