A yoga teacher who was stabbed five times in the Southport knife attack has broken her silence on the horror stabbing which saw three young girls killed at a Taylor Swift dance class.
Leanne Lucas, 35, helped several children escape from the Hart Space studio on July 29 after Axel Rudakubana began his murderous rampage.
The vicious attack claimed the lives of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven.
Eight other children were injured in the attack, along with businessman John Hayes who attempted to intervene.
Leanne Lucas suffered serious stab wounds while trying to protect the children during the attackInstagramThe 35-year-old said that she spotted the then 17-year-old through the window briefly moments before the attack, but had no idea of the horrors he was about to unleash.
Prior to the stabbings, Lucas recalled that the little girls in the class had been so excited. “This is the best day of my life”, one child told the 35-year-old.
Recalling the moments after Rudakubana entered the building, Lucas told the BBC: “I just knew that if I didn’t get out, everyone was going to die.”
Lucas, who received wounds to her spine, her head, her ribs, her lung, and her shoulder blade, still managed to usher children out of the building and call 999.
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Rudakubana was referred to the counter-terrorism-led scheme on three occasions in the years before he murdered the three young girls
MERSEYSIDE POLICE
Bebe King, six; Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven; and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, were all killed MERSEYSIDE POLICELast month, Rudakubana, 18, was jailed for a minimum of 52 years, one of the highest minimum custody on record.
A review into counter-terrorism programme Prevent has said there was sufficient evidence to consider Axel Rudakubana a terror threat.
Rudakubana was referred to the counter-terrorism-led scheme on three occasions in the years before he murdered the three young girls.
The report, published earlier this month, concluded counter-terrorism officers were wrong to not escalate his case as a potential terror threat.
Lucas said she was shocked at how the authorities had missed warning signs about Rudakubana.
Police on Hart Street Southport, Merseyside, following the attack
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Axel Rudakubana was handed a 52-year prison sentence for murdering three young girls in the Southport knife attack in July 2024PA“It’s so shocking how much evidence they had on him, how he slipped through the net,” said Lucas.
The broadcaster also spoke to a 13-year-old, known as Sarah, who was helping to run the class. She was one of the first to be attacked and said: “I saw him stab a child in front of me. And then I saw the knife coming towards me and him coming towards me.
“And that’s when I saw it go into my arm. And that’s when I turned and he must have got my back, but I didn’t feel it at the time, because of the adrenaline.”
Rudakubana could not legally receive a whole-life order due to his age at the time of the attack, as these are reserved for offenders aged 21 and over, or in rare cases those aged 18 to 20.
His 52-year minimum term is thought to be the longest sentence ever imposed on a killer of his age in the UK.