NewsBeat
Judge got paedophile head’s minimum sentence wrong, CPS says
The judge in the case of paedophile headteacher Neil Foden was “incorrect” to say he would spend at least 11 years in prison, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.
In a letter sent to Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville Roberts, the CPS said Foden can in fact be released after serving just half his sentence.
Foden was jailed for 17 years in July for sexually abusing four girls over a four year period.
Saville Roberts has asked the UK government to look at the case, saying victims “live in fear” of his early release.
Neil Foden, 66, from Old Colwyn in Conwy county, was convicted of 19 charges in total, including 12 counts of sexual activity with a child and two counts of sexual activity with a child while he was in a position of trust.
The teacher joined Ysgol Friars in Bangor, Gwynedd, as a deputy head in 1989, becoming headteacher in 1997.
He was also strategic head of Ysgol Dyffryn Nantlle secondary school in Penygroes.
Sentencing him at Mold Crown Court in July, Judge Rhys Rowlands said he was “depraved”, “arrogant”, and a “bully”.
In the letter to Saville Roberts, seen by BBC Wales, CPS deputy chief crown prosecutor in Wales Huw Rogers said: “During the sentencing hearing, the judge said that Mr Foden would serve two thirds of his sentence in custody before he would be released.
“This was incorrect. Mr Foden will serve half of his sentence in custody, at which point he will be released on licence.”
The letter goes on to explain that only offences with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment are kept in prison for two thirds of their sentence, while “defendants sentenced for offences which have a maximum sentence less than life imprisonment are released after half of their sentence.”
Raising the issue in Westminster, the Dwyfor Meirionnydd MP said: “Four school girls suffered sexual abuse by their headteacher, Neil Foden, who was sentenced in July to 17 years with a two thirds tariff.
“The CPS now tell me Foden will instead spend half his sentence in prison.”
Ms Saville Roberts asked the Justice Minister, and Pontypridd MP, Alex Davies Jones if she would meet her “to discuss how to safeguard the victims, who’s abuser was in a position of trust, because they live in fear of his early release”.
Responding for the UK government’s Ministry of Justice, Alex Davies-Jones said she was aware of the “appalling” case and that “sentencing is a matter for the independent judiciary, but I will look at the case and meet with her to discuss it further”.
BBC Wales has asked the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary for a response.
Last month, North Wales Police said it was investigating two new grooming and sexual abuse cases involving Foden, but the CPS said it had not been contacted about these.
Doorbell footage captured the moment Axel Rudakubana’s father ordered him out of a taxi the week before his murderous attacks in Southport.
Merseyside Police said Rudakubana had intended to travel to a school and his father stopped him over concerns he had about his son’s behviour.
A week later, the then-17-year-old murdered three girls and tried to murder eight more children and two adults at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
After admitting three murders and ten attempted murders, he was jailed for 52 years at Liverpool Crown Court.
Politics
Ben Habib warns Britain risks ‘wipeout’ if it doesn’t follow Donald Trump fundamentals: ‘Get on that bandwagon!’
Political commentator Ben Habib has warned that Britain risks being “wiped out” if it fails to follow America’s conservative reform agenda, as demonstrated by Donald Trump’s sweeping executive actions in his first days back in office.
Speaking on GBN America, Habib endorsed Trump’s extensive Day one policy changes, which included over 100 executive measures targeting immigration, climate policy and diversity programmes.
The former Brexit Party MEP cautioned that the UK faces an exodus of millionaires and expertise to America unless it adopts similar reforms.
“The world is a very fluid place for expertise and capital and it will go to where it finds its best home,” Habib said.
Ben Habib called on Starmer to follow in Trump’s footsteps
GBN AMERICA / PA / GB NEWS
Trump’s first day back in office saw him sign 45 executive orders, 11 memoranda, five proclamations and four sub-cabinet appointments, whilst revoking 78 Biden-era orders.
The flurry of activity began moments after his swearing-in at the US Capitol, before moving to a packed Capital One Arena where he signed orders dismantling key Biden policies.
