A third child has died in Southport.

[Conniebygaslight]

Incomprehensible and senseless. Absolutely devastating. 💔💔💔

Where are you planning to repatriate him to, Wales?

He was British you idiot

They were asking him to take action on knife crime.

I can't stop thinking about these girls and their families. And also can't stop thinking about the staff.

In theses cases, is there a moment where they suddenly realise what's happening and then have a split second of deciding to potentially sacrifice your life to try to save at least some of these children? I can't imagine the courage it must take.

I'd like to say I'd do the same and that most people would. I couldn't live with myself if I ran off and saved myself. But I can't imagine what that decisive step forward feels like and the absolute terror that must go through you in that moment.

All of the people involved will never be the same again. The total unfairness and randomness of it all is heartbreaking.

I agree. My beloved young granddaughter is a fairly new Police Officer and the things she sees and has to deal with in a fairly ‘normal’ town like ours, have to be heard to be believed. She has to ‘babysit’ people like this sometimes, and how she stops herself beating the living daylights out of them, beats me! She hasn’t said anything to make me think this, but I hope she spits in their tea!

That's true, as I understand it.
But I think it's a bit difficult to square this with the details that have been published about this young man (his nationality and that of his parents, where he previously lived and the small village where he currently lives, the fact he has an older brother, etc.) - it seems to me that it would be quite easy to identify him from those details. So I'm not sure it was wise to release that information (could it impact the case?).

I'm also thinking about the perpetrator's parents and brother. They are in for a hard time from some people, not least because of their Rwandan origin. How you would feel knowing a child you raised had attacked so many people in this way I cannot begin to imagine.

You are mistaken. Currently we don't know that he committed any crime. He might have been incapable of forming the requisite intention, for instance.

Even if we did know, killing him in cold blood and accompanying it with torture would reduce us as a society to a level below that of any criminal.

I do think he should be named. Before his 18th birthday.

I've always had faith in the justice system, perhaps unfairly so given recent events, but I can no longer abide all the rights being afforded to perps and none to victims and the otherwise vulnerable.

Name him.

He was caught at the scene, so we do know this.

No, what @Marseillaise means is that the police might not be able to prove intentionality.

It’s the usual excuse trotted out these days to excuse the ‘mentally ill’.

There are no words to describe the heartbreak or the hideous nature of this crime. In terms of what can be done.
Stop the sale of knives on the internet
Stop the sale of knives in all stores
Stop the normalising of violence through video games
Train people/youth workers in recognising youths at risk of radicalisation or knife crime
Invest more in mental health services (appreciate we don't know at this stage if possibly someone with a mental health issue or not but services still require proper funding)
Invest in communities
Give parents/people with concerns somewhere to flag those concerns outside of the Police
Make people aware of how to raise safe guarding concerns
Appoint youth leaders in communities
Give people hope, jobs, a chance of improving their lives
Communities need to come together to ensure local safety initiatives

Would any of the above stopped the attack, I doubt it and I don't know what the answers are or how we can go about it but we need to start somewhere.

Drivel like this makes me despair. When murder is committed, there has been a crime. And the girls and their dance teacher certainly didn't do it to themselves

I'm finding it quite shocking seeing a witness's account on Sky news, a local window cleaner. While I've no doubt his intentions were good don't they take advice before going on national TV on how they come across? Adrenaline maybe but he's garbling almost excitedly, his face lit up as if he's telling a story. Yes he'll be in shock but so will the families.

Just read the room and show some solemnity and respect.

How does catching him at the scene tell us anything about whether he had the required mental capacity to form the necessary intent which is an essential part of what needs to be established to convict someone of murder?

This.

Someone I worked with first offended when he was a teenager. I'd flagged up concerns three yrs previously. I was quite literally laughed at. (By a man.)

Convicted. Light sentence - first offender and under 21.

Released. Offended again. Now in an institution for the criminally insane.

First victim was a little girl. Second victim was a disabled woman. He was of very low intelligence, but sane enough to pick his victims.

How on earth can we 'stop the sale of knives'? They are already restricted (kitchen knives) to sale to over 18s AFAIK. I mean, glass is dangerous, people can be killed with broken bottles. We can't simply remove everything from public life and sale that is potentially lethal if used with malicious intent.

Years ago, in the 60s, staff in the bank where I worked had to transport money to the sub-branch first thing in the morning as it wasn’t left there overnight.. There were two routes from the main branch to the sub branch, mwhich they varied, both of which necessitated using country roads. One day, they were ambushed. The money was taken, of course. Vrunkydunk (above) mentioned the terror that must go through the victims minds and yes, my colleagues said it did cross their minds that they could die. The criminals bashed the car windows in to get at the money and the staff came back with loads of glass in their hair and scalps. Goodness knows what would happened had they fought back!
Not anywhere as serious as yesterday’s issue but it goes to show that the severity of the crimes is getting worse. I don’t think my colleagues were in danger of losing their Iives at that time but nowadays, in the same situation, , they probably would. I worry about how frightening this World is now, and it can only get worse.

I think we're agreed that care in the community has not worked. However, there are plenty of dangerous people at large in the community who aren't psychiatric patients.

He has still killed.

Therefore, we know he has committed a crime.

Severity may differ, but a crime has been committed and he was there with the evidence needed to prove he did indeed commit a crime.

He should be named.

What exactly would any of us not involved gain by knowing his name at this point, other than the fleeting satisfaction of knowing?

Goodness, there are some hard of thinking posts popping up on this thread.

Definition of murder: Killing someone with the intent to unlawfully cause death or serious injury. If you are so mentally unwell that you are incapable of forming intent, you cannot commit murder.

At this stage we don't know enough to make assumptions about that, and making those assumptions publicly may well be contempt of court.

We can't, but the crossbows and zombie knives used in some recent attacks could be banned. Nobody needs those.

One million times this.

He knew what he was doing. Evil bastard. I hope he rots for the rest of his life somewhere very, very unpleasant.

I'm so sick of mental health being used as an excuse. It's disablist and so offensive to people with mental health illness.

He might have mental health issues AND be an evil bastard, he might just be an evil bastard, but mental health issues can never be a justification for this level of evil and taking away a child's life. Never.

The only way he could not know killing primary aged girls was wrong is if he was incapable of holding a knife in the first place. As he managed to order a taxi and commit this crime he clearly knew what he was doing.

Technically, we don't even know that much. I know it's wildly unlikely, but suppose for instance his case is that someone took the knife off him, he never intended to use it and didn't use it?

MN keeps asking people to stop speculating and making assumptions. The focus at this point should be on the victims.