Southport stabbings seven year-old victim was stabbed 33 times shielding others

A heroic seven year-old Southport survivor "fought like hell" to save herself and others as the horrific attack took place, her mother has revealed. As the Southport Inquiry opened this week it heard statements from the families of four girls who survived despite being severely injured during the shocking attack last July 29th.

Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, all died in the atrocity. Eight other children, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes were also seriously injured, while another 16 kids suffered significant psychological trauma. Parents of the survivors gave more than two hours of emotional testimony during the hushed hearing at Liverpool Town Hall on Wednesday morning.

The mother of one girl, known simply as C1 to protect her anonymity, said the "most painful of truths" about the attacks carried out by then 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana was there were no adults to help her.

Terrified C1 was stabbed 33 times at the dance workshop in Southport's Hart Street and was airlifted to Alder Hey Children's Hospital.

Her mum said she became known as "the girl who was dragged back in", after CCTV footage shown at Liverpool Crown Court in January captured the moment C1, already wounded, tried to flee the dance studio building.

It showed genocide-obsessed Rudakubana grabbing her and pulling her backwards into the building to inflict more damage before she escaped, eventually collapsing on the street.

The mother explained: "For eleven seconds she is out of sight and then there she is again.

"She has stood up after enduring another attack of more than twenty stab wounds to her back and shoulders. She stumbles outside to the windows reaching for help. She eventually falls and soon after is carried to safety."

The town hall chamber heard that C1's injuries were "vast" and covered "so much of her body and organs". Her mother said: "The damage was catastrophic. The hours and days that followed the attack were a living hell."

The inquiry heard how her daughter had shielded other children as they were attacked and screamed at them to run.

The mum said her daughter recalled that one of the girls managed to escape but she crouched over the other to protect her and told her everything "would be ok."

The mother said her daughter told her: "It happened so fast, but I helped them, I'm glad I could help them."

She said that she did not doubt "for one moment" that the actions of the teachers in the class, Leanne Lucas and Heidi Liddle, also helped save lives when they encouraged children to flee.

However she added: "The uncomfortable and often unspoken truth of our own reality is that, when the adults left in those first moments, our daughter had to save herself.

"It is these untold stories of remarkable strength and bravery that are missing when we have heard other accounts of this day.

"I think it is vitally important that those girls are now heard, so that the inquiry can understand the complexities of this experience for everyone."

She added: "That reality is painful - our children fought alone, they shielded each other, comforted each other, and helped each other and that must be remembered.

"Our daughter may be a survivor of this attack, but she is still trying to survive this, every single day."

C1's mother said the trauma her daughter had suffered manifested itself in the form of panic attacks, flashbacks and extreme separation anxiety, which meant she was unable to attend school full time.

She said: "She is trying to make sense of something that makes no sense. She needs us to guarantee her safety in a world where we can't. It is like sucking out poison."

The inquiry also heard from the father of C3, a nine-year-old girl who was also critically injured that day.

He told the inquiry his daughter was: "Stabbed three times in the back by a coward she didn't even see. She bears the scars, both physically and emotionally, of that terrible day.

"We know that she is only a small way down the path that life will take her, and that obstacles will continue to present themselves along the way."

C3's parents described their daughter as their "hero" for remaining "positive" despite struggling with the emotional and physical scars of what she had suffered.

Her father said: "We have seen the CCTV footage of her, looking scared, confused and pained, as she runs from the building. It was troubling for us to see what she had to go through, before either of her parents had arrived at the scene.

"We are so thankful and proud that despite being critically injured she was able to make the decisions she did in that terrible moment."

The father said that their daughter, who underwent six hours of emergency surgery for her injuries, still had difficulty going to sleep at night, suffered flashbacks and was scared of loud noises, was always looking "over her shoulder" scanning for potential danger when she left the house, and even had to turn off particular songs when they came on the radio.

The mother of another girl who was at the event, referred to as Child Q, said arriving to collect her daughter on that day and seeing screaming children running from the building was "the most horrific experience of my life".

"To be unaware of what was happening, trying to process it all whilst also being fearful of what could happen next - it's an unexplainable feeling," she said. "What I saw on that day will stick with me forever, I constantly have flashbacks and re-live what happened."

In the statement, read by the family's legal representative, the woman said her daughter now has to sit where she can see the door at school so she can always be aware of who is entering the classroom, and is sometimes unable to attend school altogether due to her anxiety.

While the mother of a seven-year-old girl, C8, said the incident had "changed everything". She was at work on July 29 when she received a "panicked phone call" from her friend's mother.

She said: "That moment, the sound of fear in her voice and the panic I felt will never leave me. I rushed to the scene and what I saw is something no parent should ever see."

She said her daughter, who suffered injuries to her arm and face, could not be left alone anymore and only felt safe with a small number of people, needing "constant support, reassurance and protection".

She had "witnessed horrors that no-one should ever see", she said.

She said: "I am grateful beyond words that she survived. But what she went through, what she saw and what she continues to carry has changed everything."

Counsel to the inquiry Nicholas Moss KC paid tribute to the "immense courage and dignity" of the families who had prepared evidence.

Rudakubana, now 18, was given a life sentence, with a minimum term of 52 years - one of the highest on record - after admitting three murders and 10 attempted murders, plus other offences, including making the deadly toxin ricin.

The inquiry has now adjourned until 8th September and is expected to hear evidence about the circumstances of the attack and Rudakubana's contact with various agencies in the months and years before it.

The second phase, expected to start next year, will look at wider issues around how young people become drawn into "extreme violence".

The brother of Axel Rudakubana will not be able to watch impact evidence from families of his victims at the public inquiry into the attack, the inquiry chair has ruled

Dion Rudakubana has been recognised as a "core participant" for the hearing, but Sir Adrian Fulford said Dion and his legal team would not receive disclosure of material covering what happened from the moment Rudakubana got into a taxi and travelled to Hart Street to carry out the attack on July 29.

He also ruled they would not be able to attend, either in the hearing room or over a video link, when impact evidence and commemorative portraits were given and would not receive advanced disclosure of them.

Explaining why, Sir Adrian said the inquiry would consider the extent to which the threat posed by Rudakubana was appreciated and appropriately handled by members of his immediate family, including his brother.