Original subtitles

I reckon if there's ever a time for him to actually talk,

it's probably now, given everything that's happened.

OK, fingers crossed.

PHONE RINGS

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The person you are calling is unable to take your call.

Please leave your message after the tone.

To re-record your message, key hash at any time.

- BEEP

Hello. This is Mobeen Azhar.

I've been trying to get hold of you for ages.

It's about what happened outside the Suites Hotel in Kirkby last year.

So, I know you were involved in promoting the protest

and it really isn't about pointing fingers.

I've seen the flyers and I know there was a reference on there

to no violence.

But, you know, it's fair to say that it turned pretty ugly

and, especially in light of what's happened,

I just want to hear your take on this.

Eight months before that call,

I started working on a story about a big riot in a small town.

- Some breaking news to bring you now.

- REPORTER: - Protesters have clashed with police outside a hotel

that provides refuge for asylum seekers.

- CROWD: - Get them out! Get them out! Get them out!

- A police van was set alight and missiles, including lit fireworks,

were thrown at officers.

- To some, this was a riot rooted in racism.

- That sort of thing

we don't want to see in Liverpool City Region.

- It should be condemned by all parties and it is being condemned.

- Others said it was the only way to get their voice heard.

- Come on! - Get back now! Get back!

- Racism? Who brought race into anything?

That's not what last night was about.

Unless you're living here or you're willing to get the bus down

and have a nice little day out in Kirkby, don't comment.

- So I packed my bags and headed up there.

Protests where asylum seekers are being housed,

they happen up and down the country, there's nothing new about that,

but this one, it got properly ugly.

I know everyone's going to have an opinion about this stuff,

but the fact of the matter is, things don't blow up

on that level just by accident.

I want to know why a protest in a little town

turned into a full-scale riot.

I didn't know at the time, but I was about to uncover

a blueprint for the biggest riots in over a decade...

..with a wave of violence exploding across the nation.

Let me take this left.

OK, so that's the town centre bit down there.

There's actually a giant elephant there.

Even if you don't know Kirkby, you will know Liverpool,

and that's about 30 minutes down the road.

And Kirkby is home to Becca, who is the influencer

that was all over TikTok the day after the riot.

- Racism? Who brought race into anything?

That's not what last night was about.

- I want to know why she made that video.

I also want to know why she thinks it ended up in a riot.

DOORBELL

- Hey! - Hello. - You OK? Nice to see you. - How you doing? Nice to see you.

Oh, my God, you're bright, aren't you? - I know. So you don't lose me.

- Do you want me to take my shoes off? - No, no, of course not. - All right.

- I have to hoover up, like, five times a day.

- Very excitable, aren't you? Yes

- She's three but she's like a puppy.

- She looks like, you know the Gremlins?

She looks like one... BECCA LAUGHS

- What a compliment, Angel. - You're so beautiful, aren't you, Angel?

Tell me about Kirkby. What happens in Kirkby? Yes.

- So what I usually do when I'm doing a TikTok and stuff,

like, you can record and then pause and, like, get your notes, and then,

like... - Yeah. - And obviously you have a ring light that works.

Especially if I'm on live, I'm sort of known for my camera dropping.

Hi, guys. If you cast your minds back to last year,

there was a peaceful protest planned in Liverpool

outside the Suites Hotel.

This soon escalated and it was likened in the media

to somewhat of a riot.

- Becca's trying to make it as a true-crime content creator

and was live streaming on the night of the protest.

- The riot police are coming.

- She reckons the reason for the riots were misunderstood.

- Kirkby tour.

- But before we get into that,

she's going to show me around her hometown.

I'm quite excited, like, seriously.

- So it's, like, left out of here.

- Tell me about growing up here. Do people generally know each other?

- Yeah, everyone's in each other's pockets, like.

I think it's a nice place to grow up.

- Right, where are we heading? - Welcome to Kirkby.

There's a Morrisons and, like, a Home Bargains over this way.

- It kind of makes me think of, you know,

a kind of little cute seaside town. - Yeah.

- But Kirkby isn't on the map as a holiday destination.

It's the kind of place where new faces get noticed,

and in January 2022, there were a lot of new faces.

A local hotel called the Suites was used to house

hundreds of asylum seekers who'd come to the UK

from across the world, hoping to seek refuge.

It's not the only town where this has happened

and there have been plenty of protests around the country,

but at the start of 2023,

none of this had spilled over into this level of violence.

- Get back! Get back!

Don't run at me! Don't run at me!

- So why was there so much tension with the new arrivals?

- There was just sort of, like, hostility because refugees

at the hotel, they'd been, like, propositioning young girls,

to be honest. - So you're talking about adult men... - Yeah, adult men.

- ..propositioning young girls? - Yeah.

- Do you know how much of that stuff was true?

- Obviously, with social media,

nothing's always going to be 100% accurate,

but I have heard a lot of people saying that

there was quite a lot of, like, children getting approached in parks

and things like that. - Getting approached in parks?

- Yeah, that seemed to be the most frequent place.

- So what was being said? What...?

- Just, like, inviting them back to hotel...the hotel,

erm, asking for numbers.

All you was seeing on social media was post after post.

A lot of people would, like, send the police screenshots

and say, "I've got another report, another report.

"What's getting done about it? What's getting done about it?"

- You mean stuff that they'd get from social media? - Social media.

And they would just say, like, the individual has to complain,

but, like, a whole community was complaining

and they just done nothing.

- Were the police really ignoring reports of young girls

being harassed in the community?

We'll get to that later.

These were serious allegations, but, for now,

I wanted to see if anyone else in town had heard these stories.

Were they just rumours or was there more to it?

Sorry to bother you. My name is Mobeen.

Did you ever hear anything about what happened at the Suites Hotel?

- Erm, what happened was they're kidnapping

them little girls and all that, isn't it? Yeah.

So that's...that's what it's about.

- Do you think there had been kidnappings? - I don't know.

It's all hearsay, so you can't really tell

whether it has been or hasn't been.

- Do you want to talk to me? I'm looking at the story

of, you know the Suites Hotel? - Oh, I was there, yeah.

- Were you there?! - I never got nicked though.

All I heard about was an Asian guy, right, pulls in here on the road

and started being a bit rude to her. - That must be quite worrying.

- It is, you know.

They've got different laws in their own countries and that, like,

but it's not done here, is it?

You must have seen it yourself.

- I haven't seen it myself. - No? - But I do want to know if it's happening.

How come you decided to go the protest?

- Just to show, like, we won't stand for it.

I don't care whether you're black, white, green, yellow, brown,

it's not happening. We're just not letting that go on.

- So, basically, there was a lot of men who were staying

in the Suites Hotel, and they started, like,

following children home from school and stuff.

- Were you angry? - Yeah.

Wouldn't you be? - Yeah, yeah, if that's what was happening.

And did you go to the protest?

- I drove down when it was finished and had a little nose, yeah.

- There's some people that have said it's a race thing.

What do you make of that? - Personally, I don't think

it is a race thing. There's people of all different races here.

There was different races at the protest.

So it's not a race thing, but... - What's that?

- And, like, even with the other religions... - What's that?

Who? Who are...?

Do you want to come and chat to me?

Do you think that's a view that a lot of people hold in this area?

- Yeah, I do. I think it's hard because not all of them

will be paedophiles, so some of them will want to come over for safety

and get a job and stuff, but some of them are paedophiles.

So I just think that everyone angry

is just trying to protect the children.

That's it.

- Thank you so much for your time. Take care. Bye-bye. Thanks.

I reckon we've probably spent about three minutes out here

asking people questions before someone used the word paedophile.

And that might make us feel a bit uncomfortable, but the fact

of the matter is, that is the story that people want to tell.

They are saying there is a threat to girls in this area

from asylum seekers that were staying at the Suites Hotel.

And if that's true, then it doesn't seem like that much of a leap

between it being on the tip of everyone's tongue

to then spilling out into violence.

I was trying to process what I'd heard in Kirkby

and why that stuff was uncomfortable to listen to.

It's important that people can speak honestly to me,

but there's moments where I'm chatting to people in the street

and I'm thinking, you can see that I'm a brown guy, right?

You must know that I exist because of immigration.

My parents, they came to this country in the '60s.

