Victims' commissioner to step in after Southport parents say support woeful'

Parents of children injured in the Southport attack reported serious gaps in psychological support after the 29 July 2024 stabbings. Victim Support allowed no more than 12 counselling sessions for at least one critically injured child’s family, even while post-traumatic stress disorder persisted. Other families described being passed between services and having to fight for help. Nearly two years after the attack, some parents said they still had not received proper psychological help. The victims’ commissioner for England and Wales said she would raise the families’ experiences with ministers. The attack killed three girls and injured eight other children and two adults, with survivors’ parents describing frantic searches and days in hospital.

"The parents of a girl critically injured in the Southport attack were allowed no more than 12 counselling sessions after the atrocity, while others described a woeful lack of support. The victims' commissioner for England and Wales, Claire Waxman, said she would raise the deeply concerning experiences of Southport families with ministers, after their accounts were shared with the Guardian."

"Nicola Ryan-Donnelly, of Fletchers solicitors, which represents 22 of the 23 surviving children, said a number of the parents had not received proper psychological help nearly two years after the attack. Families were passed from pillar to post and had to really fight for support, she said, adding: There are countless problems in the system highlighted by this attack, but support for survivors in the aftermath of something like this has to change. We have to do better than this."

"Three girls Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine were murdered, and eight other children and two adults were stabbed repeatedly in the attack on a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club on 29 July 2024. The parents of five girls who were seriously injured in the stabbings have spoken for the first time about their ordeal in interviews with the Guardian. They described the incredible acts of heroism by their daughters that day, as they shielded and helped each other escape the killer, Axel Rudakubana."

"Many of the parents had rushed to the scene and described searching frantically for their children, not knowing if they were alive. They then spent days in hospital as their daughters underwent life-saving operations. The mother of a seven-year-old girl who was critically injured said her husband who rushed to the scene to find their daughter was refused more than 12 counselling sessions by Victim Support, despite still suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder."

Read at www.theguardian.com