For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
The mother of one of Southport stabbing victims has called for an end to violence after 39 police were injured in far-right riots which erupted after the attack on a children’s dance class.
Elsie Dot Stancombe was killed alongside six-year-old Bebe King and nine-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar in a horrific knife rampage on Monday at a Taylor Swift-themed summer holiday dance workshop.
Hundreds of violent protestors clashed with police outside a mosque in the town on Tuesday in scenes branded “a total disgrace” and “thugs on the streets who have no respect for a grieving community”.
Click here for live updates.
Following the unrest, Jenni Stancombe, the mother of seven-year-old victim Elsie, pleaded for the violence to end on social media.
She wrote: “This is the only thing that I will write, but please stop the violence in Southport tonight.
“The police have been nothing but heroic these last 24 hours and they and we don’t need this.”
Five more children are still fighting for their lives following the tragedy, along with two dance class teachers who bravely tried to defend their pupils from the attack.
The violent protests came after misinformation about the suspect in the stabbing was spread on social media. Police have arrested a 17-year-old boy in connection with attack, which is not being treated as terror-related.
Merseyside Police said “a large group of people – believed to be supporters of the English Defence League” – began to throw items such as bricks towards the mosque in the seaside town at around 7.45pm.
Officers put on helmets and riot gear after stones and bottles were launched at them by crowds chanting far right slogans, while police vehicles were damaged and set on fire.
In a post on social media, the force said shops had been “broken into and looted”, adding that “those responsible will be brought to justice”.
The troubling scenes saw 27 officers taken to hospital, with 12 others being treated and discharged at the scene, North West Ambulance Service said. Three police dogs were also injured in the chaos.
Merseyside Police said eight officers suffered serious injuries including fractures, lacerations, a suspected broken nose and concussion.
Chairman of Merseyside Police Federation Chris McGlade said more than 50 officers had been hurt in a “sustained and vicious attack”.
He added: “Police officers are not robots. We are mothers and fathers. Sons and daughters. Husbands, wives and partners.
“We should be going home at the end of our shifts. Not to hospital.”
The violence came shortly after around 1,000 people joined a peaceful vigil for the stabbing victims outside Southport’s Atkinson arts venue, with many in tears as they laid flowers and cards of remembrance.
Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, who had laid flowers in Southport hours earlier, hit out at the protestors for “hijacking” the situation as he vowed they will feel “the force force of the law”.
“The people of Southport are reeling after the horror inflicted on them yesterday. They deserve our support and our respect,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“Those who have hijacked the vigil for the victims with violence and thuggery have insulted the community as it grieves. They will feel the full force of the law.”
As volunteers took to the streets to clean up the devastation left behind on Wednesday morning, police, politicians and commentators condemned the disorder which erupted after misinformation spread “like wildfire” in the wake of the atrocity.
Merseyside’s police and crime commissioner Emily Spurrell has said there is a “strong feeling” that members of the far right English Defence League have used the Southport stabbing to “whip up hatred”.
Ms Spurrell told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that the “violence and abuse” towards police officers on Tuesday was “utterly abhorrent and completely unacceptable”.
She said: “(Merseyside Police) will be reviewing the footage of exactly who was there last night, they have been monitoring the online activity as well, trying to understand who was doing what.
“They have said that they believe it was members of the English Defence League (EDL), they don’t believe it was individuals from the local area.
“There is a strong feeling that there are individuals like the EDL, who have been using this incredibly tragic event to whip up hatred, incite violence, and that’s the result of what we saw last night.”
Patrick Hurley, the MP for Southport said the riots in the town on Tuesday night occurred because of the “propaganda and lies” spread on social media about the identity of the attacker.
He added: “This misinformation doesn’t just exist on people’s internet browsers and on people’s phones. It has real world impact.”
According to Marc Owen Jones, a disinformation researcher associate professor at Doha’s Hamid bin Khalifa University, there were at least 27 million impressions on social media posts falsely stating or speculating that the suspected attacker was Muslim, a migrant, refugee or foreigner.
Among the accounts to peddle such claims was influencer Andrew Tate and other right wing accounts with large followings.
Anti-fascist campaign group Hope Not Hate said the violence was the result of far right antagonisation with groups capitalising on people’s grief for their own “hateful agenda”.
They added: “For the past 24hrs, misinformation has spread like wildfire online, feeding unverified narratives about the culprit, their history and their motivations.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was accused of inflaming tensions after he posted a video to social media questioning why the incident was not being treated as terror-related and asking whether the “truth is being withheld from us”.
Brendan Cox, the husband of murdered MP Jo Cox, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s right out of the Trump playbook, and in my view it makes Nigel Farage nothing better than a Tommy Robinson in a suit.
“It is beyond the pale to use a moment like this to spread your narrative and to spread your hatred, and we saw the results on Southport‘s streets last night.”
Former MP Tobias Ellwood also hit out the Clacton MP’s comments, adding: “Disgusted how a sitting MP deliberately [inflames] tensions without any justification. Farage should delete this tweet.”
But Mr Farage insisted “it’s perfectly reasonable to ask what is happening to law and order”.
More follows on this breaking news story…
Source: independent.co.uk
