Businessman tackled Southport knifeman after hearing screams

There was a major police response after the attack on children at a Southport dance event on 29 July

A businessman has told of how he confronted a knifeman during the Southport attack after hearing children's screams coming from the dance class nearby.

John Hayes, 63, was one of the first people on the scene of the stabbings in the Merseyside town on 29 July, in which three young girls were killed.

Grandfather Mr Hayes, who was stabbed in the leg as he grappled with the attacker, said he was "hugely upset" he could not have done more to protect the children.

"I don't know to what extent I've interfered or helped or delayed," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

'Locked eyes'

Mr Hayes, who has an office in the same complex as the studio on Hart Street, said he "ran the full length of our building" when he heard screaming.

He said he "opened the door and was confronted by a girl on the floor who looked badly injured, she had bloodstained clothing, she was motionless".

He said he saw "the guy in front of me with a knife" and that "the knife had blood on it".

"When I opened the door he was standing there, he had a hoodie on, but most of his face was concealed.

"We locked eyes on each other and he looked pretty menacing," he said.

"I described him at the police station as like a crouching tiger.

"It registered immediately that he shouldn't have been there.

"The next minute he's coming at me and then we had a bit of a grapple. He was flailing this knife around in front of me and I was trying to get it off him.

"I couldn't tell you at what stage I realised I'd been stabbed but I was stabbed in my upper thigh, there was this bolt of pain and I fell backwards."

Businessman John Hayes tackled the knifeman after hearing screams coming from the dance class

Mr Hayes said he kicked out at the attacker, who then fled. One of Mr Hayes' colleagues then managed to close the doors.

"My overriding thought at the time was not for myself," he said.

Mr Hayes said he was recovering well from his injury, which left him in a critical condition and in need of major surgery.

He said it would take time to come to terms with what he had witnessed.

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"The last of couple of days I had the stark realisation that I was lucky.

"It only narrowly missed my femoral artery and I've been told if it had caught that I probably wouldn't be here.

"The blade went into my leg 12cm. It's not what I would call a superficial wound but there's no reason why I wouldn't make a full recovery.

"I've not even begun to process the horror show that I've seen, it's just going to take me a while to process that."

Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Bebe King, six, died in the attack

Primary school children Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar were killed during the attack, which also saw nine other children, Mr Hayes and yoga teacher Leanne Lucas seriously injured.

Ms Lucas, 35, was leading the Taylor Swift-themed party and is understood to have tried to protect the children from the attack.

On Thursday, Axel Rudakubana, from the Lancashire village of Banks, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court charged with three counts of murder and the attempted murder of eight children and two adults.

The judge ruled that although he was 17 at the time, the youth could be named publicly.

The former Formby Range High School pupil, who turned 18 this week, was remanded in custody ahead of a further appearance in October.

An inquest into the deaths of the three girls was earlier opened and adjourned.

Mr Hayes said he is now trying to focus "on the positives" and that he does not believe the riots happening around the country are a direct response to the incident in Southport.

"The vigil last night, local tradesmen rallied round to help clean up the local mosque that was damaged. Those are the positive to take out of this," he said.

"People will come to terms with it and I think Southport will be keen to distance itself from the trouble that sparked riots around the country.

"I don't think the trouble has anything to do with the Southport stabbings. There appears to be a strong undercurrent of discontent for sometime about the levels of immigration and this is just a trigger but I don't think it's the root cause.

"There's an awful lot of unhappy people in this country who want something to be done, I don't think this problem is going to go away until the government starts to address that."