'A pin-drop that changed our lives': What Southport victims' families told the judge

Families of two of the girls who were murdered by Axel Rudakubana and the other victims of his knife attack in Southport have told Liverpool Crown Court about the horrific impact it has had on their lives.

Rudakubana has been sentenced to a minimum term of 52 years for the three murders and 10 attempted murders in July 2024.

• Follow live as Axel Rudakubana is sentenced

In court, families of the victims sat in the public gallery, some visibly upset, as their statements were read out.

Reporting restrictions protect the identities of the children injured at the Taylor Swift-themed dance class, so they are referred to below with letters.

Warning: This article contains distressing and upsetting details.

A statement read out on behalf of Alexandra and Sergio Aguiar described how "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," they said.

"Everything stopped still and we froze in time and space. Our life went with her. He took us too."

They said their daughter "was always a very kind girl, who valued equality and fairness at the core" and "a world of possibilities awaited her".

"We were so lucky and privileged to have her. Every day felt like a gift.

"Alice was a beautiful girl, perfect in every way. Loved her school, her friends. Music, dance, colourful pens and friendship bracelets. She loved Taylor Swift, Billie Eillish, and Sabrina Carpenter."

They described her as "a strong and confident pre-teen with a world of dreams and unlimited potential".

"Our bond was very strong, the love in the family was pure. Life was bliss.

They described how they had a surprise trip to Disneyland planned and how that hot July day last year Alice had woken up excited to go to the workshop in the morning and to her friends to play in the garden and pool in the afternoon.

"It was a perfect plan for a perfect day," they said.

"This was the perfect start to her beautiful day, but also the worst."

"Our dream girl has been taken away in such a horrible, underserving way that it shattered our souls," the statement read.

"We're heartbroken that we can never help Alice fulfil her dreams, we can't hug her anymore, brush her hair, take her to school through her beloved Botanic Gardens

"We can no longer wake up with Alice's happy smile, being playful or get a morning kiss and hug from her.

"We would do anything to hold Alice one more time."

They described how it feels like they are stuck in a "horror movie" with "fear, anxiety, loss and terror... playing on a loop".

They described how it was "hard to feel happy, to enjoy the music and to see the good in life, when the centre of our universe has been taken".

"Any attempts to lighten up, a smile and a laugh are quickly met by regret and guilt," they said.

"How can we ever smile if Alice is not here?

"We will forever struggle to find a light and peace again.

"We will miss Alice forever, Her energy, contagious smile, assertive confidence and undeterred determination to find herself, grow into herself.

"She was brilliant, she was our everything. Living life without Alice is not living at all. It's a state of permanent numbness."

The mother of seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe described how she had lost her "best friend" when her daughter was murdered.

In a victim statement, read out on her behalf, Jenny Stancombe told Rudakubana he did not deserve to know "the extraordinary person" her daughter was.

"You know what you have done, and we hope the weight of that knowledge haunts you every single day," she 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."

She said it 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, she said.

"We were robbed of the opportunity to protect our girls. 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."

She said the family would honour Elsie Dot's memory, adding: "We will carry her love, positivity and her legacy forward, no matter how much pain you have caused".

Addressing Justice Goose in the statement she said: "He took our daughter, her life, her future, and everything she could have been.

"There is no greater loss, and no greater pain. His actions have left us with a lifetime of grief, and it is only right that he faces the same.

"There is nothing 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 Child A told how her husband initially thought there had been a car accident when he went to pick his daughter up.

She described in a statement read to the court how her husband had arrived at the scene and could not find his daughter.

He was sent to a house where some of the girls had been taken and was told by his daughter's best friend that the man had dragged her back inside and she had not got away from the dance studio.

The girl's mother described how her family's "world collapsed in that moment and we are still trying to rebuild it".

She said her husband had compared the scene to "a warzone" and how he struggled to recognise his own child as her blonde hair was covered in blood.

"I know he is completely traumatised by what he experienced that day; he is broken by it," she said.

Their daughter was stabbed 30 times and was airlifted to hospital.

"We begged the doctors to save our baby girl and then sat helpless in a room waiting for over seven hours whilst she had lifesaving surgery on multiple stab wounds.

