Southport attacker pleads guilty to murdering three girls | Sentenced to 52 years in prison

roubaixtuesday said:
I assume it's for transparency so his actions are known and understood to the public, both for the record and to understand the sentence handed down.

But I'm no lawyer, there's probably a formal policy for what should happen and why in these circumstances.
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I am sure you are right and the Judge offered the option to leave the Court whilst the video evidence was played.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
It’s about open justice. You can’t have a judge sentencing people without the basis for that being presented to the court. The alternative is the thin end of a very dangerous wedge.
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True. The fact that the sentencing procedure is now televised is a big step forward in showing justice needs to be seen to be done
 
Taken from BBC feed

First is a statement being read by the father of one of the surviving children - he says he asked his nine-year-old daughter to explain the impact the events had on her.

The girl says: "It has been very hard to deal with what happened to me at Hart Space. I struggle with my emotions, and I have scars that I know will be with me forever, but I want to look forward.

"When people in school asked me 'do you wish you weren’t there that day' I said that, in some ways, I wish I wasn’t, but also, if I wasn’t there, someone else would have been stabbed and they could have died, so I’m glad I might have stopped someone else getting hurt."

Her father continues, saying that "her words both horrify us and make us immeasurably proud. Our daughter is strong. Our daughter is positive. Our daughter is brave.

"Our daughter is everything that Axel Rudakubana is not. She is our hero."

What an incredible little girl
 
A 14-year-old victim is “determined to speak”, the prosecutor says. She is giving evidence remotely, a facility that is provided for child victims of crime.

She reads confidently, explaining the events running up to the attack and how a “warm and sunny” day turned into a “living nightmare”.

She speaks to Rudakubana: “The thing I remember most about you is your eyes. You didn’t look human and you looked possessed.”

She describes the attack and how she helped the younger girls get away.

“The fear I had not knowing where my sister was and screaming her name, I couldn’t see her. I didn’t know if she had got out. I will never forget that blind panic.”

She describes horrendous injuries inflicted by the killer and questioning whether she was going to die.

She says she felt “lonely” after the attack because nobody at school knew what to say to her. “I have to have a special chair in school, because the usual chairs dig into my scars.”

She and her sister have nightmares and her father has had to close his business because he has “not been able to cope mentally”.

She says: “No sane person could do that, it’s sickening what you did, going in there knowing you’re going into a room full of defenceless children. Give me a reason for what you did. Arming yourself with a weapon and stabbing children. I hope you spend the rest of your life knowing that we think you’re a coward.”

She adds: “I am still so angry.”

From the Graun.
 
Bloody hell she did well to recover from that, Sarah. Harrowing stuff and that statement from the parents of one of the girls murdered was very difficult to listen to.
 
Leanne Lucas - who was stabbed five times during the attack - has just read this statement to the court:

As a 36-year-old woman, I cannot stay in my own home alone. As a 36-year-old woman I cannot go to work. As a 36-year-old woman I cannot walk down the street without holding my breath as I bypass a person and then glance back to see if they’ve attempted to stab me.

As a 36-year-old woman I cannot enter a public place without considering how I will get out in the event of an emergency. As a 36-year-old woman I cannot give myself compassion or accept praise, as how can I live knowing I survived when children died.

There was a long period of time after the incident where I felt I had no trust in society. I am trying to see the goodness in the world however the badness has been evidentially proven to me to exist, in plain sight, on our doorsteps, in our community.

You never think this is going to happen to you, I never thought this was going to happen to me and now my mindset has been altered to it could happen to you and it will probably happen to you. I feel that I have lost the ability to accept people now as they are. I worked with teenagers, I never would have considered that they would hurt me or hurt younger children.

I spent many months thinking about the incident 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Just when I felt I could settle and try to move forward, the trauma of that day is now back at the forefront. I constantly see his face; new memories have appeared, and this will continue to happen for the rest of my life.

My role in Southport was to help others, mainly children and their families. My work was a safe haven for those who needed it the most.

