Former classmates of Axel Rudakubana at Range High School in Formby are now breaking their silence, painting a disturbing portrait of a boy whose troubling behaviour was obvious to everyone around him from the very start of secondary school.

One former pupil named Jamie, who attended the school at the same time, described Rudakubana as “always trouble.” He told reporters that “everybody knew him from the get-go in year seven. It was clear and obvious that something was wrong in his brain.” Other students recalled him being “infamous,” with people feeling scared because “he was not a good person at all.” The phrase “doing an Axel” reportedly became slang in some classes for disruptive or unpredictable outbursts that left teachers and pupils on edge.

These haunting accounts are emerging as the full scale of Rudakubana’s long descent into danger comes under fresh scrutiny following the public inquiry into the Southport attack. Sources say the warning signs stretched back years before the July 29, 2024, massacre at the Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop that claimed the lives of six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, and nine-year-old Alice Da Silva Aguiar, while injuring ten other children and three adults.

Reports detail how Rudakubana was permanently expelled from Range High School in October 2019 after admitting he had taken a knife into school on around ten separate occasions. When staff at a subsequent pupil referral unit asked why he carried the blade, he reportedly replied coldly: “To use it.” Just two months later, in December 2019, the then 13-year-old returned to his old school armed with a hockey stick and attacked another pupil, breaking the boy’s wrist. Teachers had to physically restrain him in what the inquiry later described as a “watershed moment” proving his desire to inflict severe harm.

Classmates also remembered his unsettling obsessions. He showed a fascination with despotic historical figures including Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, and Muammar Gaddafi. Teachers raised concerns after he researched school shootings and mass violence on school computers. These incidents led to at least three referrals to the Prevent counter-extremism programme between 2019 and 2021, yet each time the warnings were downplayed.

Investigators found that Rudakubana had even contacted Childline as a young teenager, claiming racial bullying and asking chilling questions such as “What should I do if I want to kill somebody?” Despite these red flags, his behaviour was frequently excused or minimised due to a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Reports suggest agencies repeatedly used the condition to explain away escalating violence rather than address the genuine risk he posed to others.

By March 2022, the pattern continued when he went missing from home and was found on a bus carrying a knife, telling officers he wanted to stab someone. Still, the response remained focused on safeguarding him rather than protecting the public. A week before the Southport attack, his father stopped him from getting into a taxi heading back to Range High School, where he appeared intent on causing further harm. Knives had been delivered to the family home, and his parents knew about his growing collection of weapons, yet they chose not to alert authorities.

The chilling transformation from a seemingly unassuming schoolboy to a reclusive, rage-filled teenager unfolded in plain sight. Former peers described him as disruptive in class, storming out or remonstrating with teachers. One source called him a “ticking time bomb.” As he withdrew from the world, spending years barely leaving the family home except when armed or planning violence, the warnings accumulated without decisive intervention.

The public inquiry, chaired by Sir Adrian Fulford, has laid bare how these early school incidents formed part of a much larger chain of missed opportunities. His parents faced sharp criticism for failing in what the report called their “moral duty” to report their son’s escalating behaviour. Meanwhile, multiple agencies — police, social services, mental health teams and schools — passed responsibility between one another in what has been described as an “inappropriate merry-go-round.”

Rudakubana’s online habits only deepened the darkness. He consumed graphic violent material, including knife attack videos, right up to the day of the assault. His fixation appeared to blend personal grievances with darker obsessions that no one fully confronted in time.

Yet even now, as classmates speak out and the inquiry report delivers its damning conclusions, questions linger about how many more layers of his hidden life remain buried. How deeply did those schoolyard disturbances reflect a mind already drifting toward catastrophe? What private fantasies and preparations went unnoticed in the years after he left Range High School?

The families of Bebe, Elsie and Alice continue to grieve, knowing the signs were visible for years but went unheeded. Their loss has forced a national reckoning with how society handles troubled young people who show clear capacity for extreme violence.

As more former classmates come forward with their uneasy memories, the picture of Axel Rudakubana’s past grows darker and more complex. The boy who once sat in drama class and walked the corridors of Range High School carried secrets that would one day shatter a peaceful dance class and a seaside community.

The full extent of his transformation — and the exact moments when intervention could have altered everything — may never be completely known. But the voices from his school days serve as a stark reminder that the warnings were there, loud and unmistakable, long before that terrible afternoon in Southport.