A police officer on duty in the control room on the day of the Southport attack has told the public inquiry he found it “difficult to understand” how one person could have inflicted so many injuries.
Chief Inspector Andrew Hughes was one of two force incident managers in the Merseyside Police control room on July 29 last year when 999 calls began to come in reporting a “boy with a knife” and numerous casualties at the Hart Space from just after 11.45am.
Axel Rudakubana murdered Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and attempted to murder 10 others in the attack at the Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
Mr Hughes told the inquiry, sitting at Liverpool Town Hall, that armed response vehicles were sent to the scene but, while they were en route, unarmed officers were deployed with instructions to deal with the situation if it was safe to do so.
The inquiry heard Sergeant Gregory Gillespie and Pc Luke Holden, armed with a Taser, entered the building and detained Rudakubana.
Mr Hughes said armed response officers continued to the scene even after the suspect was arrested.
He said: “The amount of casualties… I found it difficult to understand how one person could inflict that many injuries to that many people, so a consideration for me was that there might be more offenders that we hadn’t yet encountered.”
He said when they arrived armed officers carried out a search of the building, as well as helping to provide first aid.
The inquiry heard Rudakubana did not give any details when asked who he was at the scene, so was not identified until a call from taxi driver Gary Poland.
The police log showed after a call, which ended at 12.54pm, in which Mr Poland gave the address he had picked the teenager up from, officers noted Rudakubana lived at the house and had a warning marker for carrying knives.
The log also noted: “He has been logging onto school websites which involve school mass shootings and he talks about guns and beheadings.”
Mr Hughes said he decided to send armed officers to carry out a search of Rudakubana’s home on Old School Close in Banks, Lancashire.
He said: “There were a number of scenarios I was considering. There could be other offenders, this is part of some sort of planned operation to lure police in. There could be a threat to officers when they arrive.
“He could have injured family members, there could be injured people at that location.”
Mr Hughes accepted that “perhaps” it would have been possible for him to have declared a major incident earlier than 12.14pm but said he was waiting for the number of casualties to be confirmed.
He said declaring it earlier would not have made a difference to the number of resources available or the speed they got there.
Mr Hughes said he felt his training had prepared him for dealing with the incident and he did not feel overwhelmed.
He said: “It was a very chaotic, horrific incident which gets landed on you with no warning whatsoever but I felt able to discharge my duties effectively.”
The inquiry continues.
