A taxi driver who took the Southport killer to the scene of the assault has stated he regrets not phoning the police sooner.
Gary Poland, who didn’t cellphone police till 50 minutes after the assault, stated he feared a gunman was at massive and that he can be a goal.
The inquiry at Liverpool city corridor heard Poland, a driver for One Name Taxis, drove Axel Rudakubana from his household residence in Banks, Lancashire, to a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Hart Road, Southport, on 29 July 2024, the place Rudakubana proceeded to kill six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, and injure an extra 10 folks earlier than being arrested.
Poland informed the inquiry on Thursday that he regretted not instantly contacting authorities or serving to the kids on the scene. He picked up one other passenger and returned residence earlier than phoning police roughly 50 minutes after the assault.
In a press release learn to the inquiry, Poland stated: “I think about that I ought to have known as police earlier. In hindsight, I want I had accomplished and it’s one thing that I do take into consideration on daily basis, what I ought to have accomplished and the way that is my fault as a result of I drove him there.
“I ought to have checked on the welfare of the kids and helped.
“I assumed there was a gunman capturing at folks and I believed this to be the one who I had simply been shouting at to pay me a fare and threatened to name the police, so I did consider that I used to be in peril of being a goal.
“I remorse not serving to the kids. Their screams had been harrowing and I can nonetheless hear them once I suppose again to that day.”
He stated he was in “full shock”, which is why he didn’t test on the kids’s welfare.
In a press release, he stated: “This was terrifying. I used to be in a state of full mortal terror and shock.”
The inquiry heard that Poland, who appeared through video name, rang a pal who labored close by a minute after leaving Hart Road to ask if he had heard gunshots. A transcript proven to the inquiry of their name confirmed that Poland believed that Rudabukana, who used the title Simon whereas reserving the taxi, had “simply fucking shot everybody”.
Poland informed the inquiry that, had he identified Rudabukana was armed with a knife as a substitute of a gun, he would have intervened to cease his assault, saying: “If I’d have thought he had a knife I’d have gotten out and disarmed him.”
When requested by counsel to the inquiry Nicholas Moss KC: “You’d have gotten out and disarmed him, you suppose?” Poland responded that he would have, saying: “Yeah. It’s solely a knife.”
When requested by Moss if he had “realised instantly this was a really critical incident” Poland replied that he had, however didn’t need to confront a suspected gunman.
Moss then requested Poland if he had seen any kids working from the constructing and appeared into his rear view mirror as he drove away, which he admitted he did, however stated: “I didn’t know anyone was injured. I didn’t see anyone injured.”
In one other a part of his assertion, Poland described the “extraordinarily vivid” screaming of the kids, and stated he “noticed a mass huddle of youngsters aged roughly six or seven. They had been screaming, it was like a stampede for his or her lives”.
Poland informed the inquiry that after phoning his pal he unintentionally accepted one other passenger on his reserving app, and took them on in his continued state of shock.
Transcripts of their dialog present that Poland and the passenger engaged in “mundane” conversations concerning the climate and work, earlier than the passenger identified a police automobile driving shortly in the wrong way. When his passenger expressed curiosity in the place it was going, Poland merely replied: “He’s in a rush, isn’t he?”.
Moss stated after dropping off his buyer he may then have known as police.
The inquiry continues.