"She was in ICU for four days and had a second six-hour surgery the second day to try and save the use of her arms, hands and fingers.

"Her hair was so matted with blood I tried to brush it. The stench of dried blood in her hair will haunt me forever. I will never forget that smell."

She said her daughter had "permanent, horrific scars on her body that she will have for the rest of her life".

"She tells me 'I don't know who I am anymore' - No more crop tops, no more short sleeved t-shirts. No more swimwear, no more summer dresses.

"Our confident, happy, beautiful little dancer now has to sit three times a day whilst we care for her scars.

"In the hope that one day, when she wants to choose a wedding dress, or party dress for her 18th birthday, that they may have faded a little.

"That the nightmare they represent will have somehow been committed to memory and the visible signs won't be there anymore."

"Our daughter has not only experienced the most violent, frenzied attack on her body, but she's witnessed so much horror too.

"She watched two of the girls die. She saw her friends and teacher stabbed.

"Her entire childhood has been destroyed by what she experienced and although she survived, she now has to carry that with her for the rest of her life."

She said her daughter had "fought to get her life back", adding: "We could never be more proud of what she has achieved over the last six months.

"He has completely failed to destroy her spirit, her amazing sense of humour, her fierceness and her pure beautiful heart.

"We are honoured to be her parents."

The family of Child C said their daughter knows her scars "will be with me forever"

Their statement included comments from the girl, who was nine at the time of the attack, who said:

"It has been very hard to deal with what happened to me at Hart Space. I struggle with my emotions, and I have scars that I know will be with me forever, but I want to look forward.

"When people in school asked me, 'do you wish you weren't there that day?', I said that, in some ways, I wish I wasn't, but also, if I wasn't there, someone else would have been stabbed and they could have died, so I'm glad I might have stopped someone else getting hurt."

Her family said: "These are not the words that any little girl, who just liked yoga and making bracelets, should ever need to say.

"Her words both horrify us and make us immeasurably proud.

"Our daughter is strong. Our daughter is positive. Our daughter is brave. Our daughter is beautiful. Our daughter loves and is loved. Our daughter sees the best in everyone.

"Our daughter is everything that Axel Rudakubana is not.

"She is our hero."

A girl who was stabbed by Rudakubana during the attack addressed him directly via videolink, saying "you looked possessed and you didn't look human".

The girl, who cannot be legally identified due to her age and is known only as Child F, told Liverpool Crown Court she knew from his eyes "he wanted to kill us all".

She had attended the class with her sister, saying that a "sunny and warm" day turned into a "living nightmare".

Child F said: "The dance club was full of laughter and excitement all morning with the girls full of life.

"The beginning of my nightmare started when I saw you. I thought you were playing a joke.

"I saw you in your green hoody and face mask.

"The thing I remember most about you is your eyes. You looked possessed and you didn't look human."

She recalled watching him carrying out his attack and his approach to her feeling like "slow motion".

She said she remembered screams around her and experiencing "blind panic" and "screaming for the girls to get down the stairs".

Speaking to Rudakubana, she said: "I remember I was physically pushing them down the stairs to get them out of the building and get away from you.

"I knew I was running for my life.

"I knew from your eyes you wanted to try to kill us all."

Her injuries included fractures to her spine and a lung collapse but she said the mental strain was all encompassing.

She said: "Some of us are physically getting better, but we will all have to live with the mental pain from that day forever.

"I want you to know that you changed mine and my sister's lives forever but whilst you live behind bars alone, I will make sure that my sister and I, and our family will do our best to move forward with our lives."

Dance class instructor, yoga teacher Leanne Lucas, who was stabbed told the court , she believed the killer "targeted us because we were women and girls, vulnerable and easy prey".

She said she had previously worked with teenagers and "never would have considered that they would hurt me or hurt younger children".

"To discover that he had always set out to hurt the vulnerable is beyond comprehensible," she said.

She said she had "endured three hospital stays where I undertook multiple surgeries and received treatment".

"At a time where home comforts may have helped me, I sat staring at hospital walls further impacting my mental health."

She said the trauma had been "horrendous" and she was "trying to see the goodness in the world".

