Southport yoga teacher Leanne Lucas recalls horrific attack: 'If I didn’t get out, everyone was going to die'

A yoga teacher who was stabbed five times during the horrific Southport attack said she feared “everyone was going to die” at the hands of Axel Rudakubana.

Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9, Bebe King, 6, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, died after the then-17-year-old carried out a frenzied knife attack during a Taylor Swift-themed children's holiday club class at the Hart Space on July 29, 2024.

Rudakubana attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as well as businessman John Hayes and class instructor Leanne Lucas.

Sentencing Rudakubana to life in prison with a minimum term of 52 years in January, Judge Mr Justice Goose said: “In just 15 minutes, Rudakubana murdered three children and attempted to murder eight other children and two adults.”

In a new interview with BBC Panorama, Leanne Lucas told the programme how she was able to help several children run to safety, despite having been stabbed in her spine, head, ribs, lung and shoulder blade.

She said: “(Rudakubana) opened the door and just grabbed a child. I didn’t know what he was doing. He then grabbed the next child. And the next child. And then I shout: ‘Who is that?’

“Then I struggle to get that part of the memory back because he moves from the girls at the table and he moves over to right next to me.

“I just felt something go in my back … and my brain just said: He’s got me. So he got me and then he got me again. But I just knew that if I didn’t get out, everyone was going to die.”

Despite sustaining multiple stab wounds, Ms Lucas and dance teacher Heidi Liddle were able to get several children out of the room.

Ms Lucas continued: “He was bigger than me and I just thought I need to get some help. So, we were shouting: ‘Run’, and I call 999 from the landing and ask for the police. (I) just wanted everyone to get out of the building.

“I just kept saying: ‘There’s children inside. There’s children inside’ … My brain’s going 100 miles an hour but my body won’t do anything.

“And then people are asking me questions and I’m just saying: ‘Go and get the children.’ I just don’t know what else I could’ve done … You just don’t feel brave when you’re the adult … The police said we’d all be dead if me and Heidi hadn’t done what we’d done, and that gives nothing for like the children who did die. Like, that doesn’t take that away.”

A fourteen-year-old who was helping to run the class - whom the BBC are calling Sarah - also spoke to Panorama.

She 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 … I remember his eyes the most, because he looked possessed and not human … I remember seeing the girls all like huddling around the stairs.

“So I remember shouting for them to get down and get out. So I was physically pushing them down the stairs to get everyone out. I thought that he wasn’t going to stop until he killed everyone.”

Sarah, who was thirteen at the time of the attack, was left with life-threatening injuries and fractures to two of her spinal vertebrae.

Rudakubana surprised everyone by changing his pleas on the first day of his trial at LIverpool Crown Court on January 20, pleading guilty to three counts of murders and ten counts of attempted murder.

He also pleaded guilty to possession of a knife, production of a biological toxin, ricin, and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism - in the form of an Al Qaeda manual. Both items were discovered following searches of his home by police.

Following Rudakubana’s guilty plea, it was revealed that he was referred to the government anti-extremism scheme Prevent three times before the murders and excluded from Formby’s Range High School amid concerns over his fixation with violence.

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It is also understood that just a week before the horrific attack at The Hart Space, Rudakubana, booked a taxi to take him to his former school, but was stopped by his father. He is said to have been wearing the same hooded sweatshirt and surgical mask he wore during the attack.

Speaking about life since the attack, Ms Lucas said: “I found out he’d pleaded guilty on the news … it’s hard, because I felt so angry.

“We knew he did it. He knew he did it. Every single person knew he did it. And he waited until the day of trial to say: ‘Guilty’, and put every single family, victim, witness, everyone in that position.

“It’s so shocking at how much evidence they had on him, at how he slipped through the net. Like, you know, when he was found with a knife on a bus. I mean I struggle to hear that and I don’t imagine what the bereaved families feel when they hear stuff like that.”

She added: “The only reason to survive is the fact that I did get out and I am alive and the fact that the girls aren’t, and really, I’ve got to stay alive for them, otherwise what’s the point?

“These children represent goodness, I think. Just pure goodness. Happiness. How genuine they were. Positive. Their love of life. And just making the best out of every single moment. That’s how I remember them.”