They came from Pakistan. All they've done their entire lives

is work really hard, pay their taxes,

and so when I hear words like nonce and paedophile

just being chucked around,

it's quite difficult for me to just keep nodding and listening.

But it's not new. It's not new at all.

I'm not naive to this stuff because ever since you've had

the child sex abuse scandals in places like Rotherham,

in places like Rochdale,

there has been this idea that brown men are dangerous.

And I know about those stories, I've covered those stories,

so I'm not the guy that is going to say,

"Let's not talk about this stuff." But the fact is, the majority

of people that are convicted for paedophilia are white.

And yet, if you look at sections of the press, and certainly speaking

to people on the streets of Kirkby, it is brown men in particular

that are seen as the threat.

Now, if there's an actual problem, if there's actual criminality

being committed by people that were staying at the Suites Hotel,

if there's an actual threat, then I want to know about that.

But I have to separate the facts from all the noise,

and all I'm interested in is finding out the facts of the matter.

I was yet to speak to any of the men who were having the finger pointed

at them for targeting young girls, so I went down to the Suites Hotel

to see if I could get anyone to talk.

It feels like an industrial estate. This isn't...

I thought it was going to be in the middle of a bunch of houses,

not kind of tucked away... Oh, there it is, look. Suites Hotel.

"Spa and leisure."

Hey. Sorry to bother you. My name is Mobeen.

Would you be all right if I asked you a couple of questions?

So it's open and there's people in there.

It was quite odd. Erm...

I met this guy. He's like, "Yeah, I'm the general manager

"and we don't have anything to do with asylum seekers any more."

And I said, "Oh, I'm just interested in this story,

"so who would I speak to?" And he goes, "Well, there's no

"asylum seekers any more, so it'll be a no comment."

And they actually just reopened on Monday.

He says, "Yeah, we shut down after all the trouble

"and we haven't made any comment and we're not going to make any comment

"and we just opened this week."

And now, in his words, it's a regular hotel.

He goes, "You won't find any asylum seekers here."

Rumours were still swirling around town,

even though the men in question seemed to be long gone.

I needed to find someone who'd been staying at the Suites Hotel

back when it all kicked off.

Whilst I put some feelers out, I found another local

that saw things a bit differently.

Hello. I'm Mobeen. How are you doing? - Nice to meet you, mate.

- Nice to meet you. Give me a hug.

From behind the steering wheel in his taxi,

Neil has been a cabbie for six years.

Did you grow up here? Is that right? - All my life, yeah.

- You know, every time I get in a cab anywhere,

I'll have conversations with cab drivers.

I think it's part of the job description.

- Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

- I'm interested in understanding what led up... - Yeah. - ..to the riot.

Can you remember what the conversations were in the community?

- One thing that a lot of Kirkby people are angry about

and they talk about it all the time, is the Home Office acquired it,

and all of a sudden, overnight,

there's 180 men in the hotel and people would say stuff like,

"We used to go and have weddings there

"and use the spa at the back, and now you can't."

Now, that breeds resentment, and when you've had to deal with

a Tory government and managed decline...

We've been ignored, we've been ignored, it breeds a defiance.

- What were the conversations you were having in the cab?

- There was a few people that were saying, "But they'll have their

"own doctor in the hotel," "They'll have their own dentist,"

or, "They'll get money to go and get the latest clothes."

That resentment, it just builds up because life is becoming unbearable.

In Kirkby, like, you know, we've got lack of job opportunities,

a lack of housing, the food poverty, wage insecurity,

so everyone's on the brink, everyone's on edge.

- It sounds like it was kind of waiting for something to kick off.

- Yeah, yeah. - Like, if you've got all those conditions there... - Yeah.

- ..and grievances. - Yeah.

And every two days, the front page of the tabloids

is "migrants on boats", you know, "infestation", erm, "swarm".

You know, Nigel Farage on a boat in the English Channel.

But it's certainly not someone who's come thousands of miles' fault.

- The decades of inflammatory headlines about asylum seekers

Neil mentioned aren't exactly hard to find.

Some people have built a career on telling anyone that will listen

that foreigners are making their lives worse.

- I would quite confidently predict at hundreds of people again today

coming through the Port of Dover illegally.

- The British people deserve to know which party is serious about

stopping the invasion on our southern coast.

- To Neil this is really clear.

This isn't just about asylum seekers.

It's actually about a context in which you have a whole section

of people in this town who feel that they haven't been listened to.

And in that scenario, if you're not feeling great

about your own circumstances

and then you see a whole bunch of strangers move into town,

then it becomes really easy to point a finger at them

and say they're the problem.

And then you add to that all the rumours that are going around town,

there's this underlying tension.

But that still doesn't explain how you go from underlying tension

to a situation where people are actually rioting on the street

and causing tens of thousands of pounds' worth of damage.

That question was about to be put under the spotlight.

Over the next few weeks, ten miles down the road,

a group of alleged rioters were due in the dock

at Liverpool Crown Court.

But looking at the list of people on trial, I was kind of surprised.

There's everyone from a grandad of five to a 21-year-old.

And there was also some other younger guys that pled guilty

before the trial even started.

After the riot, there was a whole bunch of arrests, and now

there's eight people that are facing a violent disorder charge.

So if they are convicted,

then they're possibly looking at some real time.

I'm talking about five years apiece.

The thing is, if you speak to people in Kirkby,

they tell me that this is about girls being targeted,

it's about kidnap, it's about danger...

..and so I really want to know if any of that stuff

is actually going to come up in court.

Our cameras weren't allowed inside the court,

so it was just me and my notebook for this bit.

Inside, footage of the night of the riot

was shown as part of the evidence. Take a look.

Around 400 protesters, a group of counter-protesters

and a whole load of police trying to keep a lid on things.

SHOUTING - What are you going to do, knobhead?

- To put it politely, that's not what happened.

- Get back!

- It got really ugly really fast.

CROWD: - Get them out! Get them out! Get them out! Get them out!

Get them out! Get them out!

- FIREWORK EXPLODES

- GLASS SMASHES - Missile!

- Fuck off, BLEEP!

- That evidence was all about what happened that night,

but we also got the inside track into what was happening in Kirkby

in the build-up to the riot.

- This morning, one police officer said this was all prompted

by a video that had been circulating around the area on social media,

which showed one asylum seeker from the hotel

asking a 15-year-old girl for her phone number and for a kiss.

- Could this be actual evidence of wrongdoing

from someone staying at the Suites Hotel?

I'd heard the rumours for weeks by now.

So was this the smoking gun?

Becca was also at the trial, working on a story for her TikTok.

Do you know that particular video? Have you seen it? - Yeah.

- Have you got it? - Yeah.

- Would you be able to show it to me? - Right now?

- If you've got it. - Yeah, yeah.

- How old are you? - 25.

- 25? I'm only 15.

- OK, good. - No, that's not good.

- I want... I want to visit your home. - No, sorry. - What's wrong?

- You don't do this in this country. It's...

You go to jail if you do this.

- INAUDIBLE

- No, no, you're all right.

No.

I'm 15.

- INAUDIBLE

- No. No, that's weird.

- I heard there, she's properly clear when she goes, "You don't do this."

Do you know what he says? - I think he starts by asking her

for her number and he says he's 25, and she says, "Oh, sorry, I'm 15."

Like, it's... She's saying it's not appropriate.

- Can you remember what you thought when you saw it?

- I wasn't shocked because it had been going on for months.

- When was the first time you saw the video?

- It was on, like, a selling page. It started getting shared everywhere.

- Why do you think someone posted it on a kind of...

..on a shopping website? A bargain website.

- I think people were just sick of nothing being done

so they just wanted it shared as much as possible.

I knew that there would be, like, an outcry

and, like, that it would probably go viral because of the context of it,

but I didn't expect it to come all the way to court

or for the protest to turn out like that.

- Yeah, all right. Thank you.

Take care.

What they didn't cover in court was just how viral this video went

and how angry it made people feel.

- How old are you?

I'm only 15.

- OK, good. - No, that's not good.

You go to jail.

- From what I can see, a couple of local meme pages

with tens of thousands of followers like "thatscousekid"

and "aroundliverpool" were pretty influential in helping this video

spread far and wide.

It wasn't long before these same meme pages

were calling for a protest outside the hotel.

It's pretty wild hearing a police officer stand up in court

and he said, and I'm quoting,

he said, "One viral video was the spark for the riot."

