Watchdog flags UK cops' failures

DAMNING: POLICE UNDERESTIMATE SCALE OF THREAT

- AFP

UK police underestimated "the rising tide of violence" that culminated in anti-immigration riots earlier this year and failed to mitigate against online misinformation which helped fuel it, a watchdog report said yesterday.

Disorder erupted across England and Northern Ireland in late July and early August after three girls were killed in a knife attack in Southport, northwest England.

Initially sparked by false rumours spread online that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker, the disorder morphed into widespread anti-migrant rioting, England's worst disturbances in more than a decade.