Parents of Southport stabbings victims pay tribute to daughters – and describe moment they were told ‘something awful has happened’
The parents of two of the girls murdered at a dance class in Southport have spoken of the moment they were told “something awful has happened” to their children.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, the parents of Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe paid tribute to their daughters, while recalling what happened on 29 July 2024.
Warning: Some readers may find this article distressing
Describing the moment she dropped her daughter off at the two-hour workshop at Hart Space studio, Jenni Stancombe said she watched Elsie run inside, excited to show her friend her newly pierced ears.
“I watched her sit down and waved her off and I left her,” she said.
Just before midday, Ms Stancombe got a call from another mother, telling her: “Something awful has happened. Somebody’s stabbed the kids.
“I said, ‘What do you mean?'” Ms Stancombe said. “She went, ‘It’s really bad. You need to get here’.
“I just ran. I left the whole house open and got in the car.”
Bebe King’s parents – who cannot be named for legal reasons – had been busily preparing for a wedding the following day.
Her mother remembers being in Marks & Spencer when she received a phone call from her husband, who had arrived early to collect Bebe.
“I was about to put my card in the machine, and he called. ‘I can’t believe I’m telling you this but somebody has gone into the dance class with a knife’,” she said.
She ran outside and jumped into a taxi. The driver dropped her off at the end of the street – “and I just ran”.
Parents’ tributes to children
Bebe’s parents came up with her name after a trip to Hollywood, where they saw the blues guitarist BB King’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Bebe King’s mother said of her daughter: “She would come out with the most random stuff. She would do it and look at you and laugh as if to say, ‘I’m dead funny, aren’t I?’ She would give you this hug and say, ‘I love you, momma’.
“She was the best. She was just … Me and her had our own little language. Sometimes we would just look at each other and know what each other was thinking.”
She said Bebe “had this innate kindness. She had a spark”.
Alice Da Silva Aguiar also died at the dance class
The last photo of Alice taken the day of the Taylor Swift dance class
Ms Stancombe said it was an honour to be Elsie’s mother. “Everything she did was pure enthusiasm. It could be the most boring thing – even, like, David taking the bins out – and it was like, ‘I’ll come!’ She was grateful for life.”
She described her daughter as “highly intelligent” but said she struggled with reading and writing. Leanne Lucas, who ran the dance workshop, had been Elsie’s private tutor for 18 months.
She had originally missed out on a spot at the dance workshop, which had quickly sold out. One of her school friends was going to the class and her mother messaged Ms Stancombe saying, “Have you got her a space?”
“And I was like, “Oh no’. I knew it had sold out, so I messaged Leanne saying, ‘Aw, I totally forgot to pay for Elsie’. And she messaged saying: ‘No problem. I’ll always have a place for Elsie.’ And she kept one. I just always think if she’d given it away…”
The horse-drawn carriage that carried the coffin of Elsie Dot Stancombe waits outside St John’s Church in Birkdale.
Pic: PA
Rioting in Southport
The families were told to come off their social media accounts after riots broke out in Southport, and Elsie’s father and uncle Chris visited the wreckage of the riots the following day.
Neither wanted to comment on the rioting that followed their children’s deaths. Instead, both families paid tribute to the community that rallied around them in the wake of the tragedy.
“It’s about this community. It has brought light in the darkness, these little moments. And that’s what we’re constantly looking for right now.”
Elsie’s funeral. Pic: PA
Bebe’s family spent the following week with her in a bereavement suite at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool. On the last day, her mother and father did a final bedtime routine, reading her Jack and the Beanstalk before they left.
No funeral director would accept money, while donations and support flooded in for the families.
Bebe had a white horse and carriage. “It’s not very us,” her parents told the Sunday Times while laughing, “but it was for her and we knew she would want that.”
Royal Family brought ‘genuine comfort’
The efforts of the Royal Family brought “genuine comfort” to both families, they told the Sunday Times.
Mr Stancombe said the visit by the Princess of Wales – her first public engagement since finishing chemotherapy – “meant a great deal to Jenni”.
The Prince and Princess of Wales visited Southport. Pic: PA
“I won’t say what they said to us, but what they shared with us was really, really powerful, and it was a powerful message and heartfelt, and it meant a lot,” he said.