So, of course, technically, this trial is not about the video,

it's about the riot and the conduct of people at that riot,

but, actually, the video is what people really want to talk about,

and so if I want to understand this story,

then I need to understand that video.

I needed to go back to the beginning

to see if anyone saw anything that day.

I've kind of been comparing the video with places in the area

and what I know has been said about it online

and I'm pretty sure this is the spot.

- You don't do this in this country. It's... You go to jail.

No. No, that's weird.

- You've got this brick wall.

This brick wall with this moss on it.

This is the fence.

It says, "Jude sucks cock," but that's a story for another day.

This is definitely the spot.

As well as the video that had blown up,

there was another piece of this puzzle floating around online.

And the picture is actually taken from over there,

so this fence, which is pretty distinct...

..is in the foreground of the picture.

It looks like someone has taken a still from across the road.

And take a look at this.

This picture makes it pretty clear she is a young girl

talking to what looks like an adult.

I think it is probably worth asking a couple of people.

Can I just ask you a couple of questions?

Do you know what happened? There was that riot.

Do you remember the video that was doing the rounds? - Yeah.

I don't think I saw it myself, but I remember hearing about the video.

- This is a real long shot, but have you any idea who took the picture?

- No. I don't think anyone knew where the picture came from

or who recorded it. - Thank you so much for your time.

- I've got the video on my phone. - Is it the video that I've seen?

Is it the video of the girl... - Where she's saying, "I'm 13",

and he's saying "I'm 25. It's OK. That's allowed in my country."

Well, they're not in their country. They're in our country.

- Did people know that that guy was from the Suites Hotel?

- Yeah, because she's posted a few times.

- So it happened more than once? - Yeah. She said it's happened a few times.

Her mum's told her, "If it happens again, just video them until they

"know who it is", so she videoed it the next time it happened.

You can understand people's anger. Nothing's getting done around here.

Every complaint that gets raised, nothing happens,

so people are just going to start taking things into their own hands

after a certain amount of time, aren't they? To be honest with you,

I don't think it's right housing them in there anyway.

It's not right. There's people in this country

who haven't got nothing. - Did you grow up in this area?

- Yeah, yeah. - Is it a nice place? - I wouldn't say it was a nice place.

- Why wouldn't you say it's a nice place?

- It's rough as fuck, innit. It's rough as fuck around here.

- I was expecting... - It's rough as fuck, but...

It's not a horrible place. Everyone sticks up for each other.

Do you know what I'll try and do? I'll see if the mum

will speak to you. - Do you think she will speak to me?

- Well, I don't see why not. It's not going to do no harm, is it?

- I really appreciate it. Yeah?

I didn't hear from that guy again, but Kirkby is a small place

and it's not exactly difficult to find out where people live.

I've got an address for the family...

..so the idea is I'm going to go around and, if she's willing,

then I just want to get a really clear sense of what happened

and when it happened and how it unfolded.

Cos through all of this, like,

the kind of very centre of this is this family.

The plan was to meet the woman who uploaded the clip -

the mother of the girl in the video.

All I wanted was her side of the story.

She said, "Yeah, it was really difficult

"and my daughter had panic attacks and it was a really difficult time

"but I don't want to talk about this stuff

"because everyone ends up saying we're racist, and I'm not racist,

"but it's their culture, they're paedophiles,

"and so we've already got enough paedophiles in this country

"and I don't want to talk about this stuff.

"I'm not bothered. The country is just full of paedophiles.

"I don't want to talk about it any more."

The thing is, when you see that video, I don't think

any right-minded person would look at that

and say what's happening in this video is good.

Of course it's not good.

But at the same time, saying that all asylum seekers

are paedophiles is just not true.

So what do you do with that?

That's the conclusion she's come to,

so I don't know where you go with that, really.

And listen to this.

There were just four days between the video being posted online

and the riots outside the Suites.

Did anyone in power even have this on their radar?

Oh, hi, there. My name is Mobeen Azhar,

We're just looking at the incident around the Suites hotel.

I contacted the leader of the council...

Do you know how likely it is that anyone

would be willing to speak to me?

..and Merseyside Police.

I'm looking at a story about the Suites Hotel.

..but neither wanted to talk.

I don't think it's their favourite subject.

I do find it really frustrating because whether it's people

who were there or it's people in authority,

they don't seem to want to talk about what actually happened,

and so it does make me wonder why.

What are people so afraid of?

Knowsley Council never agreed to an interview

but one independent councillor was willing to meet.

Steve, how are you doing? - Very well, thank you.

- Very nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you. You OK?

- I'm very well, thank you.

Steve was elected to a ward in Kirkby three years ago,

so I reckon there's a good chance he knows what was happening

just before the riot.

And you're local? - Yeah, I live local.

I just live five minutes away. I've lived in Kirkby all my life.

Kirkby is a great town.

- Can you remember when you first heard that the Suites Hotel

was going to be used to house people seeking asylum?

- The Council didn't know, we didn't know.

It sort of... The situation just developed.

But Knowsley Council were not consulted over it.

There was no explanation or...

You know, it just sort of... It just happened.

- The first time you heard there was a concern, was that a constituent?

Was that someone calling you? Was it... What shape did that take?

- I think the three independent councillors recognised

messages on social media going up.

Some dark traffic that we were a little bit concerned about,

that we reported to the police, you know, so...

- Just explain that to me. When you say dark traffic, what do you mean?

- You know, I think there was a few videos going around of young girls

being approached by youths and that sort of stirring things up a bit,

and we wanted to find out, you know, was this a genuine incident,

so we decided to approach Merseyside Police and Knowsley Council.

- Did you get an answer to that question?

- So, we arranged for a meeting at Kirkby Police Station

for a number of reasons.

One of them was that if our residents had genuine concerns

about these inappropriate approaches,

then this needs to be investigated and addressed.

However, if there was a lot of unfounded accusations

flying around, well, these need to be investigated and also

communicated down to our residents what actually was going on.

And when we had the meeting at Kirkby Police Station,

we was assured by, you know, the officers

and Knowsley Council that it was in hand.

- I understand.

I really appreciate it, Steve. Thank you for your time. - No probs.

- The police did confirm they investigated the incident

of the man in the video, but there was no further action.

For months now, I'd been trying to speak to anyone

that had been staying at the Suites Hotel to get their take on things.

The asylum seekers were long gone

and tracking them down was feeling impossible,

but then something clicked.

He wants to be known as Aria. That's not actually his name, Aria.

And he doesn't want his face on TV.

He sent me a pin.

I think he's just down here.

Aria?

Why did you leave your country? Why did you leave Iran?

If you didn't leave, what would have happened to you?

How did you get to this country?

With a small boat?

You know the actual night of the riot, were you inside the hotel?

What do you remember? What happened?

SHOUTING

CROWD: - Get them out! Get them out! Get them out!

Get them out! Get them out! Get them out!

- Did you feel in danger?

- Burn it to the ground!

- You know the man that was in the video,

having the conversation with the young girl, the 15-year-old?

Did you know him?

Did you ever hear, was there his version of events?

You know, I've spoken to people who will very openly say to me,

"It's just part of their culture. They are paedophiles."

Do you know what happened to him?

No idea?

What happened to the guy whose picture was put on the internet?

So he just moved out of the city?

I understand. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

I was unable to verify if the incident Aria told me about

was reported to the police or not, but I've got the picture

that was posted online.

And the version of events in here is all about the threat from scary men

and the threat to young girls in the area.

And the thing is, up until now, most of the people that I'm speaking to

are saying everything that kicked off around the Suites

is about the protection of young girls, but there are a few people

that have a different version of events.

There's this woman called Chantelle

and she's put out this tweet with a video of the riot, and she's saying,

"Apparently we're supposed to ignore the chants of 'send them back'

"and 'Liverpool is our city' slogans."

These posts tell a different story

about why things got so rowdy that night, so I message Chantelle.

Yeah, so thank you so much for doing this. - That's OK.

- She used to be a local copper,

before she left to focus on politics.

How's your day so far? - Yeah, it's been good.

- And she's got her own ideas about why things ended up

the way they did outside the Suites Hotel.

- So, from the information we gathered afterwards,

social media groups were being flooded with allegations.

Things like people kidnapping kids in playgrounds.

