Joe Harker
Police photos show containers which the murderer Axel Rudakubana had been using in his attempt to manufacture doses of the poison ricin.
Rudakubana was yesterday (23 January) sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 52 years after he murdered three young girls at a dance class in Southport last year.
He was also given further life sentences for other counts of attempting to murder several more children and adults, meaning he was handed a total of 13 life sentences.
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Rudakubana carried out a knife attack in which he murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Bebe King, six, attempted to murder eight other children who cannot be named along with dance class instructor Leanne Lucas, and businessman John Hayes.
Because he was 17 when he committed the murders of children Rudakubana cannot be given a whole life order sentence as there is a legal requirement for him to receive a minimum term in his sentencing, though judge Justice Goose stated that he is likely never to be released from prison.
When he was arrested he told police 'I'm glad those kids are dead', and a police investigation of his home found a number of weapons, including a knife identical to the one he used to commit murder, along with arrows and a box containing an unknown substance.
The box was sent to Porton Down, the government's biological warfare laboratory, where it was determined that the substance contained within was ricin, a poison which does not have an antidote.
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Liverpool Crown Court was told that when police searched the killer's room they found 150 castor beans which can be used to make the poison ricin.
Officers also found a pestle and mortar, funnels and a flask that contained a residue in which ricin was found, with the items having been bought of Amazon in 2022.
The court heard that these items were used for a 'crude preparation of ricin', and that there would have been enough to make up to 12,500 lethal doses of the poison had he continued manufacturing it, though prosecutors told the court there was no evidence Rudakubana used the poison.
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While sentencing Rudakubana, Mr Justice Goose said: "There were 26 children at the party, all of them happy and enjoying themselves. He targeted those children for the horrific, extreme violence he was intent upon. It was such extreme violence of the utmost seriousness it was difficult to comprehend.
"I’m sure Rudakubana had a settled and determined intention to kill and would have killed all 26 children.
"Many who have heard the evidence and have seen the CCTV recordings might describe what he did as evil. Who could dispute it? On any view it was at least the most extreme, shocking and exceptionally serious crime.
"The harm that Axel Rudakubana caused to each family, each child and to the community has been profound and permanent. The families of Bebe, Elsie and Alice will never recover. The lives of the families of the children who he tried to murder will never be the same.
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"It’s likely he will never be released and will spend the rest of his life in custody."