But if that is indeed the case, and the Government was so concerned with not prejudicing ongoing cases, why did they take the opposite approach with the hundreds of people who were arrested in the wake of the Southport riots?

Last summer’s Southport killings will mark a “line in the sand” for Britain, Sir Keir Starmer has said, promising to introduce new terror laws if necessary. Speaking in Downing Street a day after 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty to murdering three young girls in the northern town last July,

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday that the Southport knife attack last July was a sign that the country faces a new type of terrorism threat in the form of extreme violence perpetrated by loners.