Alex Rudakubana stabbed three young girls to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England.
Rudakubana was 17 when he attacked the children in the seaside town of Southport in July, killing Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6.
He wounded eight other girls, ranging in age from 7 to 13, along with teacher Leanne Lucas and John Hayes, a local businessman who intervened.
The attack shocked the country and set off both street violence and soul-searching.
Rudakubana faced three counts of murder, 10 of attempted murder and additional charges of possessing a knife, the poison ricin and an al-Qaida manual.
Judge Julian Goose said that he couldn’t impose a sentence of life without parole, because Rudakubana was under 18 when he committed the crime.
But the judge said he must serve 52 years, minus the six months he’s been in custody, before being considered for parole, and ‘it is likely he will never be released.’
He unexpectedly changed his plea to guilty on all charges on Monday.
But he wasn’t in court to hear sentence passed on Thursday.
The lead detective probing the Southport attack has revealed he wanted the mass murder to be declared terrorism.
Det Chf Insp Jason Pye revealed he would have been ‘happy’ for the July 29 outrage to have been classed a terror attack ‘all day long’ as it would have given him more time to question then 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana.
This revelation follows growing controversy about whether the dance studio atrocity should have been classified as an act of terrorism.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage this week accused the Government of a ‘gigantic cover-up from day one’, claiming the authorities ‘refused to class the murders as terror-related for fear of the reaction there might have been’.
Prosecutors have insisted Rudakubana’s crimes did not meet the legal requirement to be deemed terrorism because the defendant had no discernable political or religious ideology.
But jailing Rudakubana for life today at Liverpool Crown Court, the judge, Mr Justice Goose, said his ‘sadistic’ attempt at mass murder was ‘equivalent’ to an act of terror.
