{"id":343725,"date":"2025-08-14T11:28:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T11:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343725\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T11:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T11:28:12","slug":"family-of-southport-stabbing-victim-criticise-plan-to-reveal-ethnicity-of-suspects-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343725\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of Southport stabbing victim criticise plan to reveal ethnicity of suspects | UK news"},"content":{"rendered":"

The family of Bebe King, one of the three girls killed in the Southport attack<\/a> last year, have urged ministers to reconsider their support for disclosing the ethnicity of serious crime suspects, saying this information is \u201ccompletely irrelevant\u201d and that \u201cthe propensity to commit crime happens in any ethnicity, nationality or race\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bebe was six when she was murdered by 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, a Welsh-born black Briton from a Christian family who had lived in the local area for a number of years.<\/p>\n

In the knife attack at a dance class on 29 July 2024, he also killed Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and injured 10 others, some of whom will never fully recover physically from their injuries.<\/p>\n

Michael Weston King, Bebe\u2019s grandfather, told the Guardian that in the aftermath of the tragedy the family were failed by the \u201cdespicable\u201d actions of the far right, who \u201ctried to make political gain from our tragedy\u201d.<\/p>\n

He urged the government to reconsider following in the footsteps of Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform UK party on backing disclosing the race and immigration status of high-profile suspects \u2013 which became official police guidance on Wednesday, despite criticism from anti-racism campaigners and women\u2019s groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis apparent kowtowing to the likes of Farage and Reform, who surely want such a policy in place, is extremely disappointing, though perhaps not surprising,\u201d Weston King said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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. Mental health issues, and the propensity to commit crime, happens in any ethnicity, nationality or race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe boy who took Bebe had been failed by various organisations, who were aware of his behaviour, and by the previous government\u2019s lack of investment in [the official anti-extremism strategy] Prevent . As a result, we were also failed by this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, welcomed new police guidelines released on Wednesday, which encourage forces to release the race and nationality of those charged<\/a> in high-profile cases.<\/p>\n

The new guidelines follow a row over claims police \u201ccovered up\u201d that two men charged in connection with the alleged rape of a child in the Warwickshire town of Nuneaton were asylum seekers. This led to a far-right rally in the town during an anti-immigration protest, in which attenders wore clothing with Nazi imagery<\/a> and speakers told a crowd the \u201cfar right must unite\u201d.<\/p>\n

Weston King said that in the aftermath of the attack the family \u201cwere failed further, by the likes of Reform and the right wing, as they tried to make political gain from our tragedy, only causing further misery to us and others, which was despicable\u201d.<\/p>\n

The first of a number of riots erupted last summer at a vigil for the murdered children in Southport, after days of online misinformation about the suspect, including a rumour he was an asylum seeker with a Muslim name.<\/p>\n

In a rare move that aimed to prevent further riots in towns and cities across the UK, a judge publicly named the underage Rudakubana, who was then only a week from his 18th birthday.<\/p>\n

However, it failed to stop rioting in which mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers were attacked and, in some cases, people of colour targeted indiscriminately.<\/p>\n

It was only after the first prison sentences were handed down to rioters that the violence abated.<\/p>\n

Weston King said: \u201cThough we are not interested in retribution or revenge, we were glad to see that the rioters, along with those who spread lies and hatred online, received prison sentences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI very much hope that the mood and opinion of the nation is in keeping with ours, and that this plan does not go ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weston King said though he had been a Labour<\/a> supporter all his life and was \u201cdelighted to have seen the back of the Tories after 14 years of misrule, it is with a heavy heart that I acknowledge some of Starmer\u2019s recent decisions\u201d, not least over Palestine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of Bebe King, one of the three girls killed in the Southport attack last year, have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-343725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}