Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Lawyer Chris Walker continued reading the statement of Alexandra and Sergio Aguiar.

He said: "When Alice was born all, you could see was her head full of jet black hair, and very large, beautiful brown eyes."

Alexandra's statement described how she and Sergio "immediately fell in love with her".

"She was a very laid-back baby often sleeping for eight to 10 hours in the evening times and when she woke, she just lit up a room with her large smile and giggles. She was always happy.

"These traits carried on throughout her life."

Alexandra wrote how "we would just glow with pride when people met her". She wrote how Alice "just completed our lives".

She said: "My husband Sergio is originally from Maderia, and I am from Venezuela. We came to the UK to give ourselves and our future children a better life.

"We made a promise to each other that we would give our beautiful daughter everything that we did not have ourselves when growing up."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Image source, Handout

The families' legal representative, Chris Walker, began the statement of Alexandra and Sergio Aguiar by telling the inquiry how their "world was shattered" on 29 July last year.

"The perfect, happy, loving, safe family unit we built, was gone," Alexandra's statement read.

"It was stolen from us. During this hearing we want you to remember why we are all here. We're here for the victims, for their families and for our Alice, Alice da Silva Aguiar - our beautiful loving little girl."

The Aguiars told the inquiry Alice was their only child and was "our everything".

"Since having Alice, everything we did revolved around her. We were the perfect happy, little family."

They described how Alexandra needed medical assistance to get pregnant, and when they found out it had worked it was "one of the happiest times of our lives".

Alexandra wrote: "I can remember feeling the pregnancy glow and feeling so proud of my pregnant tummy.

"Sergio was the same. He would often rub my tummy and talk to the baby."

Judith Moritz
Reporting from the inquiry

Image source, PA Media

Sergio and Alexandra, the parents of nine-year-old Alice Aguiar, are sitting together in the witness box.

Alexandra Aguiar has written the statement, but it is being read by the family’s legal representative, Chris Walker, on their behalf.

The statement includes a line about Alice playing pranks on her dad. As Mr Walker reads it out, Alice’s parents smile at each other.

Jonny Humphries and Judith Moritz

Jenni Stancombe cried as she finished reading her statement.

She told the inquiry she and her husband David would continue to "fight for justice".

"Changes need to be made to prevent this from ever happening again," she said.

This should never have happened in a safe and just society. This cannot happen. No other parent should feel this pain.

"I stand here today asking this inquiry to ensure that what happened to our little girl is a genuine ‘line in the sand’ as it has been referred to. We need to ensure our children are protected, that children and parents have the freedom to choose to gather together safely and without fear; that children and parents have the freedom to participate in society outside the confines of their own homes; and that the people and institutions responsible for ensuring that safety are fully accountable.

"Elsie only went to dance, make bracelets, and I never got to bring her home. I walk past an empty bed every night. I stare into her room praying this nightmare will end, but it never does. We live it every day.

"We are good parents, just like so many others across the country on that day, wanting to do something nice for our little girl at the start of the holidays.

"But instead, we didn’t get to bring her home. We lost everything that day. And I need to understand how this happened.

"Thank you for listening."

The inquiry chairman Sir Adrian Fulford called for a short break after Mrs Stancombe finished giving her evidence.

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Stancombe has told the inquiry that Elsie's death can not be categorised simply as "knife crime".

She said: "The issue runs much deeper than the weapon that was used. It's about the root causes, the drive, the intent, and the series of failures that allowed it to happen.

"Had it not been a knife, it would have been something else. That’s the painful reality."

She has told the inquiry the real focus should be on "preventing individuals with an intent to cause harm from ever reaching the point of carrying out such acts".

"If we fail to address the underlying issues, the tools will keep changing, but the tragedy will remain the same.

"Elsie should be here, living her best life. Our lives will never be the same without her. But we will carry her love and joy forward because it's what she deserves, it is how we get to continue to be a parent to her and fight for her memory, her legacy."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Stancombe has told the inquiry she and her husband David fear the details of her daughter's injuries being published could pose a risk that other young people obsessed with violence could be inspired to commit further crimes.

"Surely, we cannot hope to break this pattern if we continue to release the very details that can drive other people to commit such crimes?" she said.

Mrs Stancombe said she would have been "grateful" for the anonymity provided to the surviving girls and their families.

"We all witnessed things that we cannot un-see, that will haunt us forever, the first responders, witnesses, we were there, I know what you were faced with, I know what you saw.

