UK teenager pleads guilty to killing young girls in knife attack

News|Crime

A British teenager has pleaded guilty to charges of murdering three young girls in a knife attack in the northern United Kingdom in July, a crime that horrified the nation and was followed by days of nationwide rioting.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, changed his pleas from not guilty to guilty on what was due to be the first day of his trial at the Liverpool Crown Court on Monday.

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He pleaded guilty to the murder of Bebe King, 6; Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7; and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, who were at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event in Southport town on July 29, 2024.

Ten others were wounded, including eight children, in one of the country’s worst mass stabbings in years.

Rudakubana also pleaded guilty to 10 charges of attempted murder relating to the attack, as well as producing the deadly poison ricin and the possession of an al-Qaeda training manual.

Judge Julian Goose said he would sentence Rudakubana on Thursday and that a life jail term was inevitable.

Wearing a grey tracksuit and a surgical mask, the teenager refused to stand in court and did not speak except to say the word “guilty”.

In December, not-guilty pleas had been entered on Rudakubana’s behalf when he refused to speak in court, and the case had been set for a four-week trial.

Rudakubana was born in Wales to parents of Rwandan origin. He lived in Banks, a village northeast of Southport.

In the wake of the murders, large disturbances broke out in Southport after false reports spread on social media that the suspected killer was a Muslim migrant.

Those disturbances spread across the UK with attacks on mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer blaming the riots on far-right thuggery. More than 1,500 people were arrested.

The UK’s Interior Minister Yvette Cooper said on Monday the coming days “will be a deeply traumatic and distressing time for the girls’ families”. But she said it was important for the legal process to be allowed to carry on so that “justice can be done”.