And any time you tried to chase evidence or actual facts,

you were coming up short, and what was happening... Go on.

- It's just fascinating that you say this because so many of the people

that I've spoken to in the street sincerely believe.

And when you ask, where did you hear that?

It tends to, pretty much without exception,

to be in the online space. - Yeah.

There was one video that could have possibly been something.

- This was with the 15-year-old girl? - Yeah, yeah.

This is with my former police officer head on,

you couldn't see evidence,

and this was the main video that people were talking about.

I did go to the Suites Hotel the next day

and I questioned people about that video,

and I was saying, you know, to come to a hotel

and to cause everything that was caused - these fires,

I'd like to have known that there was a solid reason for that uproar.

And the women I spoke to were just like, you know,

"They're threatening women, they're threatening young girls."

And I was like, "What did they do specifically?" "Well, they said..."

"What? What did they say?"

And then they're kind of like,

"Well, hang on a minute, what evidence did I have?"

No-one's winning in that kind of interaction.

I said, "Would you come again based on all of that evidence?"

"No. Do you know what? I probably... I'd have a closer look."

- They did say that? Oh, wow. - That was one group.

But then there was a guy I was speaking to, and he was, like,

"I'd come tomorrow because we've got to protect our women."

And I actually said to him, "If that hotel

"was full of Ukrainian refugees, would you have come?"

And he said, "No."

I don't think it's given enough consideration as it should be -

the power of those small community groups online.

Like, usually good people who want to find a lost dog

or want to help you get rid of this chest of drawers,

and within all of that, there might be one person saying,

"I saw this guy up the road.

"He was looking at kids. He was looking dodgy."

They say he was brown-skinned or that he was an asylum seeker.

We're not just fighting these narratives in the street,

we're actually fighting them online, and online they have the power

to be whipping people up into a frenzy, making them fearful.

You're chasing something that hasn't happened, but who needs it to have

happened when you've got social media and you can make people

believe that it could happen? Because it's a politics of fear.

- Had fear stoked up in these online community groups

motivated people to go to the protest?

With the verdicts now in, a group of young men were on bail,

waiting for what was likely to be a long stretch in prison

for their part in the riot.

It was important to at least try and get their side of the story.

There's a bit of me that's a bit worried

about knocking on these doors and meeting their families

and their dads and their brothers, maybe,

or maybe their mums that are going to shout at me,

but I really think it's worth a shot.

First up was 21-year-old Warren Cullen.

This is Warren's place that's coming up.

It's interesting because it is actually walking distance

from the Suites Hotel.

So this idea... Hold on, there's a guy with big hair on a bike.

Who's that?

Is that Warren?

Oh, my God, have we just stumbled on Warren?

The wrong guy. Another Scouser with curly hair.

What is the door number?

This one?

Yes. OK.

There's some lights on.

Next, 20-year-old Harry Boynton.

Mum was home and she did actually shout up.

She said, "Oh, it's the TV people."

And I think he just shook his head because I didn't hear his voice.

I think he just shook his head from the top of the stairs,

cos she goes, "No, no, he doesn't want to do it."

No luck there.

I've reached out to the next two before, so I've got their numbers.

MOBILE PHONE BUZZES Liam, thanks for getting back to me.

I want to hear your side of the story.

I want to hear how you ended up being there that night.

You know, I want to understand your motivation.

We wouldn't do that without your consent.

Thanks, Liam. Take care. Take care.

One more number to try.

21-year-old Jonjo.

Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up. Tell me you want to talk.

Tell me you want to tell me your side of the story.

He just busy-ed me.

It rang... It rang, and then it just went.

"The person you're calling is on another line."

More like, "The person you're calling

"doesn't want to speak to you."

Hey, Jonjo. It's Mobeen. How are you doing?

Oh, sorry. Are you busy right now? Can you speak to...?

I don't know if I've caught you at a time where...

Yeah, he hung up.

He's not happy.

He said....

I think he's really stressed.

You know, he's committed a crime,

and what he's done is wrong, of course it is,

but it doesn't change the fact that...

..he's in his early 20s and he comes to court with his mum,

and he's worried about what impact this is going to have

on the rest of his life.

He's not in a good place.

No-one would talk to me on camera, but chatting to people

on their doorsteps, I got a good sense that a lot of them

and their families had heard all about the rumours

and the social media allegations flying around online.

We'd been working on this story for nearly three months now

and, as I said earlier, new faces in town get noticed.

I reckon someone didn't like the questions we were asking.

Are you rolling? I want you to just film yourself for one second.

OK, I need to tell you something.

So, today was a normal day hanging out in Kirkby, everything was cool.

We had some nice chats outside the pub, yeah? - Mm.

- And no-one seemed to have a problem.

So, when you were sitting down on that bench

and you were with Stefan, someone's taken a picture of you

and it's ended up on this Facebook page

called Liverpool Enough Is Enough.

That's you.

That's Stefan. That's our camera.

So let me read this to you.

"Reporters trying to get drinkers in the tavern

"to comment on the Suites Hotel disturbance.

"Do not give them the time of day." Capital letters, capital letters.

"They'll only twist your words and edit them to make you look bad."

And the thing is, this is an open page.

It's got a reasonably big following

and I can see that it was set up the day after the riot.

And the theme, if you scroll through the posts,

it's all the same stuff. So it's about scary asylum seekers.

This isn't news. This isn't nuance. This isn't about informing people.

All it is about is saying, be scared of those people.

Be scared of those people...

People have used the word "paedo" and "nonce" over and over again.

So this isn't about information.

And, really, what I would say

is this is about making people know that there's an enemy.

And that enemy generally on here is asylum seekers.

And, actually, now that enemy is us.

Maybe the people trying to hinder our investigation

knew we were onto something.

That same group, Liverpool Enough Is Enough,

had also posted about a protest in support of the rioters

outside the Crown Court on the first day of sentencing.

It was due to take place the next morning.

So, who was going to show up?

I wonder why the police cars are actually here.

I wonder if they're expecting any kind of trouble.

A whole bunch of cops.

But I didn't see any demonstration on my way in.

But when I was inside, this lot arrived.

- We've got damning evidence and the judge needs to see it right now.

- It's your duty to let that evidence in. It really is.

- They weren't being let in, but it didn't matter.

These guys were broadcasting their views about the case

and asylum seekers all over social media.

- Yous not stopping these illegal immigrants coming over

on these boats, yeah, you are breaking the immigration law.

Yeah? And then you're putting them on coaches

and housing them in four-star hotels. This is what you're doing.

- None of the defendants had yet been sentenced,

so I was ready to call it a day.

But if you listen to their live stream,

these guys were up for a chat.

- Yeah, I'm getting on a documentary. - Oh, these are BBC. BBC...

- These are on a BBC documentary.

- I thought it would be a good chance to understand

why they were interested in the case.

Did you want to have a chat? Did you want to have a chat?

Are you going to chat to me? - Yeah, yeah.

- So what's your name? - My name is Phil.

- You're Phil. I'm Mobeen. Are you filming me right now? - No, no, no.

Erm...

No, we're off. - Is your friend over there filming me? - Yeah.

So what you need to realise is these lads have been brought here today

for apparent crimes they've committed.

Well, if you look at our law, they haven't committed any crime.

What you need to do is go back to when they were talking

about bringing these illegal immigrants into the country.

They are illegal. They've got no documentation, no passports.

- Have you been following the trial?

- Yeah, but they've not followed the process of law.

So what they've done is they've trafficked these illegal immigrants

into this country. Now, if you look at action...

- The police have, you believe? - The police are assisting it.

The Government. - Yeah. - The Government...

- The Government, you believe, have trafficked these...? - Yeah.

- Can I tell you about what I'm doing as well? - Yeah.

- So... So I've been following this case and I'm interested in,

you know, obviously there was a video that a lot of people

in the community saw. - Yeah.

- And, you know, I think a lot of people were angry,

and then that resulted in this demonstration

that I think, you can say if you were putting it diplomatically,

you could say it turned ugly.

Have you seen the clip? - We've seen all the videos.

But bear in mind, you're only aware of Liverpool.

We go all over the country and we support people.

There's a girl in...erm...in... erm, Ireland now.

She's afraid to walk out of her door because of the harassment

that they're getting off the illegal immigrants.

- And is that a similar thing? Did you also see a video with that?

