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A teenage girl who was stabbed twice in the Southport attack has described staring into the killer’s “possessed” eyes and reliving that day “like a horror film on repeat”.
The schoolgirl, who cannot be identified, told the public inquiry into the atrocity that it must explain how knife-obsessed Axel Rudakubana was able to carry out the murders.
Giving evidence through tears at Liverpool town hall on Thursday, she said: “Why wasn’t he stopped? There were multiple occasions where this could’ve been prevented.
“Why did the agencies involved not speak to each other? How many others are out there like him? This can’t happen again.”
The girl, who can only be identified as Child C6, is the only child witness to give evidence to the Southport inquiry.
The hearings, led by retired senior judge Sir Adrian Fulford, is examining the failures to prevent the killing of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and the attempted murder of eight other girls and two adults on 29 July last year.
Occasionally breaking to stop the tears, the girl described how she had agreed to help and take pictures of the Taylor Swift-themed dance class, which her younger sister attended along with 25 other children.
The room was filled with “laughter and excitement” on what “felt like it was going to be a perfect day” at the start of the school holidays, she recalled. Then everything changed and it “turned into a living nightmare”.
The girl said she was facing the door of the studio when Rudakubana, then 17, walked in minutes before the workshop was due to end.
“At first I thought it must be some sort of joke, like this couldn’t actually be happening,” she said.
“But I saw him in his green hoodie, with the face mask on, and I looked at his eyes. He looked possessed. He didn’t look human.
“I saw him stab someone in front of me and realised that he was going to hurt us all. Then I saw him coming towards me.”
The teenager was stabbed in her arm and then her back as she turned to run. The force of the blows broke two of her back bones and collapsed a lung.
She became separated from her little sister in the chaos: “I didn’t know where my sister was and that scared me more than anything. I will never forget the fear, the panic or the way I felt wondering if we were going to survive.”
Breaking into tears, the girl said her little sister had been best friends with Alice, who managed to escape the building alive but died in hospital from her injuries.
“[My sister] still has nightmares,” she said. “I worry about her safety a lot, I need to know that she is safe, likewise she needs to know where I am.”
She added: “I still have nightmares. I see him coming towards me. I see him hurting others. I hear the screams. I see the blood. It plays like a horror film on repeat.”
The teenager, a keen dancer, said she was slowly recovering physically but that she remained exhausted and unable to enjoy the routines she once loved.
In school, she has fallen behind in some subjects and struggles to concentrate as “my mind goes back to that day”, she said. “I still have to leave lessons early to avoid the crowded corridors as I can’t cope with them physically or mentally.”
Supported by a solicitor in the ornate council chamber, the girl described how her recovery had left her lonely and alienated from her friends.
“I feel under so much pressure, like I am stuck between two worlds,” she said. “I don’t fit with the adults there that day, or with those younger than me. I am somewhere in the middle. I feel isolated, like I don’t fit in anywhere.”
She said she wanted to give evidence to the inquiry because she wanted their voices to be heard. But she added: “This is something I should never have had to do, because this should never have happened.”
The inquiry continues. It is expected to conclude in November.
