The parents of the three girls killed in the Southport attack have told the inquiry into their deaths of the unbridled joy their daughters brought them and the enduring trauma of their loss.
“This should never have happened in a safe and just society,” said Jenni Stancombe, the mother of Elsie Dot Stancombe. “This cannot happen, no other parent should feel this pain.”
An inquiry into the Southport attacks intentionally heard only three pieces of testimony before being adjourned for the day on Monday: impact statements from the parents of seven-year-old Elsie, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine.
Jenni Stancombe, reading her statement alongside her husband, David, described Elsie as “our joy, our pride, our everything” as she spoke about their perfect family life. “We used to say we had won the lottery, the luckiest parents in the world.”
Elsie was a “dreamer” who “always had big ideas and the most beautiful imagination”, her mother said. “Our aspiring little fashionista, making creations from fabric and other things she found around the house.”
In her statement Alexandra Aguiar spoke of how she and her husband, Sergio’s life revolved entirely around their only child. She recalled Alice as a baby, saying: “All you could see was her head full of jet-black hair and very large beautiful brown eyes. It was impossible not to notice her. She was absolutely beautiful.”
Alice adored school and her friends. “Her end-of-year reports would always say: ‘Alice likes to talk.’ It was just who she was, she was really interested in people and who they were.”
Bebe’s mother, Lauren King, reading her statement alongside her husband, Ben, said her daughter was “joyful, hilarious and magical – but even that barely scratches the surface”.
She added: “She had this spark, this glow. I’d look at her and think, I can’t believe you’re my daughter. I can’t believe I made you. She was simply wonderful. Her light shone so brightly that people couldn’t help but be drawn to her.”
The parents spoke of the excitement their daughters felt at going to a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July last year.
Jenni Stancombe said: “She loved Taylor Swift, and I just knew she’d be over the moon with everything planned for the day. Dancing, yoga, making bracelets, crafting. It was just two hours, so it was just a treat, a nice thing to do that day at the start of the holidays.”
Then she described the phone call, the scream she let out, driving on the wrong side of the road with her husband to get to the venue, “screaming at people to get out of the way, holding down the horn as people threw their hands up at us”.
And then arriving at the scene of the atrocity. “What we saw that day will stay with us for the rest of our lives,” said Stancombe. “Out of respect for the other victims, I will not go into detail, but it goes without saying: no human being should ever witness what we did that day.”
Stancombe said her daughter was destined for great things, which would not now happen. “I walk past an empty bed every night, I stare into her room praying this nightmare will end, but it never does. We live it every day.”
Since the atrocity the family struggle even to cook a meal. “Our knives are hidden away, we can’t bear to look at them. The simplest tasks have become impossible because they trigger memories we cannot face.”
Alexandra Aguiar said since the attack she had flashbacks, nightmares and feelings of guilt.
She said: “We can only describe that day as horror, the worst day of our lives, but its not over for us, it will never be over for us, as our little girl with the long black hair and big brown eyes should be here with us now living her life to the full.
“But she’s not. We live with the trauma of this every day.”
Lauren King told the inquiry that her daughter was “not just a victim … not just a name in a report”.
She added: “Her life was stolen because systems failed her and, while nothing said in this inquiry will ever bring her back, it can – and must – ensure that her death is not in vain.
“We do not stand here today because we want sympathy. We stand here because we want change. We want those responsible to face the truth of what went wrong. We want every child to be safer tomorrow than Bebe was on that day.
“Our saying has always been: ‘Be more Bebe.’ It is what we try to live by, even through the pain. To be brave, to be kind, to bring light into the world.”
The hearings, led by the retired senior judge Sir Adrian Fulford, are examining the failures to prevent the crimes of Axel Rudakubana, who murdered the three girls and attempted to murder eight other girls and two adults. Sixteen others who survived live with serious emotional scars.
