The teenage suspect being held over the Southport holiday club outrage comes from a family who are ‘heavily involved with the local church’, shocked neighbours said yesterday.
One said they would often ‘hear singing’ from the terraced house where he lived with his parents.
‘It’s a massive shock,’ the neighbour added, telling the Liverpool Echo the 17-year-old would ‘come in from school and be singing’.
Locals fear the family’s house will be attacked, with thugs shouting threats since his arrest. His parents are now believed to be in hiding.
‘These vigilantes have been driving past on motorbikes, shouting abuse, saying ‘that house is going to get firebombed’,’ the neighbour said. ‘We’re innocent and if that house gets firebombed, our house will be damaged too.’
Twenty-five children – mostly girls aged between seven and 11 – were at Monday’s sold-out event at the Hart Space yoga and dance studio where Monday’s brutal knife attack took place.
The deaths of Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Bebe King, six, were confirmed on Tuesday and police said yesterday five children were in a critical condition in hospital.
Bebe King, six, was the youngest child killed at the holiday club in Southport, Merseyside
Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, was also killed in the attack – her grieving mother has since called for calm
Alice, nine, died in the early hours of Tuesday after a hooded knifeman entered the Taylor Swift-themed holiday club and began stabbing the children in attendance
Police and forensic officers attend the scene of a multiple stabbing attack on July 29
An aerial view of the crime scene where a man was arrested and a knife seized after a number of children were injured
Businessman Jonathan Hayes – who was stabbed in the leg after attempting to disarm the attacker – and dance teacher Leanne Lucas, 35, who shielded children from the deadly blows, both also remain in hospital after undergoing major surgery.
Magistrates yesterday granted police more time to question the teenage suspect – who has not been named because of his age – on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
The alleged knifeman, who was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and turns 18 this month, was detained in Southport by police officers equipped only with batons and a Taser, witnesses said.
Wearing a Covid-style face mask, and with the hood of his green top covering his head despite the sunny weather, the suspect was seen pacing near his home around half an hour earlier.
In CCTV obtained by ITV News, he could be seen walking up the street near his family home in the village of Banks, less than four miles from the dance studio where the attack happened.
The suspect walked towards a social club where a children’s drama class was due to take place later that day before returning, one hand in his pocket. He is then understood to have caught a minicab to the scene of the attack.
Residents of the cul-de-sac where the suspect lived – which remained cordoned off by police yesterday – said the rest of the family, including an elder brother, a 20-year-old university student, ‘seemed normal’ if ‘very quiet’.
Police have said they do not believe the massacre was terror-related, and contrary to misinformation on social media the suspect has no known links to Islam.
It comes after rioters took to the streets in Southport last night, barely an hour after a vigil was held for the three girls who died in the knife rampage.
Forensic officers are pictured at the scene as emergency crews battled to save children
Chilling footage has emerged of masked figure pacing outside a house that was later raided by police after the Southport attack
Jenni Stancombe, the mother of little Elsie, pleaded for violence to end on social media after a night of rioting
After riots broke out on the streets of Southport last night, thousands of right-wing protesters descended on Whitehall in London tonight.
Some were seen wearing t-shirts with the faces of the three Southport victims as they staged an ‘Enough is Enough’ protest about illegal immigration.
Dozens of protesters, many of whom were drinking, were detained by police as violent scuffles broke out.
Police in Merseyside called in support from forces across the region to avoid a second night of rioting.
Violence erupted near the town’s mosque on Tuesday after false rumours circulated online about the suspect.
Four people have been arrested over the unrest so far, which saw 53 officers and three police dogs injured.
During a walkabout in the town on Wednesday, Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said she understood that communities in Southport were ‘really worried’ about whether they would see a second night of unrest.
She said: ‘We are absolutely planning for this evening and for the weekend ahead.
‘We are being really well supported by police forces across the North West to make sure we have got sufficient resources so that we don’t see a repeat of last night.’
Southport burns: A street near a mosque goes up in flames as violent thugs took to the streets last night
Riot police hold back protesters near a burning police vehicle after disorder broke out in Southport
Around 200 protesters were seen taking to the streets. Police believe many were EDL supporters
Police officers suffered serious injuries when bricks, stones and bottles were thrown and cars were set alight during unrest that followed a vigil for the murdered children.
