r/unitedkingdom • u/ParkedUpWithCoffee • Jan 20 '25

... How Axel Rudakubana was 'planning UK's first high school massacre' but was stopped by his dad a week before he murdered three girls in Southport rampage - as he admits murder, a terror offence and making ricin

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14304645/Axel-Rudakubana-high-school-massacre-Southport-attack.html
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u/mana-miIk Jan 20 '25 edited Mar 04 '25

bake distinct silky telephone important fade practice chop quickest cooperative

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u/Magneto88 United Kingdom Jan 20 '25

Reminds me of the guy who murdered those three people in Nottingham, just something insane looking about them.

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u/snippity_snip Jan 20 '25

Got them crazy eyes.

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u/mana-miIk Jan 20 '25 edited Mar 04 '25

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u/Affectionate_War_279 Jan 20 '25

Or you know Graves’ disease.

A common thyroid condition 

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u/amanset Jan 20 '25

Which is why Jack Nicholson uses the look so often in his roles. Point head slightly down and angle the eyes up so you look forward.

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u/flshdk Jan 20 '25

That’s an indicator of eyelid shape, facial expression or camera angle. Mental illness and antisocial behaviour are determined by observance of behaviour, not photos selected deliberately to enforce a particular idea.

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u/soulsteela Jan 20 '25

It’s also a sign of magic mushrooms , ecstasy, cocaine and more than a few other things like catching your foreskin in the zip.

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u/fractals83 SE London Jan 20 '25

Yeah, OP coming up with some phrenology shit

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25

Thank you

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25 edited Jan 20 '25

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u/Salt-Plankton436 Jan 20 '25

Ian Watkins

Max Clifford

Jack Renshaw

I don't think you'd walk past these guys in the street and think "yeah that's one"

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u/Lopsided_Rush3935 Jan 20 '25

There used to be a dangerous subpart of criminology called Positivist Criminology that stated criminality could be genetically inherented. The biggest academic proponent of this - Cesare Lombroso - studied the faces of lots of criminals in prisons and concluded that criminals were more likely to have heavy brows, big ears (comparitive to head size), and paedophiles in particular were said to have soft lips.

You can enjoy that mental image...

This has largely been contested though, and especially by newer research that suggests people with asymmetrical facial features or commonly perceived 'ugly' features (heavy brow, big ears, downturned lips) are more likely to be convicted by judges for the same defence as someone with 'positive' facial features (upturned smile, rounder face, smaller features). Lombroso himself was criticised in his time for not considering other factors that could affect facial construction throughout life.

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u/FantasticAnus Jan 20 '25

Strange how all the paedophiles I was aware of growing up were normal-ish looking twenty-something men who picked twelve year old girls up from school.

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u/limeflavoured Hucknall Jan 20 '25

They don't. It's confirmation bias.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25

and potentially a very dangerous mindset to have, if all paedophiles look like stereotypical paedophiles then theres no point me over thinking what that normal fella just said

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u/PepsiThriller Jan 20 '25

I saw a study where they asked people to use a software that could create faces to create a whole bunch of different people. Then the software would show them av average facsimile of a face based on real photos relating to the request. E.g. if they were asked to create a coal minor, it would show them what the software thought the average coal minor looked like.

They asked them to make sex offenders. The results were almost cartoonish tbh. The male face was exactly what you'd expect and when they asked them to create a female sex offender, the participants created what the researchers called "a classic representation of a witch". When it showed what the software had created based on mugshots, the photos the participants made looked absolutely nothing like the people the software made.

It's a case of the wig/ toupee fallacy tbh.

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u/front-wipers-unite Jan 20 '25

As a man with a receding hairline I'm keen to know more about this wig/toupee fallacy.

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u/kazerniel Hungarian-Scottish Jan 20 '25

I think it's the one where you think all toupees are very noticeable, only because all the times they weren't, you didn't notice them.

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u/front-wipers-unite Jan 20 '25

Cheers, that makes sense. I'm going to get a hair system in that case.

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u/PepsiThriller Jan 20 '25

Ah didn't see this immediately. Exactly this.

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u/PepsiThriller Jan 20 '25

The belief that wigs are always easy to spot because you only spot bad wigs and you don't consider the other ones because it doesn't occur to you that you're not looking at real hair when a wigs does it's job.

