Three young girls killed in a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class in northwestern England have been identified as police questioned the 17-year-old suspect arrested in the attack that wounded 10 others.
Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, died early on Tuesday while Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6, died on Monday, police said.
“Keep smiling and dancing like you love to do our princess,” Aguiar’s parents said in a statement.
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“Like we said before to you, you’re always our princess and no one would change that.”
King’s family said no words could describe their devastation at the loss “of our little girl Bebe.”
Eight children and two adults remain hospitalised after the attack in Southport. Both adults and five of the children are critical.
Swift said on Instagram that she was “completely in shock” and still taking in “the horror” of the event.
“These were just little kids at a dance class,” she wrote.
“I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.”
People left flowers and stuffed animals in tribute at a police cordon on the street lined with brick houses in the seaside resort near Liverpool where the beach and pier attract vacationers from across northwest England.
Witnesses described scenes “from a horror movie” as bloodied children ran from the attack just before noon on Monday. The teenage suspect was arrested soon afterwards on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
Police said he was born in Cardiff, Wales, and had lived for years in a village about 5km from Southport. He has not yet been charged.
Police said detectives are not treating Monday’s attack as terror-related and are not looking for any other suspects.
People posted online messages of support for teacher Leanne Lucas, the organiser of the event, who was one of those attacked.
“We believe the adults who were injured were bravely trying to protect the children who were being attacked,” Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said.
The rampage is the latest shocking attack in a country where a recent rise in knife crime has stoked anxieties and led to calls for the government to do more to clamp down on bladed weapons, which are by far the most commonly used instruments in UK homicides.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer was jeered by some as he visited the crime scene and laid a wreath of pink and white flowers with a handwritten note that said: “Our hearts are broken, there are no words for such profound loss. The nation’s thoughts are with you.”
“How many more children?” one person yelled as Starmer was getting in his car.
“Our kids are dead and you’re leaving already?”
Starmer told reporters earlier that he is determined to get a “grip” on high levels of knife crime but said it was not a day for politics.
The prime minister met with and thanked the police, firefighters and ambulance crews who had witnessed the carnage, saying he was “incredibly proud” of what they did and amazed they were back at work.
“There are children today alive because of what you did yesterday,” he said. “That is incredible.”
Witnesses described hearing screams and seeing children covered in blood emerging from the Hart Space, a community centre that hosts everything from pregnancy workshops and meditation sessions to women’s boot camps.
The Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop was a summer vacation activity for children aged about six to 11.
“They were in the road, running from the nursery,” said Bare Varathan, who owns a shop nearby. “They had been stabbed, here, here, here, everywhere,” he said, indicating the neck, back and chest.
Richard Townes, a children’s entertainer from Southport, said parents in texting groups are terrified now to send their children to summer programs
“I have a five-year-old daughter who could have just as easily been at the class,” Townes said. “I feel helpless and like I can’t do anything.”
Britain’s worst attack on children occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot 16 kindergartners and their teacher dead in a school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The UK subsequently banned the private ownership of almost all handguns.
Mass shootings and killings with firearms are exceptionally rare in Britain, where knives were used in about 40 per cent of homicides in the year to March 2023.
Mass stabbings are also very rare, according to Iain Overton, executive director of Action on Armed Violence.
“Most knife attacks are one-on-one and personal — either domestic violence or gang-related — so this tragedy is very unusual and, accordingly, garners lots of media interest,” Overton said.
“This offers no comfort to the grieving families, of course.”