Mother of girl killed in Southport attack tells inquiry: 'I need to understand how this happened'

The heartbroken mother of one of the children killed in the Southport attack has told an inquiry: "We lost everything that day. And I need to understand how this happened."

Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar were killed when Axel Rudakubana carried out the stabbings at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July last year.

The girls' parents gave impact evidence to the Southport Inquiry at Liverpool Town Hall on Monday, where Elsie's mother Jenni Stancombe said: "We are one of three families that paid the ultimate price for that day."

With her husband David by her side, Mrs Stancombe recalled the day of the stabbing, when she received a phone call to say the girls in the dance class had been attacked.

The couple rushed to the scene and looked for their daughter among the injured children outside, until they were told a girl matching her description was still inside and "hadn't made it".

"We are one of three families that paid the ultimate price for that day," Mrs Stancombe said. "But the truth is, what happened wasn't just a case of 'knife crime'. The issue runs much deeper than the weapon that was used.

"It's about the root causes, the drive, the intent, and the series of failures that allowed it to happen."

She continued: "We lost everything that day. And I need to understand how this happened."

'Aspiring little fashionista'

Mrs Stancombe said she and David "used to say we had won the lottery, the luckiest parents in the world, blessed with two beautiful, happy, caring, and loving little girls".

Elsie was a dreamer, she said, and an "aspiring little fashionista" and always had "big ideas and the most beautiful imagination", making creations from fabric and other things she found around the house.

She and her younger sister "were inseparable, each other's best friends. From that very first day Elsie held her, she was so proud of being a big sister".

'No therapy can resolve what happened'

Lauren King, the mother of six-year-old Bebe, said the loss of her daughter has left her "broken beyond repair".

She told the inquiry: "On that day, being told over the phone by my husband that a man had gone into the dance class with a knife and that they couldn't find Bebe… the hours walking around in the intense heat, not knowing whether she was alive or not… praying to God that she was.

"Then, being told in public, on a street corner, that my child was dead. These are moments no form of therapy can ever resolve."

Mrs King said, if she had to describe her daughter in three words, "they would be joyful, hilarious, and magical - but even that barely scratches the surface".

Bebe, she said, was "unbelievable. I know it's easy for a parent to say that, but I have truly never known a child like her.

"She had this spark, this glow. I'd look at her and think, I can't believe you're my daughter. I can't believe I made you."

Mother's 'unimaginable' guilt over leaving daughter at class

Alexandra Aguiar, the mother of nine-year-old Alice, told the inquiry her daughter had been "a little shy" when they arrived at the class and initially "asked me to stay with her".

In a statement read by the family lawyer, Chris Walker, Mrs Aguiar said: "As Alice's mum, I really wish that I had stayed that day. I relive this moment in my mind constantly," she said.

"The guilt of taking her there and leaving her there is unimaginable."

Mrs Aguiar, originally from Venezuela, and her husband Sergio, originally from Portugal, conceived Alice with medical assistance and promised each other they would give her "everything that we did not have ourselves when growing up".

Recalling the attack itself, she said: "That's the day we were broken. That's the day I witnessed utter devastation and hatred and that is the day I witnessed my one and only child hurt and injured so badly that she is no longer here.

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"I have never experienced fear like it. Not knowing where my little girl was, I ran all around looking into little injured girls' faces searching for my baby girl."

After what seemed like hours, she found Alice lying on the floor with people around her tending to her wounds.

"It's hard to explain the relief that I'd eventually found her, but the hurt and devastation knowing she'd been injured by him. My happy, loving, innocent little girl hurt by a monster."

Alice was worked on by emergency workers for some time before being taken to Southport Hospital.

After 13 hours in surgery, "our little sweet girl didn't make it. She passed away in a hospital bed," her mother said.

(c) Sky News 2025: Mother of girl killed in Southport attack tells inquiry: 'I need to understand how this happene