A YouTuber who has been covering demonstrations in the wake of the Southport murders has said ‘silence’ from the authorities is allowing misinformation to fuel tensions.
Wesley Winter has been on the frontline of tense and sometimes violent scenes in just under a year since the horrific attack triggered 10 days of disturbances across Britain.
The vlogger, who films at political and social demonstrations, has been caught up in the clashes while speaking to both sides taking to the streets as police hold the line.
He was arrested as he covered disorder in Middlesbrough after the murders, with officers placing him in handcuffs and detaining him for over two hours before releasing him with no further action.
Winter’s latest first-person upload, entitled ‘Epping Erupts’ follows clashes last week as a crowd of around 100 people protested at the presence of migrants at the Bell Hotel in Essex.
Sign up for all of the latest stories
Start your day informed with Metro’s News Updates newsletter or get Breaking News alerts the moment it happens.
Projectiles were hurled at a smaller group of Stand Up to Racism counter-demonstrators during the angry protest, which followed a man living in the hotel being charged with sexual assault, harassment and inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity.
At one point, a group of men attacked retreating police vans, trying to smash the windows, with one jumping on the roof.
Winter spoke to Metro ahead of the screening of a new Channel 4 documentary telling the Southport story through the eyes of a survivor and examining the mob violence which followed.
‘After Southport people were angry and there’s a lot of misinformation in the media, people want to vent their anger in some way,’ he said.
‘That particular case hit home so hard, people thought “it could have been my children” and it reached that tipping point. I think it could have been less disruptive if the government had spoken out about it and the police had given more information to the public, because there was so much misinformation about who the attacker was.’
False information spread rapidly immediately after the Southport murders, including the culprit being wrongly described as a refugee in online posts before Merseyside Police confirmed that he was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents.
Winter, who has 165,000 subscribers, believes more needs to be done by the authorities to fill the void, including to calm tensions in Essex.
‘It’s all about harm reduction and not letting it get to that stage,’ he said.
‘Again, more transparency.
‘What is actually happening? “Today we had a meeting,” tell the public that, that we’re working on it.
‘Don’t be silent on it, because that’s when it boils over, when the speculation starts to rise.’
The citizen journalist was arrested as he found himself kettled with demonstrators in Middlesbrough, where he says ‘opportunists’ who hijacked a peaceful rally began attacking property.
His report from Epping shows similar scenes, with police lines being stretched at points before they can regain control.
Winter said that people watching his vlogs will see ‘ordinary people speaking from the heart’, rather than more ‘polished’ material produced by mainstream broadcasters.
His footage and arrest can be seen in One Day in Southport, which tells the story of the horrific knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop through the survivor’s eyes.
The teenager describes triple-killer Axel Rudakubana as a ‘coward’ and tells she and her family will ‘do our best’ to move on with their lives.
She and her nine-year-old sister had been making and exchanging bracelets with the other children when he began the attack.
Reading a letter to the murderer, she says: ‘The beginning of my nightmare started when I saw you. It’s sickening what you did, going into a room full of defenceless children. I saw your green hoodie and face mask, you looked possessed, you didn’t look human.
‘I knew from your eyes you wanted to try and kill us all.’
The girl, whose identity is protected for legal reasons, relived the moment when Rudakubana, then aged 17, entered the Hart Space venue where 26 children had gathered on July 29, 2024.
Armed with a large kitchen knife, he murdered three girls and attempted to kill eight more, as well as two adults who tried to stop him.
‘I saw him walk in with his face mask on and his hood up and he stabbed the girl in front of me multiple times,’ the teenager said.
‘I noticed his eyes the most, it seemed like he was possessed.
‘And then he came for me and all the girls were screaming, and he stabbed my arm and I turned, and that’s when he stabbed my back.’
The teenager ran around a table and went onto a landing, where she saw some of the other girls huddled around stairs in confusion.
‘I started screaming at them to run, to get down the stairs,’ she said.
‘They got out…I’m so proud of each and every one of them.’
The survivor then ran out of the building and told a passer-by: ‘I’ve been stabbed, I think I’m dying.’
Her little sister found her, pleading, ‘please don’t die, please don’t die.’
The attack fractured her spine and left her with a punctured lung.
Views from those on the ground at the time explore the spread of mis and disinformation, the town’s mosque being set ablaze and the targeting of premises associated with asylum seekers as hundreds of men, women and youths took to the streets.
The survivor said the disorder, which took place in 27 British towns and cities, was unnecessary and ‘didn’t represent me at all.’
Rudakubana, from Banks, Lancashire, was given 13 life sentences with a minimum of 52 years after pleading guilty to murdering Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King and Alice da Silva Aguiar.
At his Liverpool Crown Court sentencing in January, Judge Julian Goose said ‘it is difficult to comprehend’ why he carried out the crimes.
Reading out a victim impact statement in the documentary, the girl said: ‘The beginning of my nightmare started when I saw you, and I’m living with the consequences of it every day.
‘My first day back at school was awful, people wouldn’t speak to me, I felt lonely with no one of my age to talk to about it.
‘I have to have a special chair in school because the usual chairs dig into my scars, I have to have time out of lessons because my mind wanders back to that day and I can’t focus.
‘I want you to know that you changed mine and my sister’s lives forever.
‘Whilst you live behind bars alone, I’ll make sure that my sister and I and our family do our best to move forward with our lives. I hope you spend the rest of your life knowing that we think you’re a coward.’
*One Day in Southport airs on Thursday, June 24, at 9pm on Channel 4
Do you have a story you would like to share? Contact josh.layton@metro.co.uk
MORE: Giggling girl live-streams teenage rioters smashing up taxi in Middlesbrough
MORE: Protestors gather outside Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf that will be ‘housing asylum seekers’
MORE: Residents left ‘sickened’ after protesters clash with police over migrant hotel
