Southport killer Axel Rudakubana moved to Broadmoor psychiatric hospital | Southport attack

According to the information announced by the Guardian, Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana was transferred from prison to a psychiatric hospital after an evaluation by psychiatrists.

Sources confirmed he was transferred from category A Belmarsh prison to Broadmoor high security hospital this week after it was concluded he could not be managed safely in a prison environment.

People in psychiatric units like Broadmoor are treated as patients rather than prisoners. A Justice Department spokesman said he will remain in prison and is unlikely to be released.

The move is likely to anger many of his victims’ families, who claim he is being considered fit to stand trial in January 2025.

This means the cost of incarceration will increase. Whitehall sources said patients in hospitals’ secure units cost more than £300,000 a year, while prisoners cost around £60,000.

Rudakubana, 19, from Banks, Lancashire, was sentenced to life imprisonment and a minimum term of 52 years in January 2025 for the “sadistic” murders of Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine.

He attacked eight other children, including class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes, who tried to disarm him at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on July 29, 2024. He was also found guilty of producing the biological toxin ricin and possessing an al-Qaeda training manual, an offense under the Terrorism Act.

Alder Hey children’s NHS charity confirmed Rudakubana was under its care as a mental health patient between 2019 and 2023 and that he “left the relationship” at that time. He was directed to them after he said he took the knife to school and later said he did it “to use it.”

He was also directed to the UK’s counter-extremism programme, Prevent, because he was researching school massacres on a computer at his next school, Acorns.

There were two more referrals to Prevent, but neither made headway as there was no clear ideology behind Rudakubana’s obsession with violence.

In May 2025, Rudakubana attacked a prison officer with boiling water, prompting an internal investigation at Belmarsh.

Responding to the move to Broadmoor, Mark Fairhurst, national president of the POA union, which represents jail, prison and secure psychiatric workers, said its members believed he was “gaming the system” to move to a more comfortable environment.

He said: “[Rudakubana] He is not mentally healthy. He is gaming the system and is nothing but evil. He should spend his entire sentence in solitary confinement, staring at four walls.

“It is appalling to think that he will now enjoy all the freedoms a secure hospital has to give him, and even more unfair that the taxpayer is now paying him benefits because he is classed as mentally unwell.

“It is members of the POA who will now have to honor the wishes of those who thought they could recover. This is a sickening development and my thoughts are with the families of the victims and everyone affected by his terrible crime.”

Broadmoor in Crowthorne, Berkshire, is the oldest of England’s three high-security psychiatric hospitals. It was used to hold some of the UK’s most notorious murderers, including Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe.

Patients are locked up under tightly regulated conditions with locked wards, monitored by staff, and tight physical security, including 24-hour security cameras. They receive mandatory treatment and rehabilitation programs. If offenders no longer need hospital treatment, the Mental Health Act 1983 provides for a rapid return to prison.

If an offender poses an increased risk and cannot be managed safely in a prison environment due to a mental disorder, a request may be made by clinicians to be transferred to a secure psychiatric unit.

Sources said the law and clinical assessments meant ministers had no choice but to accept the request to transfer the prisoner in this case.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The families of those killed and injured in Southport will forever be at the heart of this country and our thoughts remain with them.

“The criminal who committed these vile crimes will rightfully serve his entire 52-year sentence in prison and will probably not be released.

“High security hospitals are not places of freedom. He will be kept under constant surveillance in the high security psychiatric unit and will be sent back to prison as soon as possible.”

“The transfer of an offender follows a robust and independent clinical assessment.”