How Southport mum told daughter about stabbing

Charlotte Brown had an unimaginable task as a mother.

She had to tell her eight-year-old daughter, Poppy, that her friend from school, Alice Aguiar, had been killed in the Southport attack. A women who ran a yoga class Poppy attended after school, Leanne Lucas, was also badly hurt, Charlotte told her little girl.

“We’ve been open and honest - no question is a bad question,” the Mum told the BBC. “I think you have to let them ask the questions and you have to be ready to answer them.”

Poppy attends Churchtown Primary School in Southport. One of the victims of Monday’s horrific mass stabbing, Alice, was in the year above and the friends went to choir together.

Leanne Lucas - who ran the Taylor Swift dance class attacked by a knifeman - is understood to be recovering.

But three children, including Alice, died in the incident, which also left eight children and two adults seriously injured.

17-year-old Axel Muganwa Rudakubana has been named as the teenager charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with the incident.

Poppy told her Mum that Alice was a beautiful singer, who often got the choir solos. “She’ll be a big miss,” Poppy said.

Charlotte found out about the attack on Monday from a friend and said it felt impossible to keep it from Poppy.

“At eight they’re nosy, they listen to everything. And Poppy was asking over and over again what had happened.”

Poppy and her Mum recalled how, on Monday afternoon, they’d seen a lot of police cars and ambulances. Poppy said her Mum was open and honest and told her people had been stabbed at the dance class.

“We didn’t know names the, but I literally knew that Alice was definitely in there,” Poppy told the BBC. “And when we found out she was in hospital I crossed my fingers.”

Later, Alice was named as one of the three girls who had died. “I saw the picture,” said Poppy. “And I said what is wrong with her? And you said she has died from the incident.”

“I don't think she's fully got it, that she has gone,” Charlotte said. But she has kept on letting Poppy ask questions any time she has needed.

“I think it’s the fact that she knows someone that’s confused her more,” Charlotte explained.

They have been to the cordon twice to lay flowers, whenever Poppy has wanted to. “I think it’s important she sees the love and support.”

“It made me feel as though I was giving them to Alice,” Poppy said.

What has happened has been one challenge. But Charlotte says she has had one question from Poppy that she cannot answer: “Her first question was why - and I didn’t have the answer. No one knows why.”

“I've just said there are sadly bad people out there and they do bad things,” Charlotte said. “And it shows, when we went to the vigil, there are thousands and thousands of good people. And there was one bad. So it outweighs it.”

Even on Thursday, in their garden, Poppy and her Mum talk about who and why would do such an atrocious thing. “I don’t think anyone can answer that, sweetie pie.” Charlotte says.

Charlotte and Poppy said they had kept crossing my fingers all week for the other girls.

The connection between this community and the classes at the Hart Centre is something that is palpable with every person you speak to locally. Charlotte is no different.

“I spoke Leanne about four or five weeks ago, and I was telling her how much Poppy loved her class,” she said, adding that the stories of Leanne’s efforts to protect the children on Monday made her feel proud and “showed what a lovely lady she is.”

Poppy was given a flyer for the Taylor Swift dance class this week, but she could not go.

“She was given a flyer and it was Taylor Swift - everyone loved Taylor - and she loves her yoga teacher, so it was just a win-win,” Charlotte explained.

But something came up. “It’s awful to say, but we’re thankful. It’s awful to say. And when you know people that have been affected, it’s heart-breaking.”

Charlotte says it is not the killer, that one bad person, who has unsettled Poppy most.

“She was more scared of the rioting than she was of the stabbing,” she said. “She was petrified that it was going to come down her road and we had to explain to her that there were lots of police.”

“The people that were involved should be (ashamed), they really should,” Charlotte added.

Charlotte and Poppy, and dozens more parents here, even thousands across the country, are just at the beginning of processing the events of Monday afternoon. It is already on Charlotte’s mind how the community will come together to do “something special” for when the children return to school in September.

“Maybe we will sing a song for Alice,” Charlotte and Poppy said.

But for now, many more questions will have to remain unanswered.

“I don’t understand it, no one does. I don’t understand how Monday has flipped the town upside down. It’s scary.”