How the Southport attack unfolded
EPA
“The dance club was full of laughter and excitement,” is how one girl, 14, described the atmosphere as a group of 26 children gathered for a Taylor Swift-themed class in Southport.
Their summer holidays had just begun and the sun was shining down on the town as they were dropped off by their parents. As the class got under way, 29 July 2024 had all the markings of a good day ahead.
But outside the class, a taxi driver was following a passenger he had just dropped off after he had refused to pay.
The passenger, in his teens, was not dressed for the weather: the hood of his thick green hoodie was pulled tight around his face and he was wearing a surgical mask. Inside his pocket was a 20cm kitchen knife.
Initially, Axel Rudakubana could not figure how to get into the studio and was caught on CCTV struggling with a locked door – but then he spotted another entrance and stepped inside.
That was, as one child survivor put it, the “beginning of my nightmare”.
The attack that unfolded next led Axel Rudakubana to a minimum of 52 years in prison. At his sentencing on Thursday, details revealing how the incident played out from the perspectives of those involved were revealed to the public for the first time.
Warning: This article contains distressing and upsetting details.
‘It wasn’t a prank’
Accounts from inside the dance class confirm that Rudakubana moved calmly and purposefully.
He had been planning this moment for some time. He did not hesitate, grabbing and stabbing the girl nearest to the door as soon as he walked in.
As Rudakubana attacked, he did not say a word.
For those inside the room, it took a moment to comprehend what was happening.
“I thought the man who stabbed me was a cleaner,” one of the child victims recounted.
It must be a practical joke, she thought, but later said: “I realised it wasn’t a prank when I saw blood coming out of me”.
Her memories of what happened next are “fuzzy”, but the child said she remembers thinking: “I don’t want to die, I have got to get out of here”.
Another victim said the image of Rudakubana in her memory is that of a monster stalking around the studio.
In court, she would later tell her would-be killer: “The thing I remember most about you is your eyes.
“You looked possessed and you didn’t look human.”
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The attack triggered a massive emergency response as responders battled to save lives
Leanne Lucas, who was leading the dance class, had first spotted Rudakubana outside when she went to open a window to let some air into the warm dance studio.
She thought nothing of it until the door swung open and he appeared.
What happened next, she said, left her and the girls with “scars we cannot un-see, scars we cannot move on from”.
The full horror of what was unfolding only became fully clear when she was stabbed in the back. She later told the girls: “I’m surviving for you”.
Heidi Liddle, who was also supervising the class, had been sitting on the floor helping the children to make friendship bracelets.
By the time she realised what was happening, the fast-moving attacker had already done unspeakable damage.
Heidi jumped into action and began trying to rush the girls towards the door.
One girl ran for a toilet on the other side of the landing and she followed.
Heidi locked the door behind them and pressed herself against it. Do not make a sound, she told the girl.
And then the door rattled. Rudakubana was still looking for victims.
Outside, she heard the screams of children who had not managed to escape.
‘Running for my life’
Rudakubana set out to kill as many children as he could: by the time the 15 minute frenzy was over, two girls were dead and one was dying.
Another eight children and two adults had been stabbed. Some were fighting for their lives.
If it was not for the quick-thinking and bravery of the girls, it is certain that more would have died.
One child remembers the world seeming to move in “slow motion” as Rudakubana moved towards her, attacking her friends as he made his way across the room.
Instinct kicked in.
She remembers “physically pushing” her friends who were still able to run as they fled down the stairs.
When she confronted Rudakubana in court by reading her statement, she told him: “I knew I was running for my life.
“I knew from your eyes you wanted to try and kill us all.”
When he was sentenced, the judge concluded that if Rudakubana had been able to, he would have killed each and every child present – and anyone else who got in his way.
Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Bebe King, six, lost their lives
One of the children who survived that day was stabbed 30 times. She was airlifted to hospital and doctors operated on her for six hours to try and save the use of her arms, hands and fingers.
“She watched two of the girls die,” her parents told investigators.
On one occasion during her recovery, the child told her parents: “I don’t know who I am anymore.”
But six months on, she is fighting back. Her mother said: “We could never be more proud of what she has achieved over the last six months.
“He has completely failed to destroy her spirit, her amazing sense of humour, her fierceness and her pure beautiful heart.”
The Southport survivors are slowly rebuilding their lives.
Investigators who dealt with the case said they were staggered by their spirit and resilience.
That was on full display when one girl was asked what she says when her classmates ask if she wishes she had not been there that day.
“In some ways, I wish I wasn’t,” she tells them.
“But also, if I wasn’t there, someone else would have been stabbed and they could have died – so I’m glad I might have stopped someone else getting hurt.”
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