YOU MAY not remember where you were on July 29, 2024, but we in Southport will never forget. It’s the day we learned of the horrendous murders of three little girls who were celebrating the start of summer holidays with a dance party. Suddenly, the happy scene became a bloodbath.
Axel Rudakubana, a second-generation migrant whose parents were said to be Christians from Rwanda, stabbed the three children to death, and attempted to murder eight other children and two adults. The ambulance personnel were horrified at what they saw; never had anything like this happened here.
Rudakubana was jailed for life, with a minimum sentence of 52 years. He is now 18. He has not only has shown no remorse but has to be kept in special conditions because he remains extremely dangerous.
Now the government’s new policy of putting illegals into privately rented accommodation is causing more fear and apprehension here, because a For Sale sign in our neighbourhood could mean that illegal migrants could suddenly become our next-door neighbours.
The publication of Volume Two of Sir Adrian Fulford’s report into the child murders turned up numerous failures in the social services and other organisations who had been concerned about Rudakubana’s aggressive behaviour. He was known to counter-terrorist police, and had been researching terrorist material online shortly before the murders.
The grieving parents of the little girls – Bebe King, six; Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven; Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine – have condemned the failure of Rudakubana’s parents to report his violent behaviour. His mother and father saw that their teenager kept ingredients for making the poison ricin in his bedroom, and on the day he left to commit the murders they had found packaging for a knife. Yet they did nothing. Sir Adrian said if his parents had done ‘what they morally ought to have’ and reported his suspicious behaviour, he would not have been free on the day of the attack.
The shock and horror felt by the Southport community cannot be exaggerated. I live approximately two miles from the murder site, and when I learned of the atrocity on the TV news I was speechless.
Since that day, the atmosphere in Southport has changed. The murders brought the problem of migrants to the forefront. We have all seen large numbers of men clearly not from this country walking the streets or hanging around our parks. We have become far more suspicious of migrants, in particular of the many illegals who are flooding into our country completely unvetted and unchecked. There’s now an atmosphere of anxiety here which did not really exist before the murders. That seems to have been a turning point for us. Our town no longer feels as friendly as it once was.
Yes, Rudakubana was second-generation, but some of the worst atrocities in recent years have been committed by second-generation migrants. In that I include the notorious rape gangs now common all over the north and in some southern areas.
Southport is not and never was a racist town, but we are angry at the government’s refusal to give us any information about where they are putting illegal migrants. We have always welcomed legal migrants here, but these unknown males of fighting age, who may be criminals or rapists or worse, are testing our tolerance to the limit. A mosque and a synagogue have co-existed peacefully here for many years. After the murders the mosque was attacked by rioters, most of whom had been misinformed that the murderer was a Muslim. After things calmed down, the mosque has opened its doors to locals of all religions or none, and relations are once again friendly.
These days we all meet legal immigrants in our doctors’ offices, our hospitals, our restaurants. We have no problem with them. They are welcome and useful members of our community and we are glad to have them. Yet, because of the huge numbers of illegals we know are being let into the country, our trust in people who are obviously from other countries and other cultures has gradually and inevitably deteriorated.
Until the last couple of years you could walk our quiet streets any day, often saying hello to complete strangers, for northerners are friendly folk and like to keep on good terms with everyone. There was never any fear about talking to strangers, for you could assume that other people were like yourself.
The suburb where I live is solidly middle-class, comprising detached and semi-detached houses, mainly built in the 1930s, with long gardens, tree-lined roads and plentiful parks. Those parks are a riot of bluebells and cherry blossoms now, and to walk our beautiful streets you would think life here was idyllic.
But these days we’ve seen a tremendous change in the people whom we now encounter in our daily walks and drives. We see that these men (for they are almost all youngish men) come from elsewhere in the world. And we are uneasy, an apprehension has grown more pressing since the murders, and we often wonder who is here illegally and who has been admitted after proper checks. There is no way to tell, but there are some clues.
Instead of exchanging a friendly greeting, as strangers used to do, those we suspect are illegals show no interest in us whatever. When they do look at us, their glances are indifferent or even hostile. Most of the time they are glued to their smartphones, completely detached from their surroundings.
So we wonder who they are, where they come from, and what they intend to do. Are they criminals? Who knows?
We used to be a trusting, open bunch here in Southport. But today we find ourselves unwillingly anxious and suspicious, uneasy about leaving our homes after dark, especially those of us over 60 – which is a good proportion of the population. Whereas it used to be normal to see children of seven, eight and nine make their own way home, it never happens today. I’ve spoken to several grandparents who feel uneasy about allowing young children to walk home from school now, the murders making us all more aware and anxious about the dangers on our streets. Grandparents and parents now drive the children to and from school. Hence a huge increase in traffic at school opening and closing times; long traffic jams outside primary schools every day. This didn’t happen before 2024. But no one complains. They understand.
Now the government has announced its intention of moving migrants into privately rented accommodation. Where before we could be reasonably sure the new neighbours would be either British or long-term, assimilated migrants such as those of the Windrush generation, today we are apprehensive that we might find ourselves living next door to half a dozen young men, with no jobs to go to and nothing to do except hang around the house all day, or populate the park benches, or walk the streets. They will likely be completely uninterested in integrating with us, their neighbours.
Most probably they won’t speak English. They will be from a completely different culture and won’t share our values. They will not want to assimilate, as those previous waves of migrants did; instead, they may well want to impose their values on us, the host population.
We won’t know whether they are hostile to us, or just indifferent. We won’t be told where they come from, and it is doubtful whether they have been thoroughly vetted for criminal or even terrorist backgrounds. They may be rapists or worse. We will live in daily fear.
This new policy is even worse than the previous strategy of using hotels. At least then we knew where the illegal migrants were and could avoid those areas. Now we have no idea at all, and we fear the future.
