Fake news was allowed to spread due to prosecutors who “hampered” the police response to the Southport riots, MPs say. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) provided “inconsistent advice” which meant police were put in a “very difficult position”. According to a report, officers were prevented from revealing details about Axel Rudakubana’s religion.
The Home Affairs Select Committee said the lack of information published in the wake of the murders of Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar “created a vacuum where misinformation was able to grow”. On Monday, April 14, the report will be published – it concerns the police response to the riots following the murders at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29.
In the report, it reveals that violence began after false claims that the killer was a Muslim illegal immigrant.
On social media, this false information received 30 million impressions, reports Daily Mail.
The 246 protests, counter-protests and incidents of disorder across the country that followed resulted in 1804 arrests and 1072 criminal charges.
MPs said: “Merseyside Police were put in a very difficult position given legal restrictions on communicating the identity of the Southport suspect and the need to withhold certain information in order to protect the trial.
“The inconsistent advice from the CPS over the publication of information about the suspect’s religion was particularly regrettable and hampered the police response.”
Committee chairman Dame Karen Bradley said: “The criminal justice system will need to ensure its approach to communication is fit for the social media age.”
MPs found there was no evidence of “two-tier policing” in Merseyside officers’, led by Chief Constable Serena Kennedy, handling of the violence.
They said: “Those participating in disorder were not policed more strongly because of their supposed political views but because they were throwing missiles, assaulting police officers and committing arson.”
Chief Constable BJ Harrington, national police operations lead, said the force was “pleased that the report robustly disagrees with the notion of two tier policing”.
A Home Office spokesman said: “Social media has put well-established principles around how we communicate after attacks like this under strain, and we must be able to tackle misinformation head on.
“That is why we have asked the Law Commission to carry out a review into the rules around Contempt of Court.”
Rudakubana was handed a minimum term of 52 years, Mr Justice Goose’s sentence started with an official guideline of at least 27 years and then almost doubled it. Rudakubana cannot apply to leave jail before he is 70, in the year 2077.
Given the judge said Rudakubana would have got a whole life order if he had been an adult at the time of the attacks, it seems unlikely he will ever be released.