By Fionnula Hainey

Copyright manchestereveningnews

A father has recalled the moment he found out there had been ‘multiple’ stabbings at the dance class attended by his daughter. Giving evidence at the public inquiry into the Southport knife attack, which claimed the lived of three young girls in July last year, the traumatised dad said his partner told him she was unsure whether their daughter was ‘alive or dead’ in that moment. His daughter, who was referred to during the proceedings as ‘child K’, survived the horror attack and called him up 15 minutes later to tell him she was safe. He recalled the relief at hearing her voice as she told him: “I’m safe daddy. He didn’t get me, please come home.” The horror unfolded on July 29 at a Taylor Swift workshop for children, which was taking place in a dance studio in the seaside town. Knifeman Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time of the attack, murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and also attempted to kill eight other children and two adults. Rudakubana, now 18, was sentenced to life in jail with a minimum term of 52 years in January. The public inquiry , which opened on July 8 and is being heard Liverpool Town Hall, has been hearing harrowing accounts from survivors of the attack. On Wednesday morning, the father of child K told the hearing that he had been on his way to a business trip when his partner rang to tell him what had happened. He said: “I could never have imagined the horror that was about to unfold at the other end of the telephone call. There had been multiple stabbings in the dance class and she couldn’t find our daughter, she didn’t know if she was alive or dead.” He recalled being “on the motorway miles from home” and “completely powerless” wondering if he would see his daughter alive again. The dad told the hearing that he then received a call from his daughter 15 minutes later confirming she was okay and asking him to come home. “I cannot describe the relief,” he said. Addressing the impact that the attack has had on his family, he told the hearing that they continue to live with the “trauma” of the day and that it had been “incredibly hard” for his partner, who was one of the first mothers to arrive at the scene. “She can still see the perpetrator when she closes her eyes,” he said, adding that their daughter, who he called “the most precious treasure in our lives”, is still cautious around people who resemble her attacker. He added: “We are surviving. We may look like a family carrying on with our lives and we are but we will relive that day forever.” The inquiry also heard from the parents of another survivor, known as child O, who said the day of the attack marked “the end of her carefree childhood”. “It is almost impossible to put into words the scale of the change in our daughter after that day,” they said in a statement to the inquiry. “The impact was immediate and devastating.” The statement said child O was showing extraordinary bravery and is slowly trying to overcome her trauma to “rebuild herself”. They added: “She can now walk through the playground and she can enjoy break and lunchtime with her friends. But the fear is never far away and neither is our worry for her future. “Because the fear she experienced that day is forever. She cannot unsee what she saw. We will continue, as a family, to make good memories, to bring joy back into her life, and to ensure that love and resilience overshadow the pain. “But the psychological scars will remain, on her, on us and on her family.”