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Ben Habib spoke on GBN America
GBN AMERICA
Major changes included declaring a national emergency at the southern border, ending federal diversity programmes, and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Trump also ordered the termination of electric vehicle mandates and established a new Department of Government Efficiency.
“With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense,” Trump declared in his inaugural address.
The new president’s border initiatives included reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” policy and designating cartels as foreign terrorist organisations.
Donald TrumpREUTERS
His order on federal workers stripped job protections from career officials in policy roles, making it easier to dismiss them.
Trump also signed measures requiring government employees to return to in-person work and establishing new rules for security clearances.
In a symbolic move, he ordered the renaming of Alaska’s Denali back to Mount McKinley and proposed changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
The president celebrated his actions by tossing signing pens to supporters at the Capital One Arena.
Habib urged Labour leader Keir Starmer to look across the Atlantic, warning that without similar reforms, Britain would see “an even faster growing US, an even more attractive US with a further exodus of millionaires from the UK”.
“We have driven it out of the UK already through a really bad set of policies, even before Labour won the election,” he told GBN America.
He argued that Trump “is showing that what we have been doing for the last 27 years, the liberal, global approach to governance is not the way to run a country”.
“He is showing us the way to do it and we better get on that bandwagon or we will be wiped out,” Habib concluded.
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A public inquiry will be held into the murders of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport by 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana “that can get to the truth about what happened and what needs to change”.
The announcement came after it emerged Rudakubana was referred to an anti-extremism programme three times before he carried out the murders, and endangered his former teachers and peers.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper confirmed the 18-year-old had “contact with a range of different state agencies throughout his teenage years” before carrying out his “meticulously planned rampage”.
Ms Cooper said in a statement: “He was referred three times to the Prevent programme between December 2019 and April 2021 aged 13 and 14.
“He also had contact with the police, the courts, the Youth Justice system, social services and mental health services.
“Yet between them, those agencies failed to identify the terrible risk and danger to others that he posed.”
Announcing the inquiry, Ms Cooper continued: “Although, in line with CPS advice to preserve the integrity of the prosecution, we were constrained in what we were able to say at the time, the Home Office commissioned an urgent Prevent Learning Review during the summer into the three referrals that took place and why they were closed.
“We will publish further details this week, alongside new reforms to the Prevent programme.
“But we also need more independent answers on both Prevent and all the other agencies that came into contact with this extremely violent teenager as well as answers on how he came to be so dangerous, including through a public inquiry that can get to the truth about what happened and what needs to change.”
The 18-year-old pleaded guilty to the attack on the first day of his trial. The teenager from Banks, Lancashire, admitted 16 offences, including three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday.
Sir Keir Stamer said there are “grave questions” to answer about how the state failed the Southport murder victims. The prime minister welcomed the news that Rudakubana pleaded guilty and pledged to “leave no stone unturned” in investigating why the attack had not been prevented.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine; Bebe King, six; and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven; died following the attack at the dance class in The Hart Space on a small business park in the seaside town shortly before midday on 29 July.
The defendant admitted their murders as well as the attempted murders of eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.
A week before launching a knife attack on the dance class, Rudakubana had attempted to travel to his former school as pupils broke up for the summer holidays.
The 18-year-old booked a taxi to go to Range High School in Formby on 22 July, The Independent understands, seven days before he would travel by taxi to The Hart Space in Southport.
On both occasions, he is said to have been wearing the same outfit – a green hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, despite the summer temperatures, and a surgical mask.
Ten minutes after his taxi was booked, at 12.30pm, pupils were due to leave the school premises on their last day of term, it is understood.
On 22 July, however, his father followed him out of the house and pleaded with the taxi driver not to take him.
Rudakubana was permanently excluded from the secondary school over claims he was carrying a knife and later returned to attack someone with a hockey stick, it is understood.
Aged 17 at the time of the attack, Rudakubana was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and had moved with his family to the village of Banks in Lancashire about a decade ago.
