LONDON—The Merseyside police department in England was forced to admit last month that the force is "restricted" from sharing key information about the July Southport attack that killed three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, as the alleged attacker now faces terror-related charges.
Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, 18, is facing the new charges under the country’s Terrorism Act in addition to the existing three murder charges, ten counts of attempted murder and one count of knife possession, authorities said last week. Rudakubana allegedly committed the July 29 stabbing spree that killed three girls – Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6 – and injured several others.
The police said that the suspect produced the deadly poison ricin and had al Qaeda training materials titled "Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The al Qaeda Training Manual" during a search of the suspect’s property. The police have not declared the events a terror incident as no motive has been determined, authorities added.
"We have been given extensive guidance by the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] in relation to what we can say publicly to ensure the integrity of the court proceedings are protected, and therefore we are restricted in what we can share with you now, whilst the proceedings are live," Merseyside Police said in a statement to dispel the criticism that the force is "deciding to keep things from the public."
These revelations of the terror-related charges ignited a firestorm over the police and government’s secretive and double-standard approach in the aftermath of the deadly attack in Southport, a town north of Liverpool, back in July.
"I think the rationale was that they didn‘t want to prejudice the trial. And I think motive will be an important issue in the trial, and they didn’t want to release information about the suspect that spoke to his motive," said Toby Young, the director of the Free Speech Union in the U.K. told Fox News Digital.
But Young added that there was a "kind of double standard when it comes to the information that’s released about attackers in these circumstances," as the government and authorities would likely have been more forthcoming if the attacker had been "a far-right white supremacist."
The killing spree led to widespread rioting across England amid speculation about the attacker’s background and the nature of the attack. In response, multiple individuals have been charged and jailed over comments made online that the court perceived as inciting the riots.
Last month, Lucy Connolly, the wife of a local Conservative Party politician, was jailed for over 31 months after making what the authorities claimed were inflammatory posts on social media directed against asylum seekers.
Wayne O’Rourke, who had an X account with over 90,000 followers, was jailed for three years for fueling the arrest after he alleged that a Muslim had carried out the Southport attack. "You were not caught up in what others were doing, you were instigating it," the judge said during the sentencing. "The flames fanned by keyboard warriors like you."
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But while the police remained tight-lipped on the grounds of not prejudicing the trial, issuing only a few details about the incident, British left-wing Prime Minister Keir Starmer was quick to slam the people participating in the unrest as "far right."
Winston Marshall, Host of The Winston Marshall Show, told Fox News Digital, "Prime minister Starmer has been painstakingly careful not to prejudice the court proceedings of Axel Rudakubana after the new charges of possession of Islamist literature and Ricin were made."
The British podcaster host noted, "But we the British public remember clearly how Starmer branded the August rioters as "far-right thugs" almost immediately and before any of them were convicted. It is precisely this behavior for which he is rightly and bitterly mocked as "Two-Tier Keir."
"Keir Starmer unhesitatingly referred to the rioters, some of whom had been arrested and were in custody, as far-right, so he had no hesitation in speculating about the motives of people who’d been arrested for rioting, even though that could easily prejudice their trials, too, and not all of them had pleaded guilty," Young said.
"To describe someone who’s been arrested and charged, but pleaded not guilty, as a criminal is to potentially prejudice the outcome of their trial, too. It’s to not extend the presumption of innocence to them . . . signaling to potential jurors that the Home Office and, by implication, the Home Secretary believe them to be guilty," he added.
Right-wing Reform Party Leader Nigel Farage was subject to a barrage of condemnation from a bipartisan group of senior Conservative and left-wing figures and accusations of inciting riots after questioning the lack of information being released to the public.
"I just wonder whether the truth is being withheld from us. I don’t know the answer to that, but I think it is a fair and legitimate question," Farage said following the attack, asking further whether the suspect had been known and monitored by the country’s security services. Farage also questioned why the incident had not been treated as terror-related.
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Neil Basu, a former counter-terrorism police chief between 2018 and 2021, suggested that Farage could be subject to an investigation over these comments and accused the politician of "undermining the police, creating conspiracy theories, and giving a false basis for the attacks on the police."
Conservative party peer Lord Barwell, a former MP who serves as former Prime Minister Theresa May’s chief of staff, called Farage "utterly shameful" for spreading "misinformation" on social media after the attack.
"He is an MP. If he has questions, he could have asked them in the House of Commons yesterday – but he wasn’t there. Instead, he prefers to encourage those spreading misinformation on here [social media]. Utterly shameful."
But the latest police statement and the new terror-related charges somewhat exonerated the critics. "Perhaps I was right all along," Farage said last week in a video posted on X.
Farage wrote in the Daily Telegraph that he and his party colleagues were barred from raising questions about the Southport attack in Parliament because of fears that it may prejudice the public amid the suspect's trial.
Farage said the authorities had told him he was not allowed to raise the matter in Parliament after he had submitted a written question to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper asking whether the accused attacker had ever been referred to the country’s counter-terrorism initiative.
"It is impossible to infer anything other than that the apparatus of state are being used to manage this situation," Farage said. "For now, therefore, it seems that nobody is allowed to ask in the proper forum when the government first knew that the accused was to face the ricin and terror material charges.
He added: "Likewise, nobody can know whether this man was known to the authorities in any way. Do we really want to live in a society where such crucial information is kept from the public? Who decided these details should remain secret?
Police and prosecutors still have not issued information to the public about whether the accused attacker was ever known to the country’s security and counter-terrorism authorities.
The alleged attacker was born in Wales to Rwandan parents, police said later. British media reported that he was raised Christian. The trial for murder charges is provisionally scheduled for January.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
