Axel Rudakubana ordered taxi to school he was expelled from a week before attack

The father of a teenager who killed three girls at a Southport dance class stopped his son from taking a taxi to the school he was expelled from just a week before the attack, it is understood.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, was permanently excluded from secondary school over claims he was carrying a knife and later returned to attack someone with a hockey stick, the PA news agency understands.

He killed Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, in the stabbing at the Taylor Swift-themed holiday club on July 29 last year.

Aged 17 at the time of the attack, Rudakubana was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and moved with his family to the village of Banks in Lancashire about a decade ago.

Neighbours described the family as unremarkable, but it can now be reported that teachers had concerns about his behaviour from when he entered year nine.

Rudakubana was excluded from Range High School in Formby in around 2019 after telling Childline that he was being racially bullied and was bringing a knife into school to protect himself, it is understood.

It is not known if he was being bullied or if he ever brought a weapon into the school while he was a pupil.

After his exclusion, he returned to the school and assaulted someone with a hockey stick, the intended target being a former bully or someone he had a grievance with, it is understood.

It is understood Rudakubana then attended two specialists schools, The Acorns School in Lancashire and Presfield High School & Specialist College in Southport, and teachers were concerned about his behaviour.

His in-person attendance at Presfield was less than 1%, it is understood.

Just a week before he went to the dance class in The Hart Space, he booked a taxi to take him to Range High School, but his father stopped him from leaving, PA understands.

At his first appearance at Liverpool Crown Court, Deanna Heer KC, prosecuting, said it was understood Rudakubana had been unwilling to leave the house and communicate with his family for a period of time.

She said: “He was seen by the psychiatrists at the police station but refused to engage with them.”

The court was told he had no obvious evidence of mental health disorder which required diversion to hospital.

His mother, father and older brother were co-operating with police and had provided witness statements.

At all of his court appearances, Rudakubana held his sweatshirt over his face and refused to speak.

When he first entered Liverpool Magistrates’ Court, he was seen to smile towards members of the press before covering his face.

A profile of his father, Alphonse Rudakubana, printed in local newspaper the Southport Visiter in 2015 said he was originally from Rwanda, a country that suffered a deadly genocide in the early 1990s, and moved to the UK in 2002.

Rudakubana, the youngest son of the family, was born in Cardiff, where neighbours of the family described a “lovely couple” with a hardworking father and stay-at-home mother to “two boisterous boys”.

In 2013 they moved to Banks, just a few miles outside of Southport, where Rudakubana’s father trained with local martial arts clubs.

The family lived in a mid-terrace three-bedroom house in a newly-built cul-de-sac of a dozen or so properties.

At 11 years old, Rudakubana appeared dressed as Doctor Who in a television advert for BBC Children In Need, after being recruited through a casting agency, it is understood.

The now-deleted clip shows him leaving the Tardis wearing a trench coat and tie to look like the show’s former star David Tennant and offering advice on how best to raise money.