Southport riots review finds police underestimated risk of disorder
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Police failed to realise the significance of a series of precursor events leading up to the summer riots and there were gaps in intelligence linked to social media and the dark web, a watchdog has claimed. His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) published a new report on Wednesday on how police forces dealt with disorder that broke out after the murder of three girls at a holiday dance class in Southport.
It found that a number of events in 2023 and 2024 were indicators of potential future disorder, but this had not been reflected in police intelligence assessments. The report said: “We have found that the series of incidents of violence and disorder across the UK during 2023 and 2024 should have influenced the police service’s assessments of threat and risk.
“Our assessment of these incidents suggests that the risks of disorder were greater than the police believed them to be. “They involved extreme nationalist sentiment, aggravated activism or serious disorder. “All of them took place before the Southport killings and subsequent outbreaks of widespread disorder across the UK.”.
The incidents highlighted included: disorder near asylum seeker hotels in Merseyside and Rotherham in February 2023, and from July to October in Llanelli. Riots broke out after two teenagers died in an e-bike crash in May in Ely, Cardiff, and in November there was violence as protesters clashed over Armistice Day weekend in London.
