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?

I know as humans we like to have explanations and scientific reasons for why things happen. But I do think people can just be evil.

What would you have done?

I don't quite understand this logic.

There was a man in my country a number of years ago who, in a psychotic episode, beheaded a man on a bus and ate his face, in front of a crowd of passengers.

He was declared not criminally responsible, because he was completely bonkers and not at all in touch with reality.

Anyway, clearly he did what he did because of his delusions brought on by schizophrenia. Other people have other delusions and thankfully do not behead anyone. The fact that the first sentence is true isn't somehow an offence against those other people.

There was no trial.

As you've said and others said in this thread the person most at risk is you.
Hence why I'm not a fan of a suggestion of schizophrenia for this individual when no reports suggest so.

Nit picking. There was a process where he and family and friends and judge appeared

@UnicornWorld &@Gijjjj I know the stats, my own brother's been schizophrenic since I was 8 years old (not constantly-but there have been about 4 relapses since the first one when he was 19) my point was the small minority that do commit violent crime often stab someone many many times, far past the point of death. I just think it could be indicative of psychosis. It doesn't mean I think everyone with schizophrenia is violent obviously.

I've also often lived in fear of developing it myself due to the genetic link so the last thing I'd do is try to be offensive towards people suffering from it.

Again, was this person schizophrenic or have you just decided he was?

If he was, then that doesn't speak for others.

If he wasn't, as axel isn't, it just fuels a stigma.

It could be. In his case it wasn't.
I'm sorry for your experience and I don't imagine you would try to be offensive.
But linking this type of crime instantly to schizophrenia is unfair, I feel.

Exactly this. With the best will in the world, we cannot stop evil people doing evil things. It will always happen.

There are no "lessons to be learned" because no one could have predicted this. Even when he was expressing violent tendencies, no one could have known how far he'd go and who the victims would be.

I think people want to say it happened because of xyz to make us feel more in control but we have zero control over things like this happening. That's the truth.

I'm just thankful he got a nice long sentence. He won't automatically be released, it's 52 years before he can apply to the parole board. I'd be surprised if he lives that long. Although his sentence has already been referred as being unduly lenient so it could increase, although I think that's unlikely.

Fair enough but the whole point of the thread was asking the question.

I initially thought it must be psychosis or terror. Then apparently it was neither so I trusted that was true. Then some MPs were talking about cover ups, al qaeda manuals, ricin, prevent etc. and I started to think is it terror.

It’s only these last few days when more info has come out that I’m now back to thinking no that’s psychosis. If it is true the young kid he attacked had no idea who he was then that is a psychosis.

And the doorbell freak out. Been there myself so it did remind me.

Im not just jumping to this instantaneously. I hate this guy. Psychosis actually makes it not his fault. I want it to be his fault.

However he had no such defence. His psychiatric report finds no mental disorder that had any relevance to his offending

As there was no trial the full psychiatric assessment was not presented to the court only excerpts relevant to the sentencing - he's too young to fulfil the diagnostic criteria for a personality disorder and whilst 'emerging personality disorder' is a useful clinical description it's not a proper diagnosis for that purpose. And would be neither a mitigating nor aggravating factor so not relevant to todays proceedings

The judges comments/response to his behaviour in court maybe suggests more than just high functioning autism too

He is vanishingly unlikely to end up in Broadmoor unless he develops a mental illness later in life. Even then once he is treated he will be returned to prison

The secure hospitals provide more than treatment for mental illness - and have specialist provision for personality disordered and also individuals with developmental disorders - if this young man's behaviour becomes unmanageable in prison he wouldn't need to develop a mental illness to be moved. A hospital order can be applied down the line.

And it would be more about long term management rather than treatment in the traditional sense

But we'll see - eventually

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It's the first time I have ever wished they would bring back hanging. He will never be rehabilitated & instead will cost the country at least £2.7 million at today's prices to keep alive. If what I have seen about his parents is true, they should be deported back to Rwanda.

I think the standard for an insanity defence has to be incredibly high otherwise everyone would use it. The fact that he doesn't meet this standard doesn't mean that MH troubles didn't play a huge part in what he did, imo.

Actually, I've long thought that anyone who murders people must be mad. Murder is a completely irrational act. With cameras and DNA today, there is an extremely high chance of getting caught and of spending the rest of your life inside, yet people still do it. In some American states they still have the death penalty, but that doesn't stop people murdering.

Add to that, the murderer risks compromising his freedom for many years if not life, and being unable to return to his old life even if he does get out - either way, his life is destroyed, forever - all for the "satisfaction" of killing, which is a fleeting few moments compared to the lifelong punishment.

Murder makes no sense at all, which is why I think all murderers must be ill. If it was a rational choice, there would be no murders in death-penalty states.

There is a stage before sentencing where the defence can enter any mitigation such as alleged mental illness.

Nobody who commits any kind of violent crime, especially of this magnitude, is mentally normal. But that doesn’t equate to mentally ill.

And tbh to suggest that this piece of filth is mentally ill and should be deserving of empathy (yes, a suggestion made on a different thread) is abhorrent.

Hitler clearly wasn’t mentally normal, Robert Mugabe, Saddam Hussain, Fred West, Harold shipman, the list goes on. In fact history and prisons are full of people who clearly aren’t mentally normal by virtue of the fact they have committed some of the most heinous crimes in society.

The system didn’t let him down, it let down his victims. He should have been referred when he started ringing childline saying he wanted to kill people. It shouldn’t have been considered a cry for help but a warning that he was a threat to society. Prevent shouldn’t have been able to refuse to deal - the signs were all there.

And the family clearly weren’t innocent bystanders if the father had tried to prevent him going out, and also, he was under 18, Even on Amazon you can’t order a knife unless you’re over 18, and you need ID to receive it. So someone received that knife on his behalf - a member of his family most likely.

If we’re going to seek a mental health diagnosis every time someone commits a serious crime then we need to start accepting that people with certain mental illnesses are a threat to society. You can’t have it both ways.

As far as I’m concerned he should die in prison and hopefully will.

As there was no trial the full psychiatric assessment was not presented to the court

There was no psych report from the defence team. No attempt to mitigate on that basis

Posters seem wedded to an earlier belief it's a factor but no reason to keep pushing the same line.

They probably be terrified of him. It is very hard to beat such evil person of such a young age.

There was a sentencing process which could include mitigation. The pp you are responding to is correct.

People want this to happen without evidence.

Throughout there has been posts along these lines with no psych report to provide a basis.

@NotOneOfTheInCrowd I was listening to a podcast about this and apparently prevent can only deal with people who are willing to cooperate with them. Obviously this guy wouldn't have been willing to do that and I can understand their limited resources and scope meant that they couldn't take him on. Clearly he should've been referred to elsewhere. I don't know enough about the system to know what should've happened but it's obvious to everyone now that he was a real danger to people.

Well if we are at this stage that no one can’t do anything to prevent this type of crimes. It is really alarming. I bet he could have got away from authorities as they are now concerned about activist organisations and social media key warriors saying they are picking on him because of his race. It is truly a mess. Minor things like stop and search banning because of racial profiling is one example. We as a society need to have a better way to deal with this all.

If there was mitigation there would have been a trial. Pp is incorrect.

Somebody knows their sentencing law @Choccyscofffy - a very good point

If there was mitigation there would have been a trial. Pp is incorrect.

Judges always look at mitigation in sentencing. So this doesn't stack up

The age was one