North West Ambulance Service probes possible access to Southport victims' records

North West Ambulance Service is investigating whether staff inappropriately accessed medical records linked to the Southport attack victims, and chief executive Salman Desai said the trust has identified concerns and is now formally investigating. Desai said families and patients who may have been affected will be contacted as the enquiries progress, and he added that the trust was “deeply sorry for the concern and distress” caused.

The probe has reopened wounds around the 29 July 2024 knife attack at Hart Space in Southport’s Hart Street area, where Axel Rudakubana killed three girls, Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice da Silva Aguiar and Bebe King, and injured 10 other people. The Southport Inquiry has said six survivors, children and adults, are living with serious emotional scars, underlining how sensitive any handling of their records remains.

The father of one girl seriously injured in the attack said he was “appalled” at the possibility of a privacy breach and accused some ambulance staff of wanting to “satisfy their own morbid curiosity,” calling it a “complete breach of trust” and “appalling.” His remarks capture the anger building around the possibility that records belonging to children and families already hit by one of the country’s most disturbing attacks could have been opened without a proper medical reason.

The ambulance trust is facing scrutiny against the backdrop of a separate breach already disclosed in May 2026, when 48 staff at University Hospitals of Liverpool Group were found to have accessed Southport victims’ records without a good reason. That access took place in the days after the attack and was not disclosed to victims at the time. It also prompted criticism that staff were not dismissed and instead faced disciplinary action ranging from informal counselling to a final written warning.

Axel Rudakubana later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 52 years in prison. He also admitted attempted murders of children and adults, and the official phase 1 inquiry report into the Southport attack was published in 2026. The new ambulance-service investigation adds a second NHS privacy scandal around the same victims, intensifying demands for tighter controls over who can open highly sensitive records, faster detection of misuse, and clearer sanctions when staff cross the line.