Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has echoed calls for the government to review laws to allow for whole life orders to be made available to judges for extreme cases. This comes as several MPs have said that the minimum of 52 years in jail for the 'evil' Southport killer, Axel Rudakubana, was not enough, given the chance that he may be released during his lifetime. Rudakubana murdered three girls, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, and Bebe King, 6, and stabbed several others at a Taylor Swift themed dance class in Southport in July 2024. Report by Faragt. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Well I think for a crime this appalling and this sickening, a whole life order would have
00:04been appropriate to make sure that under all circumstances he would spend the rest of his
00:09life in prison. I think as one of the families of the victims said yesterday, they're going
00:15to be serving a sentence for the rest of their lives, suffering the anguish caused by the
00:20loss of their daughter, and yet this evil perpetrator could be released during the course
00:26of his lifetime. I think a whole life order would have been appropriate. Of course that
00:30wasn't open to the judge under the law as it stands, so we think the law should be reviewed
00:34to look at whether in exceptional circumstances, extreme cases like this, a whole life order
00:39should be available to the judge. So I think in the immediate aftermath of the incident,
00:44the government and the Crown Prosecution Service could have been more open and honest with
00:49the public about, for example, Rudy Cabana's background, his identity, the other materials
00:55they found in his flat. Those of course were disclosed a few months later, but they weren't
01:00disclosed at the time, and that created a void, and into that void misinformation was
01:05pumped, including by hostile foreign states, which fuelled the riots which then happened.
01:10So I think the government may have got that wrong. In other cases, we have seen more information
01:14being made public at a very early stage following an arrest, and I think it is therefore critical
01:19that the inquiry the government have announced, which we support, should cover the aftermath
01:24of the incident, and in particular whether the Prime Minister and the CPS, the Crown
01:28Prosecution Service, were open and honest with the public, and whether the lack of transparency
01:35fuelled those riots. It's vital the inquiry covers that. I still haven't had that confirmed
01:40by the government. I'm going to keep pressing them until I get that confirmation.