Elsie Dot Stancombe (Image: PA)
The parents of Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King have spoken for the first time about their grief and said they wanted their daughters to be remembered by how they saw her rather than the horrific details heard in court.
Elsie, 7, and Bebe, 6, were attending a sold-out Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in Southport when killer Axel Rudakubana stormed the venue on July 29 last year.
Barely controlling his grief, Elsie’s father David, who has another daughter four years younger, said: “You know you say to your kids every day, every night, ‘I won’t let anything happen to you?’ How could I say that now?
“Because this has happened to Elsie. How could I sit there and say, ‘I would never let anything happen to you’?”
Elsie’s mother Jenni added: “Everyone says it, don’t they, that they’re one of a kind? But she truly was.”
More than 11 children were at the one-off class, and with their dance class leader Leanne Lucas, as Rudakubana systemically moved between them, stabbing any child he could reach
A third child, nine-year-old Alice da Silva, was also killed while Miss Lucas sustained life-change injures when she tried to protect them,
Speaking to The Sunday Times, Bebe’s mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: “I literally just think they’re angels.
“Bebe operated on such a high frequency. She had this power to connect with people and the relationships she had with all her family members were different but very special. She had this innate kindness. She had a spark.”
Bebe’s interesting Taylor Swift was only a few months old, but she loved her song Love Story. “She wouldn’t just sing it,” her mother says. “She would perform it.”
Elsie, her parents revealed, had almost missed out on attending the class after it sold out quickly.
“I knew it had sold out, so I messaged Leanne saying, ‘Aw, I totally forgot to pay for Elsie’, recalled Jenni.
But Miss Lucas, who had been helping Elsie with her reading during private tutoring sessions, made space for her.
Elsie’s parents, David and Jenni, as they St John’s Church for her funeral (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Victims Alice, nine, Elsie, seven, and Bebe, six (Image: Merseyside Police/AFP via Getty)
Murderer Rudakubana walking to a bus stop on that fateful day (Image: PA)
A vicarious girl, Elsie tried a host of clubs including gymnastics, swimming, ballet before eventually settling on cheerleading.
“It was an honour to be her mum. Sometimes I think people are born special, and I genuinely believe she was,“ says Jenni.
“Everything she did was pure enthusiasm. It could be the most boring thing – even, like, David taking the bins out – and it was like, ‘I’ll come!’ She was grateful for life.”
Elsie never liked her parents to be alone, her parents say, and following the death of her grandmother two years before, retained a special empathy for her father.
“She would always ask Jenni about her Nana and not me. It’s like she just knew,” recalls David, 36.
Jenni, 35, added: “I watched Soul [the Disney Pixar film about a near-death experience] with her. And she had a lot of questions about passing away because she couldn’t understand why Nana wasn’t there.”
For Bebe’s mother, it was her daughter’s sense of humour that remains a vivid memory.
“One of the things that was really special about her was that she was hilarious. She used to make me belly laugh. She would do impressions. She would try stupid accents. Even when she was a baby she would have me belly laughing.”
Highly intelligent, Bebe was also a natural performer with a love of musicals.
“She would sing a lot of Frozen. I’m a big fan of Beyoncé and she would sing and perform her songs, like doing Energy with all the moves, EN-ER-GY,” Bebe’s mother says
Recalling the last time she saw Elsie alive, Jenni says: “I watched her sit down and waved her off and I left her.”
One source of genuine comfort for the families has been the efforts of the Royal Family. In October, the Princess of Wales visited the families in Southport, her first public engagement since finishing chemotherapy.
“That meant so much to Jenni,” David says. “Because it was her first public appearance. I won’t say what they said to us, but what they shared with us was really, really powerful, and it was a powerful message and heartfelt, and it meant a lot.”
And both parents said the sentencing of the killer should not have been televised because it contain too much detail on the girls’ injuries, which is not how they want them to be remembered.
Bebe’s father said: “We know it has to be heard in court but why did the whole nation need to see it on television?”
The families also welcomed plans announced last month by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper for a public inquiry into Rudakubana amid reports of a litany of missed chances by counterterrorism police to stop him.