A picture of nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar eagerly waiting to get into the Taylor Swift themed dance class where she was fatally stabbed has been released by her grieving family.

Alice is shown smiling with a life size cardboard cut-out of the singer in the doorway of the Hart Space studio, in Hart Street, Southport.

The youngster – who is pictured wearing leggings, trainers and a T-shirt with the slogan Vacay Vibes – was just starting her school summer holidays.

She was dedicated to dance, her parents said in a tribute given at her funeral service at St Patrick’s Catholic Church, in Southport, on Sunday.