Neighbours described the family as unremarkable, but it can now be reported that teachers had concerns about his behaviour from when he entered Year 9.
Rudakubana was excluded in around 2019 after telling Childline that he was being racially bullied and was bringing a knife into school to protect himself, it is understood.
It is not known if he was being bullied or if he ever brought a weapon into the school while he was a pupil.
After his exclusion, he returned to the school and assaulted someone with a hockey stick, the intended target being a former bully or someone he had a grievance with, it is understood. Rudakubana then attended two specialist schools, The Acorns School in Lancashire and Presfield High School & Specialist College in Southport, and teachers were concerned about his behaviour. His in-person attendance at Presfield was less than 1 per cent.
In a statement on Monday, prime minister Keir Starmer said: “The news that the vile and sick Southport killer will be convicted is welcome.
“It is also a moment of trauma for the nation, and there are grave questions to answer as to how the state failed in its ultimate duty to protect these young girls.
“Britain will rightly demand answers, and we will leave no stone unturned in that pursuit.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said ministers must give a “complete account” of who “knew what and when” about Rudakubana, as she piled pressure on the government.
Mr Justice Goose said Rudakubana will be sentenced on Thursday.
He is not expected to receive a whole life order because he was 17 at the time of the murders – the measures can normally only be imposed on criminals aged 21 or over, and are usually only considered for those aged 18 to 20 in exceptional circumstances.
Rudakubana also admitted possessing a knife on the date of the attack, production of a biological toxin, ricin, on or before 29 July and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.
The terrorism offence relates to a PDF file entitled Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual which he is said to have possessed between 29 August 2021 and 30 July 2024.
The ricin, a deadly poison, and the document were found during searches of the home in Old School Close which he shared with his parents, who are originally from Rwanda.
NewsBeat
Keely Hodgkinson: Olympic 800m gold medallist voted 2024 Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year
Olympic 800m gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson has been voted the 2024 Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year.
The 22-year-old ended her wait for a global title with victory at the Olympic Games in Paris last summer and won BBC Sports Personality of the Year in December 2024.
Hodgkinson also retained her European 800m title and became the sixth-fastest woman of all time when she improved her British record to one minute 54.61 seconds at the London Diamond League.
Hodgkinson follows last year’s winner, England goalkeeper Mary Earps, athlete Eilish McColgan, and tennis player Emma Raducanu, who won in 2021.
The shortlist for the 2024 award was dominated by Olympic medal winners with Hodgkinson scooping it ahead of 1500m runner Georgia Bell, showjumper Laura Collett, cyclist Emma Finucane, heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson, trampoline gymnast Bryony Page, shooter Amber Rutter and Paralympic cycling great Sarah Storey.
Elsewhere, diver Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix was named the newspaper’s Young Sportswoman of the Year after she won bronze in Paris.
Storey picked up the Disability Sportswoman of the Year after she added two more golds to her medal collection at the Paralympic Games.
Rowers Lauren Henry, Lola Anderson, Georgina Brayshaw and Hannah Scott won the Team of the Year for their dramatic victory in the women’s quadruple sculls at Paris 2024.
Ultra runner Jasmin Paris won the Helen Rollason Award for Inspiration, while retired PE teacher and cycling enthusiast Val French won the Grassroots Sportswoman of the Year.
BBC radio presenter Eleanor Oldroyd’s contribution to sports broadcasting was also recognised with a special Editor’s Choice Award.
Politics
Donald Trump ‘personally asked Boris Johnson’ to witness his swearing in while Nigel Farage ‘did not make the cut’
Donald Trump personally asked Boris Johnson to witness his swearing in as President, and has a “good working relationship” with him, says former Tory Security minister Tom Tugendhat.
Tugendhat, who was in Washington DC last week ahead of the President’s inauguration, said Trump has personally asked Johnson to be in the rotunda on Capitol Hill to witness personally his swearing in.
Earlier this week Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, told GB News that he had not “made the cut” and been invited to sit in the Rotunda audience.
