The MP for Southport said he believes Axel Rudakubana sinisterly planned his mass murder mission to take place just before his 18th birthday because he knew the punishment would be more lenient.

Patrick Hurley said he is "disappointed" Rudakubana did not get a whole life sentence because he was still 17 - and seen as a child in the law - when he carried out his sickening knife rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last July. The MP has made an urgent request for the decision to be reviewed after the now 18-year-old was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years in jail on Thursday.

He said he fears the young girls traumatised on that tragic day will be "re-traumatised" when they are in their 50s if Rudakubana applies to be released from prison. The judge said it was "likely" the killer would spend his whole life in prison but Mr Hurley said he is fighting to change the law so that "likely" can be removed from that sentence. He is urging the Attorney General to give judges the power to sentence evil under-18s to a whole life order under "exceptional circumstances".

READ MORE:

Speaking to Breakfast on Friday morning, Mr Hurley said: "I have nothing but praise for the judge. It was a wise sentencing, given the constraints and the context and the way in which he could give as long a sentence as possible. I'm disappointed that there wasn't available to the judge the whole life tariff that would have been available had the stabbing taken place just two weeks later. The murderer was a week and two days, I think, shy of his 18th birthday.

"This was a premeditated multiple murder, and it could have been even worse than it already was. And I think actually part of that premeditation was that he committed it when he was 17 in order to avoid a whole life tariff. That would not surprise me in the slightest."

He added: "What I don't want is that those little girls now who've had their childhoods traumatised are then re-traumatised when they get to the age of 55, maybe 56, and have to see him again apply for parole and again and again, and even if the parole boards in 50 years time reject the request, it's still going to be re-traumatising for them."

The government has said Rudakubana could not get a whole-life sentence because it would mean Britain would be breaking international law. Defence Secretary John Healey suggested a UN convention on children's rights stops Britain from being able to impose unlimited sentences on under-18s.

The Cabinet minister told Sky News: "There are limits on international, United Nations law that prevent us having a court system that will impose unlimited sentences on under-18-year-olds. But in practice, I can't see this man ever coming out of prison, I don't want to see this man ever coming out of prison, and the judge yesterday when he sentenced him to 52 years was also quite clear he doesn't expect him to come out of prison in the future."

The UN Convention on the Rights of a Child says governments which have signed it should ensure that "neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below 18 years of age".

The Defence Secretary declined to rule out changing the law to extend whole-life sentences to killers aged under 18. "We owe it to those victims to consider and then deliver the changes that their memories deserve," Mr Healey told Times Radio. He added: "The Prime Minister has made it clear that nothing is off the table."

Rudakubana, who victims' families branded "pure evil" and a "coward", received one of the highest minimum custody terms on record for the attack. Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were killed and harrowing details of the attack were heard at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday. Rudakubana also attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.

READ MORE: