Southport mother thought daughter was dead, inquiry hears

A frantic mother searching for her child told how she thought her daughter was dead in the Southport attack.

The child, aged under 10 and identified only as child X, had hid in toilets with dance teacher Heidi Liddle as Axel Rudakubana launched a stabbing frenzy on innocent children attending a Taylor Swift themed workshop at a dance studio on Hart Street in the town.

They heard the screams of children on the other side of the door and in heart-stopping moments, the killer banging and rattling the handle trying to get inside their hiding place before police arrived, the public inquiry into the attack heard.

Rudakubana, 18, killed Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine; Bebe King, six; and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, in the knife attack and attempted to murder eight other children and two adults, including dance teacher Leanne Lucas on July 29 last year.

But when child X’s mother arrived to collect her from the event, discovering bloodied and stabbed children, she realised her own daughter was still inside the building with the killer.

“Time stopped and everything seemed to move in slow motion,” the mother of the young girl told the public inquiry into the attack.

“I ran back towards the building screaming her name.”

She ran into the building behind the emergency services but was stopped from entering the studio and left the building believing her daughter was dead, she told the hearing.

“I called my parents hysterically telling them that she was dead,” the mother said.

“But then, in the middle of the nightmare, I turned around and I saw my girl standing there with Heidi.

“Heidi had saved my daughter’s life. She had run towards the toilets instead of down the stairs with the other children.

“Heidi had seen her and followed her and shielded the toilet door whilst he tried to get in.

“I owe everything to Heidi for having the foresight to protect my daughter.

“She tells me she initially thought it was a game of hide and seek.

“I’ve no doubt in my mind, if Heidi hadn’t have stayed in the building with her, she wouldn’t have made it out alive.”

The woman said that although both mother and daughter were physically unscathed, they suffer daily from mental trauma.

“Since the incident, every day has been a day full of dysregulation, anxiety and depressive thoughts,” the mother said.

“I will never forget what I saw inside that building that day, so I cannot begin to imagine how my daughter will ever be able to process it.

“I was one of the first on the scene and witnessed things no one should ever see. Despite everything, I still consider us lucky – lucky that she came home to us.

“But the wounds we carry, hers, mine and our family’s are invisible and lifelong.”

Another mother told the hearing she was parked up on the street on Hart Street, outside the dance studio, when she saw her daughter running past and noticed she was covered in something.

She said: “At first I thought it must be paint, but I soon realised it was blood.

“She heard me call her and ran back to me, telling me as she did ‘Mum, I’ve been stabbed’.

“I didn’t know what to do. Nothing could have prepared me for the horror of seeing my child so horrifically injured.”

She told the inquiry her daughter, referred to as child C5, lost her entire blood volume at the scene and was rushed by air ambulance to Manchester Children’s Hospital for life-saving surgery.

She said: “She was minutes away from death and we thank god everyday for the Midlands Air Ambulance crew, whose skill and dedication saved her life.”

The inquiry was adjourned until next Monday, when the families of the three girls who died are due to give evidence.