A man who was among the first on the scene of the Southport knife attack where three girls were stabbed to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party has said “it was just something you literally see in a horror film”.
At one point personal trainer Joel Verite, 26, who ran to the studio three times to try and help the children to safety, including two of the girls who eventually died, came face-to-face with killer Axel Rudakubana.
Mr Verite told The Sun: “He’s looked at me. He had his hood up and a big kitchen knife. I just don’t understand how anyone can do anything like that to innocent girls. He definitely doesn’t deserve to be alive.”
A forensic investigator in Hart Street, Southport, where three children died and eight were injured (James Speakman/PA)
He had been on a break from helping a friend with his window cleaning business on July 29 last year when they noticed a “commotion” and yoga teacher Leanne Luca slumped against a car.
She had a big wound on her shoulder and told him that a man – Rudakubana, who was jailed for a minimum of 52 years last month – had launched a knife attack at the dance party which left three girls dead and another eight people injured.
Ms Lucas had been on the telephone to the police and Mr Verite told them to hurry to the scene.
He ran to the studio but was beckoned by the sound of a honking car horn where a woman had four or five girls in the back seat of the vehicle.
He saw the “heartbreaking” sight of an injured child, picked her up and started running and shouting for help.
Emergency services near the scene (James Speakman/PA)
Mr Verite took his T-shirt off to help stem the blood and he and his friend started performing CPR on her.
She was nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar who died along with Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven.
He went to the studio and was on the staircase when Rudakubana appeared.
Mr Verite told the paper: “I looked up and literally he’s come and circled round and looked at me.
“He’s on the top of the landing, looking at me on the staircase, and he’s scurried back off into the room. He had his hood up and a big kitchen knife.
“I’m literally kind of frozen and I’m standing on the stairs and was like: ‘What the f*** do I do?’.
“It’s easy for people to think, ‘I would have done this and that’ when you watch films. But I’ll tell you now, until you’re in that situation, you think very differently.
“Especially with having my two young ones as well. I might not be here today if I did actually do what I probably really wanted to do.”
He said: “The horror will live with me forever.”
Flowers and tributes near the scene (James Speakman/PA)
He smashed a glass door so Rudakubana could not lock the building and left to find something to use as a weapon.
The police and paramedics arrived and Mr Verite managed to pick up Bebe from the floor as he ran and shouted for help.
He then ran back to the studio for a third time but armed officers told him to help with first-aid.
Mr Verite recalled that he and his friend cried as they stayed with an injured girl and fetched equipment for the paramedics.
He saw a paramedic triage the patients and having to decide which child needed the most urgent care.
The father-of-two said the first thing he did when he got home was to hug his daughter who was nine months old at the time.
He told The Sun: “It was hard seeing her because, while it was nice, I was also thinking, ‘Someone’s just lost theirs’.”