‘The death penalty is the only answer in cases like the Southport massacre’

Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has reignited the debate over the death penalty in Britain
Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has reignited the debate over the death penalty in Britain

Horrors of the kind inflicted on a room of innocent girls in Southport six months ago are mercifully infrequent. The Soham killings, the murder of Sarah Everard, the Lucy Letby case. All crimes so chilling, so deeply upsetting even to read about in a newspaper, that they loom large in our national consciousness long after a sentence has been handed down. They also tend to reignite a question that rumbles under the surface of public debate about our justice system. Should, in the most extreme cases (cases of terrorism, of mass killings, of child murder), this country consider reintroducing the death penalty?

Justice Goose has sentenced Axel Rudakubana to a minimum term of 52 years in jail. He was nine days shy of turning 18 when he committed mass murder, meaning he couldn’t legally be given a whole life order. It prompted outrage in all corners. Kemi Badenoch called for a change in the law to allow for life sentences to be handed to under 18s in certain cases. Nigel Farage demanded the director of public prosecutions resign for failing to class it as terrorism. For some, no prison sentence could be enough; Rudakubana’s crimes represented exactly the kind of extreme and unimpeachable evil that should merit the death penalty.

Every time something happens which shakes people’s faith in humanity (and in the justice system) as the Southport attacks have, this issue bubbles up again. The last execution in Britain happened in 1964, though capital punishment was only officially abolished in 1998. But on Thursday, Reform UK MPs Rupert Lowe and Lee Anderson called for the return of the death penalty in cases like this. Lowe said it was “time for a national debate on the use of the death penalty in exceptional circumstances. This is an exceptional circumstance”. Anderson posted a picture of a hangman’s noose, saying: “This is what is required.”

Public opinion holds relatively steady on this issue. For the past five years, YouGov has run tracker polls following the UK’s stance on the death penalty. They show that, in certain cases (and only certain cases), more than 50 per cent of respondents would consistently support the reintroduction of the death penalty.

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Since 2019, the YouGov poll shows support for the death penalty in cases of child murder has fluctuated between 48 and 57 per cent. In the case of “terrorist murder acts”, the response is similar – the most recent poll, from December 2024, has 55 per cent of the public favouring capital punishment in these cases. When asked if they would support the death penalty in “all cases of murder”, however, the number drops dramatically. Currently, just 34 per cent would be in favour.

Murder is the crime of which Rudakubana was formally convicted; some would argue that “terrorist murder” is also an apt description of the massacre that he perpetrated last summer. The judge said his offences did not reach the legal definition of terrorism (though he was sentenced in part for possession of a military study of an Al Qaeda training manual, an offence under the Terrorism Act) as he couldn’t be deemed to have committed murder to further a political, religious or ideological cause. But Justice Goose told the court that whether the “motivation was terrorism or not misses the point”. “What he did on 29 July last year has caused such shock and revulsion to the whole nation, that it must be viewed as being at the extreme level of crime,” he said. “His culpability, and the harm he caused and intended, were at the highest.”

Many Telegraph readers responding to our coverage of Rudakubana’s sentencing feel the “highest” crimes deserve the highest penalties, not least as a means to deter future atrocities. “In today’s Britain, there is no deterrent for committing crimes of this nature,” writes Ian Smith, one reader. “What benefit is there to the normal law-abiding people for locking up such a person? What cost will there be to 52 years in jail, and how many hip replacements could be performed on normal people instead? The death penalty would help to reduce crimes of this nature and save millions of pounds.”

One of the chief arguments against the death penalty is the risk that people could be wrongly executed. But in cases like this one where there is no doubt about the perpetrator, some say a different approach should be considered. “I’ve always been against the death penalty, but only because of my fear that an innocent person could be wrongly executed,” says David Griffiths, another Telegraph reader. “However, in cases like this, where there are children involved and an absolute certainty of guilt, it is the only answer. When you come across pure evil, you don’t give it the equivalent of a safe, warm hotel room for 50 years, paid for by the state.”

The cost to the taxpayer of incarcerating Rudakubana is on others’ minds too. “He clearly can’t be rehabilitated, and he contributes nothing, why allow him to leech off resources?” says Louise Bignell.

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Others simply feel capital punishment is the only adequate penalty. “Some crimes reveal the true nature of the person who carries them out,” says Saraann Connolly. “This person is so full of hate, he wanted to hurt young girls, the most vulnerable in our society.”

She adds: “The death penalty is most appropriate in his case.”

Polls on the reintroduction of capital punishment “swing depending on the type of crime described”, says James Frayne, chairman of opinion research firm Public First. “In recent times, around half the British people have supported reintroducing the death penalty into law. [...] Naturally, opinion is harshest on serious crimes against children, as people imagine their own family as victims.”

Attitudes towards terror incidents are harder to pin down, he says. After all, terror is a broad brush crime. “Certainly in Britain during the Troubles, a minority of British people opposed the IRA but sympathised with their political cause and believed them to be avoiding civilian deaths.”

A cold-blooded attack on children inevitably has a singular sort of impact on the public. “While not officially designated as a terrorist incident, the nature of these child murders in Southport, which will be remembered for many generations, will likely see an increase in support for the death penalty,” he says.

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Four in ten people believe the Southport killings were “murder, but not a terrorist attack”, according to YouGov data. 35 per cent say his actions constituted a terror attack.

Dr Craig Jackson, of the British Psychological Society, says there is likely to be an increase in people in Britain wanting the death penalty “to be invoked as a deterrent”, particularly, he says, as “younger people are viewed as the perpetrators of fatal knife attacks more than any other group”.

What drives it, he says, is a feeling among the public that people might be put at risk if criminals’ rights are prioritised. In the Rudakubana case, he says, “people felt they were being put at risk by not knowing the full details in order to preserve the accused’s rights to a fair trial”. The police have faced criticism over their decision not to release certain details. 35 per cent of Brits now feel the authorities released too little information after Rudakubana’s arrest, YouGov data shows.

Axel Rudakubana
The police and politicians knew Axel Rudakubana had terrorist material shortly after the attack but the public was not told - AFP PHOTO / MERSEYSIDE POLICE

“Justice is not always transparent or clear-cut,” says Jackson. “When justice is ‘messy’, people feel suspicious of it.”

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Professor Carolyn Hoyle, Director of the University of Oxford Death Penalty Research Unit, says public opinion on the death penalty “can be difficult to accurately ascertain”. “Research has found that it is influenced by misconceptions about its administration and efficacy.”

Hoyle’s research has found younger generations “are likely to view the death penalty as a barbaric relic of the past”. Meanwhile, support for capital punishment “is contingent on the belief that its administration is free from errors (and it never is, so innocent people will be executed), also that it’s fair and equitable (and it’s not, it’s arbitrary and applied in ways that are unfair and discriminatory), and that it’s effective at reducing violent crime (and there’s no evidence that it does deter violent crime any more than a long prison sentence would),” she says.

Once people are “better informed”, she says, support declines “typically to lower than 50 per cent”.

And yet, when something happens that shocks us to our core, the conversation about capital punishment swirls, leaving people who would otherwise be against it questioning their own stance on the issue.

In 2023, when Lucy Letby became Britain’s worst child murderer, the topic of the death penalty bubbled up again. There were those who said a whole life term wasn’t enough. As The Telegraph’s Tim Stanley wrote after her sentencing: “The murder of a child, so innocent and vulnerable, sparks rage in normal people – and so it should.”

For some, cases like this also spark something else – a feeling that a proper debate is needed in this country on the death penalty.