29 July 2024: the events before the attack started

The Hart Space and the arrival for the dance and yoga class

¶14. The Hart Space was part of the Norwood Business Centre on Hart Street, Southport.

¶15. I return later in this chapter to consider the security and other arrangements at the Hart Space. For present purposes, it suffices to give a brief introduction. Ms Lucas described the Hart Space, in terms that have not been contradicted, as follows:

¶“The Hart Space was a well-loved, well used, and well-established venue. It was known as a community and family venue, holding multiple workshops including baby yoga, antenatal classes, music and dance workshops, baby book club, Rhyme Time classes, Relax Kids yoga club, meditation classes, and holiday clubs.”⁸²⁸² First Witness Statement of Ms Lucas IWS000003/§27.

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¶16. The Hart Space was conceived and run by Mrs Jennifer Scholes.⁸³⁸³ First Witness Statement of Mrs Scholes JSC000003/§§7-11, §29, §§35-38. Under the trading name ‘Empowered Bumps’, Mrs Scholes ran her own classes for expectant mothers and mothers and babies, having trained in hypnobirthing, baby massage, baby yoga and as a birth doula. Through ‘The Hart Space Limited’, Mrs Scholes leased the studios that made up the Hart Space as a main venue for these classes. But she also sub-let the Hart Space for hire by the hour to other class facilitators. She did so on a selective basis, only offering the space to classes or activities of a broadly similar ethos.

¶17. Ms Lucas’s ‘Enlighten Kids Yoga’ classes shared the same ethos, and Ms Lucas was one of the class facilitators who regularly hired the Hart Space.

¶18. The landlord of the Norwood Business Centre was JGH Developments Ltd. While the Director of JGH Developments was Mrs Helen Hayes, in reality this was part of the group of businesses run by her husband Mr Jonathan Hayes, himself a victim of the attack.⁸⁴⁸⁴ Witness Statement of Mrs Hayes IWS000001/§1, §3. Mr Hayes was a costs lawyer who owned Calculus Legal Costings Limited, which was run out of the neighbouring large unit in the upstairs of the Norwood Business Centre.

¶19. The Hart Space comprised a downstairs studio (reached by its own access door from the communal car park), and an upstairs studio which was reached by an entrance and staircase shared by Calculus Legal Costs Holdings. The layout is depicted in Figures 1 to 3, below.

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¶Figure 1: The Hart Space seen from outside⁸⁵⁸⁵ MERP007543.

¶Figure 2: Internal plan – Hart Space downstairs and communal staircase⁸⁶⁸⁶ MERP007546.

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¶Figure 3: Internal plan – Hart Space upstairs, communal landing and Calculus office⁸⁷⁸⁷ MERP007544.

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¶20. The Calculus office extended along the upstairs of the Norwood Business Centre. The Calculus office windows gave a view over both the car park and the communal entrance. CCTV cameras also covered both of these areas: see Figure 4, below. It is neither necessary nor appropriate for this report to replicate imagery from the CCTV cameras, but they enabled Merseyside Police to compile a careful chronology of the movements in and out of the Hart Space, by AR and of his victims.

¶Figure 4: Outside view of Calculus office and CCTV locations⁸⁸⁸⁸ MERP007543.

¶CSI image showing CCTV cameras overlooking the access and egress to The Hart Space Studio and Calculus Legal Costs Holdings.

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¶21. On 29 July 2024, the day of the attack, Ms Lucas arrived at the Hart Space shortly before 09:29. Mrs Liddle arrived a minute later.⁸⁹⁸⁹ For an overview of the attack chronology see further the First Witness Statement of DCI Pye MERP007551/§§7-44. The 25 young girls who had booked to attend the event, along with Child C6 as the 13-year-old helper, all arrived between 09:50 and 10:06. Initially, the event was split into two groups with Ms Lucas taking the yoga element downstairs and Mrs Liddle the dance element upstairs. However, at 11:16 the two groups combined in the upstairs space for making bracelets using beads and the conclusion of the class.

