Southport killer Axel Rudakubana to be sentenced for attacks

Daniel Sandford
Home affairs correspondent

Sometimes people convicted of the very worst murders
are given what is called a whole life order. That is a life sentence, with an
order that the murderer should never be released from prison.

Two reasons judges are given for imposing a whole
life order are “the murder of a child involving a substantial degree of
premeditation or planning” and “the murder of two or more people involving a
substantial degree of planning”.

On those grounds Axel Rudakubana’s horrific crimes – the
murder of three girls under the age of 10 – and the attempted murder of eight other
girls and two adults, all planned, would almost certainly
qualify for a whole life order.

But under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022
a whole life order can only be given to someone who was aged 18 or over when
they committed the crime.

Even then, one can only be given to someone under the age of
21 when they committed the offence when the “seriousness of the offence is
exceptionally high”.

So Rudakubana, who was 17 when he
committed the murders, will have to be given a life sentence with a “minimum term” before he can be released by the Parole Board on licence. His
minimum term is likely to be measured in decades, but the case is so unusual it
is hard to predict.

It used to be that nobody under the age of 21 could be given
a life sentence.

But then when Hashem Abedi, the Manchester Arena bomber’s
brother, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 55 years, the judge said a whole life order “would have been the just sentence
in this case bearing in mind the exceptional seriousness of his offending,
including the young age of many of the intended targets and the large number of
those both killed and very seriously injured”.

That led to the law being changed in 2022,
reducing the minimum age to 18.

Axel Rudakubana missed that by nine days. He
committed the crimes aged 17 on 29 July last year – and turned 18 on 7 August.