A survivor of the Southport knife attack is calling for the use of blunt-tipped knives in home kitchens, in a campaign she says is “for the girls”.
In one of her first television interviews since the July 2024 attack, Leanne Lucas, 36, tells Sky News it was the “tip of the knife” that caused injuries that led to her “nearly dying”.
“I never, ever thought I’d be talking about things like this,” Ms Lucas tells Sky’s Katerina Vittozzi, “but since what happened in July, I really can’t sit still and not say how I feel”.
Ms Lucas was leading a group of children in a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop when they came under attack by Axel Rudakubana, then aged 17.
“What happened before the incident was just pure joy,” Ms Lucas remembers.
“We were just having so much fun. And for that to be ruined and everyone’s life that was involved, to be shattered, is just not acceptable,” she says.
Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were killed in the attack. Ten others, including Ms Lucas, were injured.
The attacker used a kitchen knife with a 20cm blade, purchased via the online retailer, Amazon.
“I don’t want this pain and this trauma that any of us have felt, I don’t want that to happen to another family,” Ms Lucas says.
Her new campaign, launched today, is called Let’s Be Blunt and aims to “raise social awareness” of safer-tipped knives.
“A safer option is to go for curved or blunt-tip knives… that reduces that risk of the kitchen knife being used ever as a weapon,” she says.
It’s an issue about which Ms Lucas feels “passionate”.
“[I] will not let evil win. I need to know that I’m doing this for the girls, for myself and for future generations,” she says.
“We don’t need to wait for government or the police to tell us what to do,” Ms Lucas adds, as she calls on the public to “do an inventory” of their kitchen knives.
Since the attack, Ms Lucas says she feels “like I’ve just had my eyes opened” to how “domestic tools can be weaponised”.
“I personally feel that knife crime has got out of control,” she adds.
According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, kitchen knives are the most common type of weapon used in knife homicides.
“You normally hear of the zombie knives, machetes, things like that,” Ms Lucas says.
“They sound dangerous but really, when you look at the figures, the highest figure is the domestic kitchen knife, which we have all got in our kitchen, which we use daily.”
Ms Lucas says “since the attack in the summer,” she has never “cooked with a pointed kitchen knife again” and that using a blunt-tipped knife makes her feel “safer”.
“Obviously, people can hurt people in many ways,” she says. “It’s about reducing that opportunity to cause life-damaging, life-threatening injuries that can take people’s lives.”
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Reflecting on the personal nature of the campaign, Ms Lucas tells Sky News it was a “privilege” to be a survivor, but that she does not “want to be defined by what happened to us”.
“My work was for the girls,” she says. “My work was for the community… and just creating memories that will last a lifetime… and I don’t want this to be part of our memories.”
Ms Lucas says she hopes Let’s Be Blunt will “inspire” other Southport survivors.
“If I can show them that there’s hope and that real change came from what happened to us… If I can do that, then that’s what I’ll do.”
