Police chiefs will disclose suspects' ethnicity more often to counter disinformation
Police should release details such as the ethnicity of suspects in order to be transparent with the public following major incidents, police leaders have said following the parade crash in Liverpool.
Merseyside Police revealed that the suspect was a 'white British' man less than two hours after a car ploughed into the fans, injuring 79 people at Liverpool FC's Premier League victory parade on Monday.
Gavin Stephens, chairman of the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC), defended the decision – which has been described as a 'complete step change' from the same force's approach to releasing information following last year's knife attack in Southport.
Police were criticised for not releasing more information about the attacker, who murdered three schoolgirls, after false rumours about his religion and asylum status helped to fuel far-right riots which erupted across the country.
Chief constable Stephens said police are operating in an age where information is shared rapidly online and the truth can be an 'antidote' to disinformation.
'We have to operate on a basis of transparency and openness,' he said. 'When it's the right thing to do to release the information, then we should do so.'
However, he warned police never want to jeopardise any ongoing court proceedings, and there may be occasions where they cannot release information to the public.
His comments come after the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley agreed forces will have to release personal details about suspects more often.
Sir Mark told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I'm not going to criticise another police chief who makes a judgment in a really difficult, complex situation.
"Every case needs judging on its merits. I think as we go forward in the future, we would always want to be more transparent in terms of the data we release.
"Sometimes the nature of the investigation, the nature of case, makes that difficult, but in principle of course, transparency is good."
Asked if moving in the direction of declaring a suspect's ethnicity sooner is the way to go, Sir Mark added: "In general, I think we have to be realistic and more often... put more personal details in public, earlier."
He added that we are in an age of citizen journalism and some content will be 'all over social media very, very quickly".
'People will be making guesses and inferences – I think in that world, putting more facts out is the only way to deal with it,' he added.
'And if those facts embolden racists in some cases, then we need to confront those individuals.
'I think trying to avoid truths when half-truth is in the public domain is going to be quite difficult going forward.'
Liverpool City Metro Mayor Steve Rotherham said it was 'absolutely the right thing to do' to release details about the parade suspect to put to bed online speculation.
'Because if you have a look at social media already, within minutes of the incident being posted, there was speculation, and there was some nefarious groups who were trying to stir up some speculation around who was responsible for it,' he said on Tuesday.
'So the whole idea was to put to bed some of that for, obviously, the misinformation and disinformation that was out there, and to try to calm people.'
Officers were granted extra time to question the 53-year-old man, from West Derby, Liverpool, who is being held on suspicion of attempted murder, dangerous driving and drug driving, Merseyside Police said.
A force spokesman said seven people remained in hospital in a stable condition on Wednesday and they have now identified a total of 79 people who were injured in the incident.
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