The attack on a prison officer by Axel Rudakubana, the killer of the three girls at a dance class in Southport in 2024, has revived calls for a restoration of capital punishment, as many ask why he is serving a 52-year jail term at huge public expense, rather than have been put to death at the time for his heinous crime.
Rudakubana is reported to have thrown boiling water from a kettle over an officer from his cell at Belmarsh high security prison in south-east London. Although at the time he made his murderous attacks on the children, he was 17 and was therefore just under the age when killers could legally be hanged when Britain still retained the death penalty, there have been calls for an exception to be made in his exceptionally awful case.
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