Southport yoga teacher Leanne Lucas sobs remembering how online trolls blamed her for children’s deaths

The Southport yoga teacher who helped children escape Axel Rudakubana's attack recalled being trolled online by people who falsely blamed her for the deaths.

In her first interview since the murders, Leanne Lucas, 36, told BBC Panorama that she was recovering from surgery when she received online abuse.

She described how she thought the attack was her fault "If I hadn’t arranged the day, if I had never advertised in certain places, if I hadn’t used that studio."

Rudakubana, 18, murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a Taylor Swift-themed class in the Merseyside town in July last year, when he was 17. He was jailed for a minimum of 52 years in January.

Ms Lucas told the programme how she was able to get herself and several children out of the room, despite suffering several stab wounds.