- But the BBC are even telling us in our face "illegal immigrants".

That's the phrase they're using. - So if we done anything illegal...

If we done anything illegal, what happens to us?

Do we go to jail? Do we get fined?

Why are these getting put up in four-star hotels,

which is a breach of the Immigration Law as well?

- I've heard you. I'm just asking, you know you said the same thing

happened in Ireland? - Yeah. - Did you also see a video for that?

- Yeah, we've got everything. We've got all the evidence that makes...

- Could you give it to me? Could you WhatsApp it? - I can give you bundles.

- I just wanted to read that thing.

It says "Parents Against Grooming, Save Our Children."

So is that a particular organisation? Do you, like...

- That's a protest that I've been to up in Rochdale and Oldham.

Parents Against Groomers.

- So do you move around the country? - All over.

It's all through our own expense... - We're all individual people.

- All the best. - See you, lads. Thank you very much. - God bless you.

- They'll twist it.

- He never did get back to me with any video evidence.

But if these guys were anything to go by,

the anger towards asylum seekers and the distrust of the media

displayed outside the Suites Hotel on the night of the riot

was spreading far and wide.

A lot of the stuff on my feed was coming from across the Irish Sea.

Nine months after the riot in Kirkby,

violence had erupted on the streets of Dublin,

with asylum-seeker hotels being targeted.

It was looking like a proposed site for asylum seekers

just north of the city could be the next place to boil over.

I wanted to get in there before it all kicked off,

to see what this town could tell me

about the build up to the protest outside the Suites.

- Have you ever seen a horse lead a protest?

Which is absolutely amazing to see.

- INDISTINCT SHOUTING

MAN: - Whose street? - CROWD: - Our street!

- MAN: - Whose street? - CROWD: - Our street!

- BARKING There's a dogfight kicking off now.

CHANTING

There's a protest because this abandoned paint factory is earmarked

to house asylum seekers.

Just like Kirkby, Coolock is a closeknit, predominantly white

working-class community.

It's on the edge of Dublin,

like Kirkby is on the edge of Liverpool.

- These people are coming in and getting handed things.

Like, I can't get a doctor's appointment at my doctor's.

Like, they're getting straight up health care,

they're getting free school - everything.

I pay my way for everything. It's ridiculous.

It's not even that - it's that you're afraid

to walk in your street, around the corner.

I grew up here all my life. I'm 21 years of age.

- How...? You said you're 21? - 21 years of age.

- So do you...? - I have a child, and I'm afraid to walk around at night.

- Do you think, if there weren't people here seeking asylum,

do you think you you'd get more support from the government?

- I can't say yeah and I can't say no, but I'd like to think they would,

do you know what I mean? So...

And it's not that we're racist - we're not racist.

I'm a concerned parent myself.

I'm a concerned woman. I'm a concerned girl.

Do you know what I mean?

It's just craziness, to be honest, like.

- That concern about the safety of children

is what I'd been hearing about in Kirkby -

same chat, different town.

You've actually been sleeping here.

- I've been staying here, yeah. - So how long have you been here?

- I've been here - this is the fourth week - for about seven days.

I work, so unfortunately I can't stay here all the time.

- Can you show me where you've been sleeping?

- Yeah, come on, I'll show you. - Can I...? Yeah?

Is someone in there?! - Someone asleep in there.

- Oh, my God, I don't want to wake you up.

You don't just sleep here for the fun of it.

I mean, this must really mean a lot to you. - 100%.

It's our kids' safety on the line here. Our kids' safety.

You know what I mean? Look what's across the road.

A Leisureplex, a UCI. How can you put a thousand unvetted men in here

when kids are there 24/7?

My daughter is in that place 24/7.

- So you know when you say "unvetted men",

you know, I think when people... - Illegal immigrants.

- ..when people, when people come in,

they are...their names are checked against a European database.

- But they're not checked against a criminal database

or fingerprints... - MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY

They DO have their fingerprints scanned.

- How are they getting on a plane with a passport, and then they're getting

off the plane with no passport? Cos if that was one of us,

we'd be locked up or we'd be fucked out of the country.

We wouldn't be allowed in.

- Do you understand that some people will come into the country

without documents because that isn't as safe?

- They're not welcome. Illegal male migrants are not welcome.

Stop trying to trick it and word the questions...

- I'm not trying to trick... - Yeah, you are, I'm wise to you.

- Can I ask you some questions? - I will not talk to the BBC.

- If you don't want... - You're not going to trick people.

That's what you're here for. - Stop shouting at me, then.

- Don't be here to spin your narrative.

- You can see from the live streams, these guys really don't trust

the mainstream media.

What is that threat?

- What is the threat? - Yeah.

- The fact you have to ask that question is ridiculous.

- No, tell me what you think it is.

- There's 1,000 men that we don't know.

- MAN YELLS Either you want me to interview you,

or you don't. - Do you think illegal male migrants are safe?

Stop trying to talk nonsense.

- The threat is there's 1,000 men there that we know nothing about.

And all our kids play across the way. - ..came over here illegally.

- There's somebody here 24/7, and we're going nowhere.

- We're going nowhere. - That's all I'm going to say, right?

- Why do you think people are so wound up?

- Because of the way the media, our media here...

..portrayals, our media here,

people are showing us as racist, as far right, you know?

- You know, for you, that term "far right", what does it mean?

- I don't know what far right means.

I had to go and look it up as I was being called far right.

And then I had to go and look up... People that have an extreme view of,

you know, that's what I see it as.

And I haven't got an extreme view. I just have concerns.

We're working-class people.

They're trying to just take us and say

that we're white supremacists.

I don't know anything about politics... - I understand.

- ..but I've been drawn into it through no fault of my own.

- Accents aside, these conversations sounded exactly like the ones

I'd been having in Merseyside.

How had so many people in places miles apart reached

the same conclusions about the threat from people seeking asylum?

So have you had experiences with asylum-seekers?

- Yes. - What...? - I drive, I drive a taxi for a living.

- Oh, you're a cabbie! - So I go up to the local garage

where the Holiday Inn is, where they're located at the moment.

Beside me as well, it's only five minutes from my house,

and a couple of times I had to pull out of the garage,

I wouldn't get out of the car to get petrol.

They're hanging around in gangs. They're drinking.

Very intimidating. You arrive here,

no documents - you get a medical card, free GP services,

free medical, can drive around with no tax, no insurance on their cars

because they said they're intimidated to use public transport.

So the government allowed them to drive with no tax, no insurance.

- No tax, no insurance? - They're allowed. - Really? - Yes. Yes.

Yeah. And that's fact.

- That fact - well, it's not true.

It can be traced back to a paper called The Liberal,

who put out a story at the end of 2023.

By the start of 2024, the same paper found its own article

to be inaccurate.

You know, in terms of how you get informed about stuff,

where does that come from? Like, are there particular newspapers

you read, particular channels? - Yeah, we stopped listening

to the mainstream media because our national media

would be government or propaganda.

So we'd listen to alternative news stations

that are giving out the real stories,

you know, what's really going on.

So, yeah, we get a lot off... off the internet,

YouTube, Telegram, stuff like that.

- There is a real worry, you know,

about Mandy saying, "I don't follow mainstream news

"and I get everything from alternative sources,"

which is completely fine until you acknowledge

that some of the stuff she's coming out with

and some of the stuff she's said to me, I know is factually incorrect.

That's a problem cos it's not just about one person,

it's about all the other people that are believing that stuff, too.

And so you've got to ask yourself that the outlets that are putting

that stuff out, do they have an agenda?

And if they have an agenda,

then who stands to benefit from that?

Next time...

- Oh, my God! CRACK!

- ..I dig deeper into what's driving anger in Kirkby and beyond...

- Someone must have just taken it and shared it and shared it.

It gets turned into something that it wasn't.

- ..uncovering a network of extremist agitators

turning up the temperature...

- We saw these far-right groups that had got some Nazi sentiment.

- ..and divided communities, tipping into violence.

Do you ever feel that you're in danger?

- I've had five death threats.

- What we saw unfolding, it was racially aggravated.

I'd come to Kirkby, just down the road from Liverpool City Centre,

to try and find out why this protest outside an asylum-seeker hotel

SHOUTING turned into a riot.

CHANTING: - Get them out! Get them out! Get them out!

