The father of the Southport killer today admitted he took delivery of the knife his son used to carry out his murder spree and admitted he could have stopped it if he had called police months earlier.
Alphonse Rudakubana said he had been hiding knives from his son, Axel, since 2019, when he was aged just 13.
He admitted he intercepted a machete his son ordered online and later took delivery of the knife his son used to murder children at the Taylor-Swift-themed dance class, last July.
Mr Rudakubana also stopped him going to attack his former school a week before the atrocity.
But he failed to tell the police, social services or child and adolescent mental health services about this, or his collection of weapons and they signed Axel off, saying he posed no risk to others, just days before the fatal attack.
Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were murdered and ten others left seriously injured when Axel, then 17, went on the rampage with a kitchen knife he ordered off Amazon on July 29 last year.
Mr Rudakubana, 49, said he knew a package Axel ordered under a fake name, in June 2023, contained a ‘large knife’ but insisted he was ‘too afraid’ to open it because he would have been forced to call the police.
Instead, he hid it from his son and stored it on top of a wardrobe. Officers discovered a 22-inch survival machete and a sharpening stone inside the package after Axel’s arrest.
Mr Rudakubana told the public inquiry investigating his son’s crimes that he regretted not telling police about the machete at the time and accepted it ’emboldened’ his son to order more weapons online.
Axel Rudakubana was jailed for 52 years for murder at Liverpool Crown Court in January
A knife identical to the one used in the attack carried out by Rudakubana at The Hart Space, in Southport, last July
Chairman Sir Adrian Fulford is overseeing the inquiry at Liverpool Town Hall
‘I regret not telling police because if I had, what happened on 29th July, wouldn’t have happened,’ he said.
Nicholas Moss, KC, said: ‘What effect do you think that had on AR? Do you think he thought, ‘I didn’t get into trouble with dad, I will just try again.’
He replied: ‘Looking back, I think it may have emboldened him and encouraged him to order more things that followed.’
Axel ordered two more machetes before Mr Rudakubana took delivery of the two knives his son ordered from Amazon that he used in the attack, on July 15, just over two weeks before the attack.
Mr Moss pointed out that the packaging detailed that it contained a ‘bladed item’ but Mr Rudakubana insisted he hadn’t read it read it properly because he was ‘tired’ and working nights when it was delivered.
‘This was a serious breach of your duty as a parent, and the reason why it was a serious breach is you knew he had ordered a large heavy knife previously,’ Mr Moss said.
‘Yes,’ Mr Rudakubana replied.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t read. I don’t have a good (explanation). It’s terrible.’
Mr Rudakubana admitted he withheld ‘some information’ from child and adolescent mental health services (CAHMS) and accepted there was a ‘massive difference’ between what the father knew about his son’s collection of weapons and the CAMHS assessment, on July 23.
But Mr Rudakubana said: ‘I believe he posed a risk to me, only me.’
Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were all murdered in the atrocity on July 29, 2024
He also told the inquiry, in Liverpool, that he thought at the time that he was supporting his son’s treatment, adding: ‘But I fell short, now, looking back.’
Mr Rudakubana admitted he knew his son had asked for petrol because he was considering setting fire to his old school, The Range High School, in Formby, and was planning to attack it on the last day of term – on July 22 – a week before the attack.
Axel was expelled from the Range High School, in October 2019, for taking a knife into classes.
His father managed to stop him, by persuading a taxi driver not to take him.
But, the inquiry heard, he warned his father: ‘Next time, if you stop me there will be consequences.’
Mr Moss said: ‘He was going to do a serious criminal attack and you had done the right thing and stopped him…but you knew he was thinking about doing it again?’
‘Not necessarily,’ he replied.
He admitted being ‘relieved’ the school was closed for the summer but said he didn’t call police because it was ‘too overwhelming’ and required ‘much courage.’
Mr Moss said: ‘This needed urgent action and I think you would accept that now.’
‘Yes, I am ashamed,’ Mr Rudakubana said.
‘I accept that responsibility, it was obvious then but it required so much courage.’
He said he and his wife hadn’t had time to talk about what happened before their son went on his murder spree at the Hart Space, in the seaside town, a week later.
And he claimed this was the reason they didn’t call police, not that he was worried his son would be arrested or imprisoned.
In a statement, Mr Rudakubana added: ‘I’m desperately sorry to the families of the children and everyone AR harmed for not calling police at this point.’
Mr Rudakubana described how, earlier that day, his son had threatened him with a knife in his bedroom after he refused to hand over a ‘bigger’ machete from the top of the wardrobe.
Mr Rudakubana said he felt ‘extremely vulnerable’ because his son was stabbing the bed to ‘scare’ him.
The inquiry heard he fell onto the floor and pleaded with Axel: ‘Please stop, it’s not here, it’s downstairs,’ and managed to distract him to get away.
Later, after Axel ordered a taxi to The Range, Mr Rudakubana said he successfully begged the driver not to take him.
His son returned inside and ‘surprisingly’ allowed him to tidy up his bedroom, Mr Rudakubana said.
But he was ‘shocked’ to discover a ‘small arsenal’ of weapons in his son’s room, including a bow and arrow and the ingredients he later understood could be used to make the toxic poison, ricin.
Later, Mr Rudakubana broke down in tears as he described how his ‘calculating’ son’s crimes were ‘out of his understanding.’
He admitted he did nothing when his reclusive son left the house to carry out the attack, on July 29, and simply ‘hoped for the best.’
The inquiry has heard that Axel ‘tricked’ his parents by pretending he was a going out for a walk, but in reality he went out and called a taxi to the dance class.
Mr Rudakubana, who gave his evidence via video-link but out of view of the public from a undisclosed location, said: ‘I was encouraged, I felt it was a good thing for him to go out and that I would worry later. My brain just didn’t want to go there, to think about something bad.’
He admitted, however, that as soon as he heard about the stabbing that he suspected his son could be involved.
Choking back tears, Mr Rudakubana said: ‘I was just clinging on to the hope that he was going for a walk…the direction he took, the way he fooled us, I couldn’t believe how calculating…it’s something that’s out of our understanding what happened.’
He said he had no idea why his son changed his target from the Range to the dance class and insisted that, after Axel’s failed attack on July 22, he and his wife thought they had two months over the school holidays to decide what to do.
“The reason I didn’t call the police is because there was no consensus yet and we were not ready to make that decision,’ he added.
“I knew, of course, if I tell the police they would take him away. It’s a crime, the things we were seeing at home they were crimes. We honestly thought we had two months. A week came too soon. We never realised he was capable.”
Mr Moss asked if the agencies could have done anything differently to have helped him contact police before July 29.
But he admitted: ‘It was down to our judgment and our judgment was poor and it was influenced by the fact that he was our son, he is ill and everything. But had we had any clear instruction, of course, we would have.’
The inquiry, at Liverpool Town Hall, continues.