Ms Lucas said there were "scars we cannot unsee" and she was struggling with trusting others and herself.

"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."

Ms Lucas said she had considered her work as providing a "safe haven" to help families in Southport by highlighting "goodness and positivity".

"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," she said.

"I feel that I have lost the ability to accept people now as they are."

She said she felt she had "now lost my role, my purpose and my job as I can no longer provide that guidance and reassurance to anyone".

"I feel like I can no longer be trusted again, I know people will disagree and say that is not true however his actions have proven I can never feel that level of responsibility again where there may be dangers to others," she said.

She concluded her statement by saying: "For Alice, Elsie, Bebe, Heidi and the surviving girls, I'm surviving for you."

Heidi Liddle, who helped Ms Lucas organise the class, was sitting on the floor helping the girls make bracelets when she heard screaming.

Prosecutors said she tried to pull Ms Lucas away after seeing she had been stabbed and started pushing children towards the exit.

Ms Liddle followed a girl who had fled to a toilet, locked the door and braced her foot against it.

She told the girl to remain quiet but they could also hear other children screaming and then the toilet door rattled.

In her victim statement, Ms Liddle said she was dropped off at home following the attack "without any professional support".

Officers had taken her mobile phone for evidence and she felt "completely cut off from everything and felt completely helpless as I didn't know how many children were hurt or where they were and if I could help at all".

"At the start, I felt like I had to be there for everybody and didn't consider my own feelings and needs," she said.

She told how she "couldn't sit in silence" or remain on her own for the first month.

"I felt isolated from everyone as I felt like I couldn't leave my home. I was in tears constantly and didn't feel safe in my own home.

"The only time I left the house in the coming weeks was to go and see Leanne and the girls at hospital or to attend the funerals of the three girls, which was heart-breaking."

She said she had since replayed the incidents in her mind, suffered panic attacks and night terrors and "carried so much guilt thinking that I could have done more and reacted in a different way".

"I thought that everyone hated me and that no one would trust me to look after their children again," she said.

She said she faced false comments made online about her, which she said "added to my psychology trauma".

"I thought that I would get the blame from the public or the parents of the children blaming me for their child being seriously hurt or killed."

She said counselling "has helped but I don't feel like I'm anywhere near the end of this journey".

The court also heard from the mother of one of the surviving victims - who hid in the toilet with Ms Liddle.

She said in a statement: "When I arrived to collect her, I arrived to chaos.

"I abandoned my car and ran to find one of the event leaders, Leanne, covered in cuts and blood and saying, 'he just came in and stabbed us'.

"As I approached the house where the kids ran to for safety, all I could hear were screams.

"My daughter wasn't there, and it quickly became apparent she was still in the building with the knifeman.

"Following the arrival of the emergency services, I ran into the building after them to be with my daughter who I already believed was seriously injured or dead.

"The police told me I couldn't go in the room.

"To my relief I turned around... and saw her standing there with the other event leader, Heidi.

"Heidi saved my girl that day by following her to the toilet after she headed there instead of down the stairs and out the door with the other children."

The court also heard a statement read on behalf of the parents of two sisters who survived the attack.

They said: "It was the worst day of our lives. Both of our daughters suffered horrendous injuries… the girls are resilient but the injuries they sustained still affect them.

"Since the incident the girls can't be alone. They don't leave their parents' side. They sleep with their parents.

"They are unable to walk to school without feeling scared.

"They won't get out of the car if it's dark outside. Any slight noise can alarm them.

"They struggle with simple things that weren't a problem before, like taking a shower and brushing teeth.

"It's like having babies again."

Another of the surviving children, age 10, told the court in a statement:

"I first thought that the man who stabbed me was a cleaner and when I saw him and what was happening I thought it was a prank.

"I realised it wasn't a prank when I saw blood coming out of me.

"I remember everything being fuzzy and everything that was going through my mind was about my family and friends.

"I was thinking, 'I don't want to die, I have got to get out of here'."

"I was so scared and worried but there are no words to really describe what happened on that day," they added.

Additonal reporting by Rumeana Jahangir and Jonny Humphries at Liverpool Crown Court.