The family of one of the three girls killed in the Southport attack has criticised new police guidance requiring forces to share suspects' ethnicity and nationality with the public. Michael Weston King, whose granddaughter Bebe King was among the victims, described such information as "completely irrelevant" to criminal investigations.
The interim guidance by the National Police Chiefs' Council and College of Policing follows mounting pressure on authorities to increase transparency around offender identities. Forces have faced criticism for allegedly covering up offences committed by asylum seekers and for their handling of information after the Southport murders.
"I not only speak for myself but for all of the King family when I say that the ethnicity of any perpetrator, or indeed their immigration status, is completely irrelevant," Weston King told The Guardian. "Mental health issues, and the propensity to commit crime, happens in any ethnicity, nationality or race."
Family blames system failures
Weston King argued that Axel Rudakubana, who killed Bebe King along with Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar, had been failed by various organisations. "The boy who took Bebe had been failed by various organisations, who were aware of his behaviour, and by the previous government's lack of investment in Prevent. As a result, we were also failed by this," he said.
The guidance became official police policy on Wednesday. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has called for greater police transparency about suspects, whilst Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said he "absolutely" believes that information about charged suspects' immigration status should be made available by police.
Attack sparked misinformation crisis
The new guidance aims to combat misinformation that spread rapidly on social media after the Southport attack in July 2024. Within hours of Rudakubana's attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, false claims circulated claiming the suspect was a seventeen-year-old asylum seeker who had arrived by boat.
Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy told journalists at the first press conference at 6.30pm that day that the suspect was originally from Cardiff. This limited disclosure failed to quell online misinformation, and riots erupted across the country the following day.
Sources used: "The Guardian" Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.