The father of a child who survived the Southport stabbings has told the inquiry how powerless he felt when his partner called him to tell him about the attack while he was away on a business trip.
The father of Child K was on the motorway, after kissing his daughter goodbye that morning.
“She was so excited about the dance class she was going to attend that day, full of life, full of energy,” he said.
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“I remember telling her she looked lovely as she bounded out of the house with her mum. I was so proud and happy for her. I was proud to be her dad.”
But, three hours later, he received a phone call from his partner, who was “hysterical, her voice filled with terror” because she could not find their daughter.
“In that moment, everything inside me broke,” the man said.
“I was on the motorway, miles from home, completely powerless, my only child, my only flesh. Would I ever see her alive again?
“I began the longest drive of my life back to Southport. My chest was tight, breathing rapid, my hands clenched on the steering wheel. The silence was deafening, uncertainty unbearable. Was my little angel alive or dead?”
After 15 minutes, his phone rang again: “I didn’t want to pick it up, but I knew I had to, and then I heard my little girl’s voice. I cannot describe the relief.”
His daughter told him: “I’m safe, daddy, he didn’t get me. Please, please come home.”
Her father said he has struggled with an “overwhelming guilt – I wasn’t there, I was too far away when she needed her daddy the most”.
“We know how close we came to losing the most precious treasure in our lives. We know that in a matter of seconds, our lives could have been destroyed forever, and we know this could and should have been prevented,” he said.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, who was six, and seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe were killed at the Taylor Swift-themed class on 29 July last year by Axel Rudakubana, who was jailed for a minimum of 52 years.
The child survivors have been given anonymity so that their parents can describe what they have been through, in often emotional statements.
The parents of another girl who survived, Child P, have described how their daughter would not sleep alone on Christmas Eve after becoming frightened of Father Christmas, as they described how her “innocence was stolen”.
Look of terror on daughter’s face
After witnessing the attack, the girl was caught in the stampede on the stairs at the Hart Space and fell, before getting up and helping another girl.
Child P told her mother the other girl was “much smaller than me” and added: “Mummy, I grabbed her hand and I told her to run.”
The woman told the inquiry: “My partner will never forget the look on our daughter’s face – terror in her eyes, covered in blood, screaming for mummy.”
She said the girl kept repeating: “It has to be fake. It has to be fake.”
Parents attend all classes outside of school
Child P’s parents now have to sit in every class she attends outside of school, because she says: “Mummy, you need to be there.”
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She worries when her mother goes out in the dark and will not use public transport.
Read more on Sky News:
Victim protected younger sister
Grandfather feared for his life as he tackled knife attacker
Southport victims remembered a year on
If she hears sirens, her whole body freezes and “you can see the instant fear in her eyes,” her mother said.
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Her mother, speaking in a statement read by her lawyer, told the inquiry: “On Christmas Eve, she could not be alone in her bedroom.
“The idea of Father Christmas, a man she does not know entering the house, filled her with fear instead of excitement. She had to sleep with us.”
Her daughter is always afraid something terrible will happen and they have had to have conversations no parent should ever have, she added.
“Every child deserves to feel safe. We owe it to every child to make sure this never happens again.”
