London — British King Charles III visited the English town of Southport on Tuesday to meet survivors and families of the victims of the knife attack Attack that left three young girls dead and 10 others were injured at a Taylor Swift dance class for children last month. The monarch’s visit came just a day after the pop icon herself met two of the young survivors backstage at one of her concerts in London.
King Charles arrived in Southport and was greeted by hundreds of residents of the seaside town as he attended a floral ceremony in memory of the victims of the attack.
“His Majesty The King will travel to Southport to express his continued support for the victims of the July 29 attack and the subsequent unrest in the town, and to thank frontline emergency workers for their ongoing work serving local people,” Buckingham Palace said earlier in a statement. “The meeting will also be attended by some of the surviving children who were present at the Hart Space Community Centre, as well as their families.”
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Three young girls, Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, were killed in the attack. The stabbing shocked the country and sparked Unrest led by right-wing extremist groups across England. The unrest was fuelled by widespread misinformation about the identity of the attacker on social media following the attack.
A 17-year-old man was arrested and charged of attempted murder and murder. CBS News affiliate BBC News reported that the suspect was born in Cardiff, Wales, and moved to the Southport area in 2013.
On Monday, Swift met two girls injured in the attack backstage at her concert at London’s Wembley Stadium. A TikTok montage of photos posted by the girls’ mother, Sami Foster, showing her daughters meeting the pop star as well as Swift’s own mother, Andrea, quickly went viral.
Swift met the family in the one-piece costume that has become synonymous with her record-breaking “Eras” concert tour. In one of the photos, one of the young girls appears to have a bandage on her forearm as she poses with the singer.
The post, which shows Foster’s daughters Hope and Autumn with Swift, was captioned, “You drew stars around my scars,” a reference to the lyrics of Swift’s song “Cardigan.”
Swift expressed her shock at the attack last month. In a statement posted on her Instagram account in July, she expressed her “horror” at “the loss of life and innocence and the horrific trauma inflicted on everyone present, the families and the first responders.”
“These were just little kids at dance class,” the post said. “I don’t know how I can ever express my condolences to these families.”
