Axel Rudakubana, sentenced to 52 years in prison for the murder of three girls and the attempted murder of another ten people in Southport, has been moved from prison to a psychiatric hospital. The news has upset the victims' families - and rightly raises the question of whether justice, once handed down, is then quietly rewritten behind closed doors.

The attack happened in July 2024, at a children's dance workshop inspired by Taylor Swift's music. Rudakubana pleaded guilty to the murder of nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, six-year-old Bebe King and seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe. At the time of the attack he was 17 years old.

Yesterday he was transferred from the high-security Belmarsh prison to Broadmoor hospital. The Ministry of Justice stressed that the transfer does not change the length of the sentence - but it is precisely here that the families see a trap.

“The families we represent were informed in the last 48 hours. We believe this is another move by which he is trying to manipulate the system,” said Chris Walker of the law firm Bond Turner, which represents the relatives. They are seeking an urgent meeting with the authorities because, as they say, they have only basic information.

Under British law, high-risk offenders can be transferred to secure psychiatric units because of their mental state, where they get the status of patient rather than prisoner. Rudakubana's transfer followed an alleged attack with boiling water on a prison officer in Belmarsh in May last year.

Broadmoor in Berkshire is the oldest of the three British high-security psychiatric hospitals and has over the years housed notorious names - among them the serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, known as the “Yorkshire Ripper”. The law, however, leaves a back door: if hospital care becomes unnecessary, the convict quickly returns to prison.

Is this a genuine medical need or a calculated move by a man the system has already overpowered once? That question is for the doctors and the court to answer - but the families of Alice, Bebe and Elsie rightly expect them to do it out loud, not through 48 hours of reporting sent once the decision has already been made.