Merseyside Police, for example, got into hot water recently for disclosing a suspect’s ethnicity and nationality after coming under pressure. This person has links to the tragic events in Liverpool. A 53-year-old white British man who lived in the local area was arrested. This was roughly two hours after a crash in suburban Perth that left over 40 people injured, including four children.
The police’s decision to share this information also comes at a time of increasing police and public panic over misinformation being shared on social media. In the aftermath, far-right organizations were quick to pounce on the incident. Some were even bad enough to mislabel it as a terrorist attack and to spread misinformation that the suspect was a Muslim. This led police to respond in an unprecedentedly decisive manner to quell the dissemination of “racist and Islamophobic nonsense.”
For Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent of the Metropolitan Police Service, the significance of this step cannot be overstated. He termed it “unprecedented,” and cautioned that it may superimpose future pressure on law enforcement agencies to disclose like statistics regarding suspects’ racial origins. He noted, “You could imagine a situation where the far right will say, ‘Oh, you haven’t named the ethnicity of this person and that’s because they are a person of colour.’”
The decision by Merseyside Police follows criticism received after the Southport murders, where the force was accused of not providing sufficient information. Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said it was important to combat disinformation and she wanted to do this by providing information about the suspect’s background. As it turns out, local crown prosecutors had long recommended against releasing this type of information.
The approval was welcomed by Jonathan Hall KC, who backed Merseyside’s move and claimed it ought to set the tone for similar cases going forward. He emphasized the importance of transparency, stating, “It should be a precedent while recognizing there will be the odd case where you need to say little or nothing. Transparency is the right precedent.”
Other experts warn not to accept this as a universal solution. Babu reiterated that no two incidents are the same. He similarly cautioned that police forces to come may find it difficult to live up to public demands for accountability and transparency. “What will a force do if they arrest someone in similar circumstances who is recently arrived on a small boat or who has a clearly Muslim name? They will now be under huge pressure to name them,” he stated.
Public advocates, activists, and even public figures have joined the discussion. Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, noted that releasing details about the suspect’s racial background is ultimately a decision for law enforcement, emphasizing that “the investigation is ongoing, so I think we need to leave that to them.”
The fact is, authorities are still learning to grapple with the complexities of these situations. Slowly they’re realizing that we have to find a balance between transparency and the impact of what we disclose. Nick Lowles, perhaps this country’s leading expert on matters extremist, looking back on how the police have changed their tune since Southport. “Police have learned lessons after Southport. What they did this time was to fill the void, getting information out as quickly as possible,” he said.