AR’s computer use on the morning of 29 July 2024

¶22. AR lived at 10 Old School Close, Banks, Lancashire PR9 8SB. It should be noted that AR’s family no longer live at this address. This location, relative to the scene of the attack is shown in Figure 5, below.

¶Figure 5: Key locations⁹⁰⁹⁰ MERP007539.

¶Map showing 10 Old School Close and The Hart Space Studio.

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¶23. AR was at home overnight on the night of 28/29 July 2024. Both his parents were also at home as was his brother Dion R, who had recently returned home from university. I focus here on the actions of AR on 29 July. I will return in Chapter 12: AR’s family to the actions of AR’s family that morning.

¶24. By July 2024, AR had the use of three main electronic devices:

An HP laptop;
An older Lenovo Tablet (designated exhibit SMG/3 in the police investigation);
A new Lenovo Tablet, purchased on 9 October 2023 (designated SMG/2).

¶25. At 10:06 on 29 July 2024, on the Lenovo Tablet SMG/2, AR took a screenshot of recently accessed files showing five PDF files.⁹¹⁹¹ First Witness Statement of DCI Pye MERP007551/§86 (later corrected to refer to SMG/2: Second Witness Statement of DCI Pye MERP008308/§8). The time stamp for these files was 09:51, with no date. When PDFs had been accessed weeks or months earlier, a date appeared as well as the time. Merseyside Police assessed that this shows that AR accessed these particular files very recently and I accept this; he likely viewed these files that same morning, 29 July 2024. The five files were consistent with other evidence of AR’s fascination with violence and conflict. They were:

¶a. Divinity and Experience — The Religion of the Dinka;

¶b. Excerpt from Kamikaze Death Poetry;

¶c. Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia;

¶d. The Ethiopian Revolution — War in the Horn of Africa;

¶e. Rebellion in Iraq 869-883 CE Race, Rebellion.⁹²⁹² MERP000926/5-6.

¶The document on Kamikaze Death Poetry is perhaps particularly significant since it documented poems arising out of “a tradition held by World War II Japanese Kamikaze pilots to place pen to paper one last time”.⁹³⁹³ MERP007520.

¶26. At 10:50 on 29 July 2024, AR used the Chrome browser on his Lenovo Tablet SMG/2 to search for “around 1:22:30 mar mari podcast”.⁹⁴⁹⁴ First Witness Statement of DCI Pye MERP007551/§86 (later corrected to refer to SMG/2: Second Witness Statement of DCI Pye MERP008308/§8).

¶27. At 10:55, AR then deleted the internet browser history on his HP Laptop, both on Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. This prevented later searches on the device revealing what AR had been viewing on this laptop, save that it revealed that there were images of knives and hammers dating from around October 2020.⁹⁵⁹⁵ T/S: 11/22/16-23/4.

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¶28. At 11:04, approximately six minutes before he left the address, AR then again used the newer of his Lenovo Tablets (SMG/2) to carry out a search on Twitter/X for “mar mari Emmanuel stabbing”. The limitations of the retrieved data meant that it could not be definitively established one way or the other whether AR followed the search links to view the footage. But when the same search was later created by the investigating officers, it led to posts containing the full video footage of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel being stabbed while live streaming a sermon in a church in Sydney, Australia.⁹⁶⁹⁶ First Witness Statement of DCI Pye MERP007551/§86 (later corrected to refer to SMG/2: Second Witness Statement of DCI Pye MERP008308/§8).

¶29. The video was flagged by X as sensitive at this time and would, therefore, not have been visible to users who had provided a date of birth which rendered them under 18.⁹⁷⁹⁷ T/S: 32/82/6-15. However, X’s age verification process at that time simply asked a user to enter a date of birth and did not involve any further age verification such as checks on the email address provided, the provision of a live selfie (for the purposes of estimating age) or the provision of a government identity document.⁹⁸⁹⁸ T/S: 32/83/19-84/9. Those are all measures that X has put in place for UK users as a result of the Online Safety Act 2023, which was not in force at the relevant time.⁹⁹⁹⁹ T/S: 32/94/2-98/8.

