The 17-year-old charged with murdering three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport can be named as Axel Muganwa Rudakubana after reporting restrictions were lifted.

On Thursday morning, the teenager appeared at Liverpool Crown Court charged with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder. He was remanded in custody.

Earlier on Thursday, Axel, from Banks, in Lancashire, had appeared in the dock at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court for a preliminary hearing.

Axel, who turns 18 on Aug 7, was born to Rwandan parents in Cardiff before moving to Banks.

He has been charged with the murders of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine; 10 counts of attempted murder; and possession of a bladed article, namely a “kitchen knife with a curved blade” following the attack on Monday.

The three children died after being stabbed while they were attending the Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga workshop.

Eight other children suffered stab wounds, with five in critical condition. Two children have been discharged from hospital.

Dozens of officers stood watch outside the courtroom after another night of violent protests across the country.

The teenager appeared at a hearing at Liverpool Crown Court, where Judge Andrew Menary KC, the Recorder of Liverpool, made the ruling.

Judge Menary said: “Continuing to prevent the full reporting has the disadvantage of allowing others to spread misinformation in a vacuum.

“Whilst I accept it is exceptional given his age, principally because he is 18 in six days time, I do not make an order under section 45.”

Previously, the teenager could not be named because of his age, but his anonymity would have fallen away next Wednesday when he turns 18.

Judge Menary heard arguments from the prosecution and defence and representations from the media about whether reporting of the defendant’s identity should be restricted until his 18th birthday.

Arguing against naming him, the prosecution said he had an “autism spectrum disorder diagnosis” and had been “unwilling to leave the house and communicate with family for a period of time”.

Axel, who spent the entire 55 minutes of the hearing covering his whole face, with his grey sweatshirt pulled up to his hairline, rocking back and forth and side to side at times, will next appear at Liverpool Crown Court on Oct 25.

A provisional trial date, lasting six weeks, was scheduled for Jan 20 next year.

Judge Menary told the defendant, who did not acknowledge the judge and continued to keep his head down: “You are remanded to youth detention accommodation until these proceedings have been completed.

“That position might change when you achieve your majority in a short while.”

A man who stalked a bus driver for nearly 60 years in the belief he was the 1950s pop star Johnnie Ray has been jailed for three years.

Kenneth Furnival, 75, bombarded John Ray, 78, with an “avalanche” of love letters and unwanted gifts over a six-decade campaign in one of the longest cases of stalking ever recorded.

Furnival’s obsession with his victim began in 1964 when Mr Ray, then 18, checked his bus ticket, Chester Crown Court heard.

Aged 15 at the time, he would send multicoloured notes to Mr Ray in which he referred to him as Johnnie Ray, complimenting him on his “blonde hair and blue eyes” and asking for signed pictures of him dressed in a blue pullover.

When Mr Ray ignored or burnt the letters, Furnival began secretly taking pictures of the father-of-two and his family and covertly spied on them as they went out on day trips to the seaside.

One letter from Furnival referred to a date when Mr Ray took his wife Jean to a restaurant and his jealousy at seeing them kissing. He also sent him Johnnie Ray CDs and DVDs.

Mr and Mrs Ray knew nothing about Furnival or what he looked like. They repeatedly tried to report him to police and handed over large bundles of letters he had sent but officers took no action, claiming they were harmless.

In 1979 they hired a lawyer to take civil action against their tormentor which resulted in him being jailed for flouting a court order, but Furnival still refused to give up his bizarre obsession.

During their ordeal the Rays never let their sons play outside as they had their father’s looks and they feared Furnival would target them too. They moved house and even changed surnames in a bid to be free of him but he would eventually catch up with them and the letters and gifts would start again.

Furnival, from Runcorn, Cheshire, was finally arrested in 2023 after the Rays captured him on their security camera when he delivered letters and a parcel of CDs through their door during a postal strike.

He had earlier sent them a Christmas card with a letter which read: “In 2023, I will burn £100, in 2024, I will burn £200, in 2025, I will burn £300, and stick it down your letterbox until it gets to £1,000. Money is no good to me unless I can buy photos of you, John Ray.” He signed off: “Kenneth Furnival, the man who knew too much.”

Police, fearing an arson attack might be imminent, searched Furnival’s home and found a framed picture covertly taken 35 years earlier of Ray on his bedroom wall. When interviewed he talked fondly of Mr Ray’s namesake who was known as the Prince of Wails for his ballads Cry and Please Mr Sun, and who died in 1990.

