The mother of a Southport murder victim has said her daughter’s killer was “cruel and pure evil” and that his attack was “the act of a coward”.
Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, was one of three girls murdered by Axel Rudakubana at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the Hart Space on a small business park in the seaside town shortly before midday on July 29 last year.
The parents of another of the 18-year-old’s victims, Alice da Silva Aguiar, who was nine when she was killed, said in a separate statement: “Our dream girl has been taken away in such a horrible, undeserving way that it shattered our souls.”
A number of victim impact statements were read to the court ahead of Rudakubana’s sentencing, including of class instructor Leanne Lucas who said: “I cannot give myself compassion or accept praise, as how can I live knowing I survived when children died.”
A statement from Elsie’s mother Jenny Stancombe, which was read to the court by prosecutors, said: “The nature of your actions is beyond contempt.
“You deliberately chose that place, fully aware that there would be no parents present, fully aware that those girls were vulnerable and unable to protect themselves.
“This was not an act of impulse, it was premeditated.”
Her statement added: “We are not going to stand here and list everything you have taken away from us, because we refuse to give you the satisfaction of hearing it.
“We will not let you know anything about her because you don’t deserve to know the extraordinary person she was.
“You know what you have done, and we hope the weight of that knowledge haunts you every single day.”
In their statement Alexandra and Sergio Aguiar said of their daughter: “In a matter of minutes our worlds were shattered and turned upside down by the devastating attack on our Alice.
“A pin drop that changed our lives forever.
“We kept our hopes up every second during Alice’s 14-hour fight. But, once she had lost her fight, we lost our lives.”
Mr and Mrs Aguiar added: “Our life went with her. He took us too. Six months of continuous pain and a lifetime sentence. That’s what we got then and the life we live now.
“Our dream girl has been taken away in such a horrible, undeserving way that it shattered our souls.”