Baseless rumours were spread on social media, misidentifying the suspect and falsely claiming that he was a refugee when, in fact, he was born in Wales.
Actor Laurence Fox, one of the users of X who shared the information, called on supporters to gather at Downing Street at 7pm on Wednesday.
Detectives have been given more time to question the 17-year-old, who was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
The law allows officers up to 96 hours, or four days, to hold the suspect, who has not been named because of his age, in custody.
After rioting broke out, Elsie’s mother, Jenni Stancombe, wrote on Facebook: ‘This is the only thing that I will write, but please please stop the violence in Southport tonight.
‘The police have been nothing but heroic these last 24 hours and they and we don’t need this.’
In the wake of the violence, locals in Southport rallied together to support the Muslim community and clear up the mess left by rioters who it is claimed came from outside of the area.
The riots came barely an hour after thousands of mourners gathered for a vigil at the Atkinson in Southport
In stark contrast to the riots on the streets, there was a sense of tranquility at the site of the vigil as night fell
Dozens of residents were outside Southport mosque with brushes and shovels on Wednesday morning, clearing bricks from a wall that was knocked down during the rioting.
Norman Wallis, chief executive of Southport Pleasureland, said people had travelled from out of town to wreak havoc, leaving locals to clean up the mess.
He said: ‘It was like a war scene. People from out of town just causing absolute mayhem.
‘People in hoods climbing up lampposts, throwing bricks, they set a police car on fire.
‘But none of those people were the people of Southport. The people of Southport are the ones here today cleaning the mess up.
‘Those people from out of town – they came in in buses and cars and had a change of clothes. They just started to riot and do this.’
Mosque chairman Ibrahim Hussein told reporters he was trapped in the mosque with about eight others as the violence erupted, and only escaped with a police guard.
He said: ‘It was terrifying. It was absolutely, awful, horrendous. We couldn’t understand this viciousness that was going on.’
Locals have brought flowers to the mosque and are helping organise repairs to the building, which Mr Hussein said was ‘humbling’.
‘I know the people of Southport and I know how beautiful they are but this was still a moving experience to see all that,’ he said.
Shop owner Chanaka Balasuryla said the Southport community has rallied around him since his store was looted during the disorder on Tuesday night.
He called 999 after spotting men trying to smash their way in on the CCTV camera from his home five minutes away, and was ‘terrified’ that they might set fire to the premises because a woman and her daughter live in the flat above.
The woman confronted the raiders, telling them it was her shop in an attempt to stop them, he said.
Merseyside Police said ‘a large group of people – believed to be supporters of the English Defence League’ – began to throw items such as bricks towards the mosque in the seaside town at about 7.45pm.
Angela Rayner said that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will look at whether the EDL should be banned, despite former leader Tommy Robinson’s insistence that the group no longer exists.
The troubling scenes saw 27 police officers taken to hospital, with 12 others being treated and discharged at the scene, North West Ambulance Service said.
Merseyside Police said eight officers suffered serious injuries including fractures, lacerations, a suspected broken nose and concussion.
The chairman of Merseyside Police Federation, Chris McGlade, said: ‘Police officers are not robots. We are mothers and fathers. Sons and daughters. Husbands, wives and partners.
‘We should be going home at the end of our shifts. Not to hospital.’
Southport MP Patrick Hurley, speaking on Wednesday, said rioters must face the ‘full force of the law’, saying they were ‘utterly disrespecting the families of the dead and injured children’.
He condemned ‘beered-up thugs’ who threw bricks, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Even if this lad, the 17-year-old, turns out to be Muslim, under no circumstances does that justify any attack on a mosque by anybody at all.’
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said rioters had ‘hijacked’ a vigil for victims and will ‘feel the full force of the law’, while Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described the rioting as ‘violent attacks from thugs on the streets’, which she branded ‘appalling’.
The suspect, who was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents, is from the village of Banks, just outside Southport.
Police have said that although the motive for the attack is unclear, it is not believed to be terror-related.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .