Way back in the day when I was a court reporter we often had situations where we had to gear up for a big case’s opening day. The first day of a big trial was where we allocated reporters and photographers to a particular case and the press room sometimes became quite crowded by crime reporters from the nationals and regionals who’d shown up just for this one case. Reporters settled down for what looked like it would be a lengthy trial and therefore looked forward to much additional expenditure to be put on expenses. Many was the time that what we expected would be a long, drawn out and possibly exciting case with lots of public interest, ended up shortened by a great deal after the defendant had decided to plead guilty at the very last minute. Last minute pleas happen for all sorts of reasons sometimes known only to the defendant themselves. The plea change didn’t mean that the story didn’t get told it just meant that much of the background research that we’d done into a case, sometimes achieved in part by supplying coppers with booze, could be released much earlier than it would have been released had we had to wait for a jury to convict the defendant.
This last minute plea change is what has happened in the case of the perpetrator of the Southport Atrocity Axel Rudakubana when he appeared before Mr Justice Goose at Liverpool Crown Court today. Many of us were expecting that he would put in some last ditch defence or have an unnecessary trial for reasons of his own but this has not happened. Basically he’s ‘coughed the lot’ as we used to say. He’s pleaded guilty to all the murders and the attempted murders and other related charges connected to his attack on the Taylor Swift themed dance class in Southport last year and he also pleaded guilty to the possession of an Al Qaida manual and the deadly poison Ricin. Previously a plea of not guilty had been entered by the judge on the grounds that Rudakubana had refused to enter a plea but now
Defendants plead guilty at the very last minute for a whole host of reasons and no doubt there will be lots of speculation going on about why this savage bastard decided to enter a plea of guilty. Sometimes the defendant realises that his defence case is not as solid as they might like it to be or they knew that their defence witnesses might not have credibility or the sort of last ditch defence of not giving a defence but picking holes in the Crowns case will not work. When the journalist Charlie Bentley-Astor put forward the idea that a no defence defence of this sort was going to be put up I thought that this was a decision based on desperation by the defence. If you are relying on such a non-defence defence and relying only on tripping the prosecution up, then the defence is on shaky ground.
This savage’s guilty plea will spare the parents of the three young girls murdered by this bastard of having to hear medical and other evidence being given and maybe being challenged by the defence. The guilty plea also removes many of the concerns about sub judice that have prevented many who would have wanted to speak about this case from doing so. The savage bastard has coughed which means we are now much more free than we were to talk about this case as there is no trial to potentially prejudice.
With the removal of concerns about sub judice, information that was previously forbidden to be aired lest it interfere with any trial can now be openly spoken about and already some concerning stuff is starting to percolate around. One such interesting nugget of information swiftly appeared on the Guardian website and concerns the multiple contacts that this murdering savage had with the government’s PREVENT counter extremism unit. Apparently according to the Guardian three times was this savage referred to PREVENT because he was looking at websites featuring school shootings and Libyan terrorists. However nothing was done about him because his violent tendencies didn’t seem to be connected to any ideology.
I suspect that much much more than the PREVENT issue will be revealed during the course of the coming weeks and months about this savage, his family, their life in the UK and any dealings that state agencies have had with this savage over the years. I also suspect that what will come out might be highly embarrassing to those who have assisted this family to enter and stay in the UK or who failed to see that this savage was clearly and surely on a path of conduct that would lead to murders and act accordingly. We might also find out if, like so many other deranged and violent teenagers, he had allied himself with the ideology of Islam because it was an outlet and a cause that allowed him to be violent?
This savage will be sentenced by Mr Justice Goose on Thursday of this week and I believe that it’s likely he’s going to get a life sentence. It’s possible that he might not get a whole life order as he was a juvenile when he committed his dreadful crimes but it is more than likely that he’s never going to be on the outside ever again. His path from now on will be imprisonment and then more than likely a transfer to a hospital for the criminally insane such as Broadmoor.
As I said more and more stuff about this savage is going to come out now that any worries about sub judice or contempt of court are, with the exception of naming the children who were injured in the attack, now mostly gone. Those with information about this savage, his contacts, his background and what not need to get it out there via citizen journalists and others so that we can all be fully informed of what went wrong with how the state has managed this man before he turned to murder. Was he a crypto-Muslim or a devotee of some other violent ideology? Who else apart from PREVENT just shrugged their shoulders when presented with this savage and his warped views? Was this man’s murderous conduct propelled by something in his family background or the culture that he hailed from? Did those tasked with protecting Britons either from the police or from the various security agencies overlook potential dangers posed to Britons by either this savage or his family or did current high profile political figures have dealings with this savage at some time in the past?
I believe that there is most certainly a need for a public inquiry into this case and the implications of it. This would be not only so that we know which individuals and which agencies screwed up here but also so that any potential future atrocities like this can be prevented. That greatest of social and political disinfectants which is sunlight needs to be shone into all the deep and dark recesses of this case.
But there is one cold hard fact about this case that screams out to me whilst writing this piece and it is this: Three little girls lie dead and a dozen more adults and children have been grievously injured by this savage. If this savage and his family had never ever been allowed to set foot in the United Kingdom then none of these deaths or injuries would ever have occurred and whoever signed off the entry of this family into the UK is at least a moral accomplice to this horrific crime. Misplaced compassion to this savage’s family by whoever said ‘let them in’ has resulted in misery and horror for everyone whose lives were afflicted by this savage and his actions.
May the memory of Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, Bebe King, 6, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7 be for a blessing and may the savage who murdered them and who injured many more rot in hell.