Viral social media rumours claiming that Sir Keir Starmer represented the father of Southport suspect Axel Rudakubana in an asylum case are untrue, Downing Street said today.
The claims were yesterday circulated widely on X, formerly known as Twitter, by users who were citing them as evidence of an alleged cover-up over the true circumstances of the Southport stabbings in which three girls aged six to nine died.
But a Downing Street spokesperson today confirmed that the Prime Minister had not represented Rudakubana’s father in 2003.
The Government has been accused of withholding information about the attack, and that Rudakubana was charged with an additional terror offence. Contempt of court laws mean many details about a criminal case cannot be revealed in case it prevents a fair trial.
Outrage at the attack at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club sparked riots across the UK, with claims circulating that Rudakubana, 18, was a migrant, when in fact he was born in Cardiff. His father moved to Britain around 24 years ago from Rwanda.
And over the weekend there were claims that Sir Keir, a former human rights lawyer, represented Rudakubana’s Rwandan dad in an asylum case after he arrived in the UK.
But when approached about whether the Labour leader represented Rudakubana’s father in a historic asylum case, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson said it was untrue.
The erroneous allegations made against Sir Keir centre on a High Court ruling dating from 2003.
Courtroom sketch of Southport suspect Axel Rudakubana, 18, as he was seen on video link during a court appearance earlier this year
A spokesperson for Sir Keir, pictured with President Xi in Rio, said it was not true that he had represented Axel Rudakubana’s Rwandan father
From left: Southport victims Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguia
The judge, Mr Justice Collins, examined cases brought by six asylum seekers who were challenging parts of an immigration law brought in by Tony Blair’s government earlier that year.
All six were anonymised in the ruling. However, none of the six match the nationality and gender of Mr Rudakubana Sr, the Rwandan father of the Southport attacker who settled in the UK more than 20 years ago.
Sir Keir, who at the time was a senior human rights barrister at Left-wing Doughty Street Chambers, represented five of the six applicants.
The High Court document makes clear that Sir Keir’s clients were a 16-year-old Ethiopian girl, a 26-year-old Iranian man and two Angolan men aged 22 and 33.
The sixth party – the only Rwandan national involved in the case – was a 42-year-old woman.
She was from the Rwandan Hutu majority ethnic group, and told officials she ‘had been living in a camp run by Rwandan soldiers since 1994 and was subjected to regular rapes and beatings at the hands of Tutsis’.
She fled Rwanda with the help of her uncle and arrived in Britain by air from Kampala, Uganda, on January 7, 2003. She claimed asylum three days later.
No Rwandan men were involved in the High Court challenge.
A separate team of lawyers represented the sixth applicant in the case, a 20-year-old Iraqi Kurdish man.
Rudakubana (pictured), of Banks in Lancashire, is charged with the murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, six-year-old Bebe King, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven
Sir Keir is a former human rights lawyer. The erroneous allegations made against the PM online centre on a High Court ruling dating from 2003 involving six asylum seekers including a Rwandan woman
Lawyers for the six asylum seekers argued that a new law which made them ineligible to claim asylum support was a breach of their human rights.
The measures, contained in Labour’s Nationality, Asylum and Immigration Act 2002, allowed the Home Office to refuse to provide asylum support – food and accommodation – if the claimant had not claimed asylum as soon as they arrived in Britain.
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The asylum seekers’ lawyers argued the measures had left their clients destitute because their claims were unable to be heard.
It was therefore a breach of their human rights, the lawyers – including Sir Keir – told the court.
Mr Justice Collins ruled that all six cases had involved a breach Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a fair trial or hearing.
Mr Rudakubana is believed to have come to Britain in 2002.
If he lodged an asylum claim that year he would not have been subject to the immigration laws scrutinised in the High Court case, because they only came into force on January 8, 2003.
Today, England’s former chief prosecutor Nazir Afsal, a Labour supporter whose boss at the CPS was once Sir Keir, urged people on social media to stop speculating on the case, which is expected to go to trial in January.
Rudakubana is accused of murdering schoolgirls Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29.
He has also been since charged over the alleged discovery of ricin and an Al Qaeda manual found at his home.
Mr Afsal tweeted: ‘Speculation about [the] Southport case continues despite the many warnings that it’s (1) against the law & (2) liable to prejudice the case.
‘Every comment & online post is undoubtedly collected by lawyers to make the case that the accused cannot have a fair trial. Is that what you want?’.
Sir Keir Starmer was heckled by furious locals as he visited the scene of the Southport stabbing atrocity on July 30.
Riots broke out and nearly 1,000 arrests were made. Around 300 were charged and 275 were given immediate custodial sentences, including three under-18s.
Sir Keir vowed swift justice for those involved in rioting in a bid to prevent further disorder.
But there were more questions when, on October 29, the Crown Prosecution Service authorised two further charges against Axel Rudakubana – including for an alleged terror offence involving the production of biological weapon ricin.
Downing Street insisted the timing of the charging announcement was purely a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick, who lost to Kemi Badenoch, said he was concerned facts may have been withheld from the public.
He said: ‘Any suggestion of a cover-up will permanently damage public trust in whether we’re being told the truth about crime in our country.
‘Keir Starmer must urgently explain to the country what he knew about the Southport attack and when he learned it.
‘Across the board the hard reality of mass migration is being covered up. We need the truth – and we need to change.’
Members of the community blow bubbles as people gathered to mourn victims of the Southport knife attack by holding a vigil on August 5
Axel Rudakubana was in court last week. He was not asked to enter a plea during the short hearing at Liverpool Crown Court on November 13.
The 18-year-old appeared via video link from HMP Belmarsh in south-east London.
A court then ruled he is to face a single trial over the stabbings and more recent charges relating to the alleged discovery of ricin and an Al Qaeda manual at his home.
The teenager is also accused of ten attempted murders – of two adults, dance teacher Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes, and eight more children – plus a further charge of possessing an offensive weapon, specified in court as a curved kitchen knife.
None of the injured children can be named for legal reasons.
Rudakubana appeared before Westminster Magistrates’ Court a fortnight ago on additional counts relating to the alleged discovery of ricin and an Al Qaeda manual at his family home, in Banks, Lancashire – a village five miles north of Southport.
During a 30-minute hearing at Liverpool Crown Court, Mr Justice Julian Goose ruled that both indictments should be joined together and Rudakubana face a single trial, to take place from January 20 and last four to six weeks.
The defendant, who watched by videolink from Belmarsh Prison, South East London, was twice asked to confirm his name but refused to reply and sat in his grey prison tracksuit with the sweatshirt pulled over his mouth and nose.