Tugendhat told today’s Chopper’s Political Podcast that he had been told by “members of the administration” that it was “a personal decision by the President” to invite Johnson to be there.
Donald Trump personally asked Boris Johnson to witness his swearing in as President, and has a “good working relationship” with him, says former Tory Security minister Tom Tugendhat
Getty
He said: “It is very clear to me that that was a personal choice by the president choosing people who he was close to, to be around him on the day.”
He added: “It wasn’t a large list. There’s not that many people can fit in there. And the President went through the list personally and removed some names and added [others].”
Tugendhat added that Johnson – who has in the past intimated he wants a way back into politics – “has had a very good working relationship with Donald Trump.
Tom Tugendhat, who was in Washington DC last week ahead of the President’s inauguration, said Trump has personally asked Johnson to be in the rotunda on Capitol Hill to witness personally his swearing in
GB News
“He’s got a lot of friends in Washington.
“He’s got a voice that reaches parts that other politicians don’t reach.”
Listen or watch Chopper’s Political Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or GB News’ YouTube channel.
Bodycam footage shows police confronting a drink driver after he seriously injured two people in a collision near Bristol Airport, leaving one victim needing her arm amputated at the elbow.
Another victim suffered significant internal bleeding and bruising.
Leigh Brean, 43, of Lawrence Road, Wrington, was jailed for three years and two months and was told he was not allowed to drive for 11 years and seven months.
In five hours, he had drunk 10 pints before getting behind the wheel of the car.
He pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving and for failing to provide a specimen.
Special correspondent
BBCEverything gets mixed up together. The child’s multi-coloured backpack. A running shoe. A steel pot perforated by shrapnel. Bits of beds, chairs, cookers, lampshades; the glass of broken windows, mirrors, drinking glasses. Scraps of clothing.
These last shredded, dust covered items can be markers. Often they belong to the dead lying near the surface of the rubble.
“Since the Israeli occupation forces withdrew from Rafah, we have had about 150 calls from civilians about the presence of their relatives’ bodies under houses,” says Haitham al-Homs, director of Emergency and Ambulance Services for the Civil Defence agency in Rafah, at the southernmost end of the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian health authorities estimate that 10,000 people are missing. Where there is no obvious marker like clothing at the surface, the search teams rely on information from relatives and neighbours, or they follow the smell of death that radiates from the ruins.
WARNING: This story contains distressing content
The Israeli government has banned the BBC and other international news organisations from entering Gaza and reporting independently. We depend on trusted local journalists to record the experiences of people like those who are searching for the missing.
At the end of every day, Mr Homs updates the list of those found. His team excavates the rubble with care, aware that they are searching for fragments of broken humanity. Often what is recovered is no more than a pile of bones. Israel’s high explosive bombs blasted and mangled into pieces many of the dead. The bones and scraps of clothing are placed in white body bags upon which Mr Homs writes the Arabic word “majhoul”. It means “unidentified”.
A resident of Rafah, Osama Saleh, went back to his home after the ceasefire and found a skeleton inside. The skull was fractured. Mr Saleh reckons the body lay there for four to five months. “We are humans with feeling…I can’t convey to you how miserable the tragedy is,” he says.
To be surrounded every day by the smell of decomposing bodies is a deeply unsettling experience, as those who have witnessed the aftermath of mass death will often testify.
“The bodies are terrifying. We are seeing terror,” Osama Saleh says. “I swear it is a painful feeling, I have cried.”
Families have also been arriving at hospitals to search for remains. In the courtyard of the European Hospital in southern Gaza, collections of bones and clothing are spread out on body bags.
Abdul Salam al-Mughayer, 19, from Rafah, went missing in the Shaboura area; according to his uncle, Zaki, it was a place you didn’t come back from if you went there during the war. “So, we didn’t go to look for him there for that reason. We wouldn’t have returned.”
Zaki believes a set of bones and clothes in front of him belong to the missing Abdul Salam. He is standing with a hospital worker, Jihad Abu Khreis, waiting for Abdul Salam’s brother to arrive.