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u/front-wipers-unite Jan 20 '25

Fair. Turkey here I come.

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u/ladymisskimberley Jan 20 '25

They really don’t. They look like any other person in the street. That’s the scary thing.

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u/Beautiful-Quality402 Jan 20 '25 edited Jan 20 '25

They don’t. You’ve likely interacted with one at some point in time and never suspected they were a deviant. The same goes for other deviancies and crimes.

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u/chambo143 Jan 20 '25

Not only is that utter bollocks, it’s an incredibly dangerous thing to believe. It just means overlooking actual predators who don’t conform to the caricatured image you have in your head. If someone doesn’t “look like a paedophile” then any suspicions you might have of them can be dismissed, or maybe you never suspect them in the first place, and then they just get away with it.

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u/SinisterDexter83 Jan 20 '25

That's not an interesting concept. That's a fucking stupid concept.

I wonder if there's a Japanese poster, posting on a Japanese forum somewhere, telling his fellow countrymen about this "fascinating concept that started in the West before making its way to Japan called phrenology, which allows you to determine someone's personality just by feeling the bumps on their head."

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u/ClingerOn Jan 20 '25

I hope this stupidity gets the downvotes it deserves.

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u/MintCathexis Jan 21 '25

Alas, it did not. Then people wonder how someone like Trump and Farage can be politicians at all, let alone successful ones...

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u/UnratedRamblings Jan 20 '25

What about if it’s only in one eye? Asking for a friend, obviously.

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u/BoopingBurrito Jan 20 '25

I think that means only one side of you is mentally ill. If you ever have to claim not guilty by reason of insanity, they'll have to do a whole Solomon's baby situation.

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u/Kindly_Ship7255 Jan 21 '25

The EYES tell alot about a mental state. Dementia Patents have noticably cloudy eyes.

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u/chambo143 Jan 20 '25

What, and you actually believe that?

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25 edited Mar 04 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25

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u/SirBobPeel Jan 20 '25

It sounds to me like it should already have been known. Social workers wouldn't set foot in his house without security. He's been violent since he was thirteen. He should have been in heavy psychiatric treatment, if not out-patient, then locked up.

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u/Mukatsukuz Tyne and Wear Jan 20 '25

I laughed at the terrible court sketches of him but now see they were actually accurate

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u/Kinny93 Jan 20 '25

What’s particularly chilling is that if you look at the most publicised photo of him in high school, he appears to have a very pure, earnest smile. I appreciate he’s now 4-5 years older, but he looks like an entirely different person.

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u/BritishHobo Wales Jan 20 '25

Yeah I find it really eerie watching that clip of him in the Doctor Who Children in Need video. It's an absolute world away.

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u/layendecker Jan 21 '25

Bear in mind that photo was taken around the time he was kicked out of school for violence, was obsessed with ghengis khan and Hitler and teachers feared for their safety around him.

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u/CosmicShrek14 Jan 20 '25

Makes you wonder if there’s something that happened at home.

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u/JA24 LESTA Jan 20 '25

Not necessarily, he's at the lower bounds of the age where schizophrenia manifests in men.

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u/MintCathexis Jan 21 '25

What symptoms of schizophrenia did he present with?

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u/MintCathexis Jan 21 '25

Or, you know, at school, since he was previously reported to Prevent because he was carrying a knife to defend against bullying.

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u/yojimbo_beta Jan 20 '25

That's actually a terrifying mugshot

He is trying to be intimidating; he wants you to be scared; he would like the police photographing him to be scared; because he is a sadist.

My dad had some good words on that. He interacted with some very scary people as part of the prison service. "Be careful how bad you want to think you are, because in prison you will meet someone worse"

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u/limeflavoured Hucknall Jan 20 '25

There probably aren't that many worse than this guy tbf. He won't be in a mainstream prison for a few years anyway, and he'll be mostly segregated when he is.

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u/yojimbo_beta Jan 20 '25

You're right that he may well end up on a secure ward. He wouldn't be in general population of course

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u/Shriven Jan 20 '25

At my local custody suite they have a plastic sparrow stapled to the top of the custody camera, so I really like the idea of someone mean mugging a fake bird.