The families also met the King at Clarence House in August.
“We could see how much he cared,” Mr Stancombe said, laughing about the moment Elsie’s sister offered the King a biscuit.
The King visited Southport. Pic: PA
‘Highly likely’ killer will never be released
Axel Rudakubana was jailed in January for a minimum term of 52 years after he pleaded guilty to murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe, six, and Elsie, seven, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
Rudakubana also admitted trying to murder eight other children, as well as instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes, on 29 July last year.
He was 17 years old when he walked into the dance studio, indiscriminately stabbing his victims with a 20cm blade he had bought on Amazon.
He was given 13 life sentences, with Mr Justice Goose saying the killings had caused “shock and revulsion” around the nation and said it was “highly likely” he would never be released.
Axel Rudakubana. Pic: Merseyside police
Read more:
The 14 minutes of terror that left three children dead
Family of Rudakubana ‘moved to secret location’
During sentencing he was twice ordered out of the dock after trying to disrupt proceedings, by shouting that he “felt ill”.
The court heard emotional statements from victims and families, with Ms Lucas who was stabbed in the back, saying she couldn’t give herself “compassion or accept praise, as how can I live knowing I survived when children died?”.
The incident was not labelled a terror attack, although officers later found a plastic box containing the toxin ricin under his bed in the village of Banks, Lancashire, along with other weapons including a machete and arrows.
His devices revealed an obsession with violence, war and genocide, and he was found to be in possession of an al Qaeda training manual. It fell outside the definition of terrorism because police couldn’t identify the killer’s motive.
Families did not want sentencing televised
Neither family was in court when Rudakubana suddenly changed his plea to guilty.
Both families did not want the sentencing televised, while Bebe’s family believe details about her injuries went beyond what was necessary.
“The sentencing shouldn’t have been televised,” Elsie’s uncle Chris says. Bebe’s father agreed: “We know it has to be heard in court but why did the whole nation need to see it on television?”
Post Office vans following the hearse carrying Elsie’s coffin. Pic: PA
Both talked about their struggle to adapt to a new life without their daughters. Mr Stancombe worked as a postman – he described how he would drop the post off at Elsie’s school and she would run over at lunchtime with her friends to say hello.
None of the parents have gone back to work yet, but Mr and Ms Stancombe have set up a charity – Elsie’s Story, to help other children in need.
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UK
Thousands of trans rights activists gather in London after Supreme Court ruling on definition of a woman
Thousands of trans rights activists have been demonstrating in central London days after the Supreme Court ruled the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.
Trans rights groups, trade unions and community organisations came together for what was billed as an “emergency demonstration” in Parliament Square in Westminster.
Activists demanded “trans liberation” and “trans rights now”, with some waving flags and holding banners.
Campaigners in Westminster. Pic: PA
Graffiti was seen on the statues of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett and South African statesman Jan Christian Smuts in Parliament Square.
The Metropolitan Police said it had launched an investigation after several statues were vandalised and it was investigating the incidents as criminal damage.
Chief Superintendent Stuart Bell said it was “very disappointing to see damage to seven statues and property in the vicinity of the protest”, adding: “We support the public’s right to protest but criminality like this is completely unacceptable.
“We are now investigating this criminal damage and urge anyone with any information to come forward.”
Meanwhile, a rally and march organised by Resisting Transphobia has been taking place in Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon.
Graffiti was daubed on the statue by trans activists. Pic: PA
Graffiti on the statue of South African statesman Jan Christian Smuts in Parliament Square. Pic: PA
In a long-awaited judgment delivered on Wednesday, the UK’s highest court ruled the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.
It essentially means trans women who hold gender recognition certificates are not women in the eyes of the law.
This means transgender women with one of the certificates can be excluded from single-sex spaces if “proportionate”.
Demonstrators in Westminster
Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said on Thursday that the ruling means trans women can no longer take part in women’s sport, while single-sex places, such as changing rooms, “must be based on biological sex”.
The UK government said the unanimous decision by five judges brought “clarity and confidence” for women and service providers.
A Labour Party source said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had brought the party to a “common sense position” on the subject from an “activist” stance.
