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@ HebrideanUltraTerfHecate
2025-02-24 19:00:25
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg1w29n0l7o
In the aftermath of the Southport knife attack there was a sense of national trauma over the killings of three girls at a summer holiday dance and yoga class. Seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King who was six, and nine-year-old Alice Aguiar were murdered. Eight other children were badly injured.
Anger and disbelief soon followed, prompting burning questions over the identity, background and possible motive of the attacker, and suspicions about why the authorities appeared to be saying a lot less than they knew.
Despite public demands for information, the police provided few details about the attacker. There was very little information in their statements about his background. He was not even named because he was 17 at the time of the attack. One thing was made public early on - it was not being treated as terror-related by the authorities.
The UK's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has told BBC Panorama that he believes the quality and quantity of information released by the authorities in the hours after the attack on 29 July 2024 was "inadequate".
"People got the sense that something was being withheld or fudged in some way, and that led the social media types who wanted to spread disinformation to spread disinformation," Jonathan Hall KC said.