'When I am out training, I feel I'm with Elsie': the Southport dad in the race of his life

David Stancombe is running in the London Marathon to raise money in memory of his daughter, one of the three girls killed in the attack on a dance class last year. He and his wife Jenni talk to Paul Hayward

- Paul Hayward

A year ago last weekend in Southport, a seven-year-old girl watched with her father as more than 50,000 runners pounded through the streets of the capital. She told him: "Dad, I want you to run the London Marathon."

Twelve months on, the dad is running. But the daughter is no longer here to see it. Many of this year's 56,000 London Marathon entrants will be running today to assuage grief. Among them, wearing bib number 72056, will be David Stancombe, who says: "For some people it's just running a marathon. But it's so much more than that for me."

Elsie Dot Stancombe, the daughter of David and Jenni Stancombe, was murdered, along with Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, in a knife attack on a Taylor Swiftthemed dance and bracelet-making class in Southport in July last year. A further eight children and two adults were stabbed by 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, who was jailed for life in January, with a minimum of 52 years.

The dance class leader Leanne Lucas and a local businessman, Jonathan Hayes, were seriously injured.

These bare facts belie the aftermath faced by the families of the victims, those injured in the rampage and the trauma that was inflicted on many more children in Southport. To help others overwhelmed by such tragedies, Jenni and David Stancombe set up the Elsie's Story trust.

David will run 26.2 miles through London, he says, to commune with his absent daughter. Jenni has found her own outlet via the trust. She says: "Elsie's Story is everything. I feel it's my way of being a mum to Elsie still." The Stancombes invited the Observer to Southport to discuss the future, recovery, and what they can do now to spread a little "light into darkness".

Jenni reads out the trust's pledge: "We refuse to let what happened define our little girl or our town. Instead, we choose to respond with love and positivity - the same love Elsie brought to us and those around her."