How Southport mum told daughter about stabbing

Charlotte Brown had an unimaginable task as a mother.

She had to tell her eight-year-old daughter Poppy that her friend from school, Alice Aguiar, had been killed in the Southport attack. And she also had to tell her little girl that a woman who ran a yoga class Poppy attended after school, Leanne Lucas, was also badly hurt.

“We’ve been open and honest – no question is a bad question,” she told the BBC.

“I think you have to let them ask the questions and you have to be ready to answer them.”

Poppy attends Churchtown Primary School in Southport where Alice was in the year above and the friends went to choir together.

Ms Lucas – who ran the Taylor Swift dance class attacked by a knifeman – is understood to be recovering in hospital.

But three children, including Alice, died in the attack, which also left eight children and two adults seriously injured.

Poppy told her mum Alice was a beautiful singer, who often got the choir solos. “She’ll be a big miss,” Poppy said.

Charlotte found out about the attack on Monday from a friend and said it felt impossible to keep it from her daughter.

“At eight they’re nosy, they listen to everything. And Poppy was asking over and over again what had happened.”

Poppy and her mum recalled how, on Monday afternoon, they’d seen a lot of police cars and ambulances. Poppy said her mum told her people had been stabbed at the dance class.