I spent a fair bit of time yesterday watching Sky News, where its reporter Sarah-Jane Mee and crime correspondent Martin Brunt presented live from outside Liverpool Crown Court as Axel Rudakubana was sentenced for the murders of three little girls in Southport on 29th July last year. I had seen and heard nothing like it before. Sky correctly showed a warning that the reporting was harrowing and upsetting, which it was, and then some. I wondered how Mee and Brunt would be able to hold it together and around lunchtime Mee wasn’t. Impressively and, dare I say, courageously she regained her composure, broadcasting live throughout the day. This was journalism of the highest level imaginable.
The less said about Rudakubana the better. Although I do not believe in a heaven or hell, I hope that his 52 year jail sentence is for him a hell on earth, a lifetime of fear and misery. He will not even be able to apply for release until he is 70 and that will be decided upon by people who probably won’t even be born for many years. I understand the calls for the return of Capital Punishment from ordinary folk and, inevitably, populist right-wing figures like Reform UK Ltd MP, Rupert Lowe, but I feel, as I always do at times like these, that an early death would be a way of avoiding his punishment.
I was impressed by the dignity of the family and the heroism of the emergency services. I can’t imagine how the families must have felt, hearing the judge run through the obscene brutality of the murders. Six year old Bebe King was stabbed 122 times by Rudakubana, before he tried to decapitate her. And he would have killed all the girls, 26 of them, had he been able to. After he was arrested, Rudakubana said, “I’m so glad those kids are dead … it makes me happy.”
Apparently, the killer had “mental health issues”, as well as autism, but no one suggested these were factors in the murders. The simple truth is that Rudakubana is evil. We don’t need to look any further than that. The things he did, the things he said. No more explanation required.
If we have praise for the families, the emergency services, the CPS and numerous others, we should have none for certain individuals. Take Allison Pearson of the Telegraph. Read this:
Yes, Pearson was upset that the killer put in a late guilty plea. She wanted to put herself through “harrowing stories of maimed and dying primary-school children”. She wanted to “bear witness”. Pearson should really have added, “It’s all about me.” But the guilty plea stopped that happening and she missed out on the “harrowing stories”. Mercifully, so did the families of the murdered and maimed children. Did it not occur to her that “three-to-four weeks” of evidence might just be a little more distressing for the loved ones? Honestly, it makes me sick.
Far right polemicist Matt Goodwin suggested some kind of “cover-up”, seemingly blaming Keir Starmer, although not exactly explaining what the cover-up was and why there was one at all. Put quite simply, there was no cover-up. The prime minister did not provide a running commentary of the case in the media because, as a former lawyer, he understood that he risked collapsing the case if he did and allowing a sick killer to walk free.
And politicians? What do you think? Hopeless and out-of-her depth Conservative party leader Kemi BadEnoch soon waded-in and made it about politics. Here’s her statement:
It’s pathetic, utterly pathetic. Starmer has chosen to ignore her comments altogether. Whatever you think of him – and it’s fair to say I am a card-carrying supporter – his words and actions have all been about the case, zero politics at all. As it should be. BadEnoch, Goodwin and, I am not making this up, the alleged comedian Jim Davidson have all had their say, turning it all into a political game. It is not. It is about a vile murderer and the lives he has ended and destroyed. Go away with your conspiracy theories and politicking. Let the children rest in peace, allow their families and friends to grieve, spare a thought for the 23 child survivors from the attack who may bear mental scars for life. Show some sympathy, show you care, show some class.
There are others whom we should not forget. Dance class leader Leanne Lucas is one. She suffers from survivor’s guilt, she bears the scars, both mentally and physically, from the attack, her life is in ruins, yet another victim of the killer. You can read her story here. The waves travel everywhere.
Sure, we need to know how and why this attack happened and what steps we as a society can take to try to ensure it never happens again and that will happen. My fear is that there will always be people like this killer, a tiny minority of people, who are beyond the normal conventions of life. That, I’m afraid, is the harsh reality of life.
All we can do is send our love, and if you do that kind of thing your prayers, to the victims. I’m still traumatised by what I saw and heard yesterday and I only watched on TV. That someone, the killer, could be so depraved is all but impossible to comprehend. That others attempt to score political points represents depravity of a different kind. There are more good people than bad, but the bad people often make more noise. Don’t listen to the bad people. Just be kind to the good people.