{"id":396218,"date":"2026-04-13T12:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T12:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/396218\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T12:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T12:43:09","slug":"southport-killers-family-and-authorities-could-have-prevented-deadly-attack-on-dance-class-inquiry-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/396218\/","title":{"rendered":"Southport killer&#8217;s family and authorities could have prevented deadly attack on dance class, inquiry finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Three young girls who shared a love of dancing and performingpublished at 11:43 BST<\/p>\n<p>11:43 BST<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Composite image of L-R: Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice Aguiar. The three girls were killed during a knife attack at a dance class in Southport on 29\/07\/2024\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ded5f64d-1e50-4e74-b2ba-dccf7d796bd6.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Family handouts<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and six-year-old Bebe King were killed during the attack at a children&#8217;s Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in Southport on 29 July 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">All three girls shared a love for dance and performing. Featuring interviews with their parents taken across nine months, a BBC documentary revealed how they grieved for their daughters and set up legacy projects in their names.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The families didn&#8217;t know each other before the tragedy, but Lauren King, mum of Bebe, said meeting up since they died has been &#8220;crucial to our survival&#8221; and a &#8220;blessing&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Bebe&#8217;s parents said she lit up every room she entered. &#8220;She was totally selfless,&#8221; her dad Ben said.<\/p>\n<p>Media caption, <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Home videos give personal glimpse into lives of Alice, Bebe and Elsie<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a victim impact statement read in court during the killer&#8217;s sentencing, Alice&#8217;s parents described their daughter as &#8220;perfect in every way&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Loved her school, her friends. Music, dance, colourful pens and friendship bracelets. She loved Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Sabrina Carpenter,&#8221; the statement read on their behalf said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Elsie&#8217;s mother Jenny said in her own impact statement she had lost her &#8220;best friend&#8221;, and described her daughter as an &#8220;extraordinary person&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The legacy projects established for each of the girls include Alice&#8217;s WonderDance, set up by the Aguiars to support young performers, Elsie&#8217;s Story, a charitable trust to support others in the Southport area, and Bebe&#8217;s Hive, a creative centre that offers support to grieving children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three young girls who shared a love of dancing and performingpublished at 11:43 BST 11:43 BST Image source,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-396218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}