The Southport Inquiry is continuing to hear evidence from Merseyside Police Det Ch Insp Jason Pye
On Monday he told the Inquiry that killer Axel Rudakubana had used fake identities to buy weapons online
Under questioning from Nicholas Moss KC, counsel to the inquiry, he confirmed that two of the machetes had seemingly been "intercepted" by his parents - as one was found on top of a wardrobe and another had not been opened
The inquiry's first phase is examining the perpetrator's history, his contact with relevant agencies and any missed opportunities to prevent the attack.
Inquiry chairman Sir Adrian Fulford said the hearing would now finish for the day.
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Tomorrow Ch Insp Andrew Hughes of Merseyside Police is expected to give evidence about the police response on the day of the attack.
We should also hear from Daniel Ainsworth of the North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust, who will help the inquiry with how the ambulance response worked.
Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool
Mr Moss has said that Prof Lyon had not identified any delays in treatment by the North West Ambulance Service, Southport and Formby Hospital, or Alder Hey.
He said Alice deteriorated despite "maximum treatment in the intensive care setting" and by then "there was no hope of recovery".
Mr Moss said that according to Prof Lyon "it should be remembered" that an incident involving children with serious stab wounds "is a very rare occurence, likely to be a once in a career event" for most of the clinicians involved.
He also said the "emotional burden of such an event is extreme" and in his view the care received by Alice was "exemplary".
Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool
Image source, HandoutAlice Aguiar, who was nine when she was killed
Nicholas Moss KC, counsel to the inquiry, has returned and will summarise a report from Professor Richard Lyon, the inquiry’s independent expert in emergency medicine and pre-hospital care.
Prof Lyon had been asked to report on the treatment given to Alice Aguiar before she died and the “survivability” of her injuries.
Mr Moss said Alice ran out of the Hart Space building at 11:46 and ran to a white BMW in the car park where she collapsed.
She was picked up and carried onto Hart Street by window cleaner Joel Verite, and on footage analysed by Prof Lyon she did not appear to be conscious at that stage.
The first paramedics were next to Alice by 11:59 and she was taken to Southport and Formby District General Hospital at 12:31.
That evening she was transferred to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, arriving at 21:20, and was declared dead at 00:20 on 30 July.
Prof Lyon said Alice’s injuries left her with almost no chance of survival. He said she likely suffered a cardiac arrest in the car park outside the building.
He said at this point, her chances of survival would have been "less than 2%".
Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool
Mr Moss said that would conclude the evidence of DCI Pye.
Sir Adrian Fulford, the inquiry chairman, asked him to pause for a few moments while he said a few words.
DCI Pye looked emotional in the witness box and nodded as Sir Adrian said: "It tends to be forgotten that these events can take a toll even on experienced investigating officers.
"You have needed to liase with a significant number of extremely distressed individuals, and to understand the fine detail of thise extremely disturbing events.
"This included the need to gain a real understanding of the precise sequence of events by viewing over and over again some truly upsetting CCTV clips.
"You had to delve, as you’ve told us this morning, insofar as one is able, into AR’s depraved motivation and the horrors that he was researching on the internet. There is not the slightest suggestion that you did all of that to anything less than the highest professional standard and you have my thanks on behalf of the public for your highly effective contribution, and those of your brother and sister officers, into the criminal investigation and into his inquiry.
"So you leave the witness box with my thanks."
Sir Adrian then called a short break.
Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool
Mr Moss moved on to ask about AR’s potential “ideology and motivation”.
He asks if there was any evidence of a religious, racial or political ideology.
DCI Pye said: “We didn’t. And that was under constant review as well from the head of Counter Terrorism Policing, who actually made that decision. It’s not us who made that decision. It would be them. But we didn’t find anything.”
Mr Moss asked if it is “fair to say” that despite the finding of the Al-Qaeda training document and images of the twin towers, there was also anti-Islamic material.
DCI Pye agreed.
Mr Moss asked if there was any evidence that AR "subscribed to an extreme form if Islam, or Islam at all".
DCI Pye replied: "There wasn't, and that was something that we kept very open-minded about all the way through the investigation."
