A dance teacher who led a Taylor Swift-themed children's workshop in Southport has described feeling 'tortured' by a 'crushing' guilt over the attack that left three girls dead. Heidi Liddle, who shielded a little girl inside a bathroom during the assault, told an inquiry that the trauma had 'fractured every part of my brain and my life'.
In tearful testimony at Liverpool town hall, Liddle said: 'Although people have told me this incident is not my fault, the guilt I bear is crushing. I feel responsible. I tried so hard to usher as many children out as possible, to get them away from him. I constantly replay what happened over and over in my mind.'
Her friend and co-leader Leanne Lucas, 35, who was stabbed five times by Axel Rudakubana, said she felt 'ostracised' from her community in Southport. Lucas, who phoned 999 despite her injuries, said: 'To some I am called a hero, to others a villain. The truth is, I am neither. I am just Leanne, the woman who did her best in an unthinkable situation.'
Liddle described how she ran with some girls to the stairway after seeing Lucas 'brutally attacked', then locked herself and a child in a toilet as the attacker banged on the door. 'The girls' screaming and fearing for our lives haunts me to this day,' she said.
The inquiry, led by former appeal court judge Sir Adrian Fulford, is examining failures to prevent the killing of Bebe King, six; Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven; and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine; and the attempted murder of eight other girls and two adults on 29 July last year.