“It’s 99% certain the body is his,” Mr Abu Khreis says, “but now we need the final confirmation from his brother, the closest people to him, to make sure that the trousers and shoes are his.”
Soon after the brother arrived from the tented refugee camp of al-Mawasi, also in southern Gaza. He had a photograph of Abdul Salam on his phone. There was a photo of his running shoes.
He knelt before the body bag and pulled back the cover. He touched the skull, the clothes. He saw the shoes. There were tears in his eyes. The identification was complete.
Another family moved along the row of body bags. There was a grandmother, her son, an adult sister, and a toddler. The child was kept at the back of the group while the elderly woman and her son looked under the cover of the body bag. They stared for a few seconds and then embraced each other in grief.
After this, the family, helped by hospital workers, carried away the remains. They were weeping, but nobody cried aloud.
HandoutAya al-Dabeh was 13 years old and was living with her family and hundreds of other refugees at a school in Tal al-Hawa, in Gaza City in the north. She was one of nine children.
One day at the start of the war Aya went to go to the bathroom upstairs at the school and – her family says – she was shot in the chest by an Israeli sniper. The Israel Defense Forces say they do not target civilians and blame Hamas for attacking from civilian areas. During the war the UN Human Rights Office said that that there has been “intense shooting by Israeli forces in densely populated areas resulting in apparently unlawful killings, including of unarmed bystanders.”
The family buried Aya beside the school, and her mother Lina al- Dabah, 43, wrapped her in a blanket “to protect her from the rain and the sun” in case the grave was disturbed and exposed to the elements.
When the Israeli military took over the school Lina fled south. She went with four other children – two daughters and two sons – to reunite with her husband who’d gone earlier with the couple’s other children. Lina had no option but to leave her daughter where she lay, hoping to come back and recover the remains for a proper burial once peace came.
“Aya was a very kind girl, and everyone loved her. She used to love everyone, her teachers and her studies, and she was very good at school. She wished well for everyone,” Lina says. When the ceasefire came Lina asked relatives still living in the north to check up on Aya’s grave. The news was devastating.
“They informed us that her head was in one place, her legs were in another, while her ribs were somewhere else. The one who went to visit her was shocked and sent us the pictures,” she says.
“When I saw her, I couldn’t understand how my daughter was taken out of her grave, and how did the dogs eat her? I can’t control my nerves.”
The relatives have collected the bones and soon Lina and her family will travel north to carry Aya’s remains to a proper grave. For Lina, there is grief with no end, and a question that has no answer – the same question that sits with so many parents who lost children in Gaza. What could they have done differently, the circumstances of the war being what they were?
“I couldn’t take her from where she was buried,” says Lina. Then she asks: “Where could I have taken her?”
With additional reporting by Malak Hassouneh, Alice Doyard, Adam Campbell.
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More than a million cold weather payments have been triggered after the January cold snap, with some households set to receive up to £50 to go towards the cost of heating their home.
To help support people during freezing weather, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) runs the cold weather payment scheme for qualifying households. This is a one-off payment of £25 that is triggered for every seven-day period where the temperature in your area is at or below zero degrees.
In the week ending 17 January, there were 1.2 million of these payments triggered, a dramatic increase from 161,000 the week before. This means millions of households are set to get a £25 payment soon – with some will get even more as they felt the freezing weather for over two weeks.
Cold weather payments have been triggered for 793 postcode areas so far this year, most for the first time in January. These areas span across England and Wales, with most regions affected. Only the East of England, South West and London didn’t see the freezing weather last long enough to trigger any payments, for the most part.
Here is a map of all the latest areas to qualify:
Am I eligible for a cold weather payment?
You are eligible for the payment if you receive any of the following:
- Pension Credit
- Income Support
- Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
- Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- Universal Credit
- Support for Mortgage Interest
You must also live in an area that has experienced seven days of zero or sub-zero temperatures.
