Axel Rudakubana

[Dylanxoxo]

I haven't seen anything in articles I have read about Axel Rudakubana today about a mental health assessment. His behaviour is so extreme, that it is difficult not to suspect he is suffering from an untreated mental health condition. Does anyone else think that mental illness may be at the root of his horrific crimes?

122 and 85 stab wounds on little girls. I don't care if he was mentally ill, psychotic or whatever. We need the death penalty back. There is no rehabilitation here. Just throw away the key.

On the BBC news they read a statement from a family who said there are still questions they want answered. I hope they get those.

I agree that’s awful information about how many times he stabbed those girls. Absolutely sick.

Im not saying public are entitled to that info. What I am saying is public are entitled to not be lied to and told ‘he didn’t stab her 100 times’, and then turns out that he did. (Which didn’t happen - but is the equivalent of what I’m trying to say in your example).

Anyway it’s bed for me. This is such a distressing case it really is a waking nightmare.

I know, it's horrible. I think it really has impacted lots of people . 💗

You worked with lots of children who gleefully murdered several children with hundreds of stab wounds?

@soupfiend same question here

I think in this case, it was the perfect storm. A combination of different factors (morbid fascinations, his obsessiveness, social awkwardness etc) that when combined in this particular individual, led to horrific crimes.

This person was on the radar of many an agency and his family were very concerned about him and had requested help but it wasn’t forthcoming because he chose not to engage and he wasn’t compelled to.

Sometimes the actions of an individual can’t be easily explained away by a label, be that mental illness or evil.

I think the history and case has revealed a pretty glaring hole in the mechanisms available for public protection-if a person does not meet the threshold for Prevent or current mental health legislation, and have not already committed a crime, there is essentially nothing that can be done, regardless of how worrying a person's behaviour is.

It is a pretty sticky situation, because on the one hand this appalling case shows there has to be some form of change to act if someone is displaying the kind of red flags this person was. The reason he was as he was is actually-or should be-irrelevant. The simple fact that he was a risk to the general public should have a mechanism to act for public protection.

We just do not have that legislation. As it stands, we are either waiting for someone to commit a crime, meet rather rigid MH descriptors (with high threshold for section) or Prevent guidelines (which personally I feel is unfit for purpose-I believe Shamina Begum was also referred to this and let her down terribly).

The difficulty you have is as a previous poster mentioned, does society have the appetite for legislation in the flavour of minority report/ thought police in anticipation of potential crimes based on warning signs or not? My personal opinion is this was an extreme example and there should have been a mechanism to do something. Then again, hindsight is 20/20. It is difficult to know how much of his behaviour was known to professionals contemporaneously or whether this has now been collated in one place, painting a vivid-and what seems obvious-picture. I doubt any professional was aware of the Ricin for example.

Those poor girls, I hope their parents gain some form of peace from the sentencing. My heart goes out to them.

Then he should have been locked up at that point until he engaged.

On what grounds, though? I don't disagree that there should have been some kind of mechanism to identify this man as a risk, but if he hasn't met the threshold for being detained under MHA then he cannot be detained legally in hospital.

Lots and lots of people refuse to engage in mental health services unfortunately. Not always a danger to others of course.

I do absolutely agree there should have been a mechanism to do something, maybe after the inquiry something will be introduced for this purpose.

Edited to add-I also think he was in what is a grey area of MH care-the transition from Childrens to Adults services is not always smooth or effective

I thought @soupfiend was referring to ARs earlier crimes. Carrying a knife and the attack on another child. I worked in a PRU for a while and can think of at least 5 who committed similar violent attacks with no charge (including one who put his own mum in the hospital). And across that PRU and a mainstream secondary can think of a good number of others who were caught carrying knives, some into schools. The only child I knew with a juvenile sentence was for drug offences.

If the earlier crimes had been dealt with then perhaps it wouldn’t have escalated to this level.

Well there will be a serious case review, there always is when a significant incident like child death or a child kills is

So the details will be there, but only if the review reports the real nitty gritty of things like this and doesnt use 'was receiving support' for 4 years, because I know what that means, it means a series of appointments that culminate in nothing, no guidance, no advice, no work as it were, no medication, unlikely to be referrals for MHA assessments

But Im happy to be proved wrong if the local CAMHS there are different to elsewhere

No, not sure where I said that, where are you getting that from

I just can’t understand how anyone can do what he did and not be severely mentally incapacitated. A lot of people are saying he is just evil. I guess he must be but I can’t get my head around that either. It’s the most awful case and it will have affected the lives of so many. I couldn’t stop thinking about the emergency services personnel and what they had to deal with.
Hopefully the public inquiry will help in some way.

Prevent looked and said he wasn't a risk.
It seems they were operating in a very strict set of guidelines and didn't have the common sense to look at the whole profile and do something about it.

