Defence secretary John Healey responded this morning to calls for law reform after Thursday’s sentencing of the Southport killer.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, was sentenced to 52 years behind bars after murdering three little girls – Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine – in Southport in July, and injuring ten others.
He was not given a life sentence because he was 17 years old when he committed those heinous crimes on July 29, 2024 – nine days before his birthday.
Rudakubana’s punishment has sparked calls for the law around sentencing those under 18 to change in exceptional circumstances, like murder.
Southport’s Labour MP Patrick Hurley said the sentence was “unduly lenient” yesterday, and called for the government to review it “with a view to making sure he is never released”.
Cabinet minister Healey seemed to support the idea of introducing some changes on Sky News this morning.
He said: “The prime minister is right to say: ‘Now nothing is off the table.’ We need to make any changes that are necessary.
“That means that we don’t just get justice for these victims but we get the changes that they deserve, and we will deliver that.”
However, that senior minister also pointed out that it was international law which prevented whole-life orders being expanded to those under the age of 18.
Healey said: “There are limits of international, United Nations law, that prevent us having a court system that will impose unlimited sentences on under-18-year-olds.
“But in practice, I can’t see this man ever coming out of prison, I don’t want to see this man ever coming out of prison, and the judge yesterday when he sentenced him to 52 years was also quite clear he doesn’t expect him to come out of prison in the future.”
The UN Convention on the Rights of a Child says signatory governments promise “neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below 18 years of age”.
The judge in the Southport case, Mr Justice Goose, also said during the sentencing that it is “likely” Rudakubana will “never be released”.
Speaking about the harrowing attack, Healey noted: “I felt it hard to catch my breath when I read about the unbelievable savagery of this man who killed Bebe, Elise and Alice, and quite clearly would have killed the other 26 young girls in that dance class if he had been able to.”
Healey also told Times Radio that work to deliver some change for the victims has already started.
“We have launched immediately an independent inquiry that will start straight away,” the senior minister said.
“The review of the Prevent anti-extremism programme the home secretary commissioned in October will publish soon, and they will look at the lessons from this case, the action that is needed.”