Among the groups supporting the London protest were Trans Kids Deserve Better, Pride In Labour, Front For The Liberation Of Intersex Non-binary And Transgender people (Flint) and TransActual.
Pic: PA
Keyne Walker, strategy director at TransActual, told Sky News the government needed to put equality laws back on a “sound footing”.
Speaking from Parliament Square, they said: “The mood is jubilant and also angry and also people are anxious… Right now trans people are coming together to demonstrate to the country, and to everybody else, that we’re not going anywhere because we don’t have anywhere to go…
“Queer people have been through worse than this before, and… we’ll suffer through whatever is to come in the next few years.”
Read more:
How Supreme Court decision has immediate real-world consequences
The activist continued: “The government needs to immediately clarify how they are going to protect trans people and what this ruling actually means for spaces.
“It does not bring clarity… businesses and venues at the moment don’t know what they can and can’t do… the government needs to step in and put equalities law back on a sound footing.”
Protesters in Westminster in support of the transgender community. Pic: Daniel Bregman
It comes as Bridgerton actress Nicola Coughlan announced she has helped raise more than £100,000 for a trans rights charity following the Supreme Court decision.
Following the ruling, the Irish star said she was “completely horrified” and “disgusted” by the ruling and added she would match donations up to £10,000 to transgender charity Not A Phase.
The fundraiser has since raised £103,018, with a revised target of £110,000.
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Gender ruling – How it happened
Why was the case heard in court?
The Supreme Court ruling followed a long-running legal challenge which centred around how sex-based rights are applied through the UK-wide Equality Act 2010.
The appeal case was brought against the Scottish government by campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) following unsuccessful challenges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
FWS called on the court to find sex an “immutable biological state”, arguing sex-based protections should only apply to people born female.
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Campaigners react to gender ruling
The Scottish government argued the protections should also include transgender people with a gender recognition certificate (GRC).
The Supreme Court judges were asked to rule on what the Equality Act 2010 means by “sex” – whether biological sex or “certificated” sex as legally defined by the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.
Delivering the ruling at the London court on Wednesday, Lord Hodge said: “We counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not.
“The Equality Act 2010 gives transgender people protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender.”
A teacher who was upskirted by a pupil says women are being “specifically targeted” by misogynistic attitudes being expressed in classrooms.
Sally Rees, now the president of teachers’ union NASUWT in Northern Ireland, was visited by police officers in 2016 and told they had found a USB stick containing images filmed up her skirt by a pupil.
“You just feel so violated,” she told North of England correspondent Shingi Mararike.
“As a teacher, you give so much of yourself in the classroom, you want the best for your pupils and then to know that somebody has done that to you, it just completely shatters your sense of trust.”
Ms Rees was filmed multiple times over 14 months and after a “long drawn-out legal process”, the pupil was found guilty of five counts of outraging public decency.
Ms Rees spoke to Sky News as a new survey by NASWUT suggested nearly three in five (59%) teachers believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
At the union’s annual conference this weekend, members will debate calls on the union’s executive to work with teachers “to assess the risk that far-right and populist movements pose to young people”.
“We’ve seen the impact that Andrew Tate and other figures are having on… young boys’ reactions in the classroom,” Ms Rees said.
“One of the things we have to remember is that the majority of our workforce is female and so they are being very specifically targeted by these attitudes, specifically things around; ‘You can’t tell me what to do’, that a man has a right to dominate a woman and has a right to a woman’s body.”
Andrew Tate.
File pic: AP
The drama teacher said schools were now expected to deal with behaviour like this without enough support.
“We need to bring parents and carers into this because it starts in the home and then trickles into our schools,” she added.
“We end up with a blame culture that education is at fault, teachers aren’t dealing with it and yet teachers are the ones that actually end up being the victims of this type of behaviour.”
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When asked about the NASWUT survey, a spokesperson for the Department for Education (DfE) said: “Education can be the antidote to hate, and the classroom should be a safe environment for sensitive topics to be discussed and where critical thinking is encouraged.
“That’s why we provide a range of resources to support teachers to navigate these challenging issues, and why our curriculum review will look at the skills children need to thrive in a fast-changing online world.”
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