The Southport killer possessed large amounts of anti-Islamist material, including cartoons Muslims would find “highly offensive”, the inquiry into the killings has heard.Â
The family of the killer believed his fascination with violence came from “an interest in studying history,” the hearing was told.
Alice Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were killed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July last year by Axel Rudakubana, who was later jailed for a minimum of 52 years.
An examination of two tablet devices used by Rudakubana – referred to as AR at the hearing – was outlined to the inquiry and included pdf documents “suggestive of violence, an interest in religion and conflict”, Nicholas Moss KC, counsel to the inquiry said.
Some were in the form of academic textbooks but even those appeared to deal with war and conflict, while others were “more extreme” and related to “overt violence”, Mr Moss added.
However, the case was never taken over by counter-terrorism police because Rudakubana had a “fascination with violence and inappropriate material” but was “not somebody who was motivated by any particular religion, racial hatred, or matters of that kind,” Mr Moss said.
The documents included an interest in the fight against ISIS in Mosul, the Russian republic of Chechnya, Nazi Germany, the Zulu War in South Africa in 1879, punishments dealt to slave rebels and a book on Japanese ninja, as well as the Rwandan genocide, where Rudakubana’s parents were born.
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Detective Chief Inspector Jason Pye, the senior investigating officer, said: “AR clearly had an interest in numerous wars, violence… The majority of these were quite extreme in the title or in the material that was found within them.”
There were also a number of Jpeg images related to the slavery of women and anti-Islamic material.
In total, police collected 247 pages of relevant images not “consistent with a young man who had come across a highly inappropriate image during the course of other searches by accident,” Mr Moss said.
He told the inquiry: “After this attack, there may have been suggestions and speculation about this attack being what might be described as an Islamist attack.
“Is it right that the anti-Islamic material on AR’s device was quite voluminous?”
“That’s correct. There was yes,” DCI Pye said.
There was also anti-Semitic material and imagery of victims of the Nazis and the Twin Towers, which were subject to the 9/11 attacks by al Qaeda.
More from the inquiry:
Taxi driver waited 50 minutes to call 999
Killer’s parents ‘knew risk he posed’
The missed chances to stop Rudakubana
Rudakubana had used several virtual private networks (VPNs) on an older tablet device, to disguise its location.
The device included documents on warfare and weaponry, including references to nitro-glycerine, dynamite, electronic detonators, future warfare, and the influence of hypersonic weapons.
Documents about young people’s mental health
There were also two documents that referred to mental health treatment of young people, including those from diverse communities.
On 30 August and 4 September 2021, Rudakubana downloaded a 190-page document titled Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, commonly referred to as the “al Qaeda training manual”.
The inquiry was told that the last of three referrals to the Prevent de-radicalisation scheme, provoked by concerns about violent material he had been viewing at school, was closed in May 2021.
Knife ordered on Amazon
Rudakubana ordered the knife he used in the attack on Amazon two weeks earlier, the inquiry was told.
Amazon says there was a form of age verification but Rudakubana was able to use his father’s details, which then tallied with the electoral roll, and that was sufficient to pass the age verification process, the inquiry was told.
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Plan formed a week earlier
The Southport killer may only have hatched his plan to attack a school a week earlier, when he was stopped by his parents, the inquiry heard.
Rudakubana had been excluded from the Range High School in Formby in October 2019 and had returned two months later carrying a knife and a hockey stick and had assaulted a pupil, leaving him with a broken wrist.
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On 22 July 2024, Rudakubana asked his father when the Range school broke up for the summer, and Alphonse looked at his phone and saw that it was the last day of term that day, he later told police.
Rudakubana called a taxi and when it came, got into the back and told the driver he wanted to go to the Range High School. But, as they were about to set off, the teenager’s father came running out of the house, the driver later told police.
‘Don’t take him’, father pleads
He was said to be “pleading” with the taxi driver, “don’t take him, don’t take him” and Rudakubana, who was aged 17, replied: “I’m 18, I want to go, take me.”
The driver told Rudakubana to get out of the taxi.
Rudakubana’s father told police later he suspected that his son had a weapon with him that day, but did not call the police at the time, the inquiry heard.
The parents did have some knowledge of his possession of knives, the hearing was told, including one occasion when he went to school with a knife taken from the family kitchen, and another when a parcel was delivered to the family home and he intercepted it.
The child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) had also advised them to remove knives from the address or secure them so Rudakubana could not get to them.
Alphonse also told police that on 22 July, it was one of the rare occasions he was able to get into his son’s bedroom and found items including an alcohol bottle and containers that were later found to contain the poison ricin.