¶30. Despite the wide terms of the Inquiry’s original Section 21 notice to X, it was only on the evening of 3 November 2025, just before Ms Deanna Khananisho was due to give evidence as the corporate witness on behalf of X, that its legal representative belatedly wrote to the Inquiry confirming that the date of birth was held for one of AR’s multiple accounts (‘the extant account’).¹⁰⁰¹⁰⁰ Pursuant to a Section 21 notice dated 18 September 2025, X had been required to disclose “any information (including user account details, username, any linked identifiers, communications and records of activity available to X in relation…” to AR’s email addresses, telephone number and X handle: XIUC000128.,¹⁰¹¹⁰¹ Further letter from the Inquiry dated 28 October 2025 (XIUX000132), and response of 3 November 2025 (XIUC000134). Account number ending -5419. Even then, X required a further Section 21 notice to be served for the Inquiry to obtain this information, despite the fact that the information would have been covered by the Inquiry’s original Section 21 notice.¹⁰²¹⁰² It stated that the data had been preserved “pending service of a valid Section 21 notice”. (XIUC000134) and sought to suggest (despite the wide terms of the original Section 21 notice) that “The year of birth was not originally requested by the Inquiry in their Section 21 notice dated 18 September 2025, and therefore was not produced”. The Inquiry did then serve a Section 21 notice the following morning, 4 November 2025, before Ms Khananisho gave evidence.¹⁰³¹⁰³ XIUC000136, XIUC000137. During her oral evidence later that day, Ms Khananisho stated she was not able to provide the date of birth.¹⁰⁴¹⁰⁴ There was this exchange between Mr Moss KC as Counsel to the Inquiry and Ms Khananisho: “Q. I’m only going to ask this one further question, why is it, having received a Section 21 notice signed by the Chairman this morning, that you are not in a position to give that information now? A. I can’t – I don’t even know what time it was received by whom and how long that assessment takes, so I can’t speak to the length by which that response is going to be. It could be that it just wasn’t received by somebody before we started this Inquiry. I have no idea.” (T/S: 32/130/9-18).Show full note She denied that it would be a matter of embarrassment to X for it to be publicly clear that AR entered a false date of birth, and since that was the only requirement, that AR was able to access sensitive material on X.¹⁰⁵¹⁰⁵ T/S: 32/130/24-131/7. The Inquiry finally received the information on 14 November 2025, only a few hours before the further Section 21 deadline was due to expire. Perhaps unsurprisingly against this procedural history, X revealed in answer to the second Section 21 notice that the date of birth for AR’s extant account was 1 January 1990. This date of birth suggested that AR was 34 years of age, not 17, at the time of searching for the video of Bishop Emmanuel being stabbed.¹⁰⁶¹⁰⁶ XIUC000138.

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¶31. The data disclosed by X shows that AR began a user session on X at 10:29 on 29 July 2024 using an account (‘the de-activated account’).¹⁰⁷¹⁰⁷ Account number ending -1584: XIUC000040.,¹⁰⁸¹⁰⁸ XIUC000038. The data disclosed for the extant account, for which X has provided a date of birth, does not show any user sessions on 29 July 2024. It therefore appears that AR was using the de-activated account when he carried out the searches for the stabbing. X stated that it did not hold a date of birth for the de-activated account.¹⁰⁹¹⁰⁹ XIUC000134. Nevertheless, I find that AR did use a false date of birth for this account, given that he had done the same for the extant X account and his Instagram accounts.¹¹⁰¹¹⁰ META000003/3; META000008/3. As a result, I conclude that because of X’s weak age verification processes at that time, AR was able to use an adult account on X to search for the video of the stabbing. I further conclude that it is probable that AR did view the actual footage of the stabbing before carrying out the attack.

