What was claimed
Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been seriously attacked in his prison cell by other inmates.
Our verdict
This is not true. The Ministry of Justice says Rudakubana has not been attacked.
Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has not been attacked in prison
Claims that Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been seriously attacked in his cell by other prisoners are circulating online. But the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has said they are not true, and Rudakubana has not been attacked.
Rudakubana was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years on 23 January after pleading guilty to murdering Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, Bebe King, 6, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, at a dance class in Southport on 29 July 2024. He was also sentenced for the attempted murder of 10 other people, among other crimes.
A post on X shares Rudakubana’s mug shot with an audio recording of someone saying they have been told that the killer was attacked in a cell at Strangeways, a men’s high security prison now known as HMP Manchester. The voice says the claim is “one hundred per cent true”, and describes Rudakubana as having been seriously injured in the attack.
The post, which has more than 1,300 shares, has the caption: “Has Axel Rudakubana been on the receiving end of Prison Justice? According to this voice note he got absolutely leathered in his cell this morning in HMP Strange ways I pray to God it is true and not just a rumour [sic].” Similar claims have been shared elsewhere on X and also on Facebook.
While we have not been able to confirm the source of the audio recording, the claim is not true. The MoJ confirmed to Full Fact that Rudakubana has not been attacked, and it has been reported as saying the same elsewhere.
Mark Fairhurst, national chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, told the i that Rudakubana would likely be held in isolation in a segregation unit for his own protection. It’s been reported that the 18-year-old is being held in HMP Belmarsh, not HMP Manchester, although the MoJ told us it was unable to publicly say which prison he is in.
We’ve previously written about similar false claims about other high profile prisoners being attacked, including child serial killer Lucy Letby, Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens, and the father of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes who was convicted of his son’s murder.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the Ministry of Justice says Rudakubana has not been attacked.