Axel Rudakubana, who murdered three children at a dance class in Southport, has been moved from prison to a secure psychiatric hospital.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) confirmed he was transferred from HMP Belmarsh to Broadmoor, the high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire.
Rudakubana murdered Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and injured eight other children and two adults in an attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July 2024.
He was given a 52-year prison sentence in January 2025 but the judge was unable to impose a whole life order due to Rudakubana being 17 when he carried out the attack. He will likely never be released.
The then Attorney-General Lord Hermer said Rudakubana’s sentence was the “second-longest sentence imposed by the courts in English history”.
A spokesperson for the MoJ told PA: “The families of those murdered and injured in Southport will be in this country’s heart forever and our thoughts remain with them.
“Any decision to transfer an offender is made following an independent, clinical assessment, under the Mental Health Act. Following rigorous security checks, the offender has been transferred to a high-security psychiatric unit, where he will remain until assessed fit to return to prison.
“Officials have approved this transfer, on behalf of Ministers. This transfer does not change his sentence – which remains at 52 years – and of which he will serve every single day.”
Under the Mental Health Act, the MoJ is likely to have had no choice but to accept doctors’ recommendations about whether Rudakubana could be held safely in prison.
The law requires he be transferred back to prison when he no longer requires treatment in hospital. His sentence is not being converted into a “hospital order”, which would mean he stayed at Broadmoor.
The cost of keeping Rudakubana in hospital is likely to be much higher in Broadmoor than a prison.
According to the Centre for Mental Health the average secure hospital bed costs around £270,000 a year.
The average cost of keeping a prisoner in Belmarsh is £97,740 according to figures for 2023.
In May 2025 there was an investigation after Rudakubana, now 19, allegedly attacked a prison officer with boiling water.
The Southport Public Inquiry has heard evidence about his past mental health conditions.
A senior clinician at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital described his “lack of empathy” combined with a “fascination with violence” and neurodiversity, which he said added up to a “really toxic mix”.
According to West London NHS Trust, Broadmoor specialises in “providing assessment, treatment and care in conditions of high security” for men.
Is is the oldest of England and Wales’s three high-security hospitals and has held some of the UK’s most high-profile criminals.
It was renovated in 2017 and the obtained pictures from inside the hospital. They show that older prison-like cells were replaced by more spacious rooms, though still with locks on the doors.
