The teenager who killed three girls in a stabbing at a Southport dance class showed violent behaviour while in high school, it is understood.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, 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.
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.
He was excluded from his secondary school for an incident involving a hockey stick, the PA news agency understands.
The teenager, who is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, is believed to have left Range High School in Formby in around 2019, before moving to a specialist school.
Teachers at the specialist school, which was within the borough of Sefton, were concerned about Rudakubana’s behaviour and his violence towards others, it is understood.
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.
