The government is considering whether to challenge the prison sentence handed to Southport killer Axel Rudakubana as being “unduly lenient”.
The 18-year-old was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison with a minimum term of 52 years for the murders of three girls and attempted murders of eight other children and two adults.
Rudakubana wanted notoriety as a mass murderer when he went to a Taylor Swift dance class armed with a knife and started stabbing young girls.
Within minutes of the sentence being passed by Mr Justice Goose, Southport MP Patrick Hurley put in a request for a review of the punishment handed to Rudakubana.
The Attorney General's Office confirmed the referral under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, and has 28 days to decide whether to mount a full challenge.
"There is a high threshold for a successful ULS reference”, a spokesperson said.
“The sentence must be not just lenient but unduly so, for example if the sentencing judge made a gross error or imposed a sentence outside the range of sentences reasonably available in the circumstances of the offence."
Fifty two years is one of the longest minimum terms handed out in British criminal history, and Rudakubana was not eligible for a whole life term because he was 17 at the time of the offences.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch was among those who suggested the law should now be changed to allow under 18s to be locked up for the rest of their lives without the chance of parole.
Announcing his referral to the ULS scheme, Mr Hurley said: "In my view, the sentence passed is unduly lenient. The crimes he committed were horrific and natural justice demands he spends the rest of his life behind bars.
"I have therefore made a request to the attorney general to have the sentence reviewed urgently, with a view to making sure he is never released. My community deserves nothing less."
In the sentencing hearing, the judge will have to prove he is safe to be set free when the minimum term is up, when he will be 70-years-old.
He said it is “highly likely” Rudakubana will never be free again.
