“By continuing to prevent full reporting at this stage has the disadvantage of allowing others who are up to mischief to continue to spread misinformation in a vacuum and runs the risk that when the information becomes publicly available in six days’ time, that will provide an additional excuse for a fresh round of public disorder,” the judge said.
“Allowing full reporting will undoubtedly remove some of the misreporting as to the identity of the defendant.”
The judge added: “The defendant Axel Rudakubana appears before me having been sent to this court earlier this morning by the Youth Court in respect of multiple charges of murder and attempted murder.
“The alleged offending in his case is shocking and could hardly be more serious, involving as it does the killing and serious wounding of multiple victims, most of whom were young children, in an incident in Southport on Monday 29 July 2024.”
Rudakubana was born to Rwandan parents in Cardiff in 2006 before they moved to Banks in Lancashire in 2013.
He is accused of carrying out the attack which led to the deaths of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine.
He also stands accused of the attempted murder of eight more children, and dance teeacher Leanne Lucas, 35, and businessman John Hayes.
