Victims’ families have accused the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana of manipulating the system after it was revealed the child murderer had been transferred from prison to a psychiatric hospital.
The murderer of Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar Axel Rudakubana has been transferred from Belmarsh Prison, a high-security facility that holds some of Britain’s most notorious terrorists, to Broadmoor hospital. Today called a ‘secure psychiatric unit’, the Broadmoor asylum for the criminally insane in west London keeps criminals under lock and key while treating them for mental health issues that can’t be accommodated in prison.
The Guardian, which originally reported Rudakubana’s transfer, stated the decision to move the killer was based on an assessment that “he could not be managed safely in a prison environment” and “People in psychiatric units such as Broadmoor are treated as patients rather than prisoners”. There is a cost associated with this, and for the time Rudakubana spends in Broadmoor, the annual cost of his incarceration is reported to surge from £60,000 to £300,000 ($400,000).
While the treatment inside is mandatory, the group representing victims’ families have expressed concern that Rudakubana — who the court heard attempted to decapitate one of his child victims yet was found competent to stand trial and offered no insanity as a defence — is cynically gaming the system to improve his own conditions for his 52-year ‘life’ sentence.
A statement on behalf of the families released on Friday said:
The three families we represent have been made aware of this development in the last 48 hours. It is safe to say that whilst this news would devastate them at any time, the fact that this has occurred as we approach the second anniversary, in our view, is another move by AR who would appear to be attempting, once again, to manipulate the system.
We have been given the barest of details and whilst we are supporting the families through this we are urgently seeking a meeting with the appropriate authorities to understand the situation before commenting further.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage also responded, noting that Rudakubana was sane enough to stand trial and “This outrageous decision must be reversed.”
A spokesman for the government responded to the criticism and stated: “High-security hospitals are not places of freedom. He will remain under constant supervision in a high-security psychiatric unit, and be returned to prison as soon as possible. The transfer of an offender follows a robust independent clinical assessment.”
The second anniversary of the July 29th 2024 Southport attack, when Rudakubana killed three children and attempted to murder ten other people, is next Wednesday.