A \u201chero\u201d girl saved her younger sister\u2019s life by shielding her from the Southport attacker despite being stabbed in the chest and arm, the inquiry into the atrocity has heard.<\/p>\n
The mother of the young siblings, who were both stabbed multiple times, said they showed \u201ca level of bravery that no child should ever need to show\u201d on 29 July last year.<\/p>\n
Giving evidence at Liverpool town hall on Tuesday, she described tearfully how her eldest daughter had been stabbed in the chest and arm before the killer turned on her little sister.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cOur eldest tells us that her younger sister wasn\u2019t standing or sitting, she says: \u2018Mum, she was crouched, she couldn\u2019t move, her face was pure fear.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cOur eldest, just a child herself and already injured, dragged her sister in front of her to protect her. She was then stabbed another six times in the back. She says she felt like she was being repeatedly punched from the force.\u201d<\/p>\n
They scrambled to escape the Hart Space, where they had been enjoying a Taylor Swift event on the first week of the summer holidays, but became separated in the chaos.<\/p>\n
The youngest girl, whose age cannot be reported, ended up on the landing with two other children, one of whom put her hand on the railing of the stairs to help her out. It was then that she was stabbed again in the back.<\/p>\n
The inquiry is examining missed opportunities to prevent the killing of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and the attempted murder of 10 others at the Taylor Swift-themed holiday club.<\/p>\n
Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King and Alice Aguiar. Photograph: Merseyside police<\/p>\n
Both girls, who can be identified only as Child C2 and Child C7, survived the attack but now \u201clive with a trauma that no child should carry\u201d, their mother said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur eldest saved her sister\u2019s life that day. Despite her own injuries, she put herself in harm\u2019s way to protect her little sister. And when she woke up in hospital, her very first words were: \u201cIs she OK?\u201d The bond between them is unbreakable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey both now live with trauma that no child should carry. Whilst we are incredibly proud of the bravery and determination they have shown every single day, beneath the surface they are not the same as they once were.\u201d<\/p>\n
The inquiry chair, Sir Adrian Fulford, heard how another young girl had allowed other children to rush out of the building before her \u201cbecause she had already been attacked and didn\u2019t want them to be\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe told them to run and not scream \u2013 advice she remembered being told when there had been a gas leak at her school,\u201d the girl\u2019s mother said.<\/p>\n
Even as the little girl sheltered in a neighbouring house, bleeding profusely from her five stab wounds, she was seen checking on others and comforting them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are so many of these stories of heroism from all of the girls that day,\u201d her mother said. \u201cStories which show just what warriors they were to face such extreme adversity alone, with only each other to help them through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their \u201csunny, vivacious, carefree\u201d daughter was now \u201cafraid, meek and withdrawn\u201d, she added, leaving a great fear that her attacker \u201ctook a little bit of her innocence and tenacity that she may never get back\u201d.<\/p>\n
The parents of another child who managed to escape said they lived with the \u201cburden\u201d of the knowledge that the attack \u201cwas not inevitable \u2013 it was preventable\u201d.<\/p>\n
The mother of Child L said their family had been \u201cchanged for ever\u201d, their daughter carrying an exhausting weight of fear, guilt, trauma and hyper-vigilance.<\/p>\n
In school, the girl now positions herself near the fire exit \u2013 the only door that cannot be opened from the outside \u2013 and knows which buildings have safety locks and which do not.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe \u2013 along with the others present that day \u2013 was targeted by someone who we now know was already known to multiple agencies. That knowledge alone is a burden we carry every day,\u201d her mother said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A \u201chero\u201d girl saved her younger sister\u2019s life by shielding her from the Southport attacker despite being stabbed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-410393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115174299665234600","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}