‘I’m no hero,’ says Southport private coach who risked his life in the course of the knife assault – as he hails dance instructor’s actions on that horror day

A fitness trainer who risked his life to save children in the Southport knife attack has insisted class leader Leanne Lucas was the ‘real hero’.

Joel Verite, 26, came face-to-face with evil killer Axel Rudakubana as he rushed headlong into the carnage at the Taylor Swift-themed dance event last summer. 

Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, Bebe King, 6, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, were killed in the brutal slayings with eight other children and two adults also injured.

Ms Lucas was stabbed five times as she tried to help children escape the evil attacker. She managed to make it outside and call 999 before she collapsed. 

Mr Verite, a father-of-two, has been hailed a hero for rushing up a staircase and locking eyes with Rudakubana who was wielding a 20cm-long kitchen knife.

He managed to scoop one of the girls off the floor and sprinted outside with her in his arms screaming for help.

However, in an emotional interview, he downplayed his actions on July 29 last year. 

He told The Sun: ‘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.’

He also praised the work of Ms Lucas’s colleague Heidi Liddle, who also helped to protect the children. 

‘Leanne and Heidi just turned up for work and had no choice with what happened. They just had to deal with it,’ Mr Verite added. 

It comes as the personal trainer said on Sunday that Rudakubana did not deserve to be alive for what he had done. 

‘I just don’t understand how anyone can do anything like that to innocent girls. He definitely doesn’t deserve to be alive.’ he said.

Mr Verite was on a lunch break with his window cleaner pal Marcin Tyjon when they noticed a ‘commotion’ at the dance studio.

The duo heroically jumped out of their van as children and yoga teacher Leanne Lucas were fleeing.

Mr Verite first came to the aid of Leanne who was slumped up against a car with a big wound on her shoulder, but the traumatised teacher screamed at him: ‘Forget about me, there’s a fella in there stabbing kids.’

As he ran towards the studio a woman started honking the horn on her car. He went towards her and saw four or five girls in the back seat of the car, including Alice.

‘She just said to me, “Can you please get this girl out?” I look at this poor girl and it’s heartbreaking,’ he said.

‘I’ve picked her up out of the car and I’m running and I’m shouting and screaming for help.’

Mr Verite screamed for help as he carried Alice out of the car. He took off his top to try and stem the flow of blood and Marcin began CPR as ambulances started flooding the street to take those injured in the attack to hospital.

Coward Rudakubana scurried off when he saw a topless Mr Verite coming up the stairs.

The father retreated and used a bin to smash the glass of the door to ensure the killer couldn’t lock himself in.

He then re-entered the building alongside three other people as the first officer on the scene Sergeant Greg Gillespie arrived, armed with just a baton.

Around 40 seconds later a colleague with a Taser rushed past them all and went straight up the stairs to ‘tackle that piece of s***’.

Mr Verite described the ordeal as like a horror film and said it will live with him forever.

He and Marcin went to help paramedics who were tending to the critically injured and both burst into tears as they held up drip bags.

Mr Verite is currently seeing a trauma therapist and has also been getting help from Victim Support.

The 26 excited children, all girls and all aged between six and 11, had earlier been dropped off by loving parents at 10am for the start of the two-hour dance class, organised by Leanne and fellow instructor Heidi Liddle at The Hart Space.

Children were gathered around tables in the studio making bracelets, a life-size model of Taylor Swift standing nearby for the youngsters to have their photos taken alongside.

Then the door opened. Rudakubana entered, armed with the black-handled Cerbera kitchen knife. Seconds later children’s screams rang out.

Without saying a word, he had grabbed the child nearest to him and began stabbing the youngster. He then moved through the room, systematically stabbing as many children as he could before they could escape him.

A child is seen on CCTV trying to escape the building, before being pulled back in. She is later seen stumbling from the building and collapsing.

As the horrified children ran from the studio, Rudakubana chased after them, stabbing them in their backs. He also knifed Leanne Lucas and businessman Jonathan Hayes, who was working in the office next door and bravely tried to stop the carnage.

Witnesses described young girls running from the studio into the street, bleeding from multiple stab wounds.

Outside, a mother was sitting in her car waiting to collect her daughter, when she heard the screaming and saw people running from the building. She managed to grab her daughter and get into her vehicle, along with three other children.

Rudakubana had stabbed two adults and 11 children – with Elsie Dot, Bebe and Alice all suffering fatal injuries.

When police searched the home of Rudakubana in Banks, Lancashire, after he carried out the attack on July 29, they found knives and poison, as well as images and documents relating to violence, war and genocide on his devices.

Sources said the material showed an ‘obsession with extreme violence’ but there was no evidence he subscribed to any political or religious ideology or was ‘fighting for a cause’.

Among the items found on two tablet computers belonging to Rudakubana were documents including A Concise History Of Nazi Germany and The Myth Of The Remote Controlled Car Bomb, the PA news agency understands

Rudakubana, whose parents moved to the UK from Rwanda, also had documents called Rwanda’s Hutu Extremist Insurgency – An Eye Witness Perspective and Death And Survival During The 1994 Genocide In Rwanda.

Other files included A Place Under Heaven – Amerindian Torture and Cultural Violence; The Mau Mau War: British Counterinsurgency in Colonial Kenya; Clan Cleansing In Somalia, The Ruinous Legacy of 1991; and Examination Of Punishments Dealt To Slave Rebels In Two 18th Century British Plantation Societies.

Also found was a PDF file entitled Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual.

The discovery of the file led to Rudakubana being charged with possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism, which he later admitted.

Ahead of what would have been his trial, Rudakubana unexpectedly admitted murdering the three girls and attempting to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as well as class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.

He further pleaded guilty to possessing a knife on the date of the attack, production of the toxin ricin on or before July 29, and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.

Rudakubana was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum term of 52 years.