Skip to main content
Teenagers joined summer’s far-right riots due to distrust of police and thrill-seeking, children’s commissioner says

TEENAGERS who joined last summer’s far-right riots were driven mostly by thrill-seeking and a mistrust of police, the children’s commissioner has said.

Dame Rachel de Souza said interviews with 14 — around one-fifth — of children charged in relation to the unrest discredited the “prevailing narrative” that they were driven by online misinformation.

False reports circulating on social media in the days after Axel Rudakubana stabbed three girls to death during a Southport dance class last July was believed to have fuelled rioting across England.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
LABOUR MUST DELIVER: Labour Party leader Keir Starmer speaking at Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) conference, pledging to improve the lives of retail workers, April 2024
TUC Congress 2025 / 8 September 2025
8 September 2025

Making sure this Labour government delivers on decent jobs, strong workplace rights and well-funded public services will defeat the easy answers to real frustrations peddled by the far right, writes JOANNE THOMAS