Taxi driver saw ‘stampede’ of children fleeing Southport attack, inquiry hears

The taxi driver who took Axel Rudakubana to the Southport attack has said he drove away despite seeing screaming children running “like a stampede for their lives” because he thought he heard gunshots.

Gary Poland, a driver for One Call Taxis, did not call emergency services until 50 minutes after hearing screams coming from the Hart Space studio, having picked up another fare and returned home first.

Giving evidence over video link to the Southport Inquiry at Liverpool Town Hall on Thursday, Mr Poland said he threatened to call the police when Rudakubana ignored his requests to pay his fare but thought he had gone to get money when he went into the building where the Taylor Swift-themed dance class was being held.

The teenager murdered Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and attempted to murder 10 others in the attack on July 29 last year.

Mr Poland said in a statement he was in “a state of complete mortal terror and shock” after he believed he heard four or five gunshots.

He later told police: “That’s when I got worried and I thought, ‘I’m not going to confront anyone with a gun’.”

Mr Poland described “extremely vivid” screaming of children and went on to say: “I then saw a mass huddle of children aged approximately six or seven. They were screaming, it was like a stampede for their lives.”

Nicholas Moss KC, counsel to the inquiry, asked the witness: “Do you accept, as you drove away, children were fleeing alongside your car. And you can be seen looking in the rear view camera?”

“That’s correct,” Mr Poland said, adding: “I did not know anybody was injured. I did not see anybody injured.”

A minute after leaving Hart Street, Mr Poland rang his friend, Julian Medlock, who ran a garage near to the Hart Space.

A transcript of the call, shown to the inquiry, revealed Mr Poland said: “He just f****** shot everyone ain’t he?”

In a later call, after Mr Medlock told him around 15 children had been stabbed, the taxi driver said: “And there’s me chasing him and shouting at him saying ‘I want f****** paying, Christ. I was lucky there myself weren’t I?”

Mr Moss asked Mr Poland if it seemed he was preoccupied with how lucky he was, rather than the injuries to the girls.

He replied: “I think I was lucky with him being sat behind me, me not knowing he had a knife on him. He could have just got me like that, but he didn’t.”

The private hire taxi picked up Rudakubana from his home in Banks, Lancashire, and, after checking the address with him, Mr Poland said they travelled in silence before arriving at Hart Street at 11.44am.

When he dropped him off, Mr Poland said he did not realise Rudakubana was carrying a knife.

He told the inquiry: “If I’d have thought he had a knife I’d have got out and disarmed him. It’s only a knife.”

In a statement, Mr Poland said in hindsight he wished he had called police earlier.

He said: “It’s something that I do think about every day, what I should have done and how this is my fault because I drove him there.

“I should have checked on the welfare of the children and helped.

“I thought there was a gunman shooting at people and I believed this to be the person who I had just been shouting at to pay me a fare and threatened to call the police, so I did believe that I was in danger of being a target.

“I regret not helping the children. Their screams were harrowing and I can still hear them when I think back to that day.”

Asked if he wanted to say anything else at the end of his evidence, Mr Poland replied: “I’d just like to say I feel really sorry for the families what’s been involved in the incident.

“I know it’s never going to leave their minds for the rest of their lives.”

The hearing was adjourned until Monday morning.