Man who tackled Southport attacker says he wished he could have been ‘more Bruce Willis’

A man who suffered a 12cm leg wound tackling the Southport attacker has said he wished he could have done more to prevent the fatal stabbings, by behaving like a Bruce Willis action hero.

John Hayes, 63, also called on the government to do more to tackle the root causes of the unrest that has followed the killing of three girls in the attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class.

But he said Southport wanted to distance itself from the unrest as it comes to terms with the atrocity.

Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, were killed in the knife attack last week that left nine other children and the class teacher injured.

Hayes, who is a director of a company in the same building as Hart Space, where the attack happened, described the suspect as “like a crouching tiger” when he confronted him.

“We locked eyes on each other, and he looked pretty menacing,” Hayes told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He added: “I remember lashing out at this guy. I grabbed his arm, holding the knife. We weren’t at close quarters. I was trying to keep away from this knife. I tried my level best to get hold of it, but then it became apparent that I’d been stabbed in my leg, and there was sort of a bolt of pain, and I fell backwards.”

Hayes expressed regret that he could not have done more. He said: “My overriding thought at the time was not for myself, but hugely upset that I couldn’t have done more to either prevent this guy from doing what he did. I used this phrase to the policeman, I said: ‘I would like to have been more Bruce Willis about the whole thing.’”

On Tuesday night, mourners gathered for a memorial service for Alice, at St Patrick’s church in Merseyside.

Hayes has been released from hospital after the leg wound that almost killed him. He said: “I was lucky it narrowly missed my femoral artery, and I’ve been told if they had caught that, then I probably wouldn’t be here. I think the blade went into my leg 12cm. So it’s not what I would call a superficial wound.”

Hayes added: “I don’t believe he managed to hurt anybody else after, and I think in the interim period, all the children had managed to evacuate the building, apart from those that, I believe, were locked in the toilet with one of the yoga teachers. So if nothing else, I had prevented him from doing any further harm.”

Hayes said the days of violence that followed the attack were prompted by frustration about levels of immigration to the UK. He said: “There appears to be a strong undercurrent of discontent for some time about the levels of immigration, and this is just a catalyst or a trigger but I don’t think it’s the root cause.”

He added: “I’m not particularly politically motivated, but I do get dismayed when I hear Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper talking about how the police are going to come down with the full force of the law, etc, on these people. But they’re not actually talking about the root cause, and they need to start listening and understanding that they need to address the cause rather than the symptoms. Putting these guys in prison isn’t going to deal with the sort of core issues.”

He also praised the way the Southport community was trying to recover. In an interview that took place on Tuesday he said: “The vigil last night, which was attended by a large group; the cleanup, which we heard about – all the local tradesmen rallying around, helping the local mosque that was damaged, rebuilding walls, etc. Those are the positives to take out of this, and people will come to terms with it.”