Southport stabbings: Axel Rudakubana received second longest sentence in history and UN prevents harsher punishment, says Downing Street
Southport child killer Axel Rudakubana received the second-longest life sentence in English history and the government does not ever want to see him released, Downing Street has said.
Sir Keir Starmer’s official spokesman said ministers “share the public’s disgust at [Rudakubana’s] barbaric crimes” but said imposing a whole life order (WLO) was not possible because of international law.
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The 18-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum of 52 years on Thursday for the murder of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, in July last year at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
However, the sentence prompted calls for a change in the law on WLOs, which are usually only imposed on criminals aged 21 or over but can be considered for those aged 18 to 20 in exceptional circumstances.
WLOs ensure that an offender will die behind bars, whereas a life sentence imposes a minimum term that must be served in prison before they are eligible for parole, with convicts then remaining on licence if they are released.
Rudakubana was 17 when he launched the attack, and his sentence is the second-longest tariff on record after Hashem Abedi, the brother of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi, Downing Street said.
Abedi was sentenced to at least 55 years in prison for his part in the bomb attack that killed 22 people – a life order not being possible at the time because he was under 21.
(L-R) Victims Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King and Alice Dasilva Aguiar
Reforms passed by the Tories extended WLOs to young killers aged 18 upwards at the time of the offence.
Downing Street said on Friday ministers were not looking at further changes, claiming they were prevented from doing so by UN laws.
The spokesman did not name which acts the government was bound by, but Article 37 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that people under 18 should not be imprisoned for life with no chance of ever being released.
He said the government did not want to see Rudakubana leave prison and it was “likely he will never be released”.
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Could the Southport killings have been prevented?
Baby serial killer Lucy Letby and Sarah Everad’s killer Wayne Couzens are among the 70 people currently serving WLOs.
Those calling for a change in the law include Patrick Hurley, the MP for Southport, who has asked the attorney general to review Rudakubana’s jail term under the unduly lenient sentence scheme.
Outrage over the case has also promoted calls from two Reform UK MPs, Lee Anderson and Rupert Lowe, to bring back the death sentence, which was abolished in the UK in 1969.
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‘Our lives went with them – he took us too’
Number 10 said there were no plans to bring it back, citing parliamentary votes in recent history which have rejected capital punishment.
The government has launched an inquiry into the stabbings, which aims to give families “answers” about what happened in the lead-up to the attack.
Read more:
Police investigation continues
The 14 minutes of terror
Victim’s parents describe horror
The prime minister has also said he will look at changing the law to recognise the “new and dangerous threat” of lone attackers not driven by one ideology.
It has emerged that Rudakubana was referred to the government anti-extremism scheme – known as Prevent – three times before the murders due to a fixation with violence.
He was also in contact with the police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services.
Earlier, the UK’s most senior police officer warned thousands of young men were obsessed with violence, and called for this to be looked at as part of the review.
Rudakubana was sentenced after earlier pleading guilty to the murders, along with the attempted murders of eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.
He was also convicted of having a knife on the date of the killings, production of the deadly poison ricin, and possessing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.
Judge Mr Justice Goose said he would have been given a whole life term if he had been nine days older.
The judge also said he “must accept” that the prosecution had made it clear the attack did not meet the legal definition of an act of terrorism because there was no evidence of attempting to advance a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.
But he added: “His culpability for this extreme level of violence is equivalent in its seriousness to terrorist murders, whatever his purpose.”
Taiwanese lawmaker Ko Ju-Chun has called on the government to consider adding Bitcoin to its national reserves, suggesting it could serve as a hedge against global economic uncertainty.
Ko, a legislator at-large in Taiwan’s legislative body, the Legislative Yuan, took to X on Friday to report that he had advocated Bitcoin (BTC) investment by the Taiwanese government at the National Conference on May 9.
In his remarks, Ko cited Bitcoin’s potential to become a hedge amid global economic risks and urged Taiwan to recognize the cryptocurrency alongside gold and foreign exchange reserves to boost its financial resilience.
Ko’s announcement came shortly after the legislator held talks with Samson Mow, who advocates for Bitcoin adoption by states like El Salvador at his BTC tech firm Jan3.
Taiwan is an export-oriented economy
Ko highlighted that Taiwan is an export-driven economy that has experienced significant fluctuations in its national currency, the New Taiwan dollar, amid global inflation and intensifying geopolitical risks.
