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The mother of one of the Southport stabbing victims has called for an end to violence after more than 50 police officers were injured in far-right riots which erupted after the attack on a children’s dance class.
Elsie Dot Stancombe was killed alongside six-year-old Bebe King and nine-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar in a horrific knife rampage on Monday at a Taylor Swift-themed summer holiday dance workshop.
Hundreds of violent protestors clashed with police outside a mosque in the town on Tuesday in scenes branded “a total disgrace” and “thugs on the streets who have no respect for a grieving community”.
Following the unrest, Jenni Stancombe, the mother of seven-year-old victim Elsie, pleaded for an end to the violence which broke out after misinformation about the suspected knifeman was spread on social media.
She said: “This is the only thing that I will write, but please stop the violence in Southport tonight.
“The police have been nothing but heroic these last 24 hours and they and we don’t need this.”
Five more children are still fighting for their lives following the tragedy, along with two dance class teachers who bravely tried to defend their pupils from the attack.
Police have arrested a 17-year-old boy in connection with attack, which is not being treated as terror-related.
Officers confirmed on Wednesday they had been granted more time to question the boy, who remains in custody. The law allows officers up to 96 hours to hold a suspect for serious crimes.
Merseyside Police said “a large group of people - believed to be supporters of the English Defence League” - began to launch missiles towards the mosque in the seaside town at around 7.45pm on Tuesday.
The angry mob chanting far right slogans destroyed garden walls so they could use the bricks to attack officers in riot gear.
Police vehicles were also damaged and set alight, along with cars belonging to the public parked in the Mosque carpark. In a post on social media, the force said shops had been “broken into and looted”, adding that “those responsible will be brought to justice”.
The troubling scenes saw 27 officers taken to hospital, with 12 others being treated and discharged at the scene, North West Ambulance Service said.
Merseyside Police later confirmed more than 50 officers were hurt, with eight suffering serious injuries including fractures, lacerations, a suspected broken nose and concussion.
Three police dogs were also injured in the chaos, with dogs ‘Zoe’ and ‘Ike’ suffering leg injuries from bricks, while PD ‘Quga’ suffered burns to her hind leg.
Chairman of Merseyside Police Federation Chris McGlade said more than 50 officers had been hurt in a “sustained and vicious attack”.
Mosque chairman Ibrahim Hussein revealed he was trapped inside the mosque with about eight others as the violence erupted, and only escaped with a police guard.
He said: “It was terrifying. It was absolutely, awful, horrendous. We couldn’t understand this viciousness that was going on.”
Norman Wallis, chief executive of Southport Pleasureland, said people had travelled from out of town to wreak havoc, leaving locals to clean up the mess.
He said: “It was like a war scene. People from out of town just causing absolute mayhem.
“Those people from out of town - they came in in buses and cars and had a change of clothes. They just started to riot and do this.”
The violence came shortly after around 1,000 people joined a peaceful vigil for the stabbing victims outside Southport’s Atkinson arts venue, with many in tears as they laid flowers and cards of remembrance.
Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, who had laid flowers in Southport hours earlier, hit out at the protestors for “hijacking” the situation as he vowed they will feel “the force force of the law”.
“The people of Southport are reeling after the horror inflicted on them yesterday. They deserve our support and our respect,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“Those who have hijacked the vigil for the victims with violence and thuggery have insulted the community as it grieves. They will feel the full force of the law.”
As volunteers took to the streets to clean up the devastation left behind on Wednesday morning, police, politicians and commentators continued to condemn the disorder which erupted after misinformation spread “like wildfire” in the wake of the atrocity.
Merseyside’s police and crime commissioner Emily Spurrell has said there is a “strong feeling” that members of the far right English Defence League have used the Southport stabbing to “whip up hatred”.
Ms Spurrell told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that the “violence and abuse” towards police officers on Tuesday was “utterly abhorrent and completely unacceptable”.
She said: “(Merseyside Police) will be reviewing the footage of exactly who was there last night, they have been monitoring the online activity as well, trying to understand who was doing what.
“They have said that they believe it was members of the English Defence League (EDL), they don’t believe it was individuals from the local area.
“There is a strong feeling that there are individuals like the EDL, who have been using this incredibly tragic event to whip up hatred, incite violence, and that’s the result of what we saw last night.”
Patrick Hurley, the MP for Southport said the riots in the town on Tuesday night occurred because of the “propaganda and lies” spread on social media about the identity of the attacker.
He added: “This misinformation doesn’t just exist on people’s internet browsers and on people’s phones. It has real world impact.”
According to Marc Owen Jones, a disinformation researcher associate professor at Doha’s Hamid bin Khalifa University, there were at least 27 million impressions on social media posts falsely stating or speculating that the suspected attacker was Muslim, a migrant, refugee or foreigner.
Among the accounts to peddle such claims was influencer Andrew Tate and other right wing accounts with large followings.
Anti-fascist campaign group Hope Not Hate said the violence was the result of far right antagonisation with groups capitalising on people’s grief for their own “hateful agenda”.
Their director of research Joe Mulhall said: “For the past 24hrs, misinformation has spread like wildfire online, feeding unverified narratives about the culprit, their history and their motivations.”
He called for a government strategy to help improve community cohesion and resilience amid reports of other far right protests planned at a number of locations across the country in the coming days, adding: “It is imperative that the new government develops a new strategy that supports stronger communities and sets out how to respond to incidents like these.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was accused of inflaming tensions after he posted a video to social media questioning why the incident was not being treated as terror-related and asking whether the “truth is being withheld from us”.
Brendan Cox, the husband of murdered MP Jo Cox, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s right out of the Trump playbook, and in my view it makes Nigel Farage nothing better than a Tommy Robinson in a suit.
“It is beyond the pale to use a moment like this to spread your narrative and to spread your hatred, and we saw the results on Southport‘s streets last night.”
Former MP Tobias Ellwood also hit out the Clacton MP’s comments, adding: “Disgusted how a sitting MP deliberately [inflames] tensions without any justification. Farage should delete this tweet.”
But Mr Farage insisted “it’s perfectly reasonable to ask what is happening to law and order”.
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