Last Monday, three girls under the age of 10 were killed at a dance workshop for primary schoolchildren in a horrific knife attack that left eight more children and two adults seriously injured. A 17-year-old male has been charged with their murders. It was an act of unspeakable evil, a particularly terrible instance of the male violence against women and girls that is endemic in our society. In the days following the attack, their families and communities should have been left to grieve in peace; then, as the facts emerged about this particular attack, there should have been an informed conversation about what lay behind such appalling violence being directed at young girls and how to prevent this from happening again.
It was not to be. Far-right, racist thugs spread misinformation about the identity of the attacker, and in recent days have rioted in towns and cities across England in response to the murders, first descending on Southport itself just 36 hours after the attack, then in other places around the country including London, Hartlepool, Manchester, Aldershot and Sunderland. The mother of seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, one of the three girls murdered, issued an appeal on social media to “stop the violence” in Southport. The anti-racism organisation Hope Not Hate has tracked plans for up to 35 protests across the UK this weekend.
