Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar lost their lives in the attack. Photo / AFP
The Southport murderer was discharged from mental health services six days before he killed three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, an inquiry was told.
Axel Rudakubana, who carried out the attack on July 29 last year, first came to the attention of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in 2019, after a GP referral for anxiety, the Southport Inquiry heard on Wednesday.
His family were initially redirected to a parenting charity, the inquiry was told.
Later, Rudakubana was accepted into child mental health services after an urgent referral.
However, lawyers for Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust said this interaction only lasted until August 2020, because of the teenager’s “disengagement and determination that he was neither presenting with a mental disorder nor demonstrating a risk to himself or others”.
He returned to the service six months later and remained with it until six days before the attack.
The written submissions, which abbreviate Rudakubana’s name to “AR”, continued: “AR returned into the service following his ASD diagnosis in February 2021 and remained within CAMHS until he was discharged from a psychiatric perspective in April 2024 and discharged from CAMHS on 23rd July 2024″.
“As discussed below, AR’s engagement and participation in CAHMS had long been abandoned by then, but AH applied the normal practice to have AR remain open to CAMHS while his family were undergoing family therapy.”
The lawyers also said the killer was not diagnosed with a mental health illness during these interactions with CAMHS and was only treated “and medicated for anxiety”.
The inquiry also heard that an NHS mental health worker “offered to make a £5 bet” to anyone who would predict what would happen to Rudakubana four years before the attack, in which he killed Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9.
On Wednesday, written submissions from lawyers representing families of the surviving children described how Rudakubana had shown a propensity for serious violence from the age of 13, when he disclosed to the Childline charity, that he wanted to kill a fellow pupil.
The teenager went on to be permanently excluded from his school after admitting to taking a knife into school 10 times.
Months later, at his new school – towards the end of 2019 – Rudakubana was found to be researching mass shootings and requested a picture of a severed head during an art class.
On December 11, 2019, he returned to his previous Merseyside school and was seen wielding a hockey stick as he tried to attack another pupil.
In written submissions, lawyers who describe themselves as representing “physically and psychologically injured children”, wrote of how a meeting took place between social workers, representatives of Rudakubana’s school and staff from CAMHS.
The lawyers wrote: “However, rather than working together, the approach appears to have been parochial”.
“It did not engage effectively with the school’s concerns about the risk of serious harm to pupils if AR were allowed to return to school.
“Within the disclosed material provided to us by the inquiry team is evidence that a CAMHS representative offered a £5 bet to anyone who could predict what happened next.”
They added: “This may provide, we suggest, an insight into a rather complacent approach adopted by some of those who had been tasked to work with AR.”
Meanwhile, lawyers representing bereaved families also questioned why no action was taken on the attacker before the mass stabbing.
Reading a statement on behalf of the Stancombe family to Liverpool Town Hall, Nicholas Bowen KC said: “When a parent knows their child is dangerous, allows them to possess weapons and authorities have already visited the home, how is that not neglect?
“If a child were malnourished or unwashed, social services would act immediately. But when a child is surrounded by weapons, involved in violent behaviour and known to be a threat, the system does nothing.
“That is a failure. No action was taken. Why? Our daughter paid the price for that failure.
“When does a parent become complicit in a crime committed by their child?”
Meanwhile, lawyers for the Home Office said that changes to Prevent, the Government’s terror-prevention strategy and its policy on repeat referrals, had not been brought in at the time of the attack.
In total, Rudakubana was referred to Prevent three times before the attack.
The inquiry has also received written submissions from Dion Rudakubana, the killer’s older brother, who told the inquiry he believed the teenager’s expulsion from school played a part in him becoming “progressively more isolated from friends and family”.
The inquiry continues.
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