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A lawyer said it was “sobering and concerning” that the Southport attacker probably viewed footage on social media of a stabbing in Australia by a teenage boy just 40 minutes before carrying out his own crimes.
An inquiry is being held into the circumstances and events leading up to the attack by Axel Rudakubana, then 17, on 29 July 2024 in which he murdered three young girls and attempted to murder eight children and two adults.
On Tuesday, Nicholas Moss KC, counsel to the inquiry, outlined what would be explored and the questions that would be asked during the course of the inquiry, being held at Liverpool town hall.
Moss said a notable feature of the “extremely cowardly” attack was that it was “specifically targeting women and girls”.
He said the inquiry would establish a timeline of Rudakubana’s history and “interactions with various state systems including criminal justice, education, social care and healthcare”.
Questions will also be asked of Rudakubana’s parents and of the social media companies Meta and X.
Moss referred to Rudakubana as AR throughout his submission, and described him as a “prolific internet user”.
The inquiry heard that the teenager had deleted his browsing history on his laptop before carrying out his crimes. But evidence showed he used another tablet to search on X for a knife attack by a teenage boy on a bishop in Australia.
The search led him to posts on X likely to have shown the actual act of stabbing, Moss said.
“The inquiry has made a statement request of X about the fact that the act of a stabbing would have been viewable on its platform apparently to a 17-year-old boy,” he said.
“It might, perhaps, be thought to be both sobering and concerning, in terms of online harms, that almost the last thing AR did before committing these dreadful crimes was to search for, and possibly view, material on Twitter in relation to a stabbing carried out by another boy aged under 18.”
Moss said Meta, which owns Instagram, and X had been asked for “information about AR’s use of their platforms and we await their substantive responses”.
Rudakubana travelled by taxi from his home in Banks to a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance class for children in Southport, where he committed his crimes. The inquiry was shown the pink-coloured advert for the class, which was “bound to appeal more to girls than boys”, Moss said.
Apart from one man injured in the attack, it was a “notable feature” that all the other victims were female, he continued.
The killer was jailed for life with a minimum term of 52 years in January at Liverpool crown court, after admitting the murders and attempted murders, described in court as “sadistic”.
One part of the inquiry will be Rudakubana’s internet use and purchase of weapons, posing as an adult and using a false name. Moss said: “AR’s purchase of weapons is important because it will highlight vulnerabilities in the law against the purchase of knives, crossbows and machetes.”
Rudakubana also bought seeds through Amazon, which he used to make a “crude preparation of ricin”, Moss said.
He said the inquiry had requested detailed statements from Rudakubana’s parents “and will seek to explore their awareness of AR’s online orders and the items that AR stored in his bedroom and the living room of their home”.
A central theme of the inquiry would be which bodies or agencies “took ownership” for intervening to address the risks that Rudakubana had demonstrated in his behaviour before the crimes.
Before Moss spoke, the chair of the inquiry, Sir Adrian Fulford, promised to do everything “humanly possible” to answer the questions of bereaved families and victims.
On Monday, the inquiry heard harrowing testimony from the parents of the three murdered girls – Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine.
Impact evidence has also been heard from families of the other children present on the day and the injured adults.
The inquiry continues.