All I wanted to do was make a positive impact and highlight goodness and positivity. Families felt a part of a community I had built, from scratch, being self-employed. I have now lost my role, my purpose and my job as I can no longer provide that guidance and reassurance to anyone.

I feel like I can no longer be trusted again, I know people will disagree and say that is not true however his actions have proven I can never feel that level of responsibility again where there may be dangers to others. On that day I received several injuries that have not only affected me physically, but also mentally. I, as do the girls, have scars we cannot unsee, scars we cannot move on from.

Visual daily reminders of not only what he has done to us, but a stark reminder of what others can still do to us. I endured three hospital stays where I undertook multiple surgeries and received treatment for my injuries.

At a time where home comforts may have helped me, I sat staring at a hospital wall further impacting my mental health.

My family and friends suffered during this whole period of time, not being able to process what had been done because they were sat by my bed side trying to support me. The trauma of being both a victim and a witness has been horrendous. There are times when I will spiral into trauma and the effect this has had on those close to me is unforgivable.

The impact this has had on me can be summed up by one word: trauma. He targeted us because we were women and girls, vulnerable and easy prey. To discover that he had always set out to hurt the vulnerable is beyond comprehensible. For Alice, Elsie, Bebe, Heidi and the surviving girls, I’m surviving for you.
 
roubaixtuesday said:
A 14-year-old victim is “determined to speak”, the prosecutor says. She is giving evidence remotely, a facility that is provided for child victims of crime.

She reads confidently, explaining the events running up to the attack and how a “warm and sunny” day turned into a “living nightmare”.

She speaks to Rudakubana: “The thing I remember most about you is your eyes. You didn’t look human and you looked possessed.”

She describes the attack and how she helped the younger girls get away.

“The fear I had not knowing where my sister was and screaming her name, I couldn’t see her. I didn’t know if she had got out. I will never forget that blind panic.”

She describes horrendous injuries inflicted by the killer and questioning whether she was going to die.

She says she felt “lonely” after the attack because nobody at school knew what to say to her. “I have to have a special chair in school, because the usual chairs dig into my scars.”

She and her sister have nightmares and her father has had to close his business because he has “not been able to cope mentally”.

She says: “No sane person could do that, it’s sickening what you did, going in there knowing you’re going into a room full of defenceless children. Give me a reason for what you did. Arming yourself with a weapon and stabbing children. I hope you spend the rest of your life knowing that we think you’re a coward.”

She adds: “I am still so angry.”

From the Graun.
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Takes some serious courage to do that
 
mackenzie said:
Sounds like he is one of those anomalies that come along occasionally, in that he liked the idea of violence/death for violence's sake. There have been others too and they aren't mentally insane, just an abhorrence of nature.
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The media haven't helped. Supporting the Racists narrative by using a photograph of the killer portraying the look of a 'savage'.
 
TinFoilHat said:
The media haven't helped. Supporting the Racists narrative by using a photograph of the killer portraying the look of a 'savage'.
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How do you think he should have been portrayed.... what you're looking at is fact
TinFoilHat said:
The media haven't helped. Supporting the Racists narrative by using a photograph of the killer portraying the look of a 'savage'.
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How should he have been portrayed? What we're seeing here is fact. There is no place for fake news, especially in such tragic circumstances as we have here.

He is not the angelic schoolchild that they tried to have us believe at the start.
 
BigJoe#1 said:
.... but the photograph publicly displayed at the time he was charged showed and innocent youngster.... how we can all be misled eh?
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People change. Who knows if he had these thoughts when he was 12.

Seems like the first time it cropped up was in 2019 when he told Childline he wanted to kill someone who was bullying him. That shows at that point that he probably knew it was wrong.

Between then and now, it seems he withdrew from society really and went down an extreme violence rabbit hole and lost all sense of morality.

Obviously, this is just my take on what was said in court today, but was he born evil or became evil? Who knows.
 
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