Photo: Collected
Three children have been killed and nine injured, six critically, in a "ferocious" knife attack at a children's dance workshop on Tuesday (30 July).
Two adults are also in critical condition after being stabbed as they tried to protect children at the Taylor Swift-themed event on Hart Street in Southport, Merseyside Police said.
A 17-year-old boy, from Banks in Lancashire, has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
Police said the motivation for the attack was "unclear" but it was not being treated as terror-related.
Britain’s worst attack on children occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot 16 kindergarteners and their teacher dead in a school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The U.K. subsequently banned the private ownership of almost all handguns.
Mass shootings and killings with firearms are rare in Britain, where knives were used in about 40% of homicides in the year to March 2023.
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