Furious outrage has erupted after the lawyer for the Southport victims’ families exposed Axel Rudakubana’s behaviour inside the system. Despite being moved to a psychiatric facility, the killer is allegedly using systemic loopholes to prolong the families’ nightmare. While authorities defend the high-security relocation, representatives for the grieving parents insist the move was a massive mistake, revealing an undisclosed detail about how the timing and handling of his transfer appear designed to maximise distress.

Axel Rudakubana, now 19, was transferred this week from Category A HMP Belmarsh to Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire. The Ministry of Justice confirmed the move followed an independent clinical assessment under the Mental Health Act that concluded he could no longer be managed safely in a prison environment. Officials stressed repeatedly that the transfer does not alter his sentence. In January 2025 he received a life term with a minimum of 52 years for the murders of Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, Bebe King, 6, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, as well as the attempted murders of eight other children and two adults at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on 29 July 2024. He also pleaded guilty to producing the toxin ricin and possessing an Al-Qaeda training manual. Once treatment ends, authorities say, he will return to prison.

That formal assurance has done little to calm the families. Chris Walker, the solicitor representing the three bereaved families, has described the transfer as part of a developing pattern in which Rudakubana appears to be “trying to retraumatise the families from his cell.” Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Walker said the families “don’t believe the merits” of the move on mental-health grounds and are demanding greater transparency from ministers. “It’s a deep concern of mine that this is a pattern starting to develop… and it’s a deep concern that this is going to occur every anniversary,” he stated.

The timing has intensified the anger. The families were informed by letter on 22 July — just one week before the second anniversary of the attack. Walker called the coincidence “deeply concerning.” In the absence of detailed explanation, the families fear the transfer itself has become another instrument of psychological pressure. “With the vacuum of information, the concern is that he’s manipulating the situation to his own benefit,” Walker said. “Whether that’s been poorly handled by the government, or whether it’s designed by him.”

Walker was careful to note there is “no suggestion” that Rudakubana was in a state of psychosis when he carried out the attack. The killings were meticulously planned, he emphasised, and calculated to cause maximum distress. “When he did what he did, it was carefully planned, it was meticulous and it was designed to cause the maximum distress to society. There’s no evidence of any mental health disorder being a component of his crime. There’s no evidence of psychosis. The families say, given that, he needs to serve a prison sentence, he should not be going to hospital. He needs to be in prison.”

Broadmoor is one of England’s three high-security psychiatric hospitals. Patients are held under strict conditions: locked wards, continuous monitoring, 24-hour CCTV, and mandatory therapeutic programmes. The facility has housed some of Britain’s most notorious offenders. Costs are significantly higher than those of a Category A prison — estimates put Broadmoor places at more than £300,000 a year compared with roughly £60,000 in a high-security jail. Critics, including politicians such as Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe, have seized on the expense and the optics of the move so close to the anniversary.

The Ministry of Justice maintains that public safety remains the priority and that the transfer is a clinical decision, not a reward. Housing minister Sally Jameson, a former prison officer, said Rudakubana would be returned to prison “as soon as possible,” though she admitted she was not fully briefed on the precise reasons for the move. Officials insist that once clinicians determine he no longer requires hospital treatment, the Mental Health Act allows for a swift return to the prison estate.

For the families, these reassurances ring hollow. The letter informing them of the transfer contained little detail about the clinical findings or the specific risks that could not be managed at Belmarsh. That information vacuum has fuelled suspicion that Rudakubana is exploiting every available mechanism to remain in the public consciousness and to reopen wounds at the most painful moments of the year. Walker’s language — “retraumatise the families from his cell” — captures the raw sense that the killer’s reach has not been fully severed by the prison walls or the hospital gates.

The Southport attack remains one of the most traumatic crimes in recent British history. Three young girls were murdered in a dance class. Ten others were injured. The subsequent riots that swept parts of the country added a further layer of national trauma. Two years on, the families are still navigating grief, inquiries into systemic failures, and the knowledge that the man responsible continues to generate headlines. The decision to move him to Broadmoor in the days before the anniversary has been experienced by many as another cruel blow.

Questions remain unanswered. What exact behaviours or clinical indicators made Belmarsh unmanageable? Why was the timing so close to 29 July? What safeguards exist to prevent future transfers from becoming annual sources of distress? The families, through their lawyer, are pressing for answers. Until those answers come, the perception persists that Axel Rudakubana has found a way to keep inflicting pain long after the courtroom doors closed.

Authorities continue to insist the move is temporary, clinical, and necessary. The families and their representatives see something darker: a killer still capable of manipulating the system to ensure that the nightmare he created never fully ends. The transfer to Broadmoor was intended to manage risk. For those who lost children on that July afternoon in Southport, it has felt like an extension of the original crime.