The UK says the killer of 3 girls at a dance class should never be freed. But it can’t guarantee it

LONDON (AP) — The British government said Friday it has no plans to change a law barring young people from being imprisoned for life, despite widespread demands for the teenage killer of three young girls to die behind bars.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, was sentenced to serve at least 52 years for a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.

The sentence means he cannot apply for parole until he is almost 70, and judge Julian Goose said “it is likely he will never be released.”

The judge said Thursday that by law he could not impose a sentence of life without parole because Rudakubana was 17 when he attacked the children in the seaside town of Southport in July, killing Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6. He wounded eight other girls, ranging in age from 7 to 13, and two adults.

Patrick Hurley, the Labour Party lawmaker who represents Southport in Parliament, said the sentence was “unduly lenient” and that he had asked the attorney general to review it.

“We need a sentence that represents the severity of this crime that has terrorized the victims and their families,” he said.

Opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said “there is a strong case” for changing the law so under-18s can be jailed for life.

The government said international agreements such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child prevent unlimited sentences or the death penalty being imposed on youths under 18.

Tom Wells, a spokesman for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said changing the law is “not something we are looking at.”

But, he added, “as the judge made clear yesterday, he is likely to never be released. … We don’t ever want to see this man coming out of prison.”

Two lawmakers for the hard-right party Reform U.K. called for the restoration of the death penalty, which was abolished in Britain in 1969.

Wells said that “the government has no plans to bring back capital punishment.”

The Southport attack shocked the country and triggered anti-immigrant violence across the country after far-right activists seized on incorrect reports that the attacker was an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in the U.K. Rudakubana was born in Wales to parents from Rwanda.

The government has announced a public inquiry into how the system failed to stop the killer, who had been referred to the authorities multiple times over his obsession with violence. He was expelled from school after taking a knife to class and convicted of assault for attacking another student with a hockey stick.

In powerful statements read out during the sentencing hearing at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday, families of the dead and injured children described how the attack had shattered their lives — and expressed a desire for Rudakubana to die in prison.

“His actions have left us with a lifetime of grief and it is only right that he faces the same,” said Elsie’s mother Jenny Stancombe.

“You know what you have done,” she said, addressing Rudakubana, “and we hope the weight of that knowledge haunts you every single day.”