¶32. I note that X has shown no signs of any self-critical reflection for the fact that AR was so easily able to bypass its (at the time) weak age verification process and thereby obtain search results for violent content. It is also regrettable that X’s approach to disclosure meant that there was such a protracted process before X provided the admission that AR provided a false date of birth. In addition to the late disclosure of the given age for the most relevant of AR’s X accounts, I note X would only accept service of hard copy Section 21 notices at its offices in Dublin, rather than in electronic copy on its recognised legal representatives. In addition, X refused – on the legal grounds that it considered it was prohibited by US laws – to supply any ‘content data’, such as posts, likes or messages, associated with AR’s accounts.¹¹¹¹¹¹ XIUC000130. While X maintain that such disclosure would be in breach of US law (an issue which it is neither necessary nor appropriate for me to resolve), I simply observe that, in contrast, Meta did provide content data for AR’s Instagram accounts.

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¶33. Looking at matters in the round, I observe that, regrettably, X did not show the same ready willingness to co-operate with the Inquiry as almost all other organisations and Core Participants.

¶34. Returning to the narrative of the events of the attack, as leading Counsel to the Inquiry observed in his opening statement, it is both sobering and concerning that almost the last thing that AR did before committing these dreadful crimes was to search for and probably view material on X in relation to a stabbing carried out by another boy aged under 18.¹¹²¹¹² T/S: 8/53/1-54/5. I have viewed the full footage of the Bishop Emmanuel stabbing. The footage is graphic and horrific. While taken from medium distance, it shows the assailant making a repeated stabbing action with his arm as he attacked Bishop Emmanuel. I return to this in Chapter 6: Online harms.

AR leaving his house and the taxi journey to the Hart Space

¶35. AR then left 10 Old School Close at 11:10 and walked in the direction of Hoole Lane.¹¹³¹¹³ First Witness Statement of DCI Pye MERP007551/§11. Notwithstanding the warm weather, AR was dressed in a green hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head and his face was covered with a surgical mask. He had with him one of the two Cerbera kitchen knives with a 20 cm blade, manufactured by Apollo, which he had bought from Amazon on 13 July 2024.¹¹⁴¹¹⁴ AMA000095, row 98.

¶36. Once outside his home and out of sight of his parents, AR first made an aborted call to one taxi company. AR then made an unsuccessful booking attempt with the automated system for One Call Taxis (timed at 11:13). He then made a second successful call to One Call Taxis (timed at 11:14) to take him to 34A Hart Street.¹¹⁵¹¹⁵ MERP001175/3; MERP000518; First Witness Statement of DCI Pye MERP007551/§11. The significance of the timing of the call is that it meant that AR would arrive at 34A Hart Street towards the end of the advertised dance and yoga class. Since AR had provided a false name (Simon) to One Call Taxis on his earlier booking on 22 July 2024, that was the name under which this automated booking was recorded. AR then went back to Old School Close and remained in the vicinity of his home at number 10, until he was collected at 11:31 by Mr Gary Poland, one of the drivers for One Call Taxis.¹¹⁶¹¹⁶ First Witness Statement of DCI Pye MERP007551/§12.

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¶37. The timings for these events were established by the Merseyside Police investigation from a combination of examination of AR’s mobile telephone, street CCTV, and Ring doorbell footage.

