Southport residents tell of inquiry 'frustration'

People living in Southport have expressed their dismay after the public inquiry into the 2024 dance class knife killings found it could and should have been prevented.

The inquiry found that the parents of killer Axel Rudakubana failed in their "moral duty" to report his alarming behaviour, while various agencies repeatedly passed the buck around each other instead of taking responsibility for the risk he posed.

Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine were murdered at the Hart Space dance studio by Rudakubana.

One Southport resident, 33-year-old Megan Pennington, said: "There's not a day where I don't wake up and think, 'oh, how things could have been so, so different'."

Megan told the BBC her auntie was a North West Ambulance Service paramedic who attended the horrific aftermath of the attack on 29 July 2024.

She said her relative was one of the first responders who tried to save Alice, who was able to escape the building despite having already been fatally wounded.

"Obviously she's still struggling massively, so I think it's always with us as well," Megan said.

"I haven't really got the words because it just frustrates me and it really, really upsets me because there's three little girls up there that shouldn't be up there, do you know what I mean?

"It's just so, so sad and so frustrating."

Megan said she thinks about the parents of Bebe, Elsie and Alice "every single day".

For others in the town, Rudakubana himself was one of the people let down by services failing to take responsibility for his risk.

Sir Adrian Fulford, the chairman of the inquiry, described an "inappropriate merry-go-round of referrals, assessments, case-closures and hand-offs" between police, social care services, mental health services and schools.

June Forest, 70, said: "If he had been so unwell, so disturbed by strange ideas, then he could have had help at some stage by some enlightened person who spotted the fact that there was something wrong with him."

She said the families of the murdered and injured children "must be really angry" about the failure of services to "do anything about that young man".

"I just have to hope that the services that are watching over the young people are on a better watch now than they were before," she added.

Ruth Carson, 62, from Birkdale, said she hoped the report would lead to closer communication between key agencies involved in the care of young people.

"I think like mental health and social services and schools all need to be able to link together better, so that the service is more seamless and things don't slip through," she said.

"There's so many warning signs. It just seems tragic."

The Southport Inquiry is now set to launch into Phase Two, which will examine "the adequacy of identifying and managing the risk posed by individuals who are fixated with extreme violence".

It is expected to report back in Spring 2027.

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