Was it in public interest to cover up the terror links to the Southport stabbings?

Farage’s ignorance of the law is astounding.

mum2three

It's strange that in our country, where there is so much surveillance, that so many of those with evil intent are over-looked. All the children being ill-treated by their parents, potential terrorists being brushed aside.
It's about time those who voice concerns were properly listened to instead of being branded trouble makers.
Why do successive governments have difficulty acknowledging the fact that there are factions whose intent is to destroy Western civilisation?

Where is your evidence that he was "intent on destroying Western civilisation"? Nobody knows what his motive was.

Farage: ‘Cover up Keir convinces no one’
Nigel Farage labelled the Prime Minister “cover up Keir” as he responded to the premier’s Downing Street press conference.

The Reform UK leader rejected Sir Keir’s claim that he could not have said more about the Southport killer in the aftermath of the attack.

“The Prime Minister is once again hiding behind the contempt of court argument,” Mr Farage said.

“This is simply untrue, the country needed to know the truth about this murderer and that he was known to the authorities.

“Even MPs were banned from asking questions about this man’s background. Cover up Keir convinces no one.”

👏👏

I don’t like listening to Starmer. He turns much of what he’s saying to praising himself (when I was DPP I was the first to . In Rochdale .. .) or deflecting (that didn’t cross my desk).

He’s not behind a podium to big himself up.
Stick to the facts man of what we want to hear. The rest is just waffle. And boring. Sorry, but it is.

nanna8

Everyone who disagrees with him is labelled Far Right. That is disgusting and I wait with interest to see how he copes with Trump’s administration, a genuine ‘ right wing ‘ rather than imaginary.

No, everyone isn't labelled as Far Right.

Many of the people who instigated the Southport riots did belong to far right organisations. Your disgust is misplaced.

GrannyGravy13

growstuff did you

a) read my post?

b) listen to the PM this morning?

I am not going to repeat myself again.

a) Yes

b) Yes

And you're still wrong to talk about terrorism.

woodenspoon

I read online that the parents were asylum seekers. Arrived from Rwanda and housed here, described themselves as ‘students’ on the birth certificates of their children. At some point these ‘students’ and their sons moved from Cardiff to Southport area. Why? How did they fund it? The mother never worked. How did these people move from place to place. I’m sure it was all at the good old tax payers expense. And now we have this atrocity in our country. Are the parents still living in Southport? If not, are other innocent people’s lives at risk in another part of the country. There’s still another son living with them.

So now the parents are to blame! I give up.

I read that the parents were well-connected and heavily involved in the opposition to the Rwanda murders. You possibly remember that about a million people were killed in the Rwanda genocide. The parents are evangelical Christians.

growstuff did you

a) read my post?

b) listen to the PM this morning?

I am not going to repeat myself again.

GrannyGravy13

Barleyfields

If we adopted your definition GG, every murderer who has terrified his victim would be a terrorist. That is plainly wrong.

A new classification of non-political terrorism could cover mass murders and attacks.

However you dress it up, the perpetrators inflict terror on the victims.

Maybe we do, but what he did doesn't fit the current definition of terrorism in the UK, so you are entirely wrong to assert he's a terrorist.

Personally, I don't care much about the label. He's a murderer.

GrannyGravy13

Iam64

He was referred to the Prevent programme because of his obsession with violence but didn’t meet their criteria as a potential terrorist.
He was excluded from school in year 9 after violent attacks on pupils he said were bullying him. He only attended the pupil referral unit he was referred to on 2 or 3 occasions. I read staff who visited his home to explore his absence took a police escort. Very unusual.
He isn’t a terrorist, he’s a very disturbed and dangerous young man who set out to kill little girls at a happy event. We don’t know what triggered this, or how he knew they were there. At some stage he was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum. I’ve seen no mental health diagnosis yet but no doubt this will become known during sentencing.
It’s good there’s to be a public inquiry. It’s obvious various departments knew he was sitting at home, studying the internet to feed his obsessions. Our CAMHS are not functioning. We have many children out of school with no effective ways of getting them back into education. My fear is he was another on the list of ‘doesn’t fit our remit , send him somewhere else’.

I agree.

Another case of lessons will be learned the most meaningless phrase in politics.

Good post Iam64 and depressingly the truth of it am sure.

I'm wondering about the close family members of this man , surely they saw things in his attitude / behaviour which would have been concerning . Surely the parents entered his bedroom on occasions . If he locked himself away food must have been taken to him . All kinds of questions to ask . We're the family and brother aware of his nasty thoughts and attitude . I wonder if the family now have protection

Barleyfields

If we adopted your definition GG, every murderer who has terrified his victim would be a terrorist. That is plainly wrong.

