'If I didn't get out, everyone was going to die': Hero yoga teacher tells how she saved children from Southport attacker
24 February 2025, 10:46 | Updated: 24 February 2025, 10:59
A yoga teacher who was repeatedly stabbed in the Southport attacks has described helping several children to run to safety, adding she felt she had to survive in order to save those in her class.
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Axel Rudakubana, 18, murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a Taylor Swift-themed class in the Merseyside town in July last year, when he was 17.
Rudakubana - who was jailed for a minimum of 52 years in January - attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as well as businessman John Hayes and class instructor Leanne Lucas.
In a new interview, Ms Lucas described how she was able to get herself and several children out of the room, despite suffering stab wounds to her spine, head, ribs, lung and shoulder blade.
She told the BBC: "(Rudakubana) opened the door and just grabbed a child. I didn't know what he was doing.
"He then grabbed the next child. And the next child. And then I shout: 'Who is that?'
"Then I struggle to get that part of the memory back because he moves from the girls at the table and he moves over to right next to me.
"I just felt something go in my back ... and my brain just said: He's got me. So he got me and then he got me again.
"But I just knew that if I didn't get out, everyone was going to die."
Ms Lucas sustained five stab wounds to her spine, head, ribs, lung and shoulder blade.
Despite this, the yoga instructor and her friend, dance teacher Heidi Liddle, were able to get several children out of the room.
Last year she told LBC the attack made her ‘lose faith in the world’.
She shared her story with LBC at a candle-lit vigil in memory of the women and girls who have lost their lives to male violence in Merseyside. She had never previously spoken about the attack.
“It has just made us feel very unsafe," she admitted.
“My purpose was creating wellbeing events for children and families, and for that to happen where I was, and for the words I spoke and the children spoke, for that to be trampled over has really dampened all of our spirits.
“It left us feeling unsafe, feeling like we just lost faith in the world."
Rudakubana's 52-year jail term is one of the highest on record, and is thought to be the longest punishment handed to a killer of his age.
Sir Keir Starmer said the atrocity in Southport was "one of the most harrowing moments in our country's history", and "this vile offender will likely never be released".
He added: "We owe it to these innocent young girls and all those affected to deliver the change that they deserve."
Police discovered a number of devices during a search of Rudakubana's home in Banks, Lancashire.
The 18-year-old cleared his internet history before he left to travel to The Hart Space just after 11am.
A search on social media site X for the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, made minutes before he left home, was the only thing that remained, police have said.
The FBI and US Department of Justice have since agreed to help UK police investigate Rudakubana.
Speaking about life since the attack, Ms Lucas said: "I found out he'd pleaded guilty on the news ... it's hard, because I felt so angry.
"We knew he did it. He knew he did it. Every single person knew he did it. And he waited until the day of trial to say: 'Guilty', and put every single family, victim, witness, everyone in that position.
"It's so shocking at how much evidence they had on him, at how he slipped through the net. Like, you know, when he was found with a knife on a bus.
"I mean I struggle to hear that and I don't imagine what the bereaved families feel when they hear stuff like that."
