Southport survivor says scars a ‘daily reminder’ | UK News

A man who was stabbed in the leg as he grappled with the Southport killer told a public inquiry his scars served as a “daily reminder” of the ordeal.

Jonathan Hayes was working in his office when he heard the screams of children from a dance studio next door as Axel Rudakubana, then 17, launched a random knife attack on 29 July 2024.

Alice Aguiar, nine, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and six-year-old Bebe King were murdered while eight other children were seriously wounded.

Mr Hayes described the impact of being caught up in the attack to a public inquiry held at Liverpool Town Hall earlier.

The first phase of the Southport Inquiry will examine the killer’s history and his dealings with relevant agencies, along with any missed opportunities to prevent what happened.

The attack unfolded in Hart Street shortly before midday at a Taylor Swift themed dance workshop during half-term as Rudakubana walked in and “systematically” began stabbing the children without warning.

Mr Hayes said he left his office to help but was “immediately” confronted by the attacker.

“My initial feeling was one of terror, seeing a man wielding a bloody knife,” he said.

“That quickly turned to horror as I witnessed critically injured children and began to realise what was happening.”

He said he grappled with the knifeman and fell to the floor.

“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.

Mr Hayes said he feared he was going to die, but was helped by his work colleagues who closed the door of his office and applied pressure to the wound with a make-shift tourniquet fashioned from a bag strap.

“I am pretty sure that saved my life”, he said.

Mr Hayes said he was eventually carried out of the building by paramedics, before being rushed to Aintree Hospital where he was met by his wife, Helen.

“I don’t recall this, but Helen says that when I saw her, I started crying and I kept saying ‘I tried to help her, I tried to help her’,” Mr Hayes said.

“Helen started crying too and just hugged me.”

The inquiry also heard from the mother of child M, whose daughter survived without physical injuries but saw her friend killed.

The names of the surviving children caught up in the attack have been anonymised by the inquiry chairman to protect their privacy

Addressing the inquiry, child M’s mother said she was “haunted” by a decision to put a load of washing on before heading to collect her child and her child’s friend from the dance studio.

She said: “It was such a small, ordinary act but one that I have regretted every day since.

“Had I instead headed over earlier, could I have done something? Could I have helped?

“Could I have stopped the hell that person was inflicting?”

Instead, she said, she began to hear the sound of sirens as she approached Hart Street and was confronted by a scene “out of a film set” with wounded children lying on the ground.

She described how she rushed into the dance studio as she desperately tried to find her daughter.

“I will not describe what I saw when I went up the stairs or into the studio, other than seeing the coward lying face down on the floor being arrested,” she said.

“But that scene is burnt into my memory and is a continual companion.”

She eventually found her daughter sheltering in the house of a nearby resident.

Child M’s mother said the family have since left Southport due to their traumatic experiences.

She said her daughter finally opened up about her memories of that day shortly after the first year anniversary of the attack.

“She knew she had to run and she did. She saved herself. She looked out for other children and they looked out for her.

“The strength and bravery she showed, along with all of the girls there that day, should be remembered and acknowledged.”

The inquiry also heard from the mother of child U, who survived without physical injuries but was also deeply traumatised.

In a statement read by her solicitor, Nicola Ryan-Donnelly, she said her daughter “still begs to sleep with Mummy” at night.

“But what she doesn’t know and I won’t allow myself to show her is that Mummy is scared too,” she said.

“Mummy sobs in bed at night. Mummy is woken by the nightmares, the visions of what she saw that day, of that man’s evil face.”

She said she has found it difficult to share her family’s experiences because they have “been made to feel lucky” that her daughter survived.

However she said: “Calling this ‘lucky’ ignores the cost of carrying it.

“It dismisses a lifetime of scars that you cannot see, and you cannot even begin to imagine.

“Lucky would be having the little girl I had before.”

The inquiry continues.