Southport inquiry: Police sergeant faced knife attacker armed only with a baton

A police sergeant paused for just six seconds before he entered the scene of the Southport attacks armed only with a baton to confront the killer, an inquiry heard today.

Sgt Greg Gillespie was warned by a member of the public who had come to the children’s aid, ’You need a f***** gun mate, that’s doing nothing’ before he went inside.

It had taken the officer ten minutes to arrive at the Hart Space dance studio after being informed there was ’a boy with a knife who had stabbed numerous persons and that there were numerous casualties’.

Alice Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Stancombe, seven, were killed at the Taylor Swift-themed class on July 29 last year by Axel Rudakubana, who was later jailed for a minimum of 52 years.

Today the inquiry into the atrocity was told that when he was directed to go to the scene, Sgt Gillespie overtook a fast response paramedic as he arrived at 11.56am.

He parked on Hart Street where footage from his body-worn camera showed he was flagged down by a number of parents who had come to collect their children and did not know if they had escaped.

Det Chief Inspector Jason Pye, the senior investigating officer, told the inquiry: ’He gets out of his car.

’He notices a child to the left-hand side.

’He assumes that that child is not breathing because the two members of the public are standing over her.

’He notified them that there was a fast paramedic behind, and he told them to wave down the first paramedic.’

Window cleaner Joel Verite had carried the child, referred to as C1, from outside the building after she was dragged back into the center by Rudakubana, then 17.

He used his t-shirt to stem her bleeding and she survived the attack.

Mr Verite asked the police officer to follow him through to the car park.

They stopped at the entrance to the Hart Space while Sgt Gillespie updated his control room on the radio, saying: ’We are going in to detain him.’

’He goes to take his baton out and his protective equipment and Joel stops him,’ DCI Pye told the inquiry.

’At that point, Sgt Gillespie says, "Why? What has he got?"

’And that’s the first time he says he’s got a knife.

’He’s warned by Joel not to go in because he’s got the knife and he would need more than a baton.’

The inquiry heard the exact words were: ’You need a f****** gun mate, that’s doing nothing.’

Sgt Gillespie asked over the radio for an officer equipped with a Taser to join him, just as PC Luke Holden and PCSO Timothy Parry arrived.

DCI Pye told the inquiry: ’Greg asked, is he ready to go in? And with very, very little delay, they enter.’

Leaving Mr. Parry to guard the door, the two men entered the Hart Space at 11.57am, six seconds after the other two officers arrived, the inquiry was told.

Nicholas Moss KC, counsel to the inquiry, said: ’There was no significant pause there at all to formulate some sort of complex plan. They go in very quickly.’

Firearms officers had been called to the scene but the two officers did not wait for them, the inquiry was told.

When they got inside, they found Rudakubana on the landing and shouted at him to drop the knife, which he did, before they pushed him to the ground and arrested him, helped by PCSO Parry.

A minicab driver called Gary Poland had taken Rudakubana to the Hart Space but drove away without calling police, the inquiry was told.

Children were seen in the rear dashcam leaving the building and running alongside the taxi and ’you can hear the children screaming’ DCI Pye said.

Mr. Poland looked in the rear-view mirror but still drove off, he added.

The driver did not call the police until 12.36pm, 50 minutes after the attack when he told them: ’The lad who’s done everything, I’ve picked him up.

’I’m just a bit shook up my heart’s going like I don’t know what.’

He told the call handler where he had picked him up and added: ’He just seemed very, very odd, like he had it planned.

’I was just about to drive off and then I heard screaming, proper screaming and there were young people coming down the steps and that’s when I’ve shot off.’

Mr. Moss asked: ’Would you have expected a member of the public, acting responsibly, to have called 999 as soon as they got to a place of safety, when it was safe to make that call?’

DCI Pye replied: ’I would like to think morally that a call would have been made.

’There was enough evidence that he knew what was happening. You would expect a call to come in.’

The inquiry was told that the killer had accessed a document called ’Kamikaze death poetry’ in the minutes before he set off to launch his attack.

Rudakubana had cleared his browsing history but when it was recovered there was nothing relevant found.

However, he had also used a tablet device to download a number of pdf documents.

He could not have read them all in the time he had but the inquiry was given a list of the titles.

They included an excerpt from ’Kamikaze death poetry’ and others which showed an interest in historic revolts and rebellions.

Today the inquiry also heard details of how Rudakubana ordered scales, alcohol, filter paper, a conical flask, measuring cup, and safety goggles via Amazon from January 2022.

Then 15, the future mass killer also bought 150 castor beans and a pestle and mortar.

He used the items to grind down the beans and produce the highly toxic poison ricin, following instructions he had downloaded from the internet in a document called the Al-Qaeda Manual.

Rudakubana used his own bank card to purchase the items but had them sent to a next-door neighbor in his father’s name and to a pick-up point at a local Co-op.

They were found in a box in his bedroom after the attack.

The inquiry was told that the castor beans could produce five lethal doses by ingestion or between 2,547 or 12,690 by inhalation with further purification.

In March 2022 he ordered a traditional Mongolian bow and arrows from Top Archery on Amazon which were found inside a black holdall in his room.

He also ordered brown glass beer bottles with swing stoppers from Amazon and a 5-liter plastic jerrycan.

These were to be delivered to Al Rad - said to be his father Alphonse - at the family home in Banks, near Southport.

They were found in the living room with matches taped to a number of the bottles in preparation for making Molotov cocktails.

It comes after the inquiry was last week told that Rudakubana’s parents knew he was illegally ordering knives online before the ’repugnant’ attack.

Today it heard that on July 22 last year, a week before the attack, Rudakubana - then aged 17 - tried to get his father to buy petrol for him, even though he did not have a car or a driving license.

In May 2022, Rudakubana made inquiries about buying crossbows from a company called Tactical Archery, asking what kind of packaging it would come in and how they would verify that he was over 18.

Rudakubana - referred to throughout the inquiry as AR - also ordered three machetes, two of which were apparently intercepted by his parents.

’Despite the fact these items should not be sold to under-18s, AR managed to order and have delivered to his home address, no less than three,’ Mr. Moss said.

The first was a 22-inch ’Bushcraft Survival’ machete with a sharpening stone, for which Rudakubana used the driving license of a woman called Alice born in 1992.

It was delivered by the DPD to Rudakubana’s father and found on top of a wardrobe in the parents’ bedroom in its original packaging.

A second ’Black Panther’ machete was ordered on October 4, 2023, from Knife Warehouse, based in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.

It was found unopened and still in its original grey packaging in a police secure storage unit after Rudakubana pleaded guilty and was sentenced.

’On one view’ it may have been intercepted by Rudakubana’s parents because it was unopened, Mr. Moss said.

This time, Rudakubana had used another genuine driving license in the name of an older man called Samuel from Uxbridge and delivered by Royal Mail.

A third machete was delivered on October 14, 2023, again using the driving license of ’Samuel.’

Mr. Moss said: ’This does seem to have got into AR’s hands because it was found with the bow and arrows in a black holdall by the bunk beds in his room.

’He twice unsuccessfully tried to get his hands on a machete and the third time succeeded because it was not delivered by age verification.’

The inquiry, at Liverpool Town Hall, is investigating why several agencies, including the police, the courts, the NHS, and social services, who all had contact with Rudakubana, failed to identify the risk he posed.

They will also investigate whether the attack could or should have been prevented.

Rudakubana was under the care of mental health services for several years before the atrocity but was formally discharged just six days before carrying it out, the court heard.

The inquiry continues.