Mr Moss suggested: "We should understad that this was a young man who had a fascination with violence and inappropriate material, but not somebody who was motivated by any particular religion, racial hatred, or matters of that kind."
DCI Pye agreed.
Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool
DCI Pye confirmed that AR’s father, Alphonse, told police after the Hart Space attack that he suspected his son had been carrying a knife when he tried to go to Range High School a week earlier.
However he did not report that event to the police.
Mr Moss has told the inquiry police investigated to what extent AR’s immediate family knew about “items of concern” in their son’s bedroom.
DCI Pye said on 22 July, after his son had tried to go to the Range High School, Alphonse Rudakubana was able to get into is son’s room.
He saw items used for the making of ricin.
Alphonse had also intercepted his son’s orders of machetes at that point.
Mr Moss asked if there was any evidence that his family “sympathised” with his intent to carry out a violent attack.
DCI Pye said it is “fair to say” they knew about some of the weapons AR had tried to get hold of, but there was “nothing to suggest” they sympathised with his intentions.
He also said there was nothing to suggest they had an interest in extreme violence generally, despite having analysed hundreds of thousands of messages from the parents’ devices.
Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool
Mr Moss has told the inquiry that AR’s interest in explosives appeared to have dated back as early as June 2021.
A word document found on a hard drive recovered from his house included references to chemicals needed to make explosives, information AR collected and noted down.
DCI Pye confirms the investigation had been told “very early in the investigation” that AR’s school had identified concerns about his internet use even further back.
Mr Moss moves forward to 22 July 2024.
The inquiry was told the Range High School, from which AR had been excluded in 2019, broke up at just gone midday for the summer holidays.
Teaching staff told DCI Pye that information had been shared publicly.
On that day AR ordered a taxi from One Taxi, giving the name Simon.
He asked for the taxi to come to his home address and to take him to the Range High School.
The driver, Mr Evanson, arrived at around 12:45 BST and AR emerged in the green hoodie that he wore a week later in the Hart Space attack, and also had on a surgical-style mask.
DCI Pye confirmed that, earlier that day, AR had asked his father when the Range broke up for the summer.
His father told him it was that day.
Alphonse had said something to the effect of “They’ll all be going off to university now won’t they?”
AR is said to have replied: “Well I won’t be, will I?”
As the driver was about to leave AR’s father, Alphonse, ran out of the house – an event captured on Ring doorbell footage.
The driver, Mr Evanson, told police Alphonse “pleaded” with him not to take his son, saying: "Don't take him."
Mr Moss said in response AR said: “I’m 18, take me.”
Mr Evanson said he “didn’t want to get in the middle of a domestic” and told AR he would not be able to take him.
AR’s father agreed to give him £5 to cover the wasted journey.
AR got out of the taxi went back into the house, shut the door, and Alphonse stayed outside, the inquiry heard.
DCI Pye said Alphonse contacted his mother and stayed outside until she returned, before “going into the house as if nothing had happened”.
Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool
Mr Moss has told the inquiry AR had accessed documents about nitro-glycerine, electronic detonators and hypersonic weapons.
The inquiry heard he also accessed a PDF entitled Adolescence Peer Friendship and Anxiety and Depression amongst First-Generation Immigrant Families in Britain.
Another related to the treatment of young people in inpatient mental health settings.
DCI Pye confirmed AR also accessed a document called Manslaughter by Reason of Diminished Responsibility on 17 July 2023.
Another document accessed by AR was described as an academic document examining an Al-Qaeda training manual. This resulted in a conviction on a terrorism charge.
Mr Moss said some of the electronic devices could not be accessed, and asked how much the investigation team were confident they had a full picture of his internet use.
DCI Pye said searches on the laptop had concentrated on the period between 15 July 2024 and the attack, but keyword searches were performed before that point.
DCI Pye said: “There was enough to get a good understanding of what his internet history had been like.”
He said a couple of USB sticks had been found from earlier than July 2024, which suggested AR’s interest in wars and historical atrocities had been “more educational” and then became increasingly graphic.
Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool
Mr Moss told the inquiry that Dion Rudakubana, the killer’s brother, later told police his mother had told him she found the “wrappings from a knife” in the house after AR left on the morning of the attack.
