A HERO cop stopped for a mere six seconds before charging in to the scene of the Southport attacks to confront Axel Rudakubana.
An was told today that Sergeant Greg Gillespie was only armed with his baton when he rushed in to face down the killer.
Left to right hero officers PC Luke Holden, PCSO Tim Parry and Sgt Greg Gillespie, who all faced down Southport knife attacker Axel Rudakubana during his killing spree and were later honoured for their bravery
Left to right six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, the three children killed in Rudakubana’s knife attack
The sergeant’s body cam shows him in the tense moments before he intercepted Rudakubana
As Gillespie prepared to come to the aid of the children trapped inside with , a member of the public warned him: “You need a f****** gun mate, that’s doing nothing.”
Despite the terrifying warning the hero cop made his way into the Hart Space dance studio to take on the murderer.
It took Gillespie ten minutes to arrive on scene but just six seconds to jump into action.
Only armed with his baton, the brave Sergeant didn’t hesitate.
Gillespie only knew that there was “A boy with a knife who had stabbed numerous persons and that there were numerous casualties” when he arrived at the harrowing scene.
Speeding past a fast response paramedic Gillespie arrived at the dance studio at 11.56am on July 29 last year.
The sergeant’s body cam shows him stopping his car on Hart Street and leaping into action, he is flagged down by a number of parents who had come to collect their children.
He instructed parents to wave down the following fast paramedic for assistance after seeing a child lying on the floor who he assumed was not breathing.
The heroic cop was then led to the studio by window cleaner Joel Verite who had carried a young girl to safety after she was dragged back into the building by evil Rudakubana.
Sgt Gillespie updated his control room on the , saying: “We are going in to detain him.”
At this point Joel Verite warns the sergeant that Rudakubana is armed with a blade, the window cleaner told the sergeant he would need more than a baton.
Sgt Gillespie asked over the for an officer equipped with a taser to join him just as two other cops arrive to back him up.
One of the officers remains behind while Gillespie and a colleague rush in to confront evil Rudakubana with “very, very little delay.”
Nicholas Moss KC, counsel to the inquiry, today said: “There was no significant pause there at all to formulate some sort of complex plan.
Rudakubana was tackled by a brave police sergeant who didn’t hesitate to leap into action and confront the evil killer
Hart Street Southport, Merseyside, was in chaos when hero police sergeant Gillespie arrived
“They go in very quickly.”
Firearms officers had been called to the scene but Gillespie and his backup did not wait for them.
When they got inside, they found on the landing and shouted at him to drop the knife, which he did, before they pushed him to the ground and arrested him, helped by PCSO Timothy Parry.
PC Holden had a Taser drawn as they approached Rudakubana on the landing.
Sgt Gillespie kneed the evil killer and then used his baton to “take him to the ground.”
Despite not being trained, PCSO Parry went to their assistance and grabbed Rudakubana‘s legs while PC Holden put on the handcuffs.
Two more officers also arrived to take hold of and help find casualties.
Alice Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Stancombe, seven, were killed at the Taylor Swift-themed class on July 29 last year by Rudakubana, who was jailed for a minimum of 52 years.
Rudakubana was jailed for 12 years for producing poison, alongside his sentence for murder.
The inquest heard Rudakubana ordered a set of scales, alcohol, filter paper, a conical flask, measuring cup and safety goggles from Amazon, beginning on January 19 2022, along with 150 castor beans and a pestle and mortar.
Just 15 at the time, he used the specialist items to grind down the beans and produce Ricin, following online terror instructions he downloaded in the Al-Qaeda Manual.
Rudakubana used his own bank card to buy the items but had them sent to a next door neighbour in his father’s name and to an Amazon counter pick-up point at a local Co-Op They were found in a box in his bedroom after the attack.
The inquiry was told that the castor beans could produce five lethal doses by ingestion or between 2,547 or 12,690 by inhalation with further purification.
In March 2022 he ordered a traditional Mongolian horsebow with carbon archery arrows on Amazon which were found inside a black holdall in his room.
He also ordered brown glass beer bottles with swing stoppers from Amazon and a five litre plastic jerry can to be delivered to his father Alphonse at the family home address in Banks, near Southport.
They were found in the living room of the family home with matches taped to a number of the bottles in preparation for making Molotov cocktails.
The inquiry was told that on July 22, a week before the attack, Rudakubana tried to get his dad to buy petrol for him, although he did not have a car or a driving licence.
In May 2022, Rudakubana made inquiries about buying crossbows from a company called Tactical Archery.
He told a second company called Merlin Archery that he would prefer “discreet packaging” although he never ordered the items.
In January 2023, Rudakubana ordered a “party pack” of ring pull smoke grenades, normally used for special effects at weddings and photoshoots.
– referred to throughout the inquiry as AR – also ordered three machetes, two of which were apparently intercepted by his parents.
The inquiry continues.
Rudakubana amassed a terrifying array of weapons, an inquest has heard
The evil killer was attempting to make deadly poison and Molotov cocktails
A machete was seized from Rudakubana’s home 
