Joseph Wheeler was free to head the company – which sold weapons used in at least two other murders – despite a police warning for marketing knives as ‘suitable for combat’
The boss of a knife retailer which sold a “fearsome” machete to the Southport killer was previously cautioned by police for selling blades.
Joseph Wheeler, the managing director of Knife Warehouse, told the public inquiry into the attack on Tuesday that the blade they sold the killer was “just another product”. Axel Rudakubana went on to murder schoolgirls Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, as well as injuring eight more girls and two adults.
Then 17, he launched the attack with a knife bought on Amazon at a Taylor Swift themed dance class on July 29 last year. The inquiry heard how ten months earlier, Rudakubana had purchased another weapon – the Black Panther kukri machete with a 16.5in blade – from Knife Warehouse.
Wheeler was free to sell deadly weapons despite being given a police caution in 2015 for marketing his knives as “suitable for combat”. Three years later Knife Warehouse sold blades used to murder 17-year-old Malcolm Mide-Madariola.
Malcolm died after the 15in jackal “zombie knife” was plunged into his heart when he intervened in a fight outside his sixth-form college in Clapham, South London in 2018. His 17-year-old killer, Tammuz Brown, was given the knife by Treynae Campbell, 19, who had built an armoury of weapons bought from Knife Warehouse.
A year later County Lines drug dealer Ashraf Hussan, 20, was given a life sentence for the knife murder of Peter Anderson, 46, using a blade bought from Wheeler’s company.
Teenage terrorist Matthew King was jailed for life at the Old Bailey in 2023 after setting up an online account with Knife Warehouse and buying “tactical gloves” and goggles. The Muslim convert planned a knife attack and expressed a desire to kill as he prepared to stake out a British Army barracks in Stratford, east London.
On Wednesday, under the slogan “If you like surprises then grab a mystery box from the Knife Warehouse” the website was advertising deals where shoppers are sent a random knife for either £10 or £20.
On Tuesday Sir Adrian Fulford, the Southport inquiry’s chairman, asked Wheeler: “Is it your evidence that those machetes your company sold were in your view all going to be used by whoever bought them to cut vegetation?”
Mr Wheeler replied: “I couldn’t tell you what their intentions were.” Sir Adrian said: “You don’t actually really have any curiosity about who you are selling these to?” Mr Wheeler replied: “I suppose not.”
The Mirror has contacted Knife Warehouse for comment.
Axel Rudakubana ‘asked archery retailersfor crossbows in discreet packaging’
The Southport attacker contacted two archery retailers when he was 15 asking if they could deliver crossbows in “discreet” packaging, the public inquiry into the attack also heard.
Bradley Sutherland, director of MB Outdoors, which runs Tactical Archery, confirmed an email, signed “A”, was received by the company on May 3 2022.In it, Rudakubana said: “I would like to purchase from Tactical Archery but I would prefer discreet packaging which doesn’t provide any information on what is inside the box.“Could I see a photo of what the external packaging of your products look like?”
When the company told Rudakubana grey packaging bags were used when sending out crossbows he emailed again and said: “Does the crossbow packaging say ‘Tactical Archery’ on it or any other branding?”He emailed a third time with the same question, the inquiry was told. Harriet Wakeman, counsel to the inquiry, said: “He was going to quite some lengths to determine the nature of the packaging on the crossbow that he may have been seeking to order?”. Mr Sutherland replied: “Yes, you could say that looking at it from hindsight.”
He said the inquiries were not unusual enough to raise any cause for concern at the time. It is against the law to sell a crossbow to a child unless there are reasonable grounds to believe them to be 18 or older, the inquiry heard.The Liverpool Town Hall hearing was told that on the same day as his initial contact with Tactical Archery, Rudakubana emailed Merlin Archery and asked: “If I bought an 18 plus product how would you verify my age, do you verify ID online or does the delivery person check my ID at my door?
“Also, do I have to be 18 to receive the product when it’s at my door?”
Managing director of Merlin Archery Benjamin Jones was asked by counsel to the inquiry Richard Boyle: “It’s hard to see why an adult would ask that question, isn’t it?”
Mr Jones said: “Yes, I would agree.”
The company replied to Rudakubana with details on the age verification process and he emailed again, twice, to ask about discreet packaging.
The inquiry heard he did not purchase anything from either company.