Appeal for commemorative playground for Southport victims hits £250,000 target

An appeal for a commemorative playground at the Southport primary school attended by Alice da Silva Aguiar and Bebe King has reached its £250,000 target.

Alice, nine, and Bebe, six, were killed along with seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe in an attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29 last year.

Alice’s father Sergio Aguiar and Churchtown Primary School headteacher Jinnie Payne are supporting the playground appeal by running the TCS London Marathon next month.

Mr Aguiar, speaking on BBC Breakfast on Saturday before the appeal hit its target, said: “I feel like we’re doing something great. In the next few years, thousands of children will enjoy that playground.

“We always said that the school felt like a second home to Alice.

“She would be very proud of us [creating] this playground. I can imagine how happy she would be to see it. I wish she could have enjoyed it.”

Thanking people for their donations, he said: “People are so kind. They come up to me and say ‘well done, the playground will be amazing’.”

Ms Payne said the building of the playground will be completed by September.

It will also include a performance space and a library.

Alan Bowen, who was Alice’s favourite teacher at Churchtown Primary, said he could imagine her on the playground’s stage.

“It would be easy to see (her) dancing and performing, singing, twirling her hair and leading everybody else,” he said on BBC Breakfast.

He said Alice loved to perform and the stage would provide a “space where children are going to show off their flair, their sass – and Alice had sass in bucketloads”.

Axel Rudakubana was jailed for a minimum of 52 years in January for the murders of the three girls and attempted murders of eight other children, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.

– To support the fundraiser, visit: www.gofundme.com/f/churchtown-primary-school.