The BBC removed a 2018 Children in Need advert from its website after it emerged it featured the teenage Southport stabbing suspect.The 17-year-old accused of murdering three young girls appeared as Doctor Who in an advert for the charity appeal.
The footage showed the then 11-year-old Axel Rudakubana emerging from the Tardis dressed as David Tennant’s version of the timelord to ask the nation to help raise money for good causes.
In the footage he encouraged other children to raise money by dressing “as every Doctor Who ever”. He is reported to have been signed up to appear in the clip through a casting agency he worked with at the time.
A BBC Children In Need spokesman told The Times: “Our deepest sympathies go out to everyone impacted by this shocking case and we have removed the video from all of our platforms out of respect to them.”
Rudakubana appeared in court on Thursday charged with murdering Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, at a dance studio in Southport, Merseyside.
He is also charged with the attempted murders of yoga class instructor Leanne Lucas, businessman John Hayes and eight children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and with possession of a kitchen knife with a curved blade.
He was remanded to youth detention accommodation and will next appear in court in October.
His identity was not revealed initially because suspects aged under 18 receive automatic anonymity in UK court cases, except in exceptional circumstances.
The aftermath of the attacks has seen disorder in the streets of Southport as well as other towns and cities including Hartlepool, Liverpool and Sunderland.
A link can be drawn between the disorder in Sunderland and the English Defence League (EDL) which was founded Tommy Robinson, the local MP has said.
Asked how last night had happened, Labour MP for Sunderland Central Lewis Atkinson said protests started being suggested by people in a number of social media groups in the wake of the Southport stabbings.
“The far right, for example Stephen Yaxley Lennon, picked up on those and started promoting those and encouraging known far right individuals to join,” Mr Atkinson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Asked whether a link could be drawn with the EDL, he said: “I can draw a link because last night one of the flags on the street bore the reference to the North East Infidels, which is a Nazi, EDL offshoot from the north east chapter of what was the EDL.”
Individuals who were involved with the EDL are “still out there” and need to be monitored by police, he said.
