Minute by minute - horror of Southport stabbings as killer sentenced
Axel Rudakubana is being sentenced on Thursday. Warning: this article contains details some may find distressing
As dozens of smiling children happily sang and played at a Taylor Swift dance class on a beautiful summer's morning last year, three miles away Axel Rudakubana was arming himself with a kitchen knife with a 20cm blade. He knew his target and was readying himself to launch a horrific, pre-planned atrocity, delivering hundreds of stabbing wounds on the little unsuspecting victims, leaving some with, "sadistic" fatal, injuries.
Twenty-six excited children, all girls and all aged between six and 13, had earlier been dropped off by loving parents at 10am for the start of the two-hour event, organised by instructors Leanne Lucas and Heidi Liddle at The Hart Space in Hart Street, Southport. Rudakubana, despite the sunshine, wearing a green hooded sweatshirt with the hood up and a surgical mask took a taxi at 11.10am to Hart Street, arriving just before 11.45am.
Before leaving home, he had searched online for "Mar Mari Emmanuel stabbing", - the knife attack on a bishop in Sydney, Australia, earlier that year. He travelled in silence and when he arrived, left the vehicle without paying, prompting the driver to follow him demanding payment, which he ignored.
A worker at a body shop saw what was going on, telling Rudakubana to pay the taxi driver, but he replied: "What are you going to do about it?"
Inside the play event, because of the summer heat, Leanne Lucas opened a window and as she did so, saw Rudakubana outside, but thought nothing of it. Children were gathered around tables in the studio making friendship bracelets, a life-size model of Taylor Swift standing nearby for the youngsters to have their photos taken alongside.
Then the door opened. Rudakubana entered, armed with the black-handled Cerbera kitchen knife. Seconds later, the chilling sound of terrified children's screams rang out.
Without saying a word, he had grabbed the child nearest to him, a 10-year-old who had been sitting at a table making a bracelet, and began stabbing her. He plunged the knife twice into her back, which penetrated deep into her chest.
The girl suffered life-threatening injuries and major blood loss but survived. Her spleen however had to be removed during surgery. He then moved through the room, systematically stabbing as many children as he could before they could escape him.
Leanne Lucas thought he had come to collect a child and it was only when he reached her and she felt the knife go in her back that she realised he was armed and stabbing them all. Terrified children fled towards the door, with Rudakubana chasing after them, still stabbing.
Emergency services at the scene on Hart Street, Southport (Image: @ChauffeurWest/PA Wire)As the youngsters ran outside, Ms Lucas called 999 as she ran, telling the children to "run away, run away". At 11.46am, CCTV footage shows a girl, aged seven, trying to escape via the downstairs entrance door, only to be pulled back in and to the floor by the defendant.
Seconds later she is seen emerging again, staggering, struggling to stay on her feet before collapsing to the floor. Heidi Liddle had been sitting on the floor helping the children to make bracelets when she heard screaming and saw the defendant move swiftly across the room, lunging at the children.
But it was only when he stabbed Leanne Lucas that she began to register what was happening. She tried to pull Leanne away and then started pushing the children towards the exit.
One of the girls ran towards the toilet on the landing at the top of the stairs. Ms Liddle followed her inside, locked the door and braced her foot against it. Both terrified, she told the youngster to remain very quiet, not to make a sound.
Outside they could hear children screaming. And then the door rattled. When she heard voices outside the toilet door, crying for the defendant to "Stop!", she realised not all of the children had managed to escape.
Axel Rudakubana (Image: Merseyside Police/PA)Businessman Jonathan Hayes was working in his office across the landing from the dance studio when he heard the screaming, looked out of his window and saw children running across the car park. A colleague then shouted a child was outside, bleeding.
He got up to help but as he walked onto the landing, he saw the body of a child, lying motionless on the floor. Crouching over her was the defendant who then began to approach him, following him into his office as he retreated.
The defendant swiped at him with a knife, which he tried to grab, and Mr Hayes was stabbed in the leg before a colleague chased the defendant away. Witnesses described young girls running from the studio into the street, in their summer clothes of T-shirts and shorts, bleeding from multiple stab wounds.
Outside, a mother was sitting in her car waiting to collect her daughter when she heard the screaming and saw people running from the building. She managed to grab her daughter and get into her vehicle, along with three other children.
One of them had a bleeding injury to the chest, Alice da Silva Aguiar. She collapsed inside the vehicle from the injury and died in hospital the next day. She was aged nine.
Alice Dasilva Aguiar (Image: Merseyside Police/PA Wire)Police Sergeant Gillespie was the first officer on scene, arriving at 11.57am. CCTV showed a member of the public saying: "You need a f****** gun mate, he's got a knife".
Body-worn footage showed officers enter the building to find Rudakubana, holding the large, bloodied kitchen knife, standing over the body of Bebe King. He dropped the knife when ordered to do so and the officers tackled him to the floor.
Bebe King (Image: Merseyside Police/PA Wire)A member of the public, Joel Verite, followed police into the building, picking up Bebe King and carrying her out. She was aged six.
In the studio itself, Sgt Gillespie found the body of Elsie Dot Stancombe, lying on her back on the floor, covered in blood, suffering severe injuries. It was obvious she had died. She was aged seven.
Elsie Dot Stancombe (Image: Merseyside Police/PA Wire)Soon afterwards Heidi Liddle and a little girl she protected were found hiding in a toilet. A police officer tells Ms Liddle: "Listen, listen, listen, you're safe."
Crying with fear and relief, they were escorted from the building. At 11.59am, the defendant was arrested, initially on suspicion of attempted murder and soon afterwards, at 12.02pm on suspicion of murder.
Rudakubana had stabbed two adults and 11 children. Elsie Dot, Bebe and Alice all suffered fatal injuries.
Later at the police station, he told officers: "It's a good thing those children are dead... I'm so glad... so happy".
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