He had obsessions with the Rwanda genocide (his heritage) one wonders at what age he was told about this.
He had been violent in class.
Expelled for being threatening, he broke back into his old school and had a list of names of people he wanted to harm on a jockey stick he couldn't get to them so he broke a random pupils wrist and had to be wrestle out by deputy head. He even rang child line.
He was in a specialist unit for people with autism and the practitioner who went to visit him were so alarmed by his obsession with violent leaders they asked police to attend.

What more can this boy have displayed to show anyone he was a risk. It wasn't hidden at all, it's all in very plain site.

Did they say he wasnt a 'risk' or did they say he didnt meet their threshold for intervention from them as a service, thats 2 very different things

Soup I don't know.. But if someone acting out and actually being violent isn't a risk or meeting their threshold then something is very very wrong isn't it.
It's like people who torture small animals or flasher going into rape.
He was acting out his violent fantasies.

The point is he was clearly dangerous to others and something needed to kick in after the hockey attack.

Yes but Prevent is a specific service aimed at terrorism, so he wasnt suitable for intervention from them (which is consent based as Ive said a few times)

Its like when the police are called to a disturbance and the person is having a MH episode and being violent because of that, quite often they will say thats a MH service responsbility and quote 'right person right service' or whatever the phrase is and not get involved. It doesnt mean the person isnt causing carnage but they're saying they're not the service to deal with it. The problem is the servivces to deal with it dont exist.

Soup, they are a service however and they are in existence to try and prevent, harm to others.

Don't you think a wider discussion should have taken place to see what could be done with him urgently and if all else fails because people are obviously so concerned he was referred three times something else should have happened.

Ie this boy is clearly a risk what can we do rather than, he doesn't meet our threshold so we wash our hands of him.

He attacked and broke a students wrist after breaking back into his school this is a small snap shot in lots of evidence that he's a risk to others.

They are a counter terrorism mechanism and in my experience the referral wont have been taken further by them but will have done by whoever referred him to them in the first place, so at the same time as Prevent referrals, there will have been liaison with CAMHS, education, social services

I think whats likely is that there was a lot of concern and recognition of the risk but as I have said in many a post, what do people think will have, or should have actually happened? What do people mean by intervention - forced medication, sectioning, criminal justice route?

And unfortunately none of those are able to deal with behaviours that he had, like many children do have (knife crime, attacks on others including attacks on adults, sexual assaults on others) and the reason for that is that we dont lock children up, there is a move away from criminalising children, we dont have the appetite for sectioning children with ASD, its seen as counter productive but equally he has have a MH disorder, diagnosed and considered detainable, taking a child like this into care doesnt just 'fix' him, he would be the same in care although DOLs could have been considered but Ive already said earlier why those mechanisms are often ineffective.

I also suspect like many kids who present like this, that his obsessions fluctuated so at times he wont have posed such a risk compared to others and so when interventions were looking at more severe interventions he wont have met the threshold

I think people need to be honest with themselves and be clear about what they are expecting should happen in these cases. Ultimately we are saying that children like this should be detained in those circumstances, before anything like this happens, however there isnt the appetite for that.

He had an obsession with the Rwanda genocide, he tried to attack his old school with a knife, he went to the school with a hockey stick and did attack someone, he called child line.
The specialist team sent to work with him where so scared of him they asked for police presence whilst trying to gently stop his obsession with violent dictators.
Yes he should have been sectioned.
Not because of his autism because of of actions

Well the problem is and we wont know until the review is published, I wouldnt have thought that he would meet the criteria for sectioning and even if there were discussions about it, the health services do not like and actively avoid sectioning people with ASD because it is seen as counter productive so there may well have been one lot of services and agencies arguing for detention and another side of services saying he mustnt be detained.

I think the bar is danger to self or others.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jan/25/axel-rudakubana-from-unassuming-schoolboy-to-notorious-southport-killer

This is a useful timeline. He seems to have gone from zero to dangerous in a matter of weeks (brain changes driven by puberty?).

So, not ideological enough for Prevent, not suffering from a treatable illness, not committing crimes that would get him jailed for long enough for public safety.

But, known to be anxious, paranoid, angry, obsessive, and threatening. And obtains and stockpiles weapons.

I wonder how many others there are like that and how you could pick out the ones who will go on to do something terrible. Was he a leaf hiding in a forest?

@fromthegecko

So by the time he was accessing material directly related to Terror his prevent case had been closed and no one was looking at it any closer.
Because it had been closed.

It's an awful set of failings, found in a bus with a knife, knife found in his ruck stack at other times.. Broke a wrist, obssed with violence, unstable and with additional needs.

I'm not sure what more he needed to present to get strong intervention

People who are a threat to others are expected to be dealt with via the justice system

Ive worked with many a child who is actively and regularly attempting suicide and still the MHA assessment does not conclude sectioning