- Refugees staying in a hotel,

they'd been, like, propositioning young girls, to be honest.

- So, you're talking about adult men? - Yeah, adult men.

- Months into chasing this story,

I was face-to-face with fear and anger in small communities.

- These people are coming in and getting handed...

I pay my way for everything. It's ridiculous.

- If we've done anything illegal, then we go to jail.

Why are these getting put up in four-star hotels?

- SHOUTING AND CHANTING CONTINUE

Along the way, I discovered

a whirlwind of disinformation taking hold...

- We stopped looking at the mainstream media.

Getting it off the Internet - erm, YouTube, Telegram.

- They have the power to be whipping people up into a frenzy,

making them fearful.

Who needs it to have happened when you've got social media?

- Now, I want to know who is fanning the flames

and what they want to achieve.

After my trip to Coolock,

I was back in Merseyside with fresh perspective,

and a bunch of new questions.

I spent a lot of time with people protesting against asylum seekers,

so I wanted a different take.

I know this is like a working day for you, innit?

I'm really grateful.

Let's take a drive.

Neil is properly local.

He sees and hears a lot from his cab,

and he helped organise a counter-demo

in support of the asylum seekers.

Should we jump out? - Yeah, sure, yeah.

In the car, it's warm, and you get out, and it's cold, innit?

- It's kind of cold right now.

So, you were here on the night, is that right? - Yeah, yeah.

- So, where were you? Where was your...?

- At the other end of the road.

We just wanted to try and stop the hotel being burnt down.

- Did you have stuff chucked at you?

- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like bricks and sticks, and stuff.

It was a scary night.

- INDISTINCT SHOUTING

What did you hear?

- It was like, you know, it's all like, the stereotypes.

- Protecting paedophiles!

- "Get them out, they're all nonces, they're all paedophiles."

- Get them rapist fucking... bastards out our hotel!

- There is no black on the Union Jack!

Send them fuckin' back!

- There's bigots and prejudiced people in every community.

But you don't see them all the time.

You know, you don't really see people like that.

They usually keep it to themselves.

This was an opportunity to voice it.

Not much happens in Kirkby, and most of the people were just,

like, there because they'd seen something's going on. - Mm-hm.

- They're going to come over to that, aren't they? They'll come over,

and they'll be like, "What's going on here"?

There's fires, you know?

- What would you say the split was?

- Er, well, we were outnumbered.

We had about 100-150.

You saw, like, 300-400 of local people that had...

..far-right groups within it, from across the country and stuff.

And then, when we... - When you say "across the country,"

where had they come from?

- I think it was East Midlands, the north-east.

Erm, and I think more Birmingham and Wolverhampton area.

- I just want to be absolutely clear on this.

Is that just because they'd seen the video

and they felt strongly about it,

or are you talking about a more organised kind of group?

- Yeah, yeah, I-I think both.

I knew that there was the potential for what happened

because, in the weeks leading up to it,

there was people in the far-right outside the hotel,

saying, "They're getting something for nothing, get them out".

And, you know, one of them's got some bad records with, like, Nazi...

..sentiments and stuff in the past.

He was there with photo opportunities in the week

leading up to it, so... - Who's that? What's his name?

- Erm... Oh...

Costello. Yeah, yeah.

- Thank you, Neil. - Sound. Sound, mate. - Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it. - Yeah.

- ON LAPTOP: - We're at the Suites Hotel, near Liverpool,

exposing the housing of illegal migrants.

The hotel is...

- I'm looking into the man Neil mentioned.

James Costello tries to present himself as a reasonable voice

in the community.

Truth is, he's in prison right now

for 18 counts of stirring up racial hatred.

It's not for anything to do with the protest.

It's all about material he put out on a personal website.

He's part of a group called Patriotic Alternative,

which is a white supremacist group.

Now, I don't say this lightly at all, but this guy...

..is a fully paid-up racist.

He's got an agenda,

and it's really clear what this guy is about.

This video was put out just one day before the clip

filmed by the 15-year-old girl went viral.

And I understand, you know, people in Kirkby saying,

"We don't want to be painted as racist".

And I think a lot of those people

had some kind of genuine concern

about what was happening in the area.

But the fact is, you've got someone like this...

- The good people of Kirkby are doing a protest against the migrants

that have been placed in there.

- ..he's actually part of the far-right.

He's standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them.

And it just makes me wonder how big a part videos like this,

and the stuff he was putting out into Kirkby,

how big a part did that play

in what happened the night of the riot?

He was behind bars, so we weren't about to sit down for a chat.

It's been more than a year since everything kicked off

at the Suites Hotel.

And since then, I think it's fair to say the Conservative Government

made quite a lot of noise about housing asylum seekers

in different ways.

Not long after the riot in Kirkby,

the government at the time announced plans to move asylum seekers

out of hotels like the Suites,

and into bigger and cheaper sites.

Public reaction was pretty instant.

There's been a whole lot of protests -

and that includes at this place called RAF Scampton,

in Lincolnshire.

So, why all the concern?

Sarah? Hello. - Hi.

- I'm Mobeen, how you doing? - Hi, nice to meet you.

- Sarah has led the Save Our Scampton campaign for over a year.

It's kind of cold... - We're going in my car, cos then,

I can drive you around and... - Yeah, sure, sure.

She lives on the doorstep of the proposed housing site.

So, can we walk over first? Is that all right? - Yeah.

- It is pretty close, though, isn't it? - Yeah.

But people don't appreciate it until you come and

stand here, and you think, "Right, OK, this is the community.

"And that's how close we'll have potentially

"2,000 people being housed." - Yeah, I get that.

You know, some people have spoken to me about this idea

of cultural difference... - Yeah.

- ..and the idea of, you get a lot of people saying,

"Oh, you don't know who they are.

"You know, you just don't know who they are."

In all honestly, is that part of the concern? - Yeah.

Even if there are bank managers or car mechanics,

the fact that it's men is a big concern.

But, yeah, I think there's more concern

with them being undocumented.

Someone did try to liken it to

how it was as a former RAF base,

and said, "Well, you didn't have a problem when there were

"2,000 airmen on there" -

that's a little bit different.

They're documented, they're doing a job.

Most of them live on the community, as well.

So, this estate sort of goes back that way. - Mm-hm.

Protesters like Sarah have been camped out

around some of the nine entrances to the site 24/7.

- Hey! - Hey.

They want to stop asylum seekers being moved in overnight.

- No, I'm giving the guys a tour.

- So, this is... - Main Camp. - Yeah. - Yeah.

This is the kitchen. - That's your kitchen?

SHE CHUCKLES Can we look inside?

Where do you actually sleep?

- In the tent. I'll show you.

So, this bit gets folded over...

- Yeah. - ..right? And then, roll.

No-one's squeamish, are they?

Just in case there's any more dead rats.

Are you for real? - SHE LAUGHS

There might be dead rats?

- Dining table... - And the coffee table.

- ..cream carpet - not the best idea in a tent.

Double divan beds.

And then, that one's a memory foam mattress.

- How often do you sleep there?

- I spent every night there for, like, the three weeks, and then,

there was someone else there for a while, as well.

So, sort of take it in turns. - Mm-hm.

It's certainly a different approach from the riot in Kirkby,

but there's a shared objective -

and I wondered if there's other overlap, too.

I'm curious, how did this campaign start,

and what were the kind of practicalities?

- You need to have people that you can trust, because it can...

A campaign can be too easily taken over or,

you know, be skewed off its course.

- Tell me about other people getting involved, then.

Yeah. - I mean... - Tell me about that stuff.

- ..if we're going to label them,

then it's far-right groups that...

..shall we say, "injected themselves into the campaign"?

- "Injected" - that's a really diplomatic way of putting it.

What do you mean? How did they...?

- Th-Their messaging, erm,

is not the sort that, you know,

we would want to align with at all.

I mean, some of it, you know, "Stop the boats."

Yeah, we say, "Stop the boats."

You know, there's got to be a better way of doing this.

But, you know, to stop the boats,

you need to have legal routes

for people to come over and stuff.

- Mm-hm. - So, it's not just about stopping the boats.

When they're hanging...

..banners up on the front gate, saying...

With just black faces on,

and they're messaging, "Refugees are raping here".

It didn't align at all with how I feel,

and how most people...

..on the estate especially feel.

