The yoga teacher who was stabbed by the Southport attacker was “let down” by organisations which should keep the public safe, the public inquiry has heard.
Leanne Lucas, who was injured during the attack, was due to give evidence at the Southport Inquiry on Monday, but Liverpool Town Hall heard she was “not fit” and a summary of her evidence was read instead.
Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were killed by Axel Rudakubana, referred to in the inquiry as AR, when he entered the Taylor Swift-themed dance class at The Hart Space studio on July 29 last year.
In a statement to the inquiry, Ms Lucas said she had met all the guidelines required when organising the workshop.
She said: “This was all irrelevant when faced with an unforeseen life or death situation, a situation that should have been under control and prevented by multiple organisations and services that keep the general public safe.
“Those organisations and services have let me down.”
Counsel to the inquiry Nicholas Moss KC told the hearing: “Ms Lucas’s reflection is that if she believed the event carried a risk of an attack she would not have delivered the workshop.
“If she had foreseen it as even a possibility, she states, she would never have exposed herself or others to the risk and simply would not have run the event.
“She states she has not held an event since and has not in fact worked since.”
In the statement, Ms Lucas said locking the doors to the studio, on the first floor of a building used by other businesses, would have been a breach of fire safety regulations.
Mr Moss said: “She states that the police had stated that if the door was locked the outcomes would have been severely worse.
“AR would still have found a way in or would have waited in the car park.
“If the door was locked, Ms Lucas would have gone to the door, opened it and have been the first to have been attacked and AR would have gained access to the room regardless and potentially blocked the exit at the door such that more would have died and she would not have been able to call for help and alert others for assistance.”
Ms Lucas appeared at the inquiry earlier this month to read an impact statement, in which she said she had been subject to “relentless” online abuse.
Earlier on Monday, Jennifer Scholes, who owned the lease on The Hart Space studio, was asked questions about policies for locking doors in the building.
She said: “The Hart Space had been open for nearly five years. We had never had an intruder or an unwanted visitor.
“I don’t think anybody would ever have imagined that something so awful would have happened.”
Ms Scholes was in tears when she was asked about Ms Lucas, and said: “I think Leanne is a wonderful human being, an amazing teacher. I have had no problems with her conduct.
“She was trustworthy, she was always there on time and I could just tell she genuinely loved her job and the children.”
She confirmed that on the day of the attack she arrived at the scene in Hart Street and Ms Lucas, who was “slumped” at the side of a van, told her the “kids were being stabbed”.
The inquiry was adjourned until Tuesday.
