Taxi driver who dropped off Southport attacker 'waited 50 minutes' to call 999, inquiry told

The taxi driver who drove Axel Rudakubana to the scene of the Southport attack would have been expected to have called the emergency services earlier, a senior investigator has said.

The inquiry heard driver Gary Poland, who picked Rudakubana up from his home in Banks, Lancashire, on 29 July last year, waited 50 minutes before calling 999.

This was despite hearing children scream and seeing them fleeing the building in his mirror as he drove away.

Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were murdered at the Taylor Swift-themed class by Rudakubana, then aged 17.

Rudakubana, who is being referred to in the inquiry as AR, also attempted to murder 10 others and was later jailed for a minimum of 52 years.

At Liverpool Town Hall on Monday, Detective Chief Inspector Jason Pye, the senior investigating officer, said children were seen in the taxi's rear dashcam leaving the building and running alongside the vehicle - and "you can hear the children screaming".

Mr Poland looked in the rearview mirror but still drove off, he added.

The driver did not call the police until 12.36pm, 50 minutes after the attack, the inquiry was told.

Nicholas Moss KC, counsel to the inquiry, asked DCI Pye: "Would you have expected a member of the public, acting responsibly, to have called 999 as soon as they got to a place of safety, when it was safe to make that call?"

DCI Pye said: "I would like to think morally that a call would have been made.

"There was enough evidence that he knew what was happening. You would expect a call to come in."

Last week, during an earlier hearing, the lawyer for the families of the three girls murdered in the attack said the taxi driver was among those whose actions could have prevented what happened.

DCI Pye was asked if the delay that occurred before Mr Poland called emergency services made any difference to the response.

The detective chief inspector said: "That was a consideration I had to give as the senior investigator and I don't believe it did."

The inquiry also heard how a police sergeant paused for just six seconds before he entered the scene of the Southport attacks, armed only with a baton, to confront the killer.

Sergeant Greg Gillespie was warned by a member of the public the attacker was armed with a knife.

He asked over the radio for an officer equipped with a taser to join him, just as PC Luke Holden and PCSO Timothy Parry arrived.

Mr Pye told the inquiry: "Greg asked, is he ready to go in? And with, very, very little delay, they enter."

Leaving PCSO Parry to guard the door, the two men entered the Hart Space at 11.57, six seconds after the other two officers arrived, the inquiry was told.

Mr Moss said: "There was no significant pause there at all to formulate some sort of complex plan. They go in very quickly."

Firearms officers had been called to the scene, but the two officers did not wait, the inquiry was told.

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When they got inside, they found Rudakubana on the landing and shouted at him to drop the knife, which he did, before they pushed him to the ground and arrested him, helped by PCSO Parry.

Mr Poland is expected to give evidence later this week as the inquiry continues.

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