The woman accused of being first to spread the fake rumours about the Southport killer which sparked nationwide riots has been arrested.
Racist riots spread across the country after misinformation spread on social media claiming the fatal stabbing was carried out by Ali Al-Shakati, believed to be a fictitious name, a Muslim aslyum seeker who was on an MI6 watchlist.
A 55-year-old woman from Chester has now been arrested on suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred, and false communication. She remains in police custody.
While she has not been named in the police statement about the arrest, it is believed to be Bonnie Spofforth, a mother-of-three and the managing director of a clothing company.
Far right nut jobs rioting for political purposes isn’t the same as the whole country going crazy. It’s not society in general that’s fucked up and needs a reality check, it’s the far right nut jobs. (Far, far more people turned up for the Hope not Hate counter protests, which were peaceful.)
Again you claim there is intent, where is the proof of this? Also, where is she inciting violence?
I think this is an absurdly naïve reading of the tweet in which she quite clearly expresses that violence is the inevitable result of the wrong immigration status of the suspect. It’s very clearly a lie designed to stoke anger and foment violence. Which it did. Far right nut jobs go to prison for rioting. Far right nut jobs that incite the violence go to prison. Good.
Needing to lock up random civilians because they said something inconvenient is not exactly a sign of strength or morality, at least in my book.
She’s not a random civilian, she’s the one at the start of the chain of events.
“saying something inconvenient” and calling for violence on a false racist narrative are not morally equivalent. You’re not winning the moral argument by equating them.
Please try not to use words like “inconvenient” in a discussion about far right street violence. It’s a bit insensitive and comes across as trivialising the issue.
You keep dodging my question. You claim that the poster knew that this was false and intended to incite violence, can you cite any external proof for this at all or is it just a hunch?
Occam’s razor would point to the simplest explanation - A mistake by the poster originating from hearsay or… a hunch (something that happens thousands of times) rather than some conspiracy to incite riots and violence.
You keep dodging my question.
You’ve addressed a total of zero points I raised. It’s like I didn’t say them.
Occam’s razor would point to the simplest explanation - A mistake
Again with the absurd naivety. She initiated it. The calls for riots. With her words. This wasn’t an accidental brush across the keyboard, and it’s illegal in UK law to do that.
can you cite any external proof for this at all
Are you her lawyer?! No. What a strange question. Why the sudden asymmetry in standards of proof between us? Did you quote any external evidence for any of your opinions? Is this a court of law or an internet discussion? Weird.
You’ve addressed a total of zero points I raised.
I addressed a total of one.
…and how exactly is the intent going to be proven?
The original question that you still haven’t adressed, probably because you can’t. Thing is, the rest of your arguments are moot if there is no intent. You assume she is malicious, but she very well mightn’t have been, and even if she was it’ll be difficult to prove.
“All hell will break loose” really isn’t an incitement to violence. It might mean political scandal, flame wars on social media, protests etc., none of which are riots.
If anything, what I see is politicians wanting somebody to blame for their own mistakes, a convenient scapegoat, one person who they can pin the blame on instead of taking responsibility.
She wasn’t anywhere near the “start” of this, merely one (potentially innocent) link in a chain of events starting years prior with gross political mismanagement.
