A LONER obsessed with the Southport massacre has been jailed after he knifed a nine-year-old girl in the neck as she played outside.
Jordan Wilkes, 29, ambushed the victim in a communal stairwell – slashing her three times with a penknife.
Chillingly, searching his home found a clump of the girl's hair in a folded-up piece of paper that he had kept as a trophy.
Officers also discovered a cache of macabre web searches for James Bulger's murder and several US .
These also included the Southport triple murder that took place just three weeks before Wilkes' launched his own brutal attack.
Hours before the attack, he watched a video aboutwho murdered a 13-year-old American schoolgirl by stabbing her 114 times.
Wilkes has now been jailed for 30 years after he was convicted of attempted murder and possession of a bladed article.
Bournemouth Crown heard Wilkes had hatched the plot after developing “unhealthy fascination with the murder of children”.
He had obsessed over the last summer after Axel Rudakubana stabbed Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, to death at a dance class.
On August 20 last year, Wilkes decided to carry out his own knife rampage in a warped bid to “fulfil some sort of sick fantasy”.
He left his home then grabbed the young girl's arm as she played with a pal without ever uttering a word.
The victim was knifed three times in the neck, shoulder and knee but managed to escape with her friend.
Recalling the horror, she said: “I saw him reach into his pocket, I didn't know that it was a knife, he hid it with his arm behind him then he came at us.
“He came running at me with a straight face. He grabbed hold of my arm, really tight, so I couldn't escape and he was aiming for this area [pointing to her neck].”
The girl was rushed to hospital where she was treated for her “serious” stab wounds.
One wound on her neck narrowly missed major arteries which could have led to fatal blood loss if they had been cut.
The court heard she would be left scarred for life following the attack.
Her mum said before the attack, her daughter was a “happy carefree child” but has since become anxious, unable to sleep and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
She added: “Since that day this has all changed, our entire family dynamic has changed where the innocent, bubbly, free-spirited little girl is no more.
“Ever since that man caused those injuries, she has not been the same child.”
When police searched Wilkes' home they found a number of knives along with the chilling internet searches.
During his arrest, the wannabe killer pathetically wailed on the floor and sobbed.
It can now be revealed that Wilkes was given a 14-month sentence, suspended for two years, for a “brutal” attack on an eight-year-old boy on April 1, 2016.
The thug had punched and kicked the boy before stamping on his head – causing his victim to lose consciousness – because he had become angered at the youngster playing on some bins.
In October 2020, he was also suspected to have set light to a pram outside his flat and in September 2022 Wilkes shouted and swore at a child with special educational needs who rang his doorbell as a prank.
Sentencing, Judge William Mousley KC said: “You are a dangerous offender, there is a significant risk of you causing serious harm to others in the future.
“This was a very serious offence, as an attempt to kill a nine-year-old child it was short-lived and not pre-meditated, you lost your temper.
“You had an interest in child-killing and you decided to try it out for yourself.”
