The terrorism watchdog has called for more information to be made public in the event of mass casualty attacks or risk undermining trust in public institutions.
Jonathan Hall, KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, warned of an “information vacuum” after the Southport attack that led to riots across the country, and said that lessons needed to be learned.
One of the problems highlighted by the attack was the consequence of giving out so little information about what motivated the killings of three young girls.
Hall said: “I think we are at a point in time where trust in public institutions should not be taken for granted and when matters of high importance in the public mind happen that, as far as is possible, the police, the government and the media, should level with them.
“Those institutions will not continue to enjoy the trust that they have had to date if there is any general sense that things are being hidden and that is exactly what the conspiracy theorists and the grievance merchants depend upon.”
He said there was a “huge, huge interest” in the identity of the Southport attacker and the circumstances of the attack and people “quite reasonably wanted to know as much as possible about a massacre of children”.
There were people who “undoubtedly fed upon the information vacuum by circulating false stories and they appear to have incited and enraged and inspired people to those really bad attacks by the absence of information in circumstances where people were dying”.
Britain’s contempt of court laws mean that once a suspect has appeared in court very little information can be published in order not to “substantially” prejudice legal proceedings.
However, experts point out that more information has been divulged in the past before charges have been brought without prejudicing the prospect of a fair trial.
Hall, a practising barrister, said: “I would like to see really rigorous application of the need for transparency and only restrict information so far as it is really justified by the contempt of court rules.
“Judges are very experienced in directing juries to put any prejudicial information they may come across out of their minds and I think there is also a need for realism — there is a fade factor and there is bound to be a gap of time before the case comes to court.”
Hall said people were “inevitably going to worry” after any future attack and “it is unrealistic to expect people not to speculate in those circumstances”.
He added: “As long as social media companies provide a facility for user-generated content, there will be disinformation, because there is no way that you can, on the basis of the current model, monitor factual assertions in real time.
“The brutal reality is that at some stage in the future, there will be an attack by someone who is an asylum seeker or who came on a small boat.
“It is better to be as level and as straight as you can be because terrorism is about attacking institutions, and if institutions do not appear to be transparent, then they suffer.”
Earlier, Hall told a conference organised by the Counter Extremism Group, a think tank: “One of the problems and the consequences of the Southport attack was that there was an information gap, a vacuum, which was filled with false speculation.
“I personally think that more information could have been put out safely without comprising potential criminal proceedings.”
Lord Carlile of Berriew, who previously held the post, agreed: “I think we should get out more information if we possibly can. We have learned from these events that when somebody is arrested, and there was a potential issue like this arising, the police probably need to tell the media who has been arrested and what their background is.”
Three children were killed and eight others injured, along with two adults, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on July 29.
The attack has not been classified as a terrorist incident but Merseyside police have not explained what they believe motivated the killings.
Serena Kennedy, chief constable of Merseyside Police, made a statement on the evening of the attacks, saying that they had arrested a 17-year-old male who was born in Cardiff, in an attempt to head off false speculation that he was a Muslim asylum seeker.
However, rumours continued to circulate on social media, which were seized on by the far right and led to an attack on a mosque in Southport and a hotel used to house asylum seekers in Rotherham as riots spread across the country.
