LONDON – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the “tiny mindless minority” behind unrest that has plagued several cities after a horrific stabbing at a children’s dance class and vowed to put a stop to it as the 17-year-old suspect was named Thursday in part to counter misinformation blamed as one cause of the fiery clashes.
Starmer said the recent violence was “clearly driven by far-right hatred” as he announced a program enabling police to better share intelligence across agencies and move quickly to make arrests to prevent the kind of outbursts that have sent scores of police to the hospital the past two nights.
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“This is coordinated; this is deliberate,” he said. “This is not a protest that has got out of hand. It is a group of individuals who are absolutely bent on violence.”
The announcement came as the teen charged with murdering three girls and stabbing 10 other people made his first appearance and was named in court partly to refute false information that has circulated on social media about his name and immigration status.
Judge Andrew Menary said his decision to allow Axel Rudakubana to be named was exceptional given the boy's age. But he said the teen will lose his right to anonymity when he turns 18 next week and continuing to shield his identity could allow rumors to metastasize.
“Continuing to prevent the full reporting has the disadvantage of allowing others to spread misinformation, in a vacuum,” Menary said in Liverpool Crown Court.
The attack Monday on children at a Taylor Swift-themed summer holiday dance class shocked a country where knife crime is a long-standing and vexing problem, though mass stabbings are rare.
The deaths have been used by far-right activists to stoke anger at immigrants and Muslims. Police said a name circulating on social media purported to be the suspect’s, though the suspect is not an immigrant, and his religion has not been disclosed.
Rudakubana, who police said was born in Wales, has not been charged with terrorism offenses but faces three counts of murder over the deaths of Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6, in the seaside town of Southport in northwest England.
He also has been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder for the eight children and two adults who were injured.
Rudakubana did not enter a plea and was ordered held without bail and returned to youth detention, though Menary said that might change after his birthday. His next court date is Oct. 25.
The adults, who were listed in critical condition, were named for the first time as Leanne Lucas, who led the dance and yoga class, and John Hayes, who worked nearby and intervened in the attack to protect children. The injured children cannot be named because of their ages.
Two of the children were discharged Thursday, Alder Hey Children’s hospital said. Five others were in stable condition at the hospital.
Prosecutors did not disclose a motive for the crime, but they revealed that the weapon used was a kitchen knife with a curved blade, according to an additional charge he faces.
The suspect, wearing a gray tracksuit, smiled briefly at reporters during an initial appearance in Liverpool Magistrates' Court. At his subsequent appearance in the Crown Court, he pulled his sweatshirt up to his hair to cover his face. He did not speak.
Neither the teen's parents nor family members of victims were in court.
Far-right demonstrators — fueled, in part, by online misinformation — have held several violent protests, ostensibly in response to the attack, clashing with police outside a mosque in Southport on Tuesday and causing a melee near the prime minister's office in London the next day.
Starmer put some of the blame on social media companies, though he didn’t announce any measures to address that and said there was a balance to be struck between the value they offer and the threat they can pose.
“Violent disorder, clearly whipped up online, that is also a crime. It’s happening on your premises," he said.
Hundreds of protesters chanting “we want our country back” hurled beer cans and bottles near the prime minister’s Downing Street residence in London on Wednesday evening, and launched flares at a nearby statue of wartime leader Winston Churchill. More than 100 people were arrested for offenses including violent disorder and assault on an emergency worker, London’s Metropolitan Police force said.
Police officers were pelted with bottles and eggs in the town of Hartlepool in northeast England, where a police car was set ablaze. A smaller disturbance was reported in Manchester.
On Tuesday night, a crowd of several hundred people hurled bricks and bottles at riot police in Southport, set trash cans and vehicles on fire and looted a store, hours after a peaceful vigil for the stabbing victims. More than 50 officers were injured.
“A gang of thugs got on trains and buses, went to a community that is not their own, a community grieving the most horrific tragedy, and then proceeded to throw bricks at police officers — police officers who just 24 hours earlier had been having to deal with an attack on children in their community," Starmer said.
Starmer said his so-called National Violent Disorder Program would enable police to move between communities — just as the “marauding mobs” do. Officers will harness facial recognition technology to identify culprits and use criminal behavior orders often imposed on soccer hooligans that prevent them from going certain places or associating with one another.
Starmer did not announce additional funding for the program but said he announced when he took office last month that he would increase community policing.
A civil liberties group criticized Starmer for failing to address the causes behind knife crime and “violent, racist thuggery” and condemned plans to use facial recognition, which is banned in Europe.
“The prime minister’s alarming pledge today to roll out facial recognition in an apparent response to recent disorder is a pledge to plunder more vital police resources on mass surveillance that threatens rather than protects democracy,” said Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch. “This AI surveillance turns members of the public into walking ID cards, is dangerously inaccurate and has no explicit legal basis in the U.K."