"But we don’t have the opportunity to try and rebuild our lives, our lives have been ripped apart. We are one of three families that paid the ultimate price for that day."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Stancombe has told the inquiry about the impact of "speculation and rumours" in the days after the attack, including people telling them "things were being hidden from us".

"We had to fight for truth instead of being given space to grieve," she told the inquiry.

"We fought right up until the final moments to prevent the details of Elsie’s injuries from being made public, to protect her dignity, to stop her being defined by what happened to her."

She said the fact her injuries were revealed in the court process was "unbearable".

Mrs Stancombe told the inquiry: "Because she was no longer with us she lost all her anonymity, all of her privacy, all of her dignity.

"The judge’s sentencing remarks devastated us, they were not necessary.

"The [Crown Prosecution Service] knew how important it was to us that those details were not to be made public.

"But they were. And Elsie - as well as us - was failed. Those remarks never needed to be spoken in open court.

"They never needed to be live-streamed. We didn’t do this, we tried to protect her, her dignity. We didn’t fail her. But we were failed, over and over again."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Stancombe has told the inquiry about her husband David's devastation.

She said: "When Elsie was born, when David became a dad to a little girl, I remember him telling his friends: 'The protection you feel over them is like nothing else. You would never let anyone or anything hurt them'.

"But David never got that opportunity. He never got the chance to protect her. To save her. And now we have to live with the unbearable truth that Elsie was alone, without us."

She said Elsie saw her dad as her "hero" and her "protector".

"But he couldn’t protect her that day and as a dad to a little girl he has to live with that pain every day," she said.

She descrived how Mr Stancombe will "never get to drive Elsie to her prom".

"He’ll never meet her first boyfriend. He’ll never walk her down the aisle. Another man took that from him. He took it all. And now David has to live with that, for the rest of his life, as Elsie’s dad."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Stancombe has told the inquiry she and Elsie were "inseparable".

She said: "As a mum, all you want is to keep your children safe and out of harm’s way.

"I more than anyone, I was always worrying, always weighing up the risks. And yet I have to live with the fact that I was the one who organised sending her to that class.

"It was me who told her about it. Me who walked her in and left her there. I have to live with that.

"Knowing I took her into somewhere that turned out not to be safe, I should never have left her and I should have stayed with her when she grabbed my leg."

She told the inquiry she goes over the events of last July "every day" wishing she had made "different decisions".

"David and I often ask ourselves: what have we done so wrong in life to deserve this life of pain?"

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Stancombe has told the inquiry she and her husband David struggle to prepare food due to an aversion to knives.

"We can’t bear to look at them," she said.

"The simplest tasks have become impossible because they trigger memories we cannot face."

She said they also have to check if TV programmes or films contain violence before watching.

Mrs Stancombe said the sight of blood makes her "physically sick".

She said "even the simplest moments" in their lives are "now instilled with fear, anxiety and grief".

Mrs Stancombe told the inquiry: "That day, I lost my mini-me. My best friend. Elsie and I had the most special bond.

"I would talk to her the way I did with my friends. She would tell me about boys, give me advice on what to wear when I was trying on clothes, while she lay on her bed.

"Now, when I walk into her room to look in the mirror, I see an empty bed. I ask her what she thinks still but I get no response.

"No approval. No 'You look great, Mum'. Nothing."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Stancombe has told the inquiry their "family will never be the same again".

"Elsie was the glue that held everything together," she said.

"How can we go to the same restaurants, the same playgrounds, on the same days out, knowing she should be there with us?

"There’s a missing seat now at every table."

Mrs Stancombe said she and her husband David "will never be the same people, the same parents, we once were."

"When we walk down the street now, we look at people differently. Where are they going? What are they doing? What are their intentions?

"We live with this build-up of anxiety, grief, and anger inside us that feels like it could explode at any moment.

"The pain is physical. It hurts every single day."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Stancombe has told the inquiry that the events that she and her husband witnessed that day "will live with us every single moment".

"From the minute we open our eyes to trying to close them at night, it haunts us," she said.

Mrs Stancombe said the way Elsie died and the injuries she sustained are "imprinted in our minds".

"Not our baby girl, the one we spent our lives protecting and providing for, not that happy, laughing smiling Elsie, but what happened to her.

"Elsie’s life was stolen, robbed in the most traumatic way.

"We will never get to watch her grow into the incredible person she would have become.

"Elsie was destined for great things but we’ll never get to see them."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Stancombe has told the inquiry about the desperate period where she and her husband waited for news of where their daughter Elsie was.

She said they were initially told Elsie had been taken to hospital, and they asked repeatedly to describe what she was wearing.

