\n<\/p>\n
From the outside, the small gathering of young girls looked like an ordinary playdate. They chatted giddily, practised pilates and twirled around in their new outfits to the music of Harry Styles.<\/p>\n
But on the sidelines, some of the parents were in tears. The last time these girls shared a room was on 29 July 2024. That day, they fled in fear as a hooded teenager turned a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club in Southport into one of the most horrific attacks on children in modern British history.<\/p>\n
Three girls \u2013 Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine \u2013 were murdered and eight other children and two adults were stabbed repeatedly, some critically injured.<\/p>\n
The idea that any of the surviving children would feel able to meet again seemed impossible until recently. Only now, nearly two years on, the parents of five of those girls are ready to speak.<\/p>\n
Over nearly four hours of interviews, they told the Guardian of their daughters\u2019 heroism that day, when girls of primary school age saved lives by shielding others from the attacker, and how they feel their courage risks being forgotten.<\/p>\n
None of the families can be identified so their names have been changed in this article.<\/p>\n
Daisy was seven when she and her best friend went to the Hart Space for what should have been a highlight of their summer. Many of the girls were making bracelets, minutes away from being picked up by their parents, when an older boy walked in carrying a 20cm knife. At first, some thought it was a prank.<\/p>\n
She put her arms around the girls as he started to attack them. As they fled, some falling over, Daisy helped one girl down the stairs and shielded another by crouching over her as the attack continued.<\/p>\n
CCTV footage showed Daisy staggering outside, only to be grabbed by the killer and dragged back inside. She was stabbed 33 times and lost her entire blood volume, leaving her in a coma for five days.<\/p>\n
In the many stories of heroism that day, the bravery of those girls had been lost, said Daisy\u2019s mother. \u201cI felt so devastated for her, that we\u2019re at home building up this recovery for her, saying: \u2018You saved yourself,\u2019 when the world has no idea what she\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she woke from her coma, Daisy was reunited with Amber, eight, whom she had shielded and helped to escape. They had been placed on the same ward at Alder Hey children\u2019s hospital in Liverpool and, one morning, her parents pulled back the curtain and \u201ctheir faces lit up\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were wearing the same Lilo & Stitch nightie,\u201d said Daisy\u2019s mother. \u201cThey didn\u2019t know each other\u2019s name at that point, they just knew they were together. They were really happy to see each other and they\u2019ve formed a really special bond.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>A Midlands air ambulance crew arrived on the scene \u2013 only in the region by coincidence as they returned from an abandoned job elsewhere. <\/span> Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Amber had been desperate to go to the Hart Space event with her 10-year-old sister, Bethany. It was fully booked within days of being advertised, with 26 children in the room that day. Bella, also 10, messaged her friends excitedly that morning.<\/p>\n Bella was nearest the door when Axel Rudakubana arrived at 11.45am, and was the first to be attacked. She was stabbed three times to the back with enough force to penetrate her chest wall, but still she managed to escape. She was minutes from death on the street when paramedics arrived from a Midlands air ambulance, which was only in the region by coincidence as it returned from an abandoned job elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cShe had finished bleeding out \u2013 she had no blood pressure or anything \u2013 and would have died on the scene [if it wasn\u2019t for that],\u201d said Bella\u2019s mother, holding a stuffed toy air ambulance she now cherishes. The sheer luck of the Midlands crew flying nearby has made her believe in a \u201chigher power\u201d, she said. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t have planned that divine timing.\u201d<\/p>\n As the horror unfolded, Bethany shielded Amber from the blows, suffering several wounds herself. When the older sister woke up in hospital, her first thoughts were about Amber. \u201cIs she OK?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n \u201c[Bella] saved her sister\u2019s life that day,\u201d said her mother. \u201cThe word \u2018heroes\u2019 is thrown about and people are heroes for what they did on that day. They saved themselves, they got themselves out of this building, they ran [and] they did their absolute best when many of them were critically injured.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the first to escape that day was Charlotte, then nine. She was stabbed three times to the back as she ran, fracturing her shoulder blade and vertebrae. Despite her ordeal, she had \u201cno self-pity\u201d and wore her scars with \u201cdignity and defiance\u201d, her mother said, describing her as \u201cimmensely brave, extremely vulnerable and alone\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cOur daughter made the split-second decision to get out of that building whilst suffering incomprehensible injuries,\u201d she said. \u201cShe fled out of instinct \u2013 not direction or shielding. There is never a single story. Our daughter is our hero and her own hero.\u201d<\/p>\n The days after the attack are a complete blur for many of the families. Many of them spent more than a week in hospital not knowing whether their girls would pull through or, if they did, what lasting damage had been done. Outside, rioters torched asylum hotels, police vans and libraries in a frenzy of race-fuelled violence across England.<\/p>\n Most of the families were in the dark about the riots and are wary of speaking about it now. However, Bella\u2019s mother said how one of the police officers who helped their daughter was attacked the following night by rioters in Southport. \u201cThey still had our daughter\u2019s blood on them and they were getting bricks thrown at them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n <\/span>The days after the attack are a complete blur for many of the families. <\/span> Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n There is no magic formula to recovering from childhood trauma, let alone an experience so viscerally shocking. Many of the girls and their parents receive support from psychologists and counsellors but the memory of that day is raw and triggers are everywhere: a song on the radio, a man walking alone, even other children.