Mother of girl killed in Southport attack tells inquiry she is 'broken beyond repair'
Lauren King, mother of six-year-old Bebe, says that being told in public her child was dead is something "no form of therapy can ever resolve".
Monday 15 September 2025 22:30, UK
The mother of a six-year-old girl killed in the Southport attack says the loss of her daughter has left her "broken beyond repair".
Lauren King, the mother of six-year-old Bebe, told the inquiry into the atrocity about her experience in July last year.
She heard from her husband over the phone that a "man had gone into the dance class with a knife and that they couldn't find Bebe".
That was followed by "hours walking around in the intense heat, not knowing whether she was alive or not… praying to God that she was".
Mrs King added: "Then, being told in public, on a street corner, that my child was dead. These are moments no form of therapy can ever resolve."
If she had to describe her daughter in three words, she said they would be "joyful, hilarious, and magical - but even that barely scratches the surface".
Bebe, she said, was "unbelievable. I know it's easy for a parent to say that, but I have truly never known a child like her.
"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."
Bebe, Elsie Dot Stancombe, who was seven, and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar were killed when Axel Rudakubana carried out the stabbings at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July 2024.
Elsie's mother, Jenni Stancombe, told the inquiry: "We lost everything that day. And I need to understand how this happened."
The girls' parents gave impact evidence to the Southport Inquiry at Liverpool Town Hall on Monday, where Elsie's mother added: "We are one of three families that paid the ultimate price for that day."
With her husband David by her side, Mrs Stancombe recalled the day of the stabbing, when she received a phone call to say the girls in the dance class had been attacked.
The couple rushed to the scene and looked for their daughter among the injured children outside, until they were told a girl matching her description was still inside and "hadn't made it".
She said: "The truth is, what happened wasn't just a case of 'knife crime'. The issue runs much deeper than the weapon that was used.
"It's about the root causes, the drive, the intent, and the series of failures that allowed it to happen. We lost everything that day. And I need to understand how this happened."
The 'never-ending sense of loss' is clear in parents' statements
It is in the small, everyday details that the loss of their daughters tears at anyone's heart.
The teddy bear, which, when they squeeze its foot, plays a voice message recorded by Alice. The bear in the bed where once she scrambled to join them.
The younger sister who asks her parents if she can visit Elsie in heaven because she doesn't want her to be alone there.
The empty bed in an empty room.
The girl called Bebe, who would grab her mum's porridge in the morning and eat it with the "cheekiest grin".
The grief, the pain and the never-ending sense of loss were palpable in every moment of the statements read to the Southport inquiry.
The questions, too: Why their child? Why did it happen? Why wasn't he stopped?
The parents of Bebe, Elsie and Alice will be forever united by the unimaginable public loss of their children and their lawyers say the inquiry process is a re-traumatising one.
But the goal of learning lessons and making sure it can never happen again is worth it, before they can move on to the next stage of their grieving, in honour of their daughters.
If anything can do that, it is the power of Lauren King's final words.
"Her name was Bebe. She was just six years old. And she deserved so much more."
'Aspiring little fashionista'
Mrs Stancombe said she and David "used to say we had won the lottery, the luckiest parents in the world, blessed with two beautiful, happy, caring, and loving little girls".
Elsie was a dreamer, she said, an "aspiring little fashionista" and always had "big ideas and the most beautiful imagination", making creations from fabric and other things she found around the house.
She and her younger sister "were inseparable, each other's best friends. From that very first day Elsie held her, she was so proud of being a big sister".
Mother's 'unimaginable' guilt over leaving daughter at class
Alexandra Aguiar, the mother of nine-year-old Alice, told the inquiry her daughter had been "a little shy" when they arrived at the class and initially "asked me to stay with her".
In a statement read by the family lawyer, Chris Walker, Mrs Aguiar said: "As Alice's mum, I really wish that I had stayed that day. I relive this moment in my mind constantly," she said.
"The guilt of taking her there and leaving her there is unimaginable."
Mrs Aguiar, originally from Venezuela, and her husband Sergio, originally from Portugal, conceived Alice with medical assistance and promised each other they would give her "everything that we did not have ourselves when growing up".
Recalling the attack itself, she said: "That's the day we were broken. That's the day I witnessed utter devastation and hatred and that is the day I witnessed my one and only child hurt and injured so badly that she is no longer here.
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"I have never experienced fear like it. Not knowing where my little girl was, I ran all around looking into little injured girls' faces searching for my baby girl."
After what seemed like hours, she found Alice lying on the floor with people around her tending to her wounds.
"It's hard to explain the relief that I'd eventually found her, but the hurt and devastation knowing she'd been injured by him. My happy, loving, innocent little girl hurt by a monster."
Alice was worked on by emergency workers for some time before being taken to Southport Hospital.
After 13 hours in surgery, "our little sweet girl didn't make it. She passed away in a hospital bed," her mother said.