She said: "A police officer walked past me and told David someone that matched Elsie’s description was still inside the building and hadn’t made it.

"David knelt down in front of me and just looked at me. I didn’t believe them. I didn’t want to believe them.

"I insisted they had it wrong and they needed to find her.

"I now know Elsie never left the building. All the time I was there, I thought she was receiving help, Elsie could not be helped."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Stancombe has told the inquiry about the moment she received a phone call telling her about the attack.

She said: "The scream I let out when I was told someone had just stabbed the girls... David ran down the stairs screaming ‘what’s happened?’ but I was already out the door."

She told the inquiry they drove to the dance studio "screaming at people to get out of the way".

When they arrived, they left the car in the middle of the road and ran to the building, screaming Elsie's name.

She said: "David and I both reached the front door to the Hart Space [building], where two police officers lifted David from his feet and carried him back as he fought to get inside.

"We could see the devastation that had been caused. There were injured girls all around us. I went around each of them looking for Elsie.

"What we saw that day will stay with us for the rest of our lives. Out of respect for the other victims, I will not go into detail, but it goes without saying no human being should ever witness what we did that day."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Stancombe has described the last time she saw her daughter before the attack.

She told the inquiry: "I remember that morning so clearly.

"Elsie was so excited, she picked out a little green two-piece outfit, and just three days before, she had her ears pierced, and she couldn’t stop talking about it.

"She was so eager to see and show her friend.

"She loved Taylor Swift, and I just knew she’d be over the moon with everything planned for the day."

She said she walked Elsie into the dance studio, where the children were sitting in a circle.

"Elsie clung onto my leg for just a moment, like she was a little nervous, but the second she saw her friend, she kicked off her shoes and ran over.

"I watched her kneel down and sit on the floor, holding her Stanley cup as always, full of that pure joy she always had, I gave her a wave and left.

"Then our world shattered."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Jenni Strancombe has told the inquiry Elsie was "our joy, our pride, our everything".

"The way she made us smile every single day was something we never took for granted," she said.

"She just radiated warmth and love to everyone around her."

She described her daughter as a "dreamer" and a "little fashionista", with a passion for fashion design.

"Elsie was always creating her own look, in her own special Elsie way," she said.

Mrs Stancombe said her daughter was "just pure love".

"She had this remarkable way of showing affection to everyone. She would leave a lasting impact on anyone she met.

"We had many occasions where parents had helped out at the school and would go out of their way to tell us how polite, caring and kind natured she was. We couldn’t be any prouder."

Judith Moritz
Reporting from the inquiry

Jenni Stancombe is fighting her emotions to get through the statement.

Her voice is wavering and she is trying really hard not to cry.

She is managing to get through it but it is clear that it is a real ordeal.

The inquiry chairman is sitting, with his hands clasped on his knee, listening closely and looking intently at Mrs Stancombe as she speaks.

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

Image source, Handout

Jenni Stancombe, the mother of Elsie Dot, has taken a seat at the witness stand next to her husband David.

She began reading her statement by teliling the inquiry they had the "most perfect life" before 29 July 2024.

Mrs Stancombe said: "Elsie made us a Mum and Dad.

"She gave us the greatest gift we could ever imagine, the privilege of becoming parents.

"From the very first moment we held her, we were changed forever.

"The love we felt for her was like nothing we had ever experienced. That love, that protection you feel over them, no words can describe it."

Jonny Humphries
Reporting from Liverpool

The families of Alice Aguiar, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King arrived at Liverpool Town Hall together a short time ago.

They will be giving their evidence to the the inquiry throughout the day.

David and Jenni Stancombe will speak first.

Judith Moritz
Reporting from the inquiry

The inquiry room is full and hushed as we wait for the families of the three children to arrive. The main council chamber of Liverpool Town Hall has been turned into the inquiry’s hearing room. A large branded purple “Southport Inquiry” backdrop has been put up behind the front dais, where the inquiry chairman Sir Adrian Fulford sits. In front of him there are banks of lawyers, who are sitting in the amphitheatre-style seating. The witness box, where the children’s parents will sit, is near to the chairman’s position, at right angles to the rest of the room.

It is a grand setting, and a room normally used to hosting civic events or full council meetings. But over the last week, while we have been hearing from the adult survivors of the attack, and the parents of children who survived, it has taken on an intimate feel. The atmosphere has often been highly emotional with many witnesses in tears. Some lawyers have told me that they have fought to hold back their own emotion while listening to the statements, which have laid bare the terrible psychological toll which the attack has taken on all those affected.