Jenni Stancombe, the mother of Southport victim Elsie Dot Stancombe, has vowed not to let the killer “ruin another one” of her daughters’ lives. Speaking on Giovanna Fletcher’s Happy Mum podcast, she revealed how her five-year-old daughter switches off Taylor Swift songs following the attack that killed her sister.
Surviving daughter turns off Taylor Swift
The youngster, who was just three when seven-year-old Elsie was murdered at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29 last year, now refuses to listen to the singer whose music was playing on the day of the attack. “When Taylor swift comes on, she turns it off, she doesn’t like Taylor swift very much anymore. I’ve never said anything to her, and I’m like how do you know these things?” Jenni said.
Promise of a normal childhood
Despite the lasting trauma, Jenni said she and husband David had made a promise to give their youngest daughter as normal a childhood as possible. “Me and Day both committed to that, that we have to try and give her as normal life as possible. I will not let that person [Rudakubana] ruin another one of my daughter’s lives. He took one away from me. I will not give him the satisfaction of ruining another.”
Life before the attack
Before that day, Jenni believed she had “won the lottery of life”. Speaking through tears, she said: “I used to say I’d won the lottery of life. I had two beautiful healthy little girls. I had a good job, I enjoyed my job. I had the best husband. We’d moved to what I classed as our forever home. I’d won the lottery of life, I wanted for nothing.”
Elsie was remembered as an emotionally intelligent and articulate little girl who loved school and was chosen by classmates to sit on school council. Outside school, she enjoyed swimming, gymnastics and cheerleading, competing in her first cheer competition three months before her death. “She loved it. Speak about what she wanted to be when she grows up, she was like ‘I want to be a fashion designer by day but I was to be a cheer coach at night’,” Jenni said.
The day of the attack
Jenni had meticulously planned the school holidays, taking every Monday off to spend time with Elsie. The Taylor Swift dance class was the only Monday that summer she and David had planned to spend together. After dropping Elsie off, Jenni received a devastating phone call. “I got a phone call that said something bad was happening, and I needed to get there. I remember I screamed, Day knew from the scream.”
Elsie was among three girls murdered when Axel Rudakubana entered the dance class armed with a knife. Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were also killed, while eight other children and two adults were injured. Rudakubana was later sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 52 years.
Realisation and grief
Jenni recalled sitting in the back of an ambulance surrounded by devastated emergency workers. “I remember I was in the back of an ambulance, and I don’t think they knew what to do with us. They [emergency services] were broken. These people around me were absolutely broken.” The finality of Elsie’s death hit when a news alert carrying her daughter’s photograph appeared on her phone. “I knew at that point she wasn’t coming back. They hadn’t got it wrong.”
Two days after Elsie’s death, her younger sister asked where she was. Jenni told her that Elsie had “gone to heaven with Nana Tina”. When asked why, Jenni replied: “A bad man hurt her, but it wasn’t her fault. She did nothing wrong. Don’t ever think she did anything wrong because she did nothing wrong.”
Moving forward
Jenni said her youngest daughter has continued dancing and recently competed in her first cheerleading competition, with both parents by her side. “My life was absolutely ruined that day - nothing will ever make it better - ever - nothing. But we’re still a mum, still a dad and that’s to Elsie as much as it is her sister, you know I’ve got a duty to Elsie.” Breaking down, she added: “Her sister has saved us - she’s saved us both. Me and David.”
