‘Can’t help but cry’: hundreds pay tribute to Southport stabbing victims

Hundreds of people have gathered in Southport to pay tribute to the victims of a dance class knife attack as three children who died, and a yoga teacher who was injured trying to save them, were named.

Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, were killed in what police described as a “ferocious attack” during a Taylor Swift themed dance and yoga workshop on Monday.

Leanne Lucas, a yoga teacher who organised the event and helped lead the class, is believed to have been injured while trying to usher the children to safety.

She was called a hero whose “bravery has touched the hearts of the nation” in a flood of tributes on social media.

Police said five children and two adults remained in a critical condition in hospital.

A 17-year-old boy, from the village of Banks in Lancashire but born in Cardiff, has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.

Police said the motive for the stabbings remains unclear as they continue to question the suspect and comb through evidence.

The Southport community has been left reeling from the attack.

On Tuesday evening there was a protest outside a mosque as demonstrators chanting far-right slogans clashed with police in St Luke’s Road.

Officers put on helmets and riot gear after stones and bottles were launched at them and police riot vans were attacked by a crowd of men, many of whom were wearing masks and hoodies.

Earlier, hundreds attended a vigil in the Merseyside town, with several families with children among those paying their respects. Many people could be seen fighting back tears and passing around tissues.

“Southport is not used to global attention. To be known around the globe for a defining incident has shook us all to the core,” the Southport hospital chaplain, Martin Abram, told the crowd. “Clearly, the crowd tonight shows we want to stand together.”

He referenced Taylor Swift and said the friendship bracelets her fans swap at concerts “remind us we should never feel alone”.

The mayor of Sefton, June Burns, told the vigil that the scale of the tragedy “hit her” when she laid flowers among the hundreds of others that have been left at the scene.

“It really gets you, you can’t help but cry because of the outpouring of grief,” she said.

Earlier in the day, the prime minister was heckled by onlookers as he laid flowers at the scene. One person shouted: “How many more children, prime minister? Are you going to do something?” While another shouted at him to: “Go away”.

Locals clung to each other and cried as they laid flowers at the scene throughout the day and emergency services were applauded as they laid their tributes.

Accounts by witnesses of how the horror unfolded continued to emerge, with one man describing how he locked eyes with the knifeman after he ran into the building to help stop the attack.

The window cleaner Joel Verite described how he had seen a woman on the street covered in blood who had told him: “He’s killing kids over there, he’s killing kids over there.” He ran into the dance studio, where he came face to face with a hooded man.

“I look up and there’s this guy with a knife,” he told Sky News. “I just wanted to hurt him so bad. But I was scared for myself and I wanted to help people.”

He said the 10 minutes he was there before police arrived “felt like a lifetime”.

“They tackle him down to the floor, and I grabbed this girl and started running towards the ambulance as soon as I get outside,” he said. “I’m just thinking, I hope she survives. It was like a scene you’d see on a disaster film, honestly. I can’t even explain how horrific it was.”

Taylor Swift issued a statement saying she was “completely in shock” after hearing the news of how children were killed in the class, which also involved making friendship bracelets.

“These were just little kids at a dance class. I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families,” she said.

A fundraiser organised by Taylor Swift fans surpassed £100,000 on Tuesday, with donations from across the globe.

On Tuesday, Alice was confirmed as the third fatality from the attack.

In a tribute, her parents said: “Keep smiling and dancing like you love to do, our princess. Like we said before to you, you’re always our princess and no one would change that.”

Jinnie Payne, the head teacher of Churchtown primary school where Alice was a pupil in year 4, said she was “the happiest of souls” and “a true ray of sunshine”.

The parents of six-year-old Bebe said: “No words can describe the devastation that has hit our family as we try to deal with the loss of our little girl.”

Natasha Sandland, the head teacher of Marshside primary school where Bebe was a pupil, said the school was “deeply saddened” at the loss of “one of our brightest and most wonderful shining stars”.

Jennifer Sephton, the head teacher at Farnborough Road infant school, described Elsie as a “kind and caring friend to all who met her”.

“Elsie has been a loving and bright member of our wonderful community since first being brought here on her father’s shoulders, and even at her early age she was such a caring and charismatic young lady who loved to please,” she said.

There were concerns tensions were being inflamed by misinformation about the attack on social media and the far right speculating about the suspect’s nationality.

Police said a name that had been widely shared on social media in connection with the suspect was incorrect, as they urged people not to speculate while the investigation was being conducted.

Making a Commons statement after she had visited Southport, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, warned against people trying to “stir up division or advance their own views” by spreading misinformation about the attack.

“Those who do this for their own purposes risk undermining a crucial criminal investigation, and I ask everyone to show some respect for the community in Southport and for families who are grieving and in trauma,” Cooper said.

Sounding emotional as she spoke, Cooper said it was “difficult to comprehend, or to put into words the horror of what happened” in Southport.

“These were young children, dancing to Taylor Swift and celebrating the start of the school holidays,” she said. “What should have been a joyful start to the summer turned into an unspeakable tragedy.”