‘Why wasn’t he stopped?’ Parents of murdered girls to appear at Southport attack inquiry

Hart Street, Southport in August 2024. Families of the children at the dance class are talking in public for the first time about the aftermath of the events of 29 July 2024. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

It was 11.40am, 20 minutes before parents were due to collect their children from a Taylor Swift-themed workshop in Southport on a warm, sunny day at the start of the summer holidays.

One of the mothers decided to hang the washing out. It was too early to pick her daughter up, she thought. It was an ordinary decision, on an ordinary morning. But it is one that has haunted her ever since.