The parents of survivors of the Southport attack have revealed the “untold stories” of how their “hero” children escaped.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, murdered Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, in what the chairman of the public inquiry Sir Adrian Fulford called “one of the most egregious crimes in our country’s history”.

Eight children were injured along with two adults at a Taylor Swift-themed class in the Merseyside seaside town on 29 July last year, while 15 others escaped without physical injuries.

The surviving victims and their families have been granted anonymity during the inquiry, with one girl referred to as C3. Her father was the first to give evidence at Liverpool Town Hall on Wednesday.

Reading a statement on behalf of him and his wife, he told how their daughter was the first girl to escape the scene by running from the Hart Space building and hiding behind a parked car before jumping through an open car door.

“Our nine-year-old daughter was stabbed three times in the back by a coward she didn’t even see,” he said.

“Although she didn’t know what was happening – she knew she had to run. She ran out of the studio door, down the stairs, and out of the building.”

Read more: Southport inquiry as it happened

He said she can be seen “looking scared, confused and pained” in CCTV footage of the incident, adding: “It was troubling for us to see what she had to go through, before either of her parents had arrived at the scene.”

“We are so thankful and proud that despite being critically injured, she was able to make the decisions she did in that terrible moment,” he said.

The girl’s father said his daughter “continues to astound” them with the way she dealt with the attack and her recovery, saying: “It has been inspiring for us to witness.”

He said she has difficulty sleeping, experiences flashbacks, looks over her shoulder scanning for potential danger when she leaves the house, has a fear of loud noises and has to turn off some songs when they come on the radio.

“Our daughter knows that she is loved,” he said.

“It is through this support and love that she will continue to thrive. We couldn’t be prouder of her. She is our hero.”

Stabbed 33 times

The parents of a girl referred to as C1 told how their “beautiful, articulate, fun-loving little girl” was stabbed 33 times.

After being attacked she escaped the building, but Rudakubana was seen dragging her back inside in CCTV footage played during his sentencing hearing, which drew gasps in court, before she was stabbed 20 more times.

“That is how she became known in this nightmare. The girl that was dragged back in,” her mother said.

She thanked the teachers who escaped to call police and flag down help but said: “The most painful of truths for us though, and what has been most devastating to come to terms with, is that there were no adults to help during both of her attacks.

“She was only supported by other children. The courage and strength she found leaves me crushed, but in complete awe.”

She added: “It is these untold stories of remarkable strength and bravery that are missing when we have heard other accounts of this day.”

The mother said the “hours and days that followed the attack were a living hell” and her daughter’s memories – including a concert of her “idol” Taylor Swift – have “been forfeited to make space for the trauma that she carries”.

“We tell her she was brave. How proud we are that she was able to help other girls. How her strength makes us feel strong. How important what she did that day was. She is her own hero. She may be a survivor of this attack, but she is still trying to survive this, every single day,” she said.

Attack ‘changed everything’

The mother of a girl referred to as C8 said she was “like any other seven-year-old little girl”, “with an incredible energy” and “full of life”.

But in a statement read out by a legal representative, she said the attack last year “changed everything” when she got a “panicked phone call” from a friend’s mother, who couldn’t find the girls.

“That moment, the sound of fear in her voice and the panic I felt will never leave me,” she said.

“I rushed to the scene and what I saw is something no parent should ever see. My daughter had sustained serious physical injuries including a stab wound to her arm and a cut to her face and chin.”

Read more from Sky News:
Infected blood victims ‘waiting to die in limbo’
The fly-tippers turning trash into cash

She said her daughter “remembers the attack vividly” and later told her “she thought it had to be fake, because she couldn’t believe something that terrible could really be happening”.

“Where she was once eager to go off with her friends, she now needs my support if it is somewhere public or unknown,” she said.

“Simple days out now need a level of safety planning that we would never have considered before.”

‘Constant flashbacks’

The mother of a girl referred to as Q, who escaped without being physically injured, told how she arrived to collect her daughter to find “children running from the building, screaming and fearing for their lives”.

In a statement read to the inquiry by a legal representative on her behalf, she said it was “the most horrific experience of my life”.

“What I saw on that day will stick with me forever, I constantly have flashbacks and relive what happened,” she said.

She said her daughter has become “very withdrawn” since the attack and has asked her parents, “How will I ever be normal again?”