The DWP uses its own equipment to measure temperatures across all UK postcodes. If you disagree with the judgement, it is possible to appeal directly to the department.
You do not qualify for this scheme if you live in Scotland, as the Scottish government has recently replaced the scheme with Winter Heating Payments.
When will I get the payment?
If you’re eligible, you will get these payments automatically. They should arrive in the same bank account you receive benefit payments, within 14 working days of the cold period.
If you believe you are eligible but have not received the payments, you should contact the DWP.
Full list of postcodes eligible for cold weather payment
Here are all the postcode areas where cold weather payments have been triggered since November:
Politics
Rupert Lowe skewers human rights lawyer over outrageous illegal immigrant demand: ‘Pork barrelling a living!’
Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe has strongly rejected calls for an amnesty for illegal migrants in Britain, following suggestions by human rights lawyer Ivon Sampson.
Speaking on GB News, Sampson argued that offering an amnesty would enable better tracking of migrants, stating: “The only sensible thing to do is to offer an amnesty – then we have a sensible policy of ensuring those people who come in are tracked.”
Lowe hit back, saying: “These human rights lawyers pork barrel a living on the back of all this Tony Blair legislation which has created our problem.”
He called for tougher measures, suggesting migrants should be placed in “uncomfortable, untented camps” on remote islands.
Rupert Lowe said human rights lawyers like Sampson are ‘pork barrelling a living’
GB NEWS
The clash comes as new figures reveal up to one in 12 people living in London are illegal migrants.
A previously confidential report commissioned by Thames Water estimates between 390,355 and 585,533 illegal migrants are living in the capital, with a median figure of 487,944.
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Reform’s Rupert Lowe joined Matt Goodwin on GB News
GB NEWS
The study, conducted by Edge Analytics and Leeds University experts, suggests most illegal migrants initially arrived on work, study or visitor visas before overstaying.
The research indicates around one million illegal migrants could be living in the UK, with 60 per cent concentrated in London.
The findings were obtained through Freedom of Information requests to Thames Water, who commissioned the study to better understand their “hidden” service users.
Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf warned the situation represents “not just a national emergency, it’s a national security emergency.”
The human rights lawyer argued in favour of giving all illegal migrants amnesty
GB NEWS
He expressed particular concern about demographics, noting: “90 per cent of the people crossing the Channel are men.”
“The number of military age males making that journey legally surpasses the number of available soldiers, both standing and territorial,” Yusuf told GB News.
Deputy Reform UK leader Richard Tice added: “One in 12 people in London are here illegally, probably working illegally using taxpayer-funded public infrastructure and services. It is totally unacceptable.”
The Home Office reports having removed 16,400 illegal migrants in the past six months, the highest figure in half a decade.
More than 1,000 people have already crossed the Channel in small boats during the first 23 days of 2025.
This follows 38,816 Channel crossings in 2024, the second highest total on record.
A Home Office spokesman said: “This Government is strengthening global partnerships and rooting out the criminal gangs who profit from small boat crossings which threaten lives.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp called the figures “deeply alarming” and urged the Labour government to “urgently start deporting far more illegal immigrants.”
EPA“The dance club was full of laughter and excitement,” is how one girl, 14, described the atmosphere as a group of 26 children gathered for a Taylor Swift-themed class in Southport.
Their summer holidays had just begun and the sun was shining down on the town as they were dropped off by their parents. As the class got under way, 29 July 2024 had all the markings of a good day.
The attack that unfolded next saw Axel Rudakubana given a minimum of 52 years in prison. At his sentencing on Thursday, details of how the incident played out from the perspectives of those involved were revealed to the public for the first time.
With the class in full swing, a taxi driver followed a passenger he had just dropped off outside after he had refused to pay.
The passenger, in his teens, was not dressed for the weather: the hood of his thick green hoodie was pulled tight around his face and he was wearing a surgical mask. Inside his pocket was a 20cm kitchen knife.
Initially, Axel Rudakubana could not figure how to get into the studio and was caught on CCTV struggling with a locked door – but then he spotted another entrance and stepped inside.