<\/p>\n Amber is \u201cconstantly on alert of anyone, her trust is completely gone\u201d, her mother said. After dropping Bethany at school one morning, they saw an old man walking his dog nearby as they drove away. Amber insisted her mother call the school to check Bethany was OK.<\/p>\n The two sisters, now 10 and 12, refuse to shower alone because they don\u2019t want to be by themselves. For their mother, this presents another trigger: \u201cI have to sit on the toilet [while they shower] and I see their scars all the time. As a parent it\u2019s traumatising because it\u2019s a constant reminder of what they have and still are going through.\u201d<\/p>\n The parents worry that as their girls become teenagers they will be more conscious about their scars. When Bella, now 12, started secondary school last year, her parents told her not to tell other children she was caught up in the attack. \u201cDon\u2019t make that who you are,\u201d they told her. She has to wear pressure garments 23 hours a day and sleeps in a splint to help her scars heal.<\/p>\n On her first day at the new school, an older boy had found out and asked her: \u201cWhy aren\u2019t you dead?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe was sobbing on her first day of school,\u201d said Bella\u2019s mother. Before the attack she threw herself into hobbies, such as drama. Now she won\u2019t go: \u201cShe doesn\u2019t like being with other kids she doesn\u2019t know.\u201d At Christmas, they took her to a pantomime where children were invited to go on stage. She refused, telling her father: \u201cThe last time I went out with a load of kids I got stabbed.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the parents have become friends, sharing these difficult conversations together.<\/p>\n Daisy, now nine, is still processing her memories of that day and the weeks before it. She had forgotten about a trip to London a month earlier to see her idol Swift in concert, and shopping with her friends the day before. Earlier this month, she recalled for the first time a particularly harrowing scene from the attack \u2013 the moment she was dragged back in the building.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it first happened we were like: \u2018OK, imagine your brain is a bookshelf. What happened to you has basically tipped all of your books on the floor and all the books are memories, they will be jumbled up now,\u2019\u201d her mother said.<\/p>\n They told her that some of the books might be scary and she could put them back on the shelf in her own time. \u201cFor a little while now, she\u2019s been saying: \u2018There\u2019s two books on the floor and they\u2019re really scary and I don\u2019t want to pick them up.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so we\u2019ve said: \u2018OK, we\u2019re just going to tuck them under the bookshelf for now.\u2019 Last week, she decided that was the time to tell us about one of the books and it was her experience of being taken back in. So she\u2019s still processing moments of that day that she hasn\u2019t verbalised before, and we\u2019re nearly two years on.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the parents have had difficulty accessing their own psychological support. Some have post-traumatic stress disorder, suffering flashbacks and night terrors, having rushed into the building searching for their children and later finding them gravely injured nearby.<\/p>\n Yet many were only entitled to 12 sessions with a counsellor provided by the charity Victim Support, rather than a specialist psychiatrist. Daisy\u2019s parents said they were effectively forced to \u201cration\u201d this support, saving some counselling sessions for the criminal trial and public inquiry, rather than access it immediately.<\/p>\n <\/span>Many of the parents have had difficulty accessing their own psychological support.<\/span> Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Daisy\u2019s father was refused more than 12 sessions because there was no funding for it. \u201cOur experience has been more frustrating than we would have liked,\u201d said Daisy\u2019s mother. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to have to justify why you\u2019re traumatised [and] really quickly we realised the basic counselling offer was not fit for purpose for what we had gone through.\u201d<\/p>\n The Southport inquiry was devastating in its findings about the missed opportunities to prevent the attack. Many of the parents knew about the systemic failings \u2013 multiple authorities passing the buck for nearly five years \u2013 but it was the errors of individuals, particularly the killer\u2019s parents and some officials, they found most shocking. Bella\u2019s father said \u201cthere\u2019s got to be accountability\u201d on the part of the attacker\u2019s parents: \u201cIf I had a dog and it killed a kid, who\u2019s getting done for it?\u201d<\/p>\n Merseyside police had investigated whether the parents could be held criminally responsible for their teenage son\u2019s actions, given they knew he posed a risk to others and had amassed weapons in their home. However, there is no duty on parents under UK law to warn or report criminality, so detectives felt they were unable to prosecute.<\/p>\n \u201cClearly there were masses of opportunities for them to stop their own child,\u201d said Charlotte\u2019s father. \u201cI can understand the conflict in their own mind about doing that but at the same time there were plenty of opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n In the Easter holidays, six of the girls met again for the first time. The playdate was made as relaxed and fun as possible and they did pilates, shared cupcakes and wore yoga outfits specially made for those who wanted to hide their scars.<\/p>\n As they watched, some of the parents were in tears. \u201cI\u2019m happy, I\u2019m relieved, it\u2019s OK to see me cry,\u201d Daisy\u2019s mother said, as her daughter comforted her that day.<\/p>\n Afterwards, the families went for pizza because the girls did not want to leave one another. Daisy told her mother: \u201cIt was like having big sisters\u201d. They plan to meet up again \u2013 this time with 17 of the girls \u2013 at the end of May.<\/p>\n When they got home, Bella told her parents it was the \u201chappiest she\u2019d been in a long time\u201d. The girls had not spoken about what happened, she said: \u201cWe all just knew.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the outside, the small gathering of young girls looked like an ordinary playdate. They chatted giddily, practised pilates and twirled around in their new outfits to the music of Harry Styles. But on the sidelines, some of the parents were in tears. 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