Southport attacker’s psychiatrist had not read notes on past violence – inquiry

A psychiatrist who believed the Southport attacker’s risk to others was “minimal” had not read information about previous violent incidents in his patient record, a public inquiry has heard.

Dr Anthony Molyneux, who was consultant psychiatrist for Axel Rudakubana from July 2022, told the Southport Inquiry he was aware the teenager had taken a knife into school.

But did not know about an incident where he attacked a pupil with a hockey stick, of him looking up matters relating to the Manchester Arena and London Bridge bombings, making remarks about stabbing people or that he had gone missing and been found on a bus with a knife.

Giving evidence at Liverpool Town Hall on Monday, he said it would have been “impossible” to review Rudakubana’s complete patient record and said instead he would have read an assessment letter.

He added: “What strikes me as different from pretty much every other case I’ve ever come across within my professional career was I would have expected that information to be at the foreground in what the family told me.”

‘Manipulation’

Dr Molyneux, who works for the Alder Hey Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), said Rudakubana’s parents, Alphonse Rudakubana and Laetitia Muzayire, carried out a “studied manipulation” of his presentation at a level he had never experienced before.

He told the inquiry: “There would appear to be repeated occurrences of the family appearing to, shall we say, stage manage the presentation of information provided to professionals.”

Asked if his assessment Rudakubana’s risk would have been “deeply flawed” without knowledge of the previous incidents, he said: “Let’s just say it would have a significant blind spot.”

He accepted that a standard operating procedure document for Sefton CAMHS stated that clinicians should review the whole electronic patient record at each appointment to ensure they were aware of risk factors.

‘Minimal risk’

Dr Molyneux said when he took over psychiatric care of Rudakubana his understanding was that he posed “minimal” risk to others.

When he was discharged from CAMHS on July 23 2024, the then-17-year-old’s risk to others was said to be “none”, the inquiry heard.

Days later, on July 29 2024, he killed Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, in a knife attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.

Dr Molyneux said Rudakubana presented in appointments as an “unremarkable, sullen, untalkative, gawky teenage boy” and appeared to have a “shopping list” of exactly what medication he wanted.

The inquiry heard two different anti-depressants were prescribed to Rudakubana but he did not take them regularly.

Dr Molyneux said in a statement he was “100% confident” that his organisation had done everything they could and should have done to assess, treat, support and engage Rudakubana, as well as going “above and beyond”.

Asked about that comment, he said: “No matter how hard anyone and everyone works within these services there are system gaps which can only be remedied I think by having a unified system.”

The inquiry is continuing to hear evidence from mental health staff.