Violence in Southport after vigil for girls killed in UK mass stabbing

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Merseyside police have arrested four people after a night of rioting in the seaside town of Southport in north-west England left at least 50 officers injured.

The disturbance on Tuesday evening came after residents had gathered at a vigil for three girls killed in a mass stabbing.

Merseyside police said on Wednesday they believed the far-right English Defence League, founded by activist Tommy Robinson, was behind some of the violence, and said protesters had been fired up by social media speculation wrongly linking the attacker to Islamism. Four arrests have been made so far, all of them people from outside the area.

Eight of the officers had sustained serious injuries, the police said, including fractures, lacerations, a broken nose and concussion.

The rioting followed a peaceful vigil by hundreds of local residents who had come together nearby to mourn the three girls aged six, seven and nine, who died in the stabbing incident on Monday. It was one of the worst mass casualty attacks involving children in the UK in decades.

A statement from Merseyside Police said a large group of people “believed to be supporters of the English Defence League” had gathered outside the mosque and threw bottles and other projectiles at police attempting to keep the peace. A police van was also set on fire.

“The people involved have also set cars belonging to members of the public alight, thrown bricks at the local Mosque and damaged a local convenience store, and set wheelie bins on fire,” the police said.

The violence in Southport, north of Liverpool, was sufficiently serious that assistance was drafted in from several police forces in neighbouring counties.

Merseyside assistant chief constable Alex Goss said: “It is sickening to see this happening within a community that has been devastated by the tragic loss of three young lives.”

There has been a torrent of Islamophobic and anti-migrant misinformation online since the death of two girls on Monday, when a teenager attacked a Taylor Swift-themed dance class at a property on a residential Southport street.

Nigel Farage, the leader of anti-migrant Reform party, also stepped into the fray, asking on GB News whether police were withholding “the truth” after they said the attack was not being treated as terrorism-related.

A third girl died in hospital on Tuesday, and eight other children were injured in the attack, with some of them still in critical condition on Wednesday.

A 17-year-old male from nearby Banks in Lancashire, but originally from Cardiff in South Wales and whose parents are from Rwanda, has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.

Merseyside Police had responded to the circulation online of a fake, Muslim-sounding name in connection with the attack — and speculation that the suspect had arrived in the UK recently by small boat — saying it was incorrect.

Addressing parliament on Tuesday, home secretary Yvette Cooper said that misinformation had spread online about the identity of the attacker and warned “those who do this for their own purposes risk undermining a crucial criminal investigation”.

She said later in a statement about the riots: “These disgraceful scenes of violence and disorder we are witnessing this evening, with attacks on the Merseyside Police and a local mosque, are completely appalling. Those responsible will face the full force of the law.”

Sir Keir Starmer, prime minister, visited the scene of the stabbings, saying that the families of the victims must be experiencing “raw pain and grief that most of us can’t imagine”.

He added he did not think anyone in the country was “untouched” by what had happened and thanked emergency service workers for their role in apprehending the suspect and rushing the injured to hospital.

The attack on Monday was the worst to have targeted children in the UK since 1996, when a 43-year-old man shot dead 16 pupils as well as a teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland. The Dunblane incident remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history.

Police said the motives of the Southport suspect, who walked into the property where the dance class was taking place, remained “unclear”.

Two adults remained in a critical condition having sustained injuries while attempting to defend the children, police added.