Brave survivors of the Southport attack have described the terror of being attacked, as the mother of one of the murdered girls dubbed Axel Rudakubana “pure evil” and demanded that he is never again set free.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, died when Rudakubana entered a Taylor Swift themed children’s dance class and began stabbing victims at random.
Eight other children and two adults were also stabbed but survived, while Rudakubana was captured and told police he was “happy” the girls had died.
At Rudakubana’s sentencing hearing, one of the girls who was stabbed bravely read out her victim impact statement, describing the “living nightmare” of the day of the attack.
“The dance club was full of laughter and excitement all morning with the girls full of life”, she said.
“The beginning of my nightmare started when I saw you. I thought you were playing a joke. I saw you in your green hoodie and face mask.
“The thing I remember most about you is your eyes. You looked possessed and you didn’t look human.
“I watched you stab someone and then I saw you coming for me. It was like slow motion.
“You stabbed me in the arm and instinctively I turned and that’s when you continued to stab me in the back, although I didn’t feel it at the time. All I could hear was the screams.”
She said there was “blind panic” and she shouted for the girls to flee, pushing some of them towards the stairs and out of the building.
The girl, who cannot be identified, detailed the traumatic impact on her life, as well as her sister who was also at the dance class.
“My sister and I are lucky we got to come home. Your actions mean that Alice, Bebe and Elsie didn’t.
“No sane person could do that. It’s sickening what you did, going in there knowing you’re going into a room full of defenceless children.
“Give me a reason for what you did. Arming yourself with a weapon and stabbing children. I hope you spent the rest of your life knowing that we think you’re a coward.”
Rudakubana was ejected from the courtroom for shouting about being “ill” on Thursday morning, as the prosecution opening statement was being read.
He was back in the dock in the afternoon after promising to keep quiet, but was ejected by the judge for a second time for screaming “judge” repeatedly. As a result, he was absent for the victim impact statements.
Elsie Dot Stancombe was just seven-years-old when she was stabbed to death.
Liverpool crown court has heard children ran screaming from the building when Rudakubana launched the attack, Elsie was attacked by the window and collapsed near to the door as she made her own bid to escape.
Her mother, Jenny Stancombe, said their family has been devastated but she refused to go into detail about the life of her “daughter”.
“You don’t deserve to know the extraordinary person she was”, she told the killer directly in her statement.
“You know what you have done, and we hope the weight of that knowledge haunts you every single day.
“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. You chose that place, that time, and those circumstances, knowing that when we arrived all we would see was the aftermath of the devastation caused.
“We were robbed of the opportunity to protect our girls.”
She added: “If we had been there, this would never have happened and the outcome would have been vastly different. What you did was not only cruel and pure evil; it was the act of a coward.”
Turning to the judge, Mr Justice Goose, Mrs Stancombe said they are left with “a lifetime of grief and it is only right that he faces the same”.
She said: “We hope he uses his time in prison to relfect on the gravity of what he has done, though if we go from his actions and behaviour during this process, we have little faith that he wil ever feel the remorse he should.
“There is noting that can undo the damage he has caused, but knowing that he will never be free to cause any harm to vulnerable children again, would give us a small measure of justice.
“Perhaps he will have the opportunity to contemplate the fear and terror he inflicted upon those girls and we sincerely want the consequences to reflect the irreparable damage he has inflicted.”
The mother of two girls who were stabbed and survived the attack said they have been left mentally and psychologically scarred, unable to be alone in their own home and scared on the walk to school.
“One person decided to take away their independence”, she said. “They have gone back in their shells, and it’s like having two babies again.”
She said her husband has been unable to return to work since the attack, and spent the first month of the new school year in the library so that his girls felt able to go to classes with him in the building.
She added that her daughters are “petrified” at the thought of Rudakubana walking the streets again.
Sergio Aguiar Alexandra, the father of Alice da Silva Aguiar, said his daughter was a Taylor Swift fan and a “confident pre-teen with a world of dreams and unlimited potential”.
She had been excited to go to the dance class, before an afternoon of playing in the garden and pool.
“In a matter of minutes our worlds were shattered and turned upside down by the devastating attack on our Alice”, he said.
“Our dream girl has been take away in such a horrible, undeserving way that it shattered our souls.”
Leanne Lucas, the dance class organiser, stood up in court to detail the survivor’s guilty she has been left with.
“As a 36 year old woman, I cannot stay in my own home alone. As a 36 year old woman I cannot go to work. As a 36 year old woman I cannot walk down the street without holding my breath as I bypass a person and then glance back to see if they’ve attempted to stab me. As a 36 year old woman I cannot enter a public place without considering how I will get out in the event of an emergency.
“As a 36 year old woman I cannot give myself compassion or accept praise, as how can I live knowing I survived when children died.”
She said her trust in society has been shattered, and said “badness has been evidentially proven to me to exist, in plain sight, on our doorsteps, in our community.
“You never think this is going to happen to you, I never thought this was going to happen to me and now my mindset has been altered to it could happen to you and it will probably happen to you.”
Ms Lucas said her ability to work with children has gone, and she is left with traumatic memories and the image of Rudakubana’s face.
“The trauma of being both a victim and a witness has been horrendous”, she added. “There are times when I will spiral into trauma and the effect this has had on those close to me is unforgivable.
“The impact this has had on me can be summed up by one word: trauma.
“He targeted us because we were women and girls, vulnerable and easy prey. To discover that he had always set out to hurt the vulnerable is beyond comprehensible.
“For Alice, Elsie, Bebe, Heidi and the surviving girls, I’m surviving for you.”
