Life is different here now. This is a new reality and there is no returning to how things were before. This is a tragedy and atrocity that will remain with us forever.
Southport will never forget Bebe, Elsie Dot and Alice. We’ll never forget their families. We’ll never forget the heroic actions of Leanne Lucas, Heidi Barlow and John Hayes, who undoubtedly prevented further loss of life at unspeakable risk to themselves. We hope and pray for the full recovery of all of the victims. We’ll remember and celebrate the passers-by, who shepherded kids away and shielded them in their cars. Joel Verite’s powerful, shocking interview will remain in the memory. The businesses who stepped up and offered services for free and the actual residents who showed up at St Luke’s Road to rebuild were the best of us. Sandgrounders. Proper Sandgrounders.
The first responders, paramedics, police, and fire service personnel conducted themselves impeccably, with honour and bravery. They will carry that trauma with them for the rest of their lives. We must support them in return.
You have a right to be angry about the murder of three innocent children. Who wouldn’t be angry? I’m angry. I’m heartbroken. Everyone in this town is upset. But the anger should be centred on the perpetrator. Not a blameless local mosque. Not a religion, or an ethnicity. And that anger must not present itself in a way that prevents justice.
This is my own anger, these scribbled words themselves a method of self-support.
My opinion isn’t any more or less important than yours. I don’t speak for anyone else. I’m just a local bloke, a resident of Southport for 33 years, who is sad, concerned and upset. I don’t often write for OTS in a personal capacity, I’m nobody. But this… this is different.
People around here have been brilliant. The flowers have to be seen in person to be believed. The cards are lovely, but they’re tragic too. Local volunteers bagging up the toys, to make sure the kids receive them. Just neighbours checking in on each other. Leaving crates of water out. A peaceful vigil, observed in silence and sorrow by thousands. That’s how we came together.
I watched as Yvette Cooper and Keir Starmer laid tributes, and as the NWAS staff desperately consoled each other. I stood, proudly, among the crowd at the Atkinson. I stood on the street corner watching the police vans burn. I looked on as the PCSO cried while little children visited the cordon to give their teddy bears to three fallen children. I have watched the aftermath of this tragedy unfold with my own eyes. It has been beautiful, and it has been awful.
The safety of children has become a central narrative. Are my kids safer today because a shop was looted, while cigarettes and alcohol were stolen? Can I let them stray just a little further from me while they play in the park, because some rioters lobbed bricks and plant pots at a mosque? Should parents in Southport be grateful that their walls were ripped up and that their cars were keyed while they were forced to shelter in their homes?
Those of us who were fortunate enough not to experience direct loss from Monday’s attack perhaps might have been able to carry on and find some sort of normal life in the ashes of this atrocity. We might have been able to accept that this Monday’s attack was seemingly carried out by a lone individual in exceedingly rare circumstances.
Local businesses didn’t close prematurely on Wednesday because they were scared of potential stabbings, but because they were scared of potential riots. Chief Constable Serena Kennedy has said that Merseyside Police were preparing for potential disorder on Wednesday evening (which thankfully did not occur) and the weekend. This is what Southport’s actual families are concerned about.
Far-right commentators have rushed to portray themselves as blameless little angels who had nothing to do with the violence we saw on our streets. Anonymous X accounts, with no attributable name and a username full of numbers, tell us the protest was led by local residents, not far-right activists. That Patriotic Alternative activist David Miles (who Hope Not Hate suggests is from Birmingham) was photographed in the crowd on Tuesday night must be an unfortunate coincidence then. Oh, and Rikki Doolan, what are the chances? The BBC unmasked even more while I was writing this article. Graphics detailing the time and location of the protest were published inside a far-right Telegram group, but apparently, all the members just ignored it – not at all linked to the anonymous accounts on Facebook, X and TikTok that amplified it afterwards.
I didn’t see Joan from down the road promote disorder, just “PatrioticBrit5832053892”.
