Young people joined last summer's riots in 'thrill of the moment', says Children's Commissioner
Young people joined last summer's riots in 'thrill of the moment', says Children's Commissioner
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A distrust of the police, curiosity, and the "thrill of the moment" were some of the reasons behind young people joining in last summer's riots, research has suggested. The involvement of some children was "spontaneous and unconsidered" and had less to do with online misinformation, the Children's Commissioner said in a new report.
Dame Rachel de Souza's office spoke to around a fifth of the children charged over the trouble which broke out in the aftermath of the murders of three young girls in Southport. Axel Rudakubana was handed a 52-year sentence last week for the murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, as well as the attempted murder of eight other children and two adults, at a dance class last July.
In the days following the stabbings, a number of false claims circulated on social media about the attack - including a false name and incorrect claims that the attacker was a recently arrived asylum seeker - with some of that misinformation believed to have fuelled rioting in various parts of England.
Regarding the actions of children, Dame Rachel said her office's interviews with 14 of the under-18s charged in relation to the disorder found a number of issues. In the report, she said: "What emerged from the conversations I had with the young people themselves was striking, and often unsettling.