“We currently have a gold reserve of 423 metric tons, and our foreign exchange reserves amount to $577 billion, including investments in US Treasury bonds,” the lawmaker stated.
In a scenario of more intense currency volatility or potential regional conflicts, Taiwan may “very likely be unable to ensure the security and liquidity,” Ko continued, adding that Bitcoin could be a great addition to Taiwan’s reserves for several reasons.
“Bitcoin has been operating for over 15 years. It has a fixed total supply, is decentralized, and is resistant to censorship. Many countries are focusing on its hedging attributes. At the same time, in intense situations, it may not face the risk of embargo,” he said.
Bitcoin is not the only solution
Referring to many global initiatives considering Bitcoin adoption as a reserve asset, Ko stressed that he’s not advocating for Bitcoin as the “only solution” to rising economic challenges.
Instead, the legislator suggested adding a “small proportion of Bitcoin” into the diversified assets as tools for sovereign asset allocation and risk hedging, and backup capacity of Taiwan’s financial system.
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He previously suggested that Taiwan could allocate a maximum of 5% of its $50 billion reserve to Bitcoin in an X post on May 6.
“When exchange rate risk and regional uncertainty increase, it is time to introduce new tools to construct a more flexible financial strategy framework,” Ko said, adding:
“As former Dean Chen Chong said, Bitcoin is the gun of the digital era. It may also be the gold of the digital era, the silver of the digital era. Or it could be gunpowder. A wise nation will not let weapons be in others’ hands.”
The news comes as Taiwan is emerging as a crypto-friendly jurisdiction, with the Financial Supervisory Commission pushing institutional trials of crypto custody services in late 2024.
Mainland China continues to maintain its hostile stance on cryptocurrency after imposing a ban on multiple crypto activities, including mining, in 2021.
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German law enforcement seized 34 million euros ($38 million) in cryptocurrency from eXch, a cryptocurrency platform allegedly used to launder funds stolen after Bybit’s record-breaking $1.4 billion hack.
The seizure, announced on May 9 by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and Frankfurt’s main prosecutor’s office, involved multiple crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Dash (DASH). The move marks the third-largest crypto confiscation in the BKA’s history.
The authorities also seized eXch’s German server infrastructure with over eight terabytes of data and shut down the platform, the announcement added.
eXch exchanged crypto without AML
In the statement, the BKA described eXch as a “swapping” service that allowed users to exchange various crypto assets without implementing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures.
The platform had operated since 2014 and reportedly facilitated about $1.9 billion in crypto transfers, some of which were believed to be of “criminal origin,” including assets laundered during the Bybit hack.
“Among other things, a portion of the $1.5 billion stolen from the Bybit crypto exchange, which was hacked on Feb. 21, 2025, is said to have been exchanged via eXch,” the authorities wrote.
Multisig, FixedFloat among laundering cases
According to a post by crypto sleuth ZachXBT, eXch was also involved in laundering millions of funds from other crypto thefts and exploits, including Multisig, FixedFloat and the $243 million Genesis creditor theft.
Those were in addition to “countless phishing drainer services over the past few years with refusal to block addresses and freeze orders,” ZachXBT said.
ZachXBT was among the first security analysts to report on eXch’s links to laundering $35 million of crypto assets stolen from Bybit soon after the hack was confirmed.
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“Lazarus Group transferred 5K ETH from the Bybit Hack to a new address and began laundering funds via eXch (a centralized mixer) and bridging funds to Bitcoin via Chainflip,” ZachXBT wrote in a Telegram post on Feb. 22.
eXch announced termination of services by May 1
After initially denying involvement in laundering funds from the Bybit hack, eXch eventually announced it would cease operations by May 1 in a Bitcoin Talk post published in mid-April.
“Even though we have been able to operate despite some failed attempts to shut down our infrastructure […], we don’t see any point in operating in a hostile environment where we are the target of SIGINT [Signals Intelligence] simply because some people misinterpret our goals,” it wrote.
Addressing the seizure, senior public prosecutor Benjamin Krause stressed the importance of action against “quick and anonymous opportunities for money laundering for any amount.”
“Crypto swapping is an essential component of the underground economy, used to conceal incriminated funds from illegal activities such as hacking or trading in stolen payment card data, thus making them available to perpetrators,” he said.
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