A yoga teacher who was stabbed five times in the Southport attack has described her desperate attempts to save the children in her class.
Leanne Lucas was badly injured during the stabbing during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July 2024.
Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time, entered the class and murdered 9-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, 6-year-old Bebe King, and 7-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe.
He also attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, alongside Ms Lucas and businessman John Hayes.
Rudakubana was jailed in January for at least 52 years.
In an interview with the BBC’s Panorama, Ms Lucas said that she suffered stab wounds to her spine, head, ribs, lung and shoulder blade.
However, she was able to get herself and several children out of the room.
“I just knew that if I didn’t get out, everyone was going to die,” she said.
“He was bigger than me. And I just thought: ‘I need to get some help’. So we all run towards the door.
“We were shouting: ‘Run!’ I called 999 on the landing and I asked for the police.”
Fourteen-year-old Sarah – a fellow survivor whose identity is protected by a court order – also spoke to the programme.
She told the BBC of how she managed to fight through serious injury to lead several of the children to safety.
She said: “I remember seeing the girls all like huddling around the stairs. So I remember shouting for them to get down and get out.
“So I was physically pushing them down the stairs to get everyone out.
“I thought that he wasn’t going to stop until he killed everyone. I thought that he wanted to kill us all.”
After managing to escape the building, Ms Lucas said she urged people on the street to rescue the girls.
“My brain is going 100 miles an hour but my body won’t do anything,” she said.
“And there are people asking me questions and I am saying: ‘Go and get the children.’
“I just don’t know what else I could have done.”
