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'REAL' SOUTHPORT HERO
I’m no hero but Leanne is. What she did was incredible, says instructor who came face to face with Southport killer
Joel was just six feet away from Rudakubana, who was wielding a 20cm-long knife
THE fitness trainer who risked his life to help children in the Southport knife attack last night insisted yoga teacher Leanne Lucas was the “real hero”.
Joel Verite, 26, was among the first on the scene after Axel Rudakubana went on the rampage at a Taylor Swift dance event.
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Three young girls died with eight more children injured. Organiser Leanne — making bracelets with the kids — was stabbed five times but still managed to usher children away from the teenage attacker.
Once outside, she called 999 before collapsing.
Joel said: “I feel like the actual hero is Leanne. She was in there protecting all these innocent girls.
“She ran downstairs, ran to the road, got to the road and was on the phone to the police alerting them to it.
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“What she endured inside — to get outside while already wounded is heroic. Imagine if she hadn’t made her way to the road. He could have been in there for longer and no one would have known.”
Joel also paid tribute to Leanne’s colleague Heidi Liddle, who tried to pull her clear from Rudakubana.
As she pushed children towards the exit, one girl ran into a toilet, so Heidi darted in behind her and locked the door and kept her foot up against it as Rudakubana tried to barge it open.
Joel said: “Leanne and Heidi just turned up for work and had no choice with what happened. They just had to deal with it.
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“I had a choice to get involved or not, but they didn’t.”
Joel was helping his friend, window cleaner Marcin Tyjon, doing his rounds on July 29 when they spotted bloodied Leanne slumped against a car outside the Hart Space venue.
I came face to face with Southport killer in dance studio during massacre - and carried victims out
When Joel leapt from the van, she pointed to the studio and told him: “He’s stabbing kids in there!”
Joel told The Sun: “Her body has then given out and she’s collapsed.
She’s done all that and then she’s collapsed at the last minute.”
He took Leanne’s phone to continue her 999 call before running towards the studio.
Joel, a former Wigan Warriors rugby league academy prospect, backed up two officers who arrived on the scene minutes later.
He was six feet from Rudakubana, who was wielding a 20cm-long knife
The monster, then 17, was arrested. Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and nine-year-old Alice Da Silva Aguiar died.
For Alice, Elsie, Bebe, Heidi and the surviving girls, I’m surviving for you
Leanne
Last month Rudakubana, now 18, was jailed for 52 years.
Liverpool crown court heard Leanne had posted an ad for a Taylor Swift Yoga and Dance workshop on Instagram on July 7 for kids aged six to 11. Pal Heidi helped Leanne supervise the event.
Leanne, 36, told Rudakubana’s sentencing hearing how she had been left with mental as well as physical trauma — but vowed to continue to try to find “goodness in the world”.
She added: “I constantly see his face. He targeted us because we were women and girls, vulnerable and easy prey. For Alice, Elsie, Bebe, Heidi and the surviving girls — I’m surviving for you.”
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In November Leanne also gave a speech at a candlelit vigil to remember the victims of male violence.
She said: “There has been a lot of love come from Southport, a lot of love come from all over the world. The impact has been tragic, but there has been some glimmers, at times.”
Joel also praised the way the local community rallied round immediately after the attack.
He said: “People turned up to see what was going on and immediately when they realised young girls were hurt, did whatever they could to help them. Everyone who did something that day is a hero.”
He went on to back a change in the law to force killers like Rudakubana into the dock.
The coward refused to face his victim’s families as he was jailed. Earlier he disrupted his sentencing hearing by repeatedly claiming he was ill — despite medics giving him the all-clear.
I was really happy that he pleaded guilty so the families didn’t have to go through a full court case
Joel
Judge Mr Justice Goose ordered he be removed from the court after he kept shouting out as details of his horrific crimes were set out for the first time. He refused to return to the courtroom.
Joel, who spent hours giving police a video interview in the days after the attack to help the prosecution case, said: “I was really happy that he pleaded guilty so the families didn’t have to go through a full court case.
“But if you commit a crime like that I 100 per cent believe you should be there to face your punishment. It should be mandatory.
“You should be made to stand up there behind the glass and everyone should be able to look down on you for how low of a human being you are.”
Last Tuesday, Rudakubana again refused to leave his cell at HMP Belmarsh, this time for a video-link to court to resolve a legal issue.
The Government backed a change in the law after killer Thomas Cashman refused to come to court for sentencing in April 2023 for the Liverpool murder of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel.
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Last month her mum Cheryl Korbel met PM Sir Keir Starmer and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
The minister told MPs: “I will be legislating to give judges the power to order attendance at sentencing hearings. I will make it clear that reasonable force can be used to make sure this happens.”
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TAKE PRIDE IN HEROES
THE Southport stabbings were a low point in modern British history and led to difficult questions.
What provoked a boy to deliberately kill three young girls, and try to kill ten other people, two of them adults who tried to stop him?
As a dad to two young boys, it was incomprehensible. Despite 25 years as a journalist, when the reports first came in I remember thinking: “This can’t be true.”
Covering Axel Rudakubana’s court hearing was horrific — but among the trauma we got to hear examples of selflessness at the dance studio by police, medics and firefighters.
They were joined by the likes of hero Joel Verite, who twice risked his life to rush into the studio.
He was not alone in his actions.
We should feel rightly proud of everyone who responded to what was an awful situation.
Joel, like many others, still bears the emotional and mental scars from that day.
He deserves to know that he is a hero too.
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