We're not... That is not us.

So, you know, for them to come and inject themselves into

sort of what's happening in our fight with the Home Office,

they really didn't help us.

- When that happened,

was there a way for you to

untangle yourself from that?

I mean, did you say to these people, "I don't want you coming down"?

- SHE CHUCKLES NERVOUSLY - Well, y-you can't do that.

- They're going to do what they want.

I've said to everyone, "I can't stop you doing that,

"but I'm not going to have anything to do with you".

- You know, people know who you are personally,

and they know your stance.

Do you ever feel that you're in danger?

- Erm... So, currently, I've had...

..five death threats.

And we've been attacked once, as well.

They put a post up...

- Have you got it? - ..saying,

"Anyone coming to Scampton to sort that bitch out"?

And then, the next post was...

- It must be really scary.

What is your...

..understanding of their motivation?

Why are they coming here?

Why are they coming from another town, another place here,

and aligning themselves with your campaign?

- It was more about sort of garnering support for themselves,

rather than actually saving Scampton.

Which is quite heartbreaking,

because a lot of people fell for it

and supported them - and even still do.

- I think a lot of people will have different thoughts

on what Sarah is doing,

but you've got to understand the context here.

There has been a government policy

to move in large numbers of

asylum seekers to small communities,

and that's having an effect.

And some people don't like it.

And, regardless of whether you agree with Sarah's take or not,

SHE'S the one facing death threats,

and she's the one that has drawn a line and said,

"I don't want the far-right coming in and hijacking this".

Things didn't kick off in Scampton like they did in Kirkby,

but ideas pushed by far-right agitators

were fuelling a fire across Europe.

In Ireland, I arranged to meet someone who'd gone from protesting

to actually putting her name on the ballot.

I'm going to be hanging out with a woman called Patrice,

and she has, fairly recently, made this move to actually

being involved in party politics,

and she's actually standing for election for something

called the Irish Freedom Party.

It's been described as a far-right group,

and it's on the fringes of Irish politics.

The area that we're meeting in, it's got all the same issues

that I've been hearing about in Merseyside.

So, right at the centre of the community,

there's this big hotel.

It's announced that it's actually going to be used

to house asylum seekers.

And it's one of the big things that she's campaigning on.

So, what is it about this issue...

Hello. - Hello! - Are you Patrice? - I am, yeah.

- ..that has got Patrice pouring her time into trying to get elected?

- Good, how are you? - You all right? I'm good, thank you.

Thanks for letting me come and hang out with you today.

- You're welcome. - I appreciate it. So, what's going on here, then?

- Er, well, we're out canvassing for the local elections.

People want change.

People want someone that's actually going to put the Irish people first.

Because the Irish people are being left behind.

They're treated as second-class citizens.

- So, tell me, when you first heard about what was going on

at this hotel?

- You know, like, it's the only hotel left in the town, and it's gone.

We were told that it's been closed,

and there's 500 applicants going to be living in there

on a full-time basis.

Like, the other hotel in the town has Ukrainians in it already.

And, unless they actually stop housing asylum seekers

in every building and start investing in towns,

every town is going to be a ghost town,

because we're going to be losing 11.4 million a year

in tourism trade.

- On the surface, Patrice is worried about the local economy.

Where are we heading?

- Er, we're going to go over to West Street.

- But as we spent more time together,

I could see there was more to it than concern for businesses.

It actually seems like...

..quite a mixed area,

or certainly this street seems quite mixed.

- Yeah, it's a lot worse now than it used to be.

- Did you say it's "worse"? - Yeah.

It's a very diverse town now.

It's not like when I grew up.

And I do understand things change as you get older.

But at the same time, they don't have to change

to the extent this badly.

There's no point in brushing over the issue any more,

because it is true.

Migrants bring crime.

It's just full of Muslims and...

..it's not safe for people.

- So, you're saying it's specifically...Muslim men?

And I just wonder, where does that fear come from?

- We have learned enough to know what they are like.

I have seen enough.

Even some of the videos that come out from some of the countries,

it's only a matter of time before they start kind of

implementing that here.

Like, I'm sure you've seen it in UK.

I only heard about this, like, three or four weeks ago,

There's an actual area in the UK that has Sharia Law.

- Is there? Wh-Where is that?

- I can't remember where, but I only heard it a few weeks ago.

- I mean this with absolute respect,

where are you getting this information from?

- Everything's available online.

- Are you going to hand some of these out? - Yep.

- How could someone running for public office...

- Sir, Irish Freedom Party?

- ..be so carelessly repeating

disinformation they'd seen online?

When do you think you got into politics?

Have you always been a political person?

- I was always quiet.

Never opened my mouth, never said it, and...

But I discovered Twitter.

That was probably the biggest mistake.

Twitter, Telegram - I'd never heard of half these stuff.

As soon as you go on to it, you're just saying,

"What the hell? What's going on?"

You start going basically down the rabbit holes of everything.

- You ever get worried that, you know, by sitting there

and digesting this stuff,

it's kind of altering the way you see the whole world?

- That would be fair, because I'm learning.

This is all new to me.

- Before that, you know, what would you have been doing on

a Saturday afternoon like today?

- You'd just be at home with the kids cleaning,

or you'd be saying, "We'll go to the playground".

Like, just doing the normal mum stuff.

- I-I'm being really frank with you -

there's part of me that's a bit worried about some of the things

that you said today, because I know they're factually incorrect.

- Which part?

- You said there's parts of the UK

now that are controlled by Sharia Law.

That just isn't true.

- That's what I had heard.

There was, er...

..a lot of videos about that. There is parts.

- If you're standing for public office,

then you need to be sure that the information

that you are then sharing,

and the information that's coming out of your mouth

is factually correct.

- That's your thoughts on it.

Like, it is happening.

But people won't say that it's actually happening,

because they're afraid to say it's happening,

because you'll be labelled for it.

100% of all sexual assaults in Frankfurt was migrants.

Remix News had that up the other day.

- So, just think about what you're saying for a second.

Do you really believe that's true?

- Remix put it up. It's from last year.

- So, just because you saw it online,

can you understand that it might not be true?

- But it was a news outlet, so are you saying that all media lie?

- Is there anything I could tell you or show you that would change

your mind about that particular fact?

- No. Some news outlet put it up.

- When we were walking up and down the street today,

you said to me at one point, "Look, they're not local".

And the thing is, if they've lived here for a few years

and they've got citizenship, they are Irish.

They are part of your community.

- They're paper-Irish - there's a difference.

- What if they were born here?

You know, I was... - They have to have an Irish parent

in order to have it.

- So, OK, so both of my parents were born in another country.

They were born in Pakistan.

I was born in the UK.

So, would you say I'm paper-British?

I mean, let's just be honest, if you're applying that...

- If your parents are Pakistani, then you're Pakistani.

- So, you wouldn't say I'm British? - No.

- Even though I was born in the UK? - Yeah.

- Do people call you racist?

- Yes!

I have a point to prove.

I'm not going to quit just because you don't like what I say.

Why should I?

- I understand. I'm really grateful for you speaking to me.

I know it's not easy stuff to speak about.

Are you OK? - Yep.

- Did you enjoy your coffee? - Yeah, it's nice coffee here.

- There's so much of that conversation that I find genuinely...depressing.

It's really easy to look at Patrice and just think,

"You're the problem here",

but I don't think she is the problem.

I think she's part of something that's much bigger.

And I think she, herself, is being exploited.

And a lot of that is to do with her socials,

the time she's spending scrolling,

and the fact that she's seeing these really simple answers

to really complicated problems.

And that's something that's happening here.

It's something that's definitely happening in Merseyside.

- Irish Freedom Party.

- So much of the debate around asylum-seeker housing

is tapping into fear and using disinformation to fuel racism.

At the same time, the real story about the crisis

in the asylum system is being ignored.

People in search of protection

and compassion are increasingly

finding themselves in a hostile environment.

Looking on social media, or speaking to people at the protests,

you could easily believe asylum seekers are getting

red-carpet treatment.

But the fact is,

the system is not coping.

This is Mount Street, in Dublin.

It's been called Tent City

because the Irish government

say they've run out of places to house asylum seekers.

You all right?

God, it...it actually goes on, down there.

This is home for some people.

I've just been told that there's someone handing out

food parcels down here,

so I'm going to go have a look.

