Leanne Lucas was leading the Taylor Swift-themed event where three young girls were killed on July 29, and she’s now spoken for the first time at a candle-lit vigil in Liverpool
The teacher who led the Southport dance class where three young girls were stabbed to death has said the experience made her “lose faith in the world”.
Yoga teacher Leanne Lucas, 35, was leading the Taylor Swift-themed event when the attack happened on July 29. Three young girls, Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, tragically lost their lives.
Speaking at a candle-lot vigil in memory of women and girls who have lost their lives to male violence in Merseyside, Leanne said the attack had left her “feeling unsafe”. And she said the girls’ memories as a “driving force to change things for other people in the future”.
She said: “My purpose was creating wellbeing events for children and families and for that to happen, where I was, and for the words I spoke and the children spoke, for that to be trampled over has really dampened all of our spirits. It left us feeling unsafe, feeling like we just lost faith in the world.”
Following the attacks towns and cities across the UK, including Southport and Liverpool, were blighted by riots – stirred up by false information spread online.
Merseyside Police have so far arrested 151 people in connection with the trouble, with 107 charged and 82 jailed for a total of 172 years and seven months. Nationwide the number of arrests is edging towards 2,000.
Yet despite this Leanne said she had seen an outpouring of love and support towards Southport which had made the local community stronger.
Speaking for the first time since the horrific events she said: “I try to resemble it as us being connected by an invisible piece of string. We’re all connected in the most horrible way. Sometimes that string will tangle, fray and knot, but at the best of time it’ll wrap together and it has brought a lot of us closer.
“It’s created kindness and warmth and created a strong force that we couldn’t have imagined would be possible out of something so horrific.”
She added: “There’s been a lot of love from Southport, a lot of love come from all over the world. The impact has been tragic but there had been some goodness at times.”
Leanne hopes she can now play a role in tackling the issue of tackling violence against women and girls.
“It’s just very important for me to be able to speak for the girls, as well as myself. I guess my aim of coming forward and dealing with what’s happened is to try and gain some positives out of what’s been so horrible.
“Part of my mission to move forward is for change, so hopefully people will be hearing a lot more from me in the future. After everything’s happened and things have finished, I’m hoping my voice will get louder and louder and people will join me in that.
“I’m not too sure how we’ll ever move on, apart from using the girls’ memories as a driving force to change things for other people in the future so this doesn’t have to happen to them again.”
Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, 18, from Banks, Lancs, has been charged with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder.
He is also charged with producing the toxin ricin and possessing a terrorism manual. He will next appear at Liverpool crown court on December 12.