That was, as one child survivor put it, the “beginning of my nightmare”.
Warning: This article contains distressing and upsetting details.
‘It wasn’t a prank’
Accounts from inside the dance class confirm that Rudakubana moved calmly and purposefully.
He had been planning this moment for some time. He did not hesitate, grabbing and stabbing the girl nearest to the door as soon as he walked in.
As Rudakubana attacked, he did not say a word.
For those inside the room, it took a moment to comprehend what was happening.
“I thought the man who stabbed me was a cleaner,” one of the child victims recounted.
It must be a practical joke, she thought, but later said: “I realised it wasn’t a prank when I saw blood coming out of me”.
Her memories of what happened next are “fuzzy”, but the child said she remembers thinking: “I don’t want to die, I have got to get out of here”.
Another victim said the image of Rudakubana in her memory is that of a monster stalking around the studio.
In court, she would later tell her would-be killer: “The thing I remember most about you is your eyes.
“You looked possessed and you didn’t look human.”
PA MediaLeanne Lucas, who was leading the dance class, had first spotted Rudakubana outside when she went to open a window to let some air into the warm dance studio.
She thought nothing of it until the door swung open and he appeared.
What happened next, she said, left her and the girls with “scars we cannot un-see, scars we cannot move on from”.
The full horror of what was unfolding only became fully clear when she was stabbed in the back. She later told the girls: “I’m surviving for you”.
Heidi Liddle, who was also supervising the class, had been sitting on the floor helping the children to make friendship bracelets.
By the time she realised what was happening, the fast-moving attacker had already done unspeakable damage.
Heidi jumped into action and began trying to rush the girls towards the door.
One girl ran for a toilet on the other side of the landing and she followed.
Heidi locked the door behind them and pressed herself against it. Do not make a sound, she told the girl.
And then the door rattled. Rudakubana was still looking for victims.
Outside, she heard the screams of children who had not managed to escape.
‘Running for my life’
Rudakubana set out to kill as many children as he could: by the time the 15 minute frenzy was over, two girls were dead and one was dying.
Another eight children and two adults had been stabbed. Some were fighting for their lives.
If it was not for the quick-thinking and bravery of the girls, it is certain that more would have died.
One child remembers the world seeming to move in “slow motion” as Rudakubana moved towards her, attacking her friends as he made his way across the room.
Instinct kicked in.
She remembers “physically pushing” her friends who were still able to run as they fled down the stairs.
When she confronted Rudakubana in court by reading her statement, she told him: “I knew I was running for my life.
“I knew from your eyes you wanted to try to kill us all.”
When he was sentenced, the judge concluded that if Rudakubana had been able to, he would have killed each and every child present – and anyone else who got in his way.
One of the children who survived that day was stabbed 30 times. She was airlifted to hospital and doctors operated on her for six hours to try and save the use of her arms, hands and fingers.
“She watched two of the girls die,” her parents told investigators.
On one occasion during her recovery, the child told her parents: “I don’t know who I am anymore.”
But six months on, she is fighting back. Her mother said: “We could never be more proud of what she has achieved over the last six months.
“He has completely failed to destroy her spirit, her amazing sense of humour, her fierceness and her pure beautiful heart.”
The Southport survivors are slowly rebuilding their lives.
Investigators who dealt with the case said they were staggered by their spirit and resilience.
That was on full display when one girl was asked what she says when her classmates ask if she wishes she had not been there that day.
“In some ways, I wish I wasn’t,” she tells them.
“But also, if I wasn’t there, someone else would have been stabbed and they could have died – so I’m glad I might have stopped someone else getting hurt.”
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Disney’s live-action Aladdin finally finds its stars
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Sports8 years ago
Steph Curry finally got the contract he deserves from the Warriors
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Entertainment8 years ago
Mod turns ‘Counter-Strike’ into a ‘Tekken’ clone with fighting chickens
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Fashion8 years ago
Your comprehensive guide to this fall’s biggest trends
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