It said “chef’s knife” on the packet.
DCI Pye confirmed her finger prints were found on the packaging of the knife in the house.
Mr Moss moved on to cover AR’s online activity.
He refered to a series of PDF documents found on a Lenovo tablet in AR’s home.
Some of the document titles included references to Nazi Germany, Chechnya, the Rwandan genocide, punishment dealt to slave rebels, the Zulu war, the fight against ISIS in Mosul, plus a book on ninjas.
Mr Moss asked what conclusion DCI Pye involved.
He said: “AR clearly had an interest in numerous wars, violence, his family said he had an interest studying in history but the majority of these were quite extreme in the title or the material found within them.”
Mr Moss said there had been speculation that the attack could have been “Islamist” in nature.
However he states that anti-Islamic material was found, including cartoons that would be “grossly offensive to anyone of the Muslim faith”.
There were also images of historic acts of torture, bodies after atrocities, slavery of women, and people killed by the Nazis.
Mr Moss suggested some images of bodies were “of a kind that no mainstream media in the UK would ever consider publishing".
DCI Pye agreed.
Mr Moss suggested the volume of material “cannot be consistent with a young man who had come across wholly inappropriate images in the course of other searches by accident.”
DCI Pye said: “No I think that document alone was 247 pages.”
Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool
Mr Moss has told the inquiry AR placed an order for an Apollo chef’s knife, 20cm in length, manufactured by Cerbera in July 2024.
He cancelled that order, before making another, on 13 July, for two identical knives being sold on Amazon.
Mr Moss asked if there was an age verification system used by Amazon at the point of purchase, and if so how AR was able to pass it.
DCI Pye said that was not known.
Mr Moss said information obtained by the inquiry suggested AR was able to use his father’s details, which was sufficient to bypass any age verification from Amazon.
DCI Pye said Amazon told the investigation team that it did not have the information about the purchase of the knives.
Mr Moss said that would be picked up with Amazon later in the inquiry.
The two knives were delivered on 15 July 2024, by a third party delivery company called Condor.
DCI Pye said Condor had told the police it had no information about whether any age verification had been required at the point of delivery.
One of the knives was recovered from the Hart Space dance studio, having been used in the attack.
The other was found wrapped in a duvet in the living room of AR’s home address in Banks, Lancashire.
Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool
Mr Moss has asked about AR’s attempted purchase of an 8-inch chef’s knife from a company called Hunting and Knives in July 2024.
He used a driving licence of a man in his 60s called Samuel, DCI Pye confirms. The order did not go through due a failure to pay.
AR then ordered a different chef’s knife, similar to the murder weapon used in the attack, from Amazon in the days before 15 July.
Mr Moss asked: “What was your assessment as the senior investigating officer, of the significance of the timing of these knife orders in July and the fact that AR was trying to get a knife from two different vendors?”
DCI Pye said the investigation team was unsure whether the knives were bought with a potential attack on the Range High School in mind, or whether that was something AR decided separately.
This is a reference to the morning of 22 July 2024 – when AR was stopped from taking a taxi to the Formby school by his father Alphonse, who believed he may have been carrying a knife.
Mr Moss suggested the purchases were generally “part of the proclivities, the pattern” of AR trying to get his hands on bladed weapons.
DCI Pye agreed.
Det Ch Insp Jason Pye has taken his seat in the witness box and Nicholas Moss KC will resume his questioning.
We are expected to hear more about AR's purchase of weapons this morning.
Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool
Det Ch Insp Jason Pye praised the actions of members of the public who helped in the aftermath of the attack
Throughout Monday the lead detective in the Merseyside Police investigation talked the inquiry through what happened on 29 July 2024.
Axel Rudakubana, then 17, murdered three girls and wounded eight other children and two adults at a Taylor Swift-themed children's dance workshop in Southport's Hart Street.
Det Ch Insp Jason Pye had been called as a witness to help provide a "definitive timeline of events" and also outline what the inquiry found about the killer's internet use and how he bought weapons.
As he was questioned by Nicholas Moss KC, counsel to the inquiry, we heard: