‘Hero’ window cleaner tackled Southport knifeman

He rushed to the scene

Joel Verite, 25, rushed to help a woman who shouted "forget about me, there's a fella in there stabbing kids."

A colleague of Joel's at Level Up Gym in Southport, Kyle Shaw, spoke to the Mirror on how he heroically jumped onto the killer with police officers, before carrying stabbed young girls away from the scene:

"He’s been a true hero shown nothing but fearlessness and in that second reacted in the best way we could hope for.

"I think he’s truly displayed how much of a fantastic person he is, within that split second he’s decided what he’s going to do.

"I sent him a message to say I hope he was ok, he said on Instagram he was a little bit overwhelmed. He said it was a traumatic experience. He was one of the first on the scene. He went in with the police and helped to detain the man and then helped to carry a child out.

"I don’t even have words for it, what a hero to pick the kids up and carry them out. He took himself to a different place and did what he had to do."

Co-owner of the gym, Danny Noble, 28, added:

"Joel was driving down the road and there was a woman on the floor and he’s gone over to her.

"She said forget about me, there’s a fella stabbing kids in there. He went in and the fella was in there with a knife or whatever he had.

"It was just Joel and just one other police officer. Another police officer turned up and the three of them went in and tackled him to the ground."

Three children have died, eight others injured and two adults were hurt. 

The children killed have now been named as six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, and nine-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar.