‘I could not stop hugging my little girl’

The mother of a child who was at a nursery one street away from where three children were stabbed to death and five others were critically injured has said “she cannot begin to imagine” what their parents are going through.

A 17-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder after what police described as a “ferocious” knife attack at a dance workshop on Hart Street in Southport.

Leanne Hassan heard of the attack on Monday while her daughter was at a nursery on nearby Poplar Street.

She said she “could not stop hugging my little girl last night”, adding she was “so lucky” her daughter was safe “when there’s so many parents sitting in a hospital waiting room”.

Five of the injured youngsters and two adults remain in a critical condition after the stabbings at the studio where a Taylor Swift-themed dance class was being held.

The 17-year-old boy, from Banks in Lancashire, has been held for questioning by police after the incident, which Merseyside Police said is not being treated as terror-related.

The BBC can report that the boy, whose parents are from Rwanda, was born in Cardiff and moved to the Southport area in 2013.

A vigil for all those affected has been organised to take place in Town Hall Gardens outside The Atkinson building in Southport from 18:00 BST.

Ms Hassan told BBC Radio Merseyside after a neighbour told her about what had happened, she rang her daughter’s nursery straight away.

“The nursery was in lockdown so I couldn’t go and get her,” she said.

“I just wanted her in my arms, but obviously it was the right thing for the police to do that, to keep the children safe.

“I am just in total shock, I haven’t slept last night.

“I can’t image that you take children to a holiday club and you don’t get to put them to bed at night.

“It’s just devastating for everybody, I can’t stop thinking about them.”

Southport Sailing Club paid tribute to a former, John Hayes, who was reportedly involved in the incident.

A businessman tried to disarm the Southport knifeman after hearing screams from his office, The Telegraph said.

“Hope everything goes well for him after the traumatic event that occurred,” the club said in a post on Facebook.

“For those who don’t know, John was involved in the incident on Hart Street.”

Dozens of bouquets, cuddly toys and cards have been laid at the police cordon on Hart Street.

The area is the definition of a sleepy, leafy suburb.

Local people have passed by on their way to work, pausing to lay flowers, and to read the cards and poems and reflect on the horror that happened here on Monday.

Southport MP Patrick Hurley said he was travelling back from Westminster to “support those affected by the attack” and paid tribute to the local community for “sticking together”, while the town’s former representative Damien Moore expressed his heartbreak at the attack in a place he said was usually associated with holidays and carefree summers.

Now this quiet, residential corner is in shock, and has woken up on Tuesday to reporters and cameras on the doorstep.

Local churches have opened for people who simply want some peace or someone to talk to and the local football club Southport has cancelled its match tonight, instead offering local people a chance to get together and talk.

Few people laying flowers this morning have wanted to talk, with many just shaking their heads in sorrow and disbelief.

Mr Moore, who was the town’s Conservative MP between 2017 and 2024, said it was “completely shocked”.

“You see reports of things in big cities and around the world but not in a small community like ours and I think everyone is in a state of shock,” he said.

He said the “natural reaction” in response to an attack like this was to “not do things or to scale them back”, but the community did not “want these vile people to ruin our lives”.

“We want to be able to have fun to enjoy things in life for children to go about these normal activities,” he added.