Southport killer charged with prison assault, weapons offenses

The Justice Ministry stressed Rudakubana would return to prison to finish his sentence once his mental state improved and he was assessed as well enough to do so.

A psych evaluation after the July 2024 knife rampage that killed Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, and seriously injured eight other children and two adults, found him fit to stand trial. Following a trial in January 2025, he received a record 52-year sentence, minus time spent on remand.

The judge could not impose a so-called whole-life sentence, normally applied for crimes of this severity, because Rudakubana was 17 at the time of the attack. He becomes eligible for parole in 2076, just shy of his 70th birthday. He is unlikely to ever be released.

The initial phase of an official inquiry into the killings concluded in April that Rudakubana could have been stopped. Former Appeal Court judge Sir Adrian Fulford said the "catastrophic" and "irresponsible" failures of authorities and his parents meant the attack would likely have been prevented if Rudakubana's parents had reported what they knew and if law enforcement, child and mental health agencies had responded appropriately to the risk he was known to present.