PR Support for the families of the Southport Attack

For the past few weeks, we have been advising and supporting Sara Stanger, Director and Head of Serious Injuries and Public Inquiries at Bond Turner, who is representing the bereaved families of the three young girls - Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe - killed in the horrific knife attack in Southport last year.

At the beginning of his criminal trial in Liverpool on 20th January 2025 the perpetrator, Axel Rudakabana, entered a last-minute guilty plea prompting an immediate and significant demand from journalists reporting on the case for interviews and statements from Sara and the parents of the three girls. Scala were contacted to provide urgent media liaison services and strategic PR support on this hugely distressing and highly sensitive case. Understandably, the families did not want to give an interviews immediately, and instructed Sara to conduct media interviews to communicate their clear message to the public.

Scala’s Managing Director, Natalie Rodgers, took the lead on the work, liaising closely with the press and coordinating multiple national media interviews for Sara, including ‘live’ interviews on Good Morning Britain and BBC Radio 4.

As further details emerged about the custodial sentence handed down, the number of missed opportunities by agencies to stop Rudakbana from carrying out his attack, and the announcement of a Public Inquiry into what happened, we continued to manage the high number of media enquiries and interview requests for both Sara and the families.

At the beginning February, we supported the families by arranging two exclusive media interviews for them – the first with David Collins, the Northen Editor at The Sunday Times, and the second, a pre-recorded interview with Susanna Reid for Good Morning Britain. The anonymity order in place around Bebe King meant that we had to ensure her parents could not be identified as part of these interviews.