A man who “grappled” with Axel Rudakubana as he attacked and killed young girls at a Southport dance class has told an inquiry about his “terror”.
After running from his office next to the dance studio after hearing a “commotion”, grandfather John Hayes “grappled with the attacker and fell to the floor”.
On 29 July 2024, Rudakubana, then 17, entered the Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport and fatally stabbed Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine.
The public inquiry will look at whether the attack could have been prevented, considering what was already known about the killer.
Mr Hayes told the inquiry at Liverpool Town Hall that he thought the attacker might “come back and try to finish me off” as he lay on the floor bleeding from a stab wound.
“Initially, I didn’t even know I had been stabbed but when I looked down, I saw blood pouring out of my leg,” he said.
“I was scared.”
‘I miss Alice’
The mother of two girls who were at the dance class told the inquiry about the “true horror” her family experienced during and after the attack.
She described pulling up to a “scene reserved for nightmares” and seeing her eldest daughter lying “pale on the ground”, with a police officer pressing gauze over her wounds.
“Emergency services were everywhere, children lay hurt around me,” she said.
Her daughter was injured so badly that she needed a blood transfusion and chest drains.
The next day, her youngest daughter had to be told that her friend, Alice, had died.
“No parent should have to watch their daughter lose their belief in the world, in safety or human kindness in a single moment,” she said.
The young girl “rarely speaks about the attack”, her mother said, “but in moments of quiet, she will simply say, ‘I miss Alice'”.
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The girls’ mother told the inquiry that the following months were spent in “survival and shock”.
A year on, “we live in a constant balancing act, supporting two children who are coping in profoundly different ways”, she said.
“Our youngest is learning to live with grief she cannot fully understand and the memories of what she witnessed.”
She occasionally gives “small snippets” of the day and has described “having to dodge” Rudakubana as he came towards her.
“I often think her natural apprehension of people saved her that day,” said her mother.
‘Put the weapon down’
Mr Hayes described the moments after the attack as “carnage”.
“I seem to remember hearing someone say, ‘put the weapon down’,” he told the inquiry.
He was taken to hospital and when his wife arrived, she said he “started crying” and “kept saying, ‘I tried to help her, I tried to help her'”.
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The Southport businessman was in surgery for more than two hours after being stabbed and it was months before he could walk up stairs.
The psychological impact of the attack has lasted even longer.
He now doesn’t like being in the office by himself and can’t use a peephole he had installed in the office door for security.
“I don’t like looking through it as I imagine something coming through and stabbing me in the eye,” he said.
“Something has changed in me,” he said.
“It’s like I’ve had a hammer blow and come out a bit dazed and more fragile. I have had some of the confidence knocked out of me. I feel a bit bruised.”
The hearing continues.
