I need to give you a warning here because this podcast contains some very distressing graphic accounts of violent events.

And I'll look up and then there's just this guy there at the top of the stairs just in a full track suit with this hood up with a knife.

And it's like he maybe didn't realise that I was going to be in there, but he's we've looked at each other, then he's scurried off to the side.

That was Joel Verity, talking about the moment he confronted the Southport knife attacker.

We'll be hearing more from that extraordinary interview with him later on.

Now, we cover a lot of stories here at Sky News, but this one has been especially difficult. I've been

watching the news coverage like everybody else, and the stories that have been coming out of Southport

have been so overwhelming. It's almost been difficult to comprehend. I've been thinking about

the families, the trauma that they're going to be experiencing, the community,

the shock and devastation that they're going to be feeling, and of course the emergency

services who turn up to a scene of complete horror and then just have to roll up their sleeves

and get on with the job. I'm Liz Bates, and today on the daily we're going to be talking

about Southport, that knife attack and the impact that that's going to have on those involved in the coming days, weeks and months.

And asking how they can even start to process what has happened to them.

So to understand a bit more about the community where it happened and the scale of that operation on Monday,

let's speak to our correspondent Ashna Hurunag, who's there.

Ashna, the Home Secretary of Atk Cooper and the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, have been down there today to offer their support.

Just give us a sense of what the atmosphere is like there at the moment.

Liz, it's a really heartbreaking place to be. It's a really quiet, gentle seaside resort is Southport.

So lots of people have been telling me, look, you either come here to retire

or you come here to raise your family by the seaside.

And so everyone here is super friendly, super nice.

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