Rudakubana was jailed for a minimum of 52 years in January and is being investigated over an alleged attack on a prison officer at Belmarsh prison in May.

The public inquiry, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in January, is looking into whether the attack could or should have been prevented, given what was known about the killer.

Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, had contact with police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services, and was referred to the government’s anti-extremism Prevent scheme three times before the murders.

A rapid review into his contact with Prevent found his case should have been kept open and that he should have been referred to Channel, another anti-terror scheme.

C1’s mother said: “She deserves the truth, she deserves accountability. She deserves an apology. Our girls deserve an apology.

“Backed up by the promise that changes will be made and this will not be allowed to happen again.”

Victims of the infected blood scandal say they are “waiting to die in limbo”, with just hundreds having received compensation to date.

For decades, more than 30,000 NHS patients were knowingly given infected blood products, and more than 3,000 people died as a result. Survivors are left living with long-term health complications, including HIV and hepatitis.

An inquiry into the scandal, which published its final report in May 2024, accused the NHS of a “pervasive cover-up”. Recompense payments for the victims and survivors were ordered, with the government setting aside £11.8bn to do this.

Earlier this year, the inquiry was reopened to examine the “timeliness and adequacy” of the compensation, and its report – published today – has accused the scheme of “perpetuating” harm.

Just 2,043 people have been asked to start a claim, 616 have been made offers, and 430 of those have been paid.

“For decades, people who suffered because of infected blood have not been listened to. Once again, decisions have been made behind closed doors, leading to obvious injustices,” says Sir Brian Langstaff, chair of the Infected Blood Inquiry.

“It is not too late to get this right. We are calling for compensation to be faster, and more than that, fairer.”

In his latest 210-page report, Sir Brian says yet more people have been harmed by the way they have been treated by the scheme.

It highlights how the compensation scheme was drafted without any direct involvement from the people most affected – the expert group that advised the government on how financial support should be delivered was not allowed to take evidence or hear from any victim of the infected blood scandal.

“Obvious injustices” within the scheme include the exclusion of anyone infected with HIV prior to 1982 and the unrealistic requirements for proving psychological harm.

HIV infections before 1982

The current scheme means any person infected with HIV before 1 January 1982 will not be compensated – something the latest report calls “illogical and unjust”.

The rule “completely misunderstands (or ignores) the central fact that blood products used [before this date] were already known to carry a risk of a dangerous virus – Hepatitis”, the report says.

The rule appears to have been made based on legal advice to the government.

One mother says her daughter was invited to claim compensation, only to be told she was likely “ineligible” because she had been infected prior to 1982.

“To reach this stage of the proceedings to be faced with the unbearable possibility of her claim being declined is yet another nightmare to be somehow endured… This unbearable and intolerable situation is cruel and unjust,” she says in the report.

Read more:
Ten victims of infected blood scandal to receive total of around £13m
Infected blood victims ‘livid’ with ‘paltry’ compensation offer
Trust between citizens and state destroyed in infected blood scandal

One person who is not named in the report said: “It feels as if we are waiting to die in limbo, unable to make any progress in our lives and fearing that as our health declines, we may not ever get the compensation we deserve.”

Unrealistic expectations

The report also highlights the unrealistic evidence requirements for someone proving psychological harm.

The current regulations require a consultant psychiatrist to have diagnosed and treated someone, either as in-patient, or in hospital for six months.

But the report says, at the time the scandal was unfolding, “consultant psychiatric services were not the norm across every part of the country”.

“It would be wrong to set a requirement for compensation that such services be accessed when it was not a practical proposition that they could be.”

Those infected were also unlikely to have told even close friends and family about their diagnosis due to the stigma and ostracism.

Therefore, the expectation of having received medical care “would have involved revealing to an unknown clinician what that person dared not reveal, especially if there was a chance that it might leak out”.

Other exclusions

The report also highlighted other exclusions within the compensation scheme.

It says the “impacts of infection with Hepatitis is not being fully recognised in the scheme as it stands”. The scheme also fails to recognise the devastating impacts of interferon, used to treat Hep C. The vast majority of people who received interferon suffered severely, both psychologically and physically.

The compensation regulations also withdraw support for a bereaved partner if the infected person dies after 31 March this year. The argument being that they are eligible for compensation in their own right as an “affected” person.

