The distraught parents of six-year-old Southport victim Bebe King have revealed the final moments they spent with their little girl as she lay at rest in hospital.

Speaking in an interview with Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain the couple, who cannot be identified, described Bebe as “pure light” and “pure joy”.

Little Bebe died alongside Elsie Stancombe, aged seven and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar on July 29 last year when they were murdered by Axel Rudakubana in a brutal knife attack on a Taylor Swift-themed party in Southport, Merseyside.

Bebe’s parents told Good Morning Britain in the hours after her death the youngster lay at rest in Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.

Her mum said: “She was in her pyjamas, we read to her, the family visited her, and the final day we lay next to her. We did our final goodbye.

Playing home videos of both girls on the programme, Bebe was described as a “performer” and little Elsie as a “fashion designer”.

Bebe’s mum added: “She was so mighty, but so strong and so kind at the same time.

“She was a beautiful, funny, crazy, gorgeous girl, and her legacy, it can’t be defined by what’s happened, I feel like a lioness and I’ve got to protect my child, she was pure light, she was pure joy.

“In spirit she can still have an impression on the world, she can help just the future, protecting children, and I believe she is going to move mountains regardless.”

Bravely holding their emotions in check, Elsie Stancombe’s parents Jenni and David said she was a “fashion designer” who had “a natural flair to design and be really creative”

Mum Jenni said “from day one Elsie didn’t know bad, she was fearless in a sense”, to which Elsie’s dad David added: “She was so brave.”

All the girls killed had been attending a dance class themed around Taylor Swift. Elsie’s mum revealed the pop superstar had invited the grieving parents to meet her.

Fighting back the tears, Jenni said: “If Elsie knew that Taylor knew her it’s like all her dreams had come true.”

David said the family had taken a few pictures of Elsie to show the popstar, and Jenni said: “We showed her the pictures (to Taylor), and she said, ‘can I keep these’.”

The killings in Southport have sparked major questions into how the authorities missed chances to stop Rudakubana before he carried out his sickening attack.

Talking about meeting the Prime Minister, Jenni said an inquiry was needed to find out what went wrong. She said: “They will hold people to account for some of the decisions that they’ve made, and as a result allowed this to happen.

And David highlighted the role of the terror monitoring agency, Prevent, adding: “The fact that he’s been flagged up so many times, and because he didn’t meet the criteria of certain things… it just doesn’t work like that does it.”

Jenni said: “While town, our country, have shown us nothing but support, compassion and love, we started a charity called Elsie’s story, so many times that we’ve said we’ll never feel true happiness again ever… we might just feel a little bit of something when we make another child smile, for Elsie.”

Bebe’s mum said: “Girls just need to be safe, our children just need to be safer, and protected.”

Speaking about the sentencing of Rudakubana, Bebe’s dad said he didn’t think the case should have been televised. He said: “We understand it had to heard in court, that’s it, it didn’t have to be televised at all. That’s what really hurt us.”

Sarah Stanger, solicitor for all the bereaved families, said it should be up the families what any inquiry looks into.

She told Good Morning Britain: “They were all really shocked to hear that the videos that the offender accessed were all available on the open internet.

“Online safety should be paramount to this inquiry.”