Southport killer’s taxi driver admits he ‘went into panic mode’ and sped away from massacre despite hearing screams – then picked up another fare

The taxi driver who drove the Southport killer to the dance class where he murdered three young girls admitted he ‘went into panic mode’ and sped away because he thought a gunman was on the loose.

Gary Poland, 56, today appeared via video link at a public inquiry into the murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a Taylor Swift-themed class last July. Ten others – eight girls and two adults – were also gravely injured.

Mr Poland said he thought he heard four or five loud bangs after dropping off Axel Rudakubana, 18, who admitted murder at a trial earlier this year, and assumed he had a gun and was shooting at people.

In a statement to police around six hours after the attack, Mr Poland described an ‘orchestra of blood curdling screams’ coming from the dance studio and the girls who fled as running ‘like a stampede for their lives.’ 

After driving away from the scene, Mr Poland called his ‘best mate’, who told the taxi driver: ‘There must be about 15 kids stabbed… one’s (sic) body dead on the floor.’

‘You’re joking. F****** hell, of all the people I pick up,’ Mr Poland replied, adding it was ‘lucky didn’t f****** shoot me, weren’t it?’

Nicholas Moss KC, counsel for the inquiry, claimed the purpose of the call was to tell his friend ‘guess what’s happened to me’ and suggested it did not sound as if Mr Poland was in ‘mortal terror and shock’.

The 56-year-old said he ‘accidentally’ accepted another fare, which lasted around 15 minutes, and eventually dialled 999 some 50 minutes after the harrowing attack.

Mr Poland admitted that, ‘morally,’ and ‘with hindsight’ he should have called police much sooner. He said he wished he had stopped to help the girls but claimed he was ‘in complete mortal terror and shock.’

‘Looking back now, if I could change things I would. At the time I didn’t know what was going on in my head, I think about it all the time,’ he told the inquiry. 

But he disagreed that he had been too preoccupied with himself and his own ‘lucky escape’ and had not shown enough concern for the injured girls.

Gary Poland (pictured), who drove Axel Rudakubana to the children’s dance class where he carried out the Southport knife attack, waited 50 minutes before calling the police

Rudakubana is seen walking to a bus stop on the day of the attack

(L-R) Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were all murdered in the atrocity on July 29, 2024

Mr Poland said in a statement read to the inquiry: ‘I did what I did through fear, shock and panic. These are human emotions which I couldn’t control,’ he said, adding: ‘I regret not helping the children, their screams were harrowing.’

‘I cannot imagine what the victims and their families have been through and they have my deepest sympathies. There is not a day passes that I do not think about that day and the what ifs. What if I had called the police? What if I had got out of the car? What if I had apprehended him for not paying the fare?

‘I accept I could have done more, but I believe my actions as a taxi driver were fit and proper. This was a tragic event that should never have happened.’

The inquiry has heard that Mr Poland, who worked for One Call Taxis, picked up Rudakubana from his home, in Banks, a village around five miles from the seaside town, around 11.30am on July 29 last year.

The then 17-year-old, who used the fake name ‘Simon’ to book the cab, was wearing a Covid-style face mask and distinctive green hoodie, with the hood pulled up.

Mr Poland, who has been a cab driver for 27 years, said Rudakubana barely spoke during the journey but this didn’t raise any concern as he regularly picked up people who preferred to wear masks and he assumed he was a carer who was going to pick up his car from the garage next door to the Hart Space where the attack took place.

But when the taxi pulled up outside the dance studio, Rudakubana got out without paying.

Mr Poland said he remonstrated with Rudakubana and threatened to call the police, but thought he had gone to get money when he went into the building. 

The inquiry was told that sounds of distress were captured on Mr Poland’s dashcam just 29 seconds later.

Mr Poland said: ‘I was waiting for my money. I thought I would give him a minute or two, which I did, then I heard all the screams.’

Nicholas Moss KC, counsel for the inquiry, said: ‘You then heard four or five loud bangs, which you thought were gun shots?’

Mr Poland replied: ‘Yes, I thought there were four or five gun shots at the time.’

Gary Poland (pictured) told the 999 operator that he was about to drive off when he heard ‘screaming, proper screaming’

Axel Rudakubana was jailed for 52 years at Liverpool Crown Court in January

Mr Moss said: ‘You heard loud screams?’

