LONDON (AP) — Outdated laws unfit for the social media age hampered police from countering false claims that helped fuel anti-immigrant violence in Britain last summer, an investigation by lawmakers said Monday.
Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee said limits on disclosing details of criminal investigations “created an information vacuum that allowed disinformation to flourish” after three children were stabbed to death at a summer dance party in July.
The attack in the northwest England town of Southport shocked the country and triggered days of disorder after far-right activists seized on incorrect reports that the attacker was a Muslim migrant who had recently arrived in the U.K.
Over several nights, crowds attacked housing for asylum-seekers, as well as mosques, libraries and community centers, in the worst street violence Britain had seen since riots in 2011.
Attacker Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 when he carried out the rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, is the British-born son of Rwandan Christian parents. He is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for 52 years for killing Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6, and wounding eight other children and two adults.
Longstanding contempt-of-court rules, intended to ensure fair trials, hampered police in correcting online misinformation, and a ban on naming suspects under 18 meant the attacker’s identity was withheld from the public for several days.
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