We couldn't cope with violent son, says Southport killer's dad

The father of the Southport killer today admitted he played down his son’s violent outbursts because he feared he would be taken into care.

Alphonse Rudakubana, 49, said that by the time his youngest son, Axel, turned 15 their relationship had broken down and his son ‘hated him’.

He would regularly attack him and, although the violence was ‘random,’ it could happen up to twice a day, Mr Rudakubana said.

He told the public inquiry investigating his son’s crimes that, looking back, he was ‘ashamed’ about the way he allowed his son to treat him.

‘I became conditioned to his behaviour,’ he said. ‘I allowed him to abuse and assault me and to cause damage at home without response because this was the only way of getting through the day.

‘AR’s outbursts would blow over quite quickly and would be followed by a period of relative calm. I am ashamed this was my response and I felt demeaned but I didn’t know what else to do.’

Mr Rudakubana said he made allowances for his son because of his autism and didn’t report every violent incident to police, mental health services or social workers because he believed Axel was ‘vulnerable’ and their home life was ‘chaotic every day’.

Sir Adrian Fulford, chairman of the inquiry, asked Mr Rudakubana whether he was reluctant to report what was going on because he was ‘concerned AR was going to be taken away from you?’

‘Yes,’ Mr Rudakubana replied.

He said that, by November 2021, the attacks on him by Axel had become ‘normal’ so he didn’t think they always warranted police intervention.

But he admitted that, on one occasion that month, his wife, Laetitia Muzayire, 53, dialled 999 because Axel started throwing items around the house when they answered the door to someone he didn’t like.

Mr Rudakubana said his wife found this incident ‘incredibly traumatic’ but he said it was only with hindsight that he realised Axel’s outbursts were badly affected her and their eldest son, Dion, 21.

‘By this time it was normal [for Axel] to put on me, to break things, I couldn’t appreciate how it was affecting others,’ he said.

Mr Rudakubana said he broke down after listening to Dion, who described how scared he was of his brother and how he feared he would kill, give evidence at the inquiry yesterday.

‘I actually cried last night when I heard what his brother Dion said about his experience,’ he added.

Dion told the inquiry that his parents ‘lost control’ of his younger sibling when he was expelled from mainstream education, aged 13, in 2019.

From 2022, Axel would get into ‘scary fights’ with their father, Dion said, and he feared his father would be killed.

The teenager would ‘smash glasses and plates’ and police were called multiple times as his outbursts increased over a period of two years, until the fatal attack last July, Dion said.

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 at a Taylor Swift-themed dance club with a knife he ordered from Amazon.

He was jailed for a minimum of 52 years after admitting murder in January.

The inquiry also heard that Mr Rudakubana and his wife sought asylum in the UK in 2003 after escaping the genocide in Rwanda.

He said both his parents and three sisters were murdered in 1994 during the civil war in his home country and he himself was held hostage and interrogated by armed men during the conflict.

But Mr Rudakubana said he and his wife took care not to tell their sons about ‘the graphic details’ of what had happened to them until the boys started ‘asking questions’ after learning about the genocide at school.

Mr Rudakubana said his sons knew they were from a ‘foreign land’ and the family was ‘lonely’ because they didn’t have many African friends, but he said he didn’t believe it affected them.

He insisted he was a ‘hands on dad’ who put his children before his professional career when the family moved to Southport with his wife’s job.

The inquiry, in Liverpool, continues.