Three police officers, who have been voted Britain’s bravest officers, have described confronting, disarming and arresting the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana.
The trio, from the Merseyside force, were first on the scene as the crazed teenager rampaged with a knife through a children’s dance workshop last summer, murdering three youngsters and attacking others.
Southport wasn’t Sergeant Greg Gillespie’s beat and he was there that day covering for a colleague on holiday.
He described the scene outside the building on Hart Street as he arrived on his own.
He said: “There was maybe 20 or 25 adults, and all of them were looking at me, and all of them have this look of terror and fear, panic on their faces and I knew whatever it was we were turning up to was really, really bad.”
His colleagues PC Luke Holden, 31, and PCSO Tim Parry, 32, drove fast from Southport police station and were 30 seconds or so behind Sgt Gillespie.
PC Holden said: “I jumped out of the police car, and immediately there were people running up to me and one was an off-duty colleague who was screaming and crying, pointing ‘he’s in there, he’s there’ and then as I started to run to the building I could see blood all over the floor.
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“As I got to the door, that was partially smashed. Greg was stood there one foot in, one foot out.
“There was a large puddle of blood on the floor outside the door and he just looked at me for one second and said, are you ready? And that was it, there was no conversation.
“There was nothing else going on. He said, ‘Are you ready’, and I said, ‘yeah, let’s go’.”
‘It was a horrific scene’
PCSO Parry, who doesn’t carry a baton or a pepper spray like his colleagues, went to the back of the building to stop people going, help anyone who needed it and get information on the number of suspects inside.
He said: “It was a horrific scene to really go into because I was so unprepared with the equipment I had.”
An additional problem for the three officers was the absence of firearms back-up; none of the force’s armed response units were close by.
Inside the building was death, injury, fear and chaos.
PC Holden said: “Walking in, I identified the suspect with a bloodied knife in his hand at the top of the stairs, pointed my taser at him and thought this is going to go one of two ways.
“He’s gonna listen to us or he’s gonna fight with us and try and stab us.
“Me and Greg formed a solid wall with our shoulders, walking up the stairs so he couldn’t get past us.
“He was a couple of metres away, within striking distance, and I thought if he does anything to threaten me or any sort of movement I don’t like, he would be tasered immediately.”
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Rudakubana was a ‘coward’
Sgt Gillespie, 42, said he’d read media reports suggesting Rudakubana had already decided to give himself up by the time police arrived.
He said: “I disagree with that. I saw him, made eye contact with him, saw his facial expression, saw his body language and the way he moved himself into a position at the top of the stairs, showing us he had a knife.
“He was fronting us, like he was saying ‘I’ve got a knife, what are you going to do about it?’ And I think the second he realised he was looking at two people who weren’t scared of him… all that bravery that he must have summoned up to attack defenceless children… he lost that straightaway and he threw down the knife.
“It’d be hard to paint him as more of a coward than he actually is, but I think that shows a lot. He was all brave to attack children, but the second he saw two men walking towards him, he didn’t want to know.”
But the officers had no idea if Rudakubana had more weapons, so they attacked him and knocked him to the ground.
PCSO Parry ended up on top of the suspect.
He said: “Through adrenaline I just kind of put him on his front to make sure he wasn’t going anywhere until other colleagues arrived.
“I was trying to alert anyone else hiding in the building that everything had, hopefully, now stopped and we would deal with them as best we could and make sure they were safe.”
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In January, Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time, admitted the murders of seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar who was nine.
He also admitted the attempted murder of eight other children and two adults. He was jailed for life with a minimum of 52 years to serve.
Bravery award is ‘bittersweet’
At his sentencing, the judge said that if he hadn’t been stopped he would have gone on to kill all 26 children at the dance class.
“By the time we got the call I think it was already too late to save two of the victims,” said Sgt Gillespie.
“But there was an adult, one of the dance teachers, who was shielding another child in the toilet, within arm’s distance from him and I don’t think he realised.
“If he had known they were there I’m sure he would have tried to attack them, so it’s a good job we got there when we did because we potentially saved them from being injured or killed.”
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Before winning last night’s accolade, PCSO Parry summed up the trio’s thoughts about their bravery award nomination.
He said: “It’s bittersweet. I feel proud being nominated, but it comes off the back of such a horrific incident.
“It’s hard to explain. It’s good to have the recognition from your peers and colleagues, but in my eyes it’s not like a celebration.”
70 officers from around England and Wales were nominated for the Police Federation national bravery awards.