A new classification of non-political terrorism could cover mass murders and attacks.

However you dress it up, the perpetrators inflict terror on the victims.

Upthread Casdon said

"I think significant investment in policing and mental health services is needed, so an inquiry is welcome"

I don't think we can ever stop every incident but unless we have adequate resources - in this case, time to follow up more people known but not currently known as critical can only happen if there are resources to do it.

Yes I agree too Sarnia. Locked up, monitored, medicated and the rest of us were safe.

"It was a sad day when the mental health hospitals and institutions were closed in favour of Care in the Community. So many people, like the perpetrator of these awful crimes and your clearly troubled neighbour would have been cared for in these hospitals and institutions 24/7, making the streets much safer."
This was a good point, *Sarnia". I totally agree.

If we adopted your definition GG, every murderer who has terrified his victim would be a terrorist. That is plainly wrong.

Casdon

That’s not what the definition of a terrorist is though GrannyGravy13, it is ‘ a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims’

I imagine that is why the PM is looking into redefining terror as he announced in his speech this morning.

That young man terrified the children and adults in Southport, it should be classed as non-political terrorism

That’s not what the definition of a terrorist is though GrannyGravy13, it is ‘ a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims’

PM is looking into the definition of terror, terrorist and terrorism according to his live address this morning.

I know it’s above my pay grade but Southport installed terror in all those involved therefore to my thinking it was a terror attack…

Louella12

*It is very clear that the false information on social media that he was an asylum seeker recently arrived in the UK was the catalyst for the rioting.*

Absolutely, Jane43.

I understand that they couldn't just release all of the information, but a strong rebuttal about his non asylum seeker status wouldn't have gone amiss.

Southport is quite a quiet place. Nobody was more surprised than the residents when the riots kicked off.

But despite Keir's hope that things will be done differently. I'm not optimistic. I think this sort of outrageous attack will happen again. For some reason, a tiny minority of humans can and do behave appallingly and I think they always will.

You are right Louella12. Random attacks by terrorists and people with serious mental health issues and/or high on drugs will continue to happen. Some of them are definitely preventable because red flags have been raised, but some of them aren’t. I think significant investment in policing and mental health services is needed, so an inquiry is welcome.

No it’s paywalled.

If you have a subscription Allison Pearson as always sums it up.

I’m not surprised the full horror of the Southport massacre won’t be heard in court
Allison Pearson

I think this article is available, ie not pay walled.
Please take the time to read.

MayBee70

In my close there is an autistic man who lives in a rental property opposite my house. He has carers with him all the time. They often take him out for walks and sometimes have to restrain him when he becomes violent. I don’t understand why he is living in a road inhabited by mainly pensioners such as myself but also several young families with children. I always speak pleasantly to him if I meet him in passing but if I’m working on my front garden and he starts wandering outside I go back into the house. I’m not usually a nervous person but it worries me that he has to be restrained sometimes. He was also moved into a rental property that the previous inhabitants said needed a lot of work doing to make it habitable; it rained in, it was damp etc. It worries me.

You make a very good point.
It was a sad day when the mental health hospitals and institutions were closed in favour of Care in the Community. So many people, like the perpetrator of these awful crimes and your clearly troubled neighbour would have been cared for in these hospitals and institutions 24/7, making the streets much safer.

Iam64

He was referred to the Prevent programme because of his obsession with violence but didn’t meet their criteria as a potential terrorist.
He was excluded from school in year 9 after violent attacks on pupils he said were bullying him. He only attended the pupil referral unit he was referred to on 2 or 3 occasions. I read staff who visited his home to explore his absence took a police escort. Very unusual.
He isn’t a terrorist, he’s a very disturbed and dangerous young man who set out to kill little girls at a happy event. We don’t know what triggered this, or how he knew they were there. At some stage he was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum. I’ve seen no mental health diagnosis yet but no doubt this will become known during sentencing.
It’s good there’s to be a public inquiry. It’s obvious various departments knew he was sitting at home, studying the internet to feed his obsessions. Our CAMHS are not functioning. We have many children out of school with no effective ways of getting them back into education. My fear is he was another on the list of ‘doesn’t fit our remit , send him somewhere else’.

I agree.

Another case of lessons will be learned the most meaningless phrase in politics.

There are literally thousands of autistic people in the UK. Autism is not an excuse for criminal behaviour and autistic people are at more risk of attack by others than being a behavioural risk. However, people with a learning disability which may also give rise to autistic type behaviour are something
else. I suspect that the person referred to by Maybee70 falls into that category. Apparently dangerous behaviour is usually due to anxiety or fears that can be hard to ascertain by onlookers.