¶38. Mr Poland’s taxi was fitted with front and rear facing dashcams. The relevant footage – both visual and audio – was recovered by Merseyside Police. The Inquiry produced a full transcript of the audio from the dashcam recording.¹¹⁷¹¹⁷ ILT000017. This shows that there was essentially no conversation between AR and Mr Poland during the 14-minute trip. The taxi arrived in the vicinity of 34 Hart Street at 11:44. Consistent with his intent to attack the dance and yoga class, AR was specific in asking Mr Poland, “Is this 34A Hart Street”. At this stage, Mr Poland wrongly pointed towards Masters Vehicle Repairs Ltd (‘Masters Garage’), the next-door premises. AR expressed surprise at being directed to a spray shop. AR did not react when asked whether he was paying by “cash or card” and instead alighted from the taxi and, following Mr Poland’s mistaken direction, walked towards Masters Garage. The latter premises is at the end of a driveway and is separated from the Norwood Business Centre by a brick wall shown in Figure 6 below.¹¹⁸¹¹⁸ This image has a privacy amendment to the image superimposed by the Inquiry for privacy reasons.

¶39. As Mr Poland recalled in his statement given to the police, AR appeared to be holding one of his arms tightly, which was not swinging.¹¹⁹¹¹⁹ MERP000266/3. Mr Poland followed AR in his vehicle, persistently requesting payment. These events were witnessed by Mr Colin Parry, the owner of Masters Garage, Mr James Dixon, an employee, and Mr John Philips, a customer. When Mr Philips and Mr Parry shouted at AR to pay the driver, he responded with words to the effect of “what are you going to do about it?”¹²⁰¹²⁰ First Witness Statement of DCI Pye MERP007551/§13.

¶40. The dashcam footage shows that AR then retraced his steps, walking back to Hart Street. He then turned left and immediately left again, in the direction of the Hart Space. He crossed the car park in order to reach the entrance to 34A Hart Street. Mr Poland, still at the wheel of his taxi, followed AR across the car park and pulled up outside 34A Hart Street. Mr Poland had been repeatedly asking whether AR was paying by cash or card, and he threatened to call the police. AR seemingly did not react.

¶41. At 11:45:30 AR attempted to enter the Hart Space via the ground floor door to the downstairs studio. This door had been locked when Ms Lucas took the second yoga group upstairs for the bracelet making and end of the class. Having been unable to gain entry that way, immediately afterwards (at 11:45:37) AR used a door to the right to the communal stairway which was unlocked. Shortly afterwards he was caught on the taxi’s dashcam on the first-floor landing.

¶42. AR then entered the upstairs studio and launched his attack.

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¶Figure 6: Aerial image showing taxi drop-off and Masters Garage¹²¹¹²¹ MERP007541 (redaction applied).

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The attack within the upstairs studio and communal staircase

¶43. It is neither necessary nor appropriate for me to seek to detail the horrendous events within the upstairs studio, or on the staircase, as those victims who could attempted to flee. AR has been convicted, on his late guilty plea of the murder of Alice, Bebe and Elsie, and the attempted murder of Child C1, Child C2, Child C3, Child C4, Child C5, Child C6, Child C7, Child C8, Ms Lucas and Mr Hayes. Importantly, Mr Justice Goose was also sure that had AR been able to “… he would have killed each and every child, all 26 of them, as well as any adults who got in his way”.¹²²¹²² Sentencing Council (2025), ‘Sentencing note 23 January 2025’, §4. Available at: www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/R-v-Rudabukana.pdf I agree. The evidence heard by this Inquiry strongly supports Mr Justice Goose’s assessment that AR would have killed all the children in the studio had he been able to do so, including those girls who in the end escaped physical injury, but were of course all deeply psychologically injured.

¶44. I was made aware that, as between some of the survivors, there may be differing recollections as to the precise sequence of events within the upstairs studio, including as to which child was attacked first. I do not need to resolve that issue. I deliberately did not seek to call evidence to address it, as this would have served only to traumatise the victims further. For understandable reasons, Merseyside Police decided that it was not necessary to take evidential accounts from the young child survivors in the way that was done for the adult victims who were inside the upstairs studio, Ms Lucas and Mrs Liddle. As DCI Pye recognised in his evidence to the Inquiry, with such a traumatic event the genuine recollections of those present might not fully align as to the precise sequence in which things happened.¹²³¹²³ T/S: 10/43/5-10.