Watchdog flags UK police failures over anti-immigration riots

LONDON: UK police underestimated “the rising tide of violence” that culminated in anti-immigration riots earlier this year and failed to mitigate against online misinformation which helped fuel it, a watchdog report said on Wednesday.

Disorder erupted across England and Northern Ireland for more than a week in late July and early August after three girls were killed in a knife attack in Southport, northwest England.

Initially sparked by false rumours spread online that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker, the disorder then morphed into widespread anti-migrant rioting, England´s worst disturbances in more than a decade. More than 300 officers were injured during the unrest, with 54 admitted to hospital.

The report by the emergency services watchdog into the police response found intelligence “gaps” and failures to understand and curb misinformation spreading on social media, as well as operational errors. “Social media played a massive role, and unfortunately, the intelligence processes that were in place prior to this didn´t pick up sufficiently some of the warning signals that had occurred over the previous 24 months,” Chief Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke told BBC Radio.

“No-one understood or could counter the emerging cause and effect of that misinformation and disinformation,” the head of His Majesty´s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) added in the assessment.

“So the police failed adequately to denounce it or mitigate against it in real time to deter or curtail the disorder.” The HMICFRS report also found police intelligence assessments failed to spot that various violent events in 2023 and in the first half of this year were indicators of likely future disorder.