Four people ‘still very, very ill in hospital’ – Liverpool mayor
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, the metro mayor of Liverpool Steve Rotheram said he was stood about 100 metres away from the incident as it unfolded.
He spoke of the mis- and disinformation that spread online in the immediate aftermath of the event. He said he thought Merseyside police did well to “dampen things down” by releasing details of the detained driver – a 53-year-old white British man – so quickly. Police are not treating the incident as terrorism related.
Rotheram said there are “still four people who are very, very ill in hospital”.
“We are hoping of course that they pull through,” he said.
Asked whether that reflects an increase on the previous number of seriously injured – given by authorities last night as one adult and one child – he says: “No, not directly, but of course we’re in liaison with the police and with the ambulance services.
“Last night they had two gold command meetings – one was really late in the evening, so this morning I’ll get some updates.”
Key events
Liverpool FC’s history has been touched by disaster twice before.
In 1989, 97 Liverpool fans died in a crush at a game in the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield. More than 760 people were also injured in the deadliest disaster in British sporting history.
In 1985, 39 mainly Italian fans were killed when a wall collapsed amidst disturbances between Liverpool and Juventus fans at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels.
The X account of the Hillsborough Survivors Support Alliance shared many, many tweets from Liverpool residents and people from the surrounding area offering beds, lifts and support to people affected by last night’s incident.
A former Metropolitan Police chief superintendent said it was “unprecedented” that the police “very quickly” gave the ethnicity of the suspect in the Liverpool incident, PA reports.
Dal Babu told BBC Radio 5 Live: “What we do have, which is unprecedented, is the police very quickly giving the ethnicity and the race of the person who was driving the vehicle and I think that was, and it was Merseyside Police who didn’t give that information with the Southport horrific murders of those three girls, and the rumours were that it was an asylum seeker who arrived on a boat and it was a Muslim extremist and that wasn’t the case.
“So I think what the police have done very very quickly, and I’ve never known a case like this before where they’ve given the ethnicity and the race of the individual who was involved in it, so I think that was to dampen down some of the speculation from the far-right that sort of continues on X, even as we speak, that this was a Muslim extremist and there’s a conspiracy theory.
He was asked if it was a result of Merseyside Police having learned the lessons from what happened after the Southport attacks last year, when three young girls were stabbed to death, and others seriously wounded. Following the attack, Merseyside Police were criticised for not releasing information to the public, allowing speculation to mount over the identity and motive of the attacker.
“Yeah, absolutely, I think you’re spot on,” Babu said. “It’s remarkably striking because police will not release that kind of information because they’ll be worried about prejudicing any future trial, but I think they have to balance that against the potential of public disorder and we had massive public disorder after the far-right extremists had spread these rumours.”
He added: “The difficulty we have is in the olden days, when I was policing, you would have a conversation with trusty journalists, print journalists, radio journalists, broadcasting journalists, you’d have a conversation and say look can you please hold fire on sharing this information and people would listen, we don’t have that with social media, it’s like the wild west and anything goes and so puts the police in a very, very difficult position.”
Police were quick to release information on the 53-year-old white British man who was detained following the incident in Liverpool, but the authorities have not yet released a name or picture.
The motive of the driver also remains unclear, though police have said they do not believe it was terror related.
You can read a summary of everything we do know about the incident so far at the link below:
Football clubs and figures from the footballing world have reacted to the incident, offering condolences and support to Liverpool.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been affected by this serious incident,” Liverpool FC posted on X.
Liverpool’s main rivals Manchester United wrote: “Our thoughts are with LFC and the city of Liverpool after today’s awful incident.”
On the blue side of Merseyside, Everton said: “Our thoughts are with all those who have been affected by this serious incident in our city.”
Manchester City wrote: “The thoughts of everyone at Manchester City are with those injured or affected by the incident at Liverpool’s title-winning parade earlier today.”
Liverpool’s former captain Steven Gerrard posted an image on Instagram of the city with a red heart, while former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher wrote on X: “Devastating end to the day… just pray everyone is ok.”
FIFA president Gianni Infantino offered “thoughts and prayers to all those affected”. “Football stands together with Liverpool FC and all fans of the club following the horrific incident that has taken place during the trophy parade in the city,” he said in a statement.
Kemi Badenoch has said it is “sickening to hear how many children are among the injured” and hailed people’s “extraordinary compassion” in response to last night’s incident in Liverpool.
The Conservative leader posted on X on this morning: “It is sickening to hear how many children are among the injured. It doesn’t matter if this is or isn’t classed as a terrorist incident, it’s still a heinous crime
“Those who target joyful celebrations and our happiest moments, who care not for the welfare of little children are beneath contempt.
“A stark contrast to the people of Liverpool who responded with extraordinary compassion, offering lifts, shelter, food, and more. Liverpool stood firm, displaying kindness and decency in the face of horror.”
Merseyside Police has adopted a “complete step change” in sharing information with the public after a car ploughed into a crowd in the city centre, one of its former inspectors has said, PA reports.
Peter Williams, senior lecturer in policing at Liverpool John Moores University, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the quicker response was very different to what happened after the Southport terror attack in July last year.
He said: “It has been a shift, because, particularly in relation to the aftermath of Southport … there was a lot of criticism focused at Merseyside Police and of course the CPS, in relation to how the management of information was sort of dealt with.
“But also, if listeners cast their mind back further, is the investigation into Nicola Bulley as how the management of the information was responded to on that occasion. That led to a College of Policing inquiry.”
Williams said one of the recommendations made after the Southport attack was to prevent any “vacuums” of information in future incidents, particularly where there is harmful online content.
