As dozens of smiling children happily sang and played at a Taylor Swift dance class on a beautiful summer’s morning last year, three miles away Axel Rudakubana was arming himself with a kitchen knife with a 20cm blade. Twenty-six excited children, all girls and all aged between six and 11, had earlier been dropped off by loving parents at 10am for the start of the two-hour event, organised by instructors Leanne Lucas and Heidi Liddle at The Hart Space in Hart Street, Southport. Rudakubana, despite the sunshine, wearing a green hooded sweatshirt with the hood up and a surgical mask took a cab to Hart Street, arriving just before 11.
45am. Before leaving home he had searched online for “Mar Mari Emmanuel stabbing”, – the knife attack on a bishop in Sydney, Australia, earlier that year. He travelled in silence and when he arrived left the vehicle without paying, prompting the driver to follow him demanding payment, which he ignored.
A worker at a body shop saw what was going on, telling Rudakubana to pay the taxi driver, but he replied: “What are you going to do about it?” Inside the play event, because of the summer heat, Leanne Lucas opened a window, and as she did so, saw Rudakubana outside, but thought nothing of it. Children were gathered around tables in the studio making bracelets, a life-size model of Taylor Swift standing nearby for the youngsters to have their photos taken alongside. Then the door opened.
Rudakubana enterered, armed with the black-handled Ce.