Local residents were there and engaged with the demo, undeniably, sadly, but they were incited. Most of Tuesday’s crowd (the ones that didn’t need a Sat Nav to be there) watched from a distance, observing in horror. I watched a local councillor stand on the corner, numb and in shock.
The misinformation campaign surrounding Monday’s atrocity and Tuesday’s riot has been seismic and industrial in scale. Facebook, X and TikTok have been awash with misinformation and lies. X, particularly, has become a factory of disinformation, and hate. We struggled to respond to racist comments on our own Facebook page, appearing faster than we could remove them, from accounts with no links whatsoever to our town.
Information in this format, written comments, is easier to catalogue, decipher, record, and trace. In this instance, it has been easy to find the original sources of information. What has been harder to evaluate is video sources, particularly broadcast live on platforms like TikTok.
On Monday night, I saw a video on social media of a man expressing his outrage. He was not from Southport, and his sentiment and affiliations were clear. He said that he would be in the town on Tuesday. Sadly, as I had underestimated the importance of documenting this sort of information ahead of Tuesday’s riot, I have since been unable to find his social media account again, but I believe (though, it is important to mention, cannot prove) that I saw this same man heckle Keir Starmer, and attack a police van during the riots.
I watched much of the riot from the junction of St Luke’s Road and Sussex Road. Not for clicks or views but for a thorough personal understanding of what was happening. Throughout, family members and friends checked on my welfare, with a number desperately asking me to return home. I assured them I stayed back and wasn’t concerned for my safety, but I confess now though, there were brief flickers of fear in my own mind at points. Thuds from each missile grew louder and louder. Successful attacks on police vans prompted the crowd to turn around and rush back, retreating. These were the primary moments of concern because an understanding of what caused such a surge was not always available. You could be standing there, watching, and with no warning, a surge of people in hoods and facemasks could be rushing towards you for no obvious reason. The natural reaction is to run back with them.
I saw and met three people I knew in the crowd. They weren’t participating; they were distraught.
After the riots, I returned home at around 10 pm. I was awake until about 3:30 am trying to process what had happened, exchanging messages with concerned residents, and checking on the safety of others. I assessed some of the national media coverage, which led me to TikTok, with live stream after live stream full of information that was totally bogus and demonstrably untrue, each with hundreds if not over a thousand viewers. And they remain free of any practical or legal consequences from doing so. These claims (misinformation at best, lies at worst) aren’t catalogued, or transcribed, just transmitted to willing participants.
What, then, of the government’s response? Keir Starmer was right to come to Southport, in my opinion. Should he not? Should he have stayed in Westminster, and paid baseless tributes from afar? It was obvious he would be chastised by sections of the crowd gathered inches from his face, and yet he came anyway. Yes, his government must help. And they must do it now. Southport has been brutally confronted, in the most tragic of circumstances, with knife crime. We are engulfed in a campaign of disinformation and lies and hate, all while we are trying to process and mourn. We don’t want these pockets of disorder emerging elsewhere in our name.
I support the right to free speech; of course, I do, but only so long as that doesn’t include the preaching of hatred. I would apply that disclaimer to anybody. Free speech is the protection you are afforded so long as what you say is legally compliant. Well, maybe what is legally compliant should be reviewed. How can it be legal to tell lies with the purpose of stoking hate, division, and riots?
The extent to which all of this must be aggravating the already overwhelming emotions Bebe’s, Elsie Dot’s and Alice’s family, are experiencing is incomprehensible. How must those recovering in the hospital feel? They don’t want the country to unravel in their name. Consider the words of Jenni Stancombe, the mum of Elsie Dot, who posted to social media during the disorder, “Please, please stop the violence”.
She wrote: “We don’t need it”.
Here, we’re trying to figure out how life goes on and how we process, react, and respond. Our job must be to pick up those families and those victims as best we can, to support them, to support each other. That’s it. But that’s who we are round here, so that’s what we’ll do.
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