Southport attack yoga teacher says she had to survive to save the children

A yoga teacher who was attacked in the Southport stabbings has said she felt she had to survive in order to save the children in her class, despite being stabbed five times.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a Taylor Swift-themed class in the Merseyside town in July last year, when he was 17.

Rudakubana – who was jailed for a minimum of 52 years in January – attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as well as businessman John Hayes and class instructor Leanne Lucas.

In an interview with the BBC’s Panorama, Ms Lucas told the programme how she was able to get herself and several children out of the room, despite suffering stab wounds to her spine, head, ribs, lung and shoulder blade.

“I just knew that if I didn’t get out, everyone was going to die,” she told the broadcaster.

“He was bigger than me. And I just thought: I need to get some help. So we all run towards the door. We were shouting: ‘Run!’ I called 999 on the landing and I asked for the police.”

Fourteen-year-old Sarah – a fellow survivor whose identity is protected by a court order – also spoke to the programme, telling the BBC of how she managed to fight through serious injury to lead several of the children to safety.

She said: “I remember seeing the girls all like huddling around the stairs. So I remember shouting for them to get down and get out.

“So I was physically pushing them down the stairs to get everyone out.

“I thought that he wasn’t going to stop until he killed everyone. I thought that he wanted to kill us all.”

After managing to escape the building, Ms Lucas said she urged people on the street to rescue the girls.

“My brain is going 100 miles an hour but my body won’t do anything,” she said.

“And there are people asking me questions and I am saying: ‘Go and get the children.’

“I just don’t know what else I could have done.”