Police officers and forensic personnel stand behind a cordon on Hart Street in Southport, northwest England, on 29 July 2024, following a knife attack that left two children dead. (Darren Staples / AFP)
- Pop star Taylor Swift has reacted to a knife attack at a dance class themed around her that left three children dead in northern England.
- Monday’s stabbing spree at a dance class in Southport, near Liverpool, also left two adults and 5 children critically injured and three more children hurt.
- UK police on Tuesday questioned a 17-year-old suspect arrested following the incident.
A third child died on Tuesday after a mass stabbing during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, northern England that had already killed two children and left five others critically injured, police said.
The nine-year-old girl died as a result of injuries sustained in the knife attack on Monday, as Merseyside Police also confirmed the two earlier fatalities were girls aged six and seven.
Taylor Swift said she was “completely in shock” earlier on Tuesday after a knife attack at a dance class themed around the US pop star in Southport, northern England, left two children dead.
“The horror of yesterday’s attack in Southport is washing over me continuously, and I’m just completely in shock,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post about the incident, which also left five children critically injured.
“I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.”
Flowers, teddy bears and tributes were left near the scene of Monday’s stabbing spree at a dance class in Southport, near Liverpool, that also saw two adults and six children critically injured and three more children hurt.
A police officer lays floral tributes brought by wellwishers on Hart Street in Southport, northwest England, on 29 July 2024, following a knife attack. (Darren Staples / AFP)
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UK police on Tuesday questioned a 17-year-old suspect arrested following the incident.
Police chief Serena Kennedy said the two adults were trying to protect the children, aged between six and 11.
Residents of Southport, a small seaside town popular with visitors in the summer, were still coming to terms with the attack.
“I’m just still in total shock – I just cannot believe that it happened so close to home,” Leanne Hassan told reporters on Tuesday.
She had rushed to collect her daughter from a nearby nursery which was locked down after the attack.
Her daughter was safe, “but unfortunately that’s not the reality for a lot of parents waking up today,” she added.
Police chief Kennedy confirmed the attack was not being treated as terror-related and that the attacker’s motivation was unclear.
Establishing motive
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the events were “just truly awful, the whole country is deeply shocked”.
“It is almost impossible to imagine the grief,” he added.
Interior minister Yvette Cooper visited Southport Tuesday to meet Kennedy and other officials, with an evening vigil to be held for the victims.
READ | 2 children dead, 6 more critical in UK knife attack on dance class; not terror-related, police say
Starmer is likely to visit the community as well, Chancellor Rachel Reeves told Sky News.
The 17-year-old male arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder is from a neighbouring village called Banks and was born in the Welsh capital Cardiff, Merseyside Police said.
Witnesses told UK media the attacker was seen arriving at the scene in a taxi, and that he entered the venue wearing a mask.
Police said officers were called to the incident shortly before 1100 GMT on Monday, just minutes before the dance event was scheduled to end.
Armed officers detained the suspect nearby and seized a knife.
The suspect was in custody at a police station Tuesday and police said enquiries were ongoing “to establish the motive for this tragic incident”.
Targeted attacks on children are extremely rare in the UK.
Horror movie
Monday’s incident evoked memories of a school massacre in the Scottish town of Dunblane in 1996, which claimed the lives of 16 young pupils and their teacher in Britain’s worst mass shooting.
The North West Ambulance Service said it treated 11 casualties with stab injuries, who were then taken by ambulance and helicopter to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and other hospitals in the area.
Local business owner Colin Parry, one of the people who called police, told the Press Association (PA) news agency that he believed several “young girls” had been stabbed.
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A member of his staff also saw “about 10 kids go running past him, all bleeding, and one of them collapsed on the floor outside the neighbour next door,” he recounted.
Bare Varathan, who owns a local shop, told PA he saw “seven to 10 kids” who were “injured, bleeding”.
Other witnesses told UK media they heard screams, comparing the attack to a scene from a horror film.
King Charles III offered his “most heartfelt condolences, prayers and deepest sympathies” and called the incident “utterly horrific”.
Prince William and his wife Katherine posted on X that “as parents, we cannot begin to imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through”, calling it a “heinous attack”.
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