But removing these payments immediately after death means infected persons “see themselves as worthless and [ignites] fears of leaving partners destitute”.

One man reports being denied compensation as victims of medical experimentation because – despite having evidence it took place – the hospital where he was infected was not named in the regulations.

Read more:
Infected and experimented on

The report issued a number of recommendations to speed up the process.

It says people should be able to apply for compensation, rather than wait to be asked.

The compensation authority should also progress applications from different groups at the same time, giving priority to those who are most ill and older, or who have never received any form of financial support.

It also says anyone who has evidence of being the victim of medical experiments should be compensated for it, regardless of where they were treated.

The report calls for more transparency and openness, as well as involvement from those infected and affected.

Support groups react to latest report

Kate Burt, Chief Executive of the Haemophilia Society, said the government’s “failure to listen to those at the heart of the contaminated blood scandal has shamefully been exposed by the Infected Blood Inquiry yet again”.

“Now government must take urgent action to put this right by valuing those impacted by this scandal through a fair and fast compensation settlement,” she says. “Only then can the infected blood community move on from the past and finally focus on what remains of their future.”

A lawyer advising some 1,500 victims says some of the recommendations “can and should be implemented immediately”.

Des Collins, senior partner at Collins Solicitors, says: “We also urgently need transparency of the timetable for the affected and an acceleration of the payment schedule to them.”

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

Please refresh the page for the latest version.

You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.

Emmanuel Macron has said the UK and France have a “shared responsibility” to tackle the “burden” of illegal migration, as he urged co-operation between London and Paris ahead of a crunch summit later this week.

Addressing parliament in the Palace of Westminster on Tuesday, the French president said the UK-France summit would bring “cooperation and tangible results” regarding the small boats crisis in the Channel.

Politics latest: Lord Norman Tebbit dies, aged 94

Mr Macron – who is the first European leader to make a state visit to the UK since Brexit – told the audience that while migrants’ “hope for a better life elsewhere is legitimate”, “we cannot allow our countries’ rules for taking in people to be flouted and criminal networks to cynically exploit the hopes of so many individuals with so little respect for human life”.

“France and the UK have a shared responsibility to address irregular migration with humanity, solidarity and fairness,” he added.

Looking ahead to the UK-France summit on Thursday, he promised the “best ever cooperation” between France and the UK “to fix today what is a burden for our two countries”.

Sir Keir Starmer will hope to reach a deal with his French counterpart on a “one in, one out” migrant returns deal at the key summit on Thursday.

King Charles also addressed the delegations at a state banquet in Windsor Castle on Tuesday evening, saying the summit would “deepen our alliance and broaden our partnerships still further”.

Sitting next to President Macron, the monarch said: “Our armed forces will cooperate even more closely across the world, including to support Ukraine as we join together in leading a coalition of the willing in defence of liberty and freedom from oppression. In other words, in defence of our shared values.”

In April, British officials confirmed a pilot scheme was being considered to deport migrants who cross the English Channel in exchange for the UK accepting asylum seekers in France with legitimate claims.

The two countries have engaged in talks about a one-for-one swap, enabling undocumented asylum seekers who have reached the UK by small boat to be returned to France.

👉Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne’s on your podcast app👈       

Britain would then receive migrants from France who would have a right to be in the UK, like those who already have family settled here.

The small boats crisis is a pressing issue for the prime minister, given that more than 20,000 migrants crossed the English Channel to the UK in the first six months of this year – a rise of almost 50% on the number crossing in 2024.

Elsewhere in his speech, the French president addressed Brexit, and said the UK could not “stay on the sidelines” despite its departure from the European Union.

He said European countries had to break away from economic dependence on the US and China.

Read more:
French police forced to watch on as migrants attempt crossing
Public finances in ‘relatively vulnerable position’, OBR warns

“Our two countries are among the oldest sovereign nations in Europe, and sovereignty means a lot to both of us, and everything I referred to was about sovereignty, deciding for ourselves, choosing our technologies, our economy, deciding our diplomacy, and deciding the content we want to share and the ideas we want to share, and the controversies we want to share.

“Even though it is not part of the European Union, the United Kingdom cannot stay on the sidelines because defence and security, competitiveness, democracy – the very core of our identity – are connected across Europe as a continent.”