The education secretary Bridget Phillipson has said she won’t “make judgments” on Merseyside Police’s decision to reveal details about the identity of the man arrested after a car ploughed into a crowd during Liverpool’s Premier League victory parade.
Asked if the police had “changed tack” she told Times Radio: “These are operational matters for the police, and it’s for the police to determine how they will respond.
“I don’t think it’s right for politicians to make judgments on that, but I would just add that the police were on the scene rapidly and responded to what was a really horrendous incident.
“And I pay tribute to those first responders, police and other emergency services, for their tremendous bravery, for everything they’ve done, but also to the community in the way that they’re pulling together in light of this tragedy.”
Images from the scene this morning show debris and police tape – the sobering aftermath of last night’s incident that injured nearly 50, two seriously.
There is still a police presence along Water Street and the blue inflatable field tent that was used to treat victims is still on the road. The clean-up operation is yet to begin.
Birkenhead MP asks for public not to speculate following incident
Alison McGovern, MP for Birkenhead, called on the public not to speculate following the “really awful” incident in Liverpool, PA reports.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she felt “so devastated” after spending four hours at the Liverpool’s Premier League victory parade.
Asked about how important Merseyside Police’s announcement of an arrest was on Monday evening, the Labour MP said: “The police gave out some very clear messages yesterday, not least that if people have got footage or anything that might be useful to them, then please, please give it to Merseyside Police and don’t speculate on the internet or share things like that.
“In Merseyside, I think the police have been through quite a lot in recent times and they’re very, very capable, and I would ask people to listen to them and to do as they’ve asked.”
Liverpool metro mayor Steve Rotheram also praised the emergency services who responded to the incident. He also mentioned the public response – including from public transport workers who gave up their time for free to ensure people could get home.
“Because of what happened after in the immediacy of the incident, what happened with public transport because all of our stations – our train stations, our bus stations – everything was locked down,” Rotheram said.
“That caused a significant backlog of people who wanted to leave the area. People came in on their days off, gave up their time freely to run trains, to run buses, get people home. They worked late into the evening.”
Four people ‘still very, very ill in hospital’ – Liverpool mayor
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, the metro mayor of Liverpool Steve Rotheram said he was stood about 100 metres away from the incident as it unfolded.
He spoke of the mis- and disinformation that spread online in the immediate aftermath of the event. He said he thought Merseyside police did well to “dampen things down” by releasing details of the detained driver – a 53-year-old white British man – so quickly. Police are not treating the incident as terrorism related.
Rotheram said there are “still four people who are very, very ill in hospital”.
“We are hoping of course that they pull through,” he said.
Asked whether that reflects an increase on the previous number of seriously injured – given by authorities last night as one adult and one child – he says: “No, not directly, but of course we’re in liaison with the police and with the ambulance services.
“Last night they had two gold command meetings – one was really late in the evening, so this morning I’ll get some updates.”
The PA news agency provides eyewitness reports of last night’s incident in Liverpool that injured nearly 50, two seriously.
One onlooker, Matthew O’Carroll, 28, from Runcorn, saw the car approaching the top of Water Street.
He said the vehicle went past a parked police van at a “decent” speed and that the driver was beeping as he went through the crowd.
Meanwhile, witness Mike Maddra saiad the “car turned left, mounted pavement, come towards us and runs towards the buildings”.
He said: “we got out the way and it was speeding up”. Maddra said he thought he saw two people being hit and added, “it looked deliberate”.
Harry Rashid, 48, from Solihull, said you could “hear the bumps” as the driver rammed spectators. He described how crowds began trying to smash the car windows, causing the driver to stall for about 10 seconds, before putting his foot down again and hitting more people.
Dan Ogunshakin, an off-duty BBC reporter attending the parade, told the public broadcaster he saw people hitting the car before it reversed and then “it suddenly accelerated forwards”, straight towards the surrounding crowd.
“What had once been an atmosphere of celebration and joy and happiness suddenly turned into fear and terror and disbelief,” he said.
Police said the car eventually stopped at the scene and the man was detained. Nick Searle, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service chief fire officer, said four people who were trapped under the car, including a child, were rescued by firefighters.
Opening summary
Welcome to today’s live coverage of events in Liverpool after a car ploughed into pedestrians at Liverpool FC’s Premier League victory parade on Monday evening. Nearly 50 people, including children, were injured including 27 taken to hospital.
Police said they arrested a 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area but have said they did not believe the incident was terrorism-related. The man was arrested at the scene of the collision on Water Street in the heart of the city, after roads had been reopened following the parade.
Scenes of jubilation, with thousands of Liverpool fans lining the streets to celebrate their club’s victory, quickly turned to horror and confusion as emergency services arrived at the scene about 6pm.
In other key developments:
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Twenty people were treated at the scene. Ambulance officials said of the 27 taken to hospital, four were children. One child and one adult were in a serious condition. Four people trapped under the vehicle had to be released by firefighters.
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When the car stopped, angry fans reportedly converged on the vehicle and began smashing the windows as police intervened to prevent them from reaching the driver.
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Police said they believed “this to be an isolated incident” and were not looking for anyone else in relation to it. “The incident is not being treated as terrorism,” said Jenny Sims, the assistant chief constable of Merseyside police.
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Prime minister Keir Starmer said the scenes were appalling and thanked police and emergency services for their “swift and ongoing response to this shocking incident”.
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Home secretary Yvette Cooper called the incident “shocking and horrendous”.
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Liam Robinson, leader of Liverpool city council, said the incident “has cast a very dark shadow of what had been a joyous day for the city and the finale to a fabulous bank holiday weekend”.
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Liverpool FC said “our thoughts and prayers are with those” affected.
