'alex rudakubana was my neighbour. I have memories i want to forget'

AXEL RUDAKUBANA LIVED IN THE VILLAGE FOR SEVEN YEARS BEFORE HE BRUTALLY KILLED THREE SCHOOLGIRLS AT A TAYLOR SWIFT-THEMED DANCE CLASS 05:00, 25 Jan 2025 The rural village of Banks was

unknown to most of the world until on July 29, 2024 it was thrust into the spotlight for the worst possible reason. On a small, unassuming cul-de-sac in West Lancashire, armed police

descended less than two hours after a knifeman inflicted a 12 minute premeditated rampage on innocent children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on Hart Street, in Southport. As the

horrific news broke that Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, had tragically lost their lives and many more had been critically injured, one

particular house on Old School Close, four miles away, had become the centre of a police investigation. The reason being because for seven years the seemingly ordinary property had been the

home of Axel Rudakubana, who yesterday was sentenced to 52 years for the shocking crimes he committed. Rudakubana travelled from his home on Old School Close at around 11.30am on the hot

summer day, wearing a green jumper, black tracksuit pants and a surgical mask, to a small business estate off of Hart Street where he unleashed horror and violence. Armed police rushed to

the village and arrived at his home at 1.29pm, around an hour and a half after the then-17-year-old was detained at the scene. READ MORE: Bebe, Elsie and Alice: The three schoolgirls we will

never forgetREAD MORE: Axel Rudakubana held back by pupils in chilling video from high school classroom Armed police stormed the properties surrounding the two-bedroom semi-detached house

he lived in with his parents and older brother. One woman told the ECHO how the local Co-Op and Post Office on Hoole Lane were “locked down”, as police secured the scene and cordoned off the

road. Article continues below Caroline, who lived next door to the Rudakubana family but has since moved away from the area, explained how she thought the now-18-year-old was just a

“normal, moody teenager”. She said: “To us, it was just a family living next door who kept themselves to themselves, I thought the teenage son was a bit weird, like he just stared at you and

didn't really say anything at all. “I just put that down to him being a teenager but he did used to stare. He'd stare at me like he was staring right through me. I just thought he

was a normal, moody teenager. The family themselves seemed normal, the mum used to always forget to put the handbrake on and I would knock on and say ‘your car’s rolled down again, you need

to move it’ and she would say ‘no, no, I’ll get my husband to do it’. “[The dad] would enter into a bit more conversation but it was just general chit chat. We had no problems living next

to them, it was just a family getting on and kept themselves to themselves.” The day the attack happened, Caroline was working from home as she often does, not having a chance to look at the

news on what was a normal summer day. But she noticed police arriving outside her home and when she ventured downstairs she was greeted with an armed police officer pointing a rifle at her

in the doorway of her open backdoor. He told her to get in the house and close the door. In the days that followed, police shutdown the close and set up a cordon lasting weeks, while a

variety of different police forces helped with the Merseyside Police-led search of Rudakubana’s home. Caroline told the ECHO in the weeks that followed how neighbours had heard people going

past the cordon shouting threats, resulting in fire safety checks being done on houses in case the murderer’s home was targeted. She continued: “The fact that I’ve moved out the area means I

feel so much more relieved and settled because even though the events of the day don’t affect me, they kind of did because of what’s gone on next door. “We were constantly questioned by

police, constantly having police there, constantly having people coming down making threats. My son didn’t want to live here so he lived with his grandma for months. “I had to deal with the

trauma of having a gun pointed in my face when police first came to the close, that’s upsetting, and then finding out there were chemicals next door, I don’t want to have that anymore.

They’re not the memories I want to remember, I don’t want that.” She concluded: "It's not Old School Close anymore, it's the forgotten close. No crime was committed there but

our lives were turned upside down." Now justice has been served on the killer who hid in plain sight in a quiet village, living an unremarkable life yet hiding his fixation on violence,

murder and genocide people have spoken out. The village wants to be known for the strength it showed in the days and weeks that followed. Debs Walmsley, of Deb’z Deli just yards from the

entrance to Old School Close and across the road from St Stephen’s Institute and Club, said how the community immediately came together in the aftermath of the attack. “We had a lot of

customers put money in a pot for the police officers who were standing in the sun all day on the street,” she told the ECHO. “We didn’t ask people to do it, people wanted to do it. Some

people were putting in £10 or £20 at a time to go towards food for the officers. Every morning we would take them some food and when they came to get a drink or some food, it was already

paid for.” When asked what the community has been like since the increased police and media attention following the tragedy last year, one man working in a local business said: “We are a

decent community, we care about each other." In the aftermath of the attack, children’s summer classes and events were being cancelled in the village, as they were in Southport, but

that didn’t deter Annie Ives, trustee of The Hub, a local community centre largely run by volunteers and nestled away down a country lane close to the Tarleton Bypass. Having lived in Banks

for more than 35 years, she was in shock to hear what had happened and organised a community day the following week with round-the-clock security in place to reassure families. Annie told

the ECHO: “It was very emotional, I know how close this village is and I know people want to support what’s going on in the village. For Banks to have that negative connotation to it, this

quiet, sleepy, rural village, just a couple of miles from Southport, it’s sad. “To think [the attack] is going to tarnish the name of Banks, that’s what people are upset about when that’s

not the case at all, it’s a very close village with people wanting to help each other.” Annie, who has been a trustee at The Hub since 2021 when it was transferred into the hands of the

community, explained her shock at not knowing Rudakubana, despite living in the village for several years before the attack. She said: “One thing that has also been apparent is that the

family were just unknown, which is very unusual because apparently they’ve lived here for seven years. “Nobody knows anything about them and I have friends who live across from the close and

they’ve never even seen them. It’s very unusual.” One voice that has proven to be a constant and reassuring presence for those in the village is resident and local councillor Thomas de

Freitas. Living just five minutes from the home of Rudakubana, Thomas was completely unaware of his and his family’s existence in Banks. He said: “It’s so strange, no one around the village

really saw them or knew them. No one I have spoken to knew the family. Some people told me they saw the family around now and then but no one has said they knew them, it’s odd.” Following

the police presence and disruption in the village, from armed police to internet ghouls, Thomas told the ECHO how he looked to reassure those on Old School Close and throughout the village.

“It’s been a difficult time for everyone in the village,” he said. “Before this, it was just a little-known village just north of Southport. Our village’s name is now linked with all this

terrible stuff. Residents at the time were struggling with all sorts of things. People living in the cordon were worried, they didn’t know what was going on, even things like not being able

to get their bins emptied because of the cordon being in place. We quickly held a community meeting with the people in the village where we spoke to them about their worries and gave them

the updates we could give them at the time.” Axel Rudakubana, 18, of Old School Close, Banks, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 52 years at Liverpool Crown Court on

Thursday, January 23. A public inquiry will follow, questions will be asked and complex answers are needed. Article continues below The teenager's family remain in hiding, being forced

to leave the village following the disturbing crimes committed by Rudakubana. But now the community of Banks is ready to move on, leaving the trauma behind and looking to the future. This is

a tale of how one teenager sent shockwaves through the lives of people who never even knew he existed and three little girls paying the tragic price of state failings in the years leading

up to July 29, 2024.