The taxi driver who fled the scene of the Southport stabbing attack and waited 50 minutes before calling 999 has had his licence stripped.
Gary Poland had driven killer Axel Rudakubana to the Hart Space dance studio on 29 July 2024, where the 17-year-old walked into a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop and began stabbing children at random.
Dashboard camera footage, played to the public inquiry into the attack, showed how Poland drove away as screaming children streamed out of the building in what he described as being “like a stampede for their lives”.
Sefton Council confirmed his taxi licence has since been revoked because he “did not meet the appropriate standards”.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine; Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven and Bebe King, six were killed while eight other children and two adults were severely wounded.
The Southport Inquiry at Liverpool Town Hall last year heard how Rudakubana got out of Poland’s taxi without paying after calling for a lift from near his home in Banks, west Lancashire, where he had given the false name Simon.
Poland followed the teenager and shouted that he needed to pay, but was ignored as Rudakubana made his way up a flight of stairs into the dance studios.
