Axel Rudakubana’s mother mentioned that she believed the bow and arrow found in her son’s room could have been intended for sports. During the Southport inquiry, Laetitia Muzayire initially denied seeing any weapons in her son’s room, contrary to her husband’s account of her presence when he discovered the weapon.
Alphonse Rudakubana, in his testimony at the inquiry, recalled finding the weapon in his son’s room and noted his wife’s fearful reaction. However, Muzayire stated that she had briefly entered the room only to change the sheets and had not seen the bow and arrow, knives, firecrackers, or a substance in a box.
She later mentioned that her husband had informed her about seeing a bow and arrow in their son’s room before, but she had assumed it was for sports and not for harming others. When confronted with the fact that their son had not left the house since March 2022, she admitted to being “naive” rather than intentionally deceitful.
Despite her fingerprint being found on knife packaging, Muzayire repeatedly denied seeing any knife packaging in her home on the day of the attack. The inquiry revealed that Muzayire had previously denied seeing the packaging during a police interview, but her son, Dion, claimed she showed him knife packaging on July 29 of the previous year.
Expressing her aversion to knives due to their association with past tragedies, Muzayire emphasized that she is a loving person who does not harm others. When asked about her son’s motives for the attack and why he targeted the specific dance class, she expressed uncertainty and regret, suggesting she could have called the police to manage the risk posed by Rudakubana.
The parents of one of the victims, Jenni and David Stancombe, who lost their seven-year-old daughter in the attack, criticized Rudakubana’s parents for their alleged negligence. They emphasized that Rudakubana’s parents should be held accountable for their inaction and silence despite knowing the danger posed by their son, highlighting a failure of parenting at a significant level.
The tragic incident claimed the lives of two other young girls, Bebe King, aged six, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, aged nine.
