Elsie, Bebe and Alice were failed...now 17-year-old set to re-enact Axel walks free

Families' anger over 'copycat' case

- BY ELEANOR BARLOW

Police and forensics experts at the scene of the July 2024 attack by Rudakubana, inset

FAMILIES of the three girls killed in the Southport stabbings say they are "extremely alarmed" that a teenager who wanted to carry out a copycat attack has not been jailed.

The 17-year-old boy was handed a three-year youth rehabilitation order and a criminal behaviour order after he phoned police and said he wanted to "reenact Axel".

He meant Axel Rudakubana, the 17-year-old who fatally knifed Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and tried to kill 10 others at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July 2024.

The boy, who cannot be named because of his age, said Rudakubana — also referred to as AR — was a "hero" and they had similar interests in "genocides and that".