‘Yes,’ Mr Poland said. ‘ I just thought someone was shooting. I thought, ‘Oh no,’ that’s when I went into panic mode.’

Mr Poland said he drove away and immediately called his best friend of 40 years, Julian Medlock, who worked at the garage next door to the Hart Space, because he was worried for his safety.

He then took another fare before calling the office of One Call Taxis to confirm the address where he had picked Rudakubana from. 

The inquiry was shown the transcript of Mr Poland’s phone conversation with Mr Medlock, who he called immediately after he drove away, in which he described how he tried to get Rudakubana to pay his fare.

Mr Poland told his friend: ‘He shot up stairs, and I heard these f******* shots and I just f****** shot off Jim… Lucky he didn’t f****** shoot me, weren’t it?’

Mr Moss questioned whether Mr Poland was, in fact, in ‘complete shock’, as he claimed, and pointed out he had failed to ask Mr Medlock if any children had been injured or if police had been called.

Neither did he tell Mr Medlock to be careful or express any worry for his friend’s safety in the call.

Mr Moss said: ‘The outside observer listening to this exchange may pick up a sense of disbelief but not mortal terror and shock as you described in your police statement. That wasn’t your state at the time you made this call.

‘The outside observer might think the purpose of this call was more a sort of, ‘guess what’s happened to me.’

But Mr Poland told the barrister he felt that description was ‘unfair’ and added: ‘All I can say is I was in shock. I didn’t know what was what. I drove off because I heard gun shots.’

He also claimed he accepted his next job, which came through to him via an App on his mobile phone soon afterwards, ‘by accident.’

‘I should have rung One Call and said, ‘Can you take that job off me,’ he said. ‘But I took the job, I don’t know why. My head wasn’t there, I didn’t really know what I was doing.’

Mr Moss said Mr Poland had even engaged in mundane conversation with his female passenger and when a police car sped past them, with its emergency lights flashing and siren blaring, he remarked: ‘He’s in a rush, isn’t he?’

Mr Poland admitted that the police vehicle was likely rushing to the scene of the attack but explained he was so ‘in shock’ he didn’t know what he was doing.

Southport triple murderer Axel Rudakubana is seen in the back of a taxi before launching a frenzied attack on children

The inquiry was also shown the transcript of the second call Mr Poland made to Mr Medlock, before he dialled 999, in which his friend described the seriousness of the injuries to the girls.

Mr Medlock told Mr Poland: ‘There must be about 15 kids stabbed. One’s (sic) body dead on the floor. Another one was dead on the floor.’

He replied: ‘You’re joking, f****** hell, of all the people I pick up Jim. Unbelievable innit. Unbelievable. Christ.’

Mr Moss suggested Mr Poland was more preoccupied with how lucky he had been, than with what had happened to the girls.

He admitted that reading the transcript back ‘it does sound pretty bad.’

But he added: ‘I think I was lucky with him being sat behind me, not knowing he had a knife on him, he could have just got me like that, but he didn’t, did he?’

Mr Poland also admitted that – even though Mr Medlock had informed him that police would want to speak to him – he still drove home and discussed it with his wife, Lynn, before finally called police at 12.36pm.

‘I was in shock for a good 24 hours,’ he added.

He said he had suffered psychological problems since the attack and no longer picked up fares or people that he didn’t know.

‘I can’t sleep at night,’ he said. ‘I shut my eyes and I see his face, it’s there all the time in my head.’

‘I haven’t got a clue where he was hiding a knife,’ the cabbie added.

‘If I thought he had a knife, things would have been different. If I had thought he had a knife I would have got out and disarmed him.’

The inquiry was shown Mr Poland’s police statement which he made on the evening of July 29, around six hours after the attack.

The hearings have been told that teacher Leanne Lucas, who organised the event, made the first call to police, around 27 seconds after screams could be heard on Mr Poland’s dashcam. 

Mr Moss said that, even if the cab driver had dialled 999, it would not likely have resulted in police officers and paramedics arriving at the scene any quicker.

In their opening statement last week, families of the murdered girls raised concerns about the actions of Mr Poland. 

Their lawyer told the inquiry, sitting at Liverpool Town Hall, that it must evaluate whether he had a moral responsibility to take ‘protective action’ and dial 999.

The inquiry, due to last until November, continues.