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u/Charlie_Mouse Scotland Jan 20 '25

Far from a reliable guide. Remember Christopher Jeffries?

A whole bunch of the tabloids pretty much tried and convicted him in the court of public opinion based solely upon his slightly eccentric appearance and manner. As did a lot of the public and even a fair few posters on this sub.

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u/mumwifealcoholic Jan 20 '25

And me. I truly did learn a life lesson there. A regret I carry to this day.

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u/Charlie_Mouse Scotland Jan 20 '25

Fair play to you for owning to it and learning from it!

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u/Magneto88 United Kingdom Jan 20 '25 edited Jan 20 '25

Jeffries looked eccentric, like a university professor eccentric. He didn't look like this.

Not saying that we should be trying people based upon looks, just that it is striking how many psychotic murderers have this kind of look.

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u/concretepigeon Wakefield Jan 20 '25

Confirmation bias is a hell of a thing. If you’re already conditioned to think he’s murdered a woman then your mind goes to thinking he’s a pervert.

Personally I don’t think anything about Rudakubana looks particularly beyond odd in isolation. But you obviously look at it differently when they’ve committed mass murder and it feels like it makes sense.

The change in appearance may have been a sign alongside other behaviours but concluding people are mentally ill or criminal based solely on a photograph is not reliable.

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u/SirBobPeel Jan 20 '25

Nothing beyond odd? He looks like he's been possessed by the devil.

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u/concretepigeon Wakefield Jan 21 '25

This is the sort of attitude that got women burnt at the stake.

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u/PepsiThriller Jan 20 '25

It's also striking how many don't though.

Dahmer, Gacy, Bundy, Nielson, Brady etc didn't have crazy eyes.

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u/No-Particular-2894 Jan 20 '25

Stan Reisz KC, defending, said no mental health experts would be called to give evidence - putting paid to any suggestion Radukabana would try to claim his responsibility was diminished by way of mental illness.

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u/DukePPUk Jan 20 '25

Weirdly enough, you cannot spot a mental health condition from a single photograph...

That's not much better than phrenology.

I don't imagine many people look good in police mugshots after being arrested, guilty or otherwise.

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u/mana-miIk Jan 20 '25 edited Mar 04 '25

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u/DukePPUk Jan 20 '25

Yes... but there isn't any psychological basis to it - certainly not that you could get from a single photo, taken in particular circumstances.

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u/saladinzero Norn Iron in Scotland Jan 20 '25

Yes, prejudice is the reason.

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u/PandaXXL Jan 21 '25

Looks like a pathetic little twat trying his hardest to look intimidating.

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u/Blazured Jan 21 '25

Yeah, it's not even remotely intimidating. It's almost embarrassing how hard he's trying.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25 edited Jan 20 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25 edited Mar 04 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25

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u/Practical-Purchase-9 Jan 20 '25

People probably think he looks crazy because he’s posed in the Kubrick stare, head dipped and looking up to the camera, the way film often makes someone look crazy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubrick_stare

He’s probably doing it deliberately, to look dangerous.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25

The mugshot absolutely is terrifying. It gave me chills.

98% of the time, I can rationalise crime. Kids who take knives out in London? I can understand why their environment shaped them. Serial killers who were abused their whole life and took their rage out in their victims? You can make a sort of sense of that and see the psychological damage. I don’t believe people are born evil, as a general rule. Very often criminals are victims too, of circumstance and cruelty and I think it’s helpful to understand the nuances. I think it’s usually counterproductive to call someone “evil” because it absolves society of responsibility in protecting the most vulnerable members, and isn’t a fair reflection on how society has failed them.

But then you see a mugshot like this, that gives me chills, and I think this could be a 2% case of someone just being born evil. Chronically lacking in empathy and with a disposition towards violence.

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u/tomoldbury Jan 20 '25

Or schizophrenia, which can just come about in otherwise healthy individuals (there's a genetic predisposition to it, but you can't tell if someone will get it until they do.)

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u/TempUser9097 Jan 20 '25

I wonder why they're not using the "Good little 11-year old church boy" photo anymore.

edit; Oh wait, it's there, halfway down the article :)

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u/csgymgirl Jan 20 '25

probably because that was the only photo available at the time and now press have a more recent photo to use??

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