How the Southport stabbings sparked violence across the country
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Summer riots which saw violence across the country were sparked by the stabbings carried out by a teenager in Southport. Axel Rudakubana, then 17, murdered three children and attempted to murder eight other children and two adults in his attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the seaside town on July 30.
Within hours of his attack, posts spread on the internet which claimed the suspect was a 17-year-old asylum seeker, who had come to the country by boat last year. In the first press conference after the event, at 6.30pm that day, Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy told journalists the suspect was originally from Cardiff.
But, the police statement did little to quell the misinformation spreading online. Police forces do not name suspects before they are charged and Rudakubana – still a youth at 17 – would remain anonymous even after he was charged because of his age.
As floral tributes near the scene grew, so did speculation about who was behind the attack. When Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer visited to pay his respects the day after the stabbing, there were hostile shouts of: “How many more Starmer? When are you going to do something?”.
By that evening, things began to turn violent. A crowd gathered outside Southport mosque – which has no known links to Rudakubana – for a planned protest on the evening of July 30. Shouts of “English ’til I die” were heard and bricks broken off from garden walls were used as missiles.