In court Mrs Ray, 73, who married her husband in 1973, spoke of their ordeal as Furnival was jailed after admitting stalking. “It was creepy and I was in a permanent state of anxiety,” she said.

“His letters made comments about my husband’s blonde hair and blue eyes and the singer Johnnie Ray. My mother even asked us to leave her house despite me looking after her.

“There were also comments about the movements with my children and those really frightened me as my son was, at that time, three years old, blonde and with blue eyes, and he had to endure the most overbearing mother as a result.

“I had never seen this man. I never knew where he was and yet he could comment on all our movements. We had our second son 12 years after the first, and he was another with blonde hair and blue eyes, so that was another cause for concern.

“This man seemed to know everything. We still did not know who he was, only his name, not who or what he was. I could have passed the time of day with him and not even known. My children were never out of my sight for much longer than they should have been. They were not able to go to the park unless I could go too. They had little freedom to grow. It became a way of life.”

She added: “I am now stuck in replay flashbacks, it’s horrible. I cannot get it out of my mind. All those years of being ridiculed and I was not wrong.

“We now live in our house surrounded by cameras and the stress has affected my relationships with other people.

“I had to bring up my children, overreacting for fear over their safety, and it affected my marriage. I have conducted a whole 50 years of my life with this intrusion. This has been an absolute nightmare. I have felt unsafe, angry, frightened and I felt that this will never end.”

In mitigation, Furnival’s lawyer Sarah Badrawy said her client had a “mental and neuro development disorder”, adding: “He is particularly susceptible to pressure, easily led and manipulated.”

But sentencing Judge Michael Leeming told Furnival: “You harboured an infatuation, an obsession, for over 50 years with the complainant which shows this offending was not isolated behaviour on your part or in any way out of character.

“You sent unwanted gifts, DVDs, CDs and letters on an extremely regular basis, going to his address and following him unseen. There has been similar behaviour which dates as far as 1964. The letters caused Mr Ray extreme distress, to both him and his wife.”

Summing up Furnival’s actions, he said: “These offences have involved a high degree of planning and persistence.”

Furnival was handed an indefinite restraining order prohibiting him from contacting the Rays. They declined to comment afterwards.

Danielle Reece-Greenhalgh, partner at Corker Binning, says: “This is a case in which, for an extraordinary length of time, the defendant was not properly investigated by police.

“Harassment persisting for over 50 years is almost unheard of, and the police’s inaction perhaps reflects archaic attitudes about how stalking behaviours manifest and who ‘typical’ offenders and victims of harassment and stalking might be.”

Jonathan Ross is embroiled in a privacy row after plans for 93 new homes to be built next to his £2 million farmhouse were unveiled.

The 63-year-old chat show host said the development would cause a “distressing loss of privacy” because the homes would look into bedrooms in his 16th-century property near Swanage, Dorset.

Ross and his wife Jane, a screenwriter and producer, have owned Grade II-listed Cauldron Barn Farm, which has a swimming pool, tennis court and horse-riding grounds, since 2005.

Developers now want to convert a disused former school next door to the former barn into a major housing project.

Westcoast Developments has drawn up plans to turn Harrow House International College, which closed in 2021, into a mixture of flats and homes to help meet the area’s planning targets.

Properties in the Victorian seaside town sold for an average of £440,000 last year, prompting fears that locals were being priced out of the market by second home owners.

This week the Government said it would make it easier for developers to build in rural areas to help deliver its promise of 1.5 million new homes by 2029.

In his letter of objection to Dorset council planners, Ross said: “Building up the height of the current buildings would mean that our property would be directly overlooked. We have bedrooms that face towards the proposed development and the loss of privacy would be very distressing and cause a great deal of stress.

“We are also concerned about the change to the fabric of local life caused by so many new dwellings in the area, and the direct impact on traffic and amenities.

“We’ve been approached many times by developers asking to buy our land for the same purpose and refuse because we are conscious of the impact it would have on the entire community. Building work on this scale would have a negative impact on wildlife.”

The proposals are for 14 apartments in the existing school building, 38 one-to-three bedroom flats in three apartment blocks, and 41 two-to-four bedroom homes. The maximum height of the buildings will be three or four storeys.

Ross’s concerns about privacy were echoed by Malcolm Jenkins, a fellow resident, who said there would be a “clear view into existing properties and gardens” and the development would block sunlight.

Chapman Lily Planning, a firm working for Westcoast Developments, said 10 per cent of the homes would be affordable, contributing to the council’s housing target. It added: “This site has the potential to deliver a highly successful and sustainable housing development of 93 new homes.”