Humza is 24 and works for a charity

that hands out basics to those in need.

I'm Mobeen, nice to meet you.

Tell me what the plan is today, then.

- So, we're here delivering some essential needs,

some humanitarian assistance,

in terms of food, some hygiene kits.

- How long have you been actually handing out food here?

- The past couple of weeks.

- When I got here this morning, my jaw dropped.

I've never seen anything like this, you know, in... - Yeah.

- I know Ireland is one of the richest economies in the world.

I've never seen something like this here or in the UK.

- You're talking about a couple of hundred people, yes,

they've been put into a tent, but they're not... - So, hold on.

Just so I get this right.

When you say they've been put into a tent -

so are the tents kind of government-issued?

- No. These are all just tents that were given by people,

or some that have been issued by the government -

but they're still tents at the end of the day. - Yeah.

- They're still sleeping outside.

In this section right here, you'll find Palestinians,

Jordanians, the majority of them.

The people in the corner over there are mostly from Africa. - OK.

- That was their toilet, by the way.

- Yeah. - About a week ago, or two weeks ago...

- I mean, I can smell it. - Oh, it was horrible.

- I guess there's, like, a kind of big issue of safety,

as well, isn't there? Cos these are the people that are

coming down here. - Exactly, exactly.

We're seeing now protesters coming out nearly every single week,

saying, "Migrants need to leave the country.

"We're sick of, you know, asylum seekers.

"Deal with the Irish homeless first."

- Humza wanted to show me a video about his work.

Can you get it up?

It was getting a big response on TikTok.

- So, here we go.

Assalaamu Alaikum.

That TikTok video, at the beginning,

we were trying to raise some funds.

It gathered the attention

that we did not expect to get,

and a lot of people started to obviously send

a lot of hate comments.

- You said "obviously," but... Yeah.

..wh-why were they... why were they...?

- I-I wasn't, sure to be honest.

It targeted an audience that we did not see coming.

If I showed it to you right now,

you'd probably see a hate comment right now.

- Let me have a look. - Here we go.

Like, I just literally just opened it up.

- Hold on, this is, like, literally an hour ago!

- Literally, it's live.

The comments keep coming in.

Look at this.

It's laughing emojis, laughing emojis...

- You're essentially just handing out food. - Yeah.

- Why do you think it so quickly turns into an issue

of Muslims and Islam specifically?

- To be honest, I don't know.

- You were born here. - I was born here. Born and raised here.

Yeah, I know, but it's very hard to explain to the people that are,

you know, very adamant about the fact that,

no, if you're not white and your name is not James or Jack, or Sean,

you're not Irish. - You don't want to be hearing stuff like that.

- Of course! That's the last thing you want to hear,

especially from the country that you were born in and raised in,

and shared all the good memories in.

You don't want to hear that.

- But do you think there's some people that might want to speak to me?

- I think so, yeah.

I think one of the guys there...

- Can we chat to...? - Oh, 100%, let's go.

- What were the circumstances of you leaving your country?

Yes.

- Yeah.

- Of course.

So, what do you think the solution is?

What do you think the government here should be doing?

THEY CONVERSE

I-I understand.

What do you think the fix is?

- People are saying, "What do you expect the government

"to do in Ireland"?

Number one thing,

which I agree with 100%,

is to stop everything that's coming in at the moment,

deal with the situation that we're having at the moment.

we already have a huge homeless epidemic before

any of the refugees were coming in and asylum seekers.

I myself dealt with one of the situations, as well,

where trying to find accommodation here is very, very hard.

So, dealing with that first,

and then dealing with the migrant situation

before letting more people come in and...

..making the whole country a whole mess at the moment, you know?

- I really, really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much, Humza. - Thank you, I appreciate it.

- Next time I'm here, I'll come see you.

- You're more than welcome.

- I find it astounding that there's people on the right

of this conversation who will say,

"What we have to do is shut the border".

And then there's people like Humza.

I mean, wherever you are, you've got to appreciate Humza

is doing some amazing work

and they've come to the same conclusion.

You've got to just shut the border.

And I don't think that's because that's the right answer.

I think what it tells us

is that the system is entirely broken.

They're just a problem to everyone around here,

and to the government,

the people that write about it,

they're just a problem.

And that seems so...entirely unfair.

The thing is, what are you going to do?

Because this is... It's not sustainable.

These people are not safe.

I'd been working on this story for months,

and I went back to Kirkby for another round of story-chasing.

Before I could even get going,

something happened that made me feel a bit sick.

Are you all right with that? - Yeah. - Are you sure?

PHONE PINGS

Are we rolling? - Yeah.

- I've had a...pretty shitty morning today.

I just can't actually believe this is the case.

So, there's a group called Liverpool Enough Is Enough.

It's a local group on Facebook.

It's got about 2,000 followers,

and it was set up just after everything kicked off

at the Suites Hotel.

Really, it's a kind of far-right group,

so a lot of it is about kind of the threat to the community.

And last night,

someone posted a picture of me,

along with this message.

"He spoke to the 14-year-old daughter of a follower of this page,

"saying he's making a documentary about the Suites Hotel disturbance.

"He asked, had they been approached by a guest of the hotel?

"Did they know anyone who was at the protest?

"Two young lads shouted over to the girl to see if they were OK.

"If that was your sons, you've done a fantastic job bringing them up.

I can understand that if any of this stuff actually happened.

But it didn't.

And then, the comments underneath...

..I think are more wild than the original post.

People saying stuff like,

"It's so scary, what's happening now in our streets".

"One of the comments,

"Getting paid to be a nonce -

"sounds about right for the BBC".

Boss, young lads raised properly.

Again and again, and again, I've been told,

"Yeah, you've seen the video, but what you don't know

"is what happened in the park.

"What you don't know is what happened to my neighbour.

"What you don't know is a story that I heard

"and I saw on pages like this."

And I'll ask about those stories and people will say,

"Yeah, there was this strange man,

"or there was this group of asylum seekers,

"or this group of Asian men, and they went after our girls."

And again and again, and again, I ask, "OK, who can I speak to?

"Who did that happen to? Who saw it?

"Can I speak to the parents?

"Who is there that can tell that story?"

And I've had nothing. I've had a brick wall.

And now, I'm one of those stories.

It was clear as day.

Anyone can say anything online.

Whilst things had calmed down since the riot,

social media was telling another story.

I got this text from this guy.

He's a local guy, he knows I've been doing this story.

There were no niceties - no "hello", nothing -

it just said, "Three of them tried to grab a young girl

"off the bus yesterday".

So, I looked it up, and there's this video that is doing the rounds.

It's been viewed by millions of people.

- Get off the bus!

This is just ridiculous!

- INDISTINCT SHOUTING

- Just go! There's women and children!

Fuck off! Go away!

Go away! Go away!

- THEY SHOUT Ohh!

Even the footballer guy, Joey Barton, he tweeted it.

There is a fire around this clip.

Some of the chatter

is that this was an attempted abduction.

After seeing the reaction to the last viral video in this town...

SHOUTING

FIREWORKS WHISTLE

..I was worried that things might kick off all over again.

I want to know what on earth happened that day.

This time around, I tracked down an eyewitness willing to talk.

So, I'm going to see the woman who shot the video.

Stacey. - Hi! - Hey.

I'm Mobeen, how you doing? - Hi, I'm great, thanks.

- Really nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you, too.

- I saw the video... - Yeah.

- ..and I just really, really wanted to know what happened.

- OK. - So, like, where were you going?

- So, leaving Kirkby town centre... - Yeah. - ..to go home.

- So, you were just on the bus? - Yeah.

The lady and the daughter were sat close to me.

- Was the daughter young? - Yeah, 17.

They were just having a conversation.

The gentleman in front of us was not acting normal.

His arm was getting really close to this girl's leg.

And then, it got too close.

And the mother slapped his hand away from her, yelling at him,

"Stay away from my daughter".

- So, he was going to touch her leg? - I think he was.

And then, that's where the whole incident started.

- And so, the woman that's screaming in the video, that's... - Yeah.

- ..that's the mother? - That's the mother, yeah.

- SHE SHOUTS

- She's telling him to get him off the bus.

- Get him away from me now!

- Get him off! Get him off!

- So, now they get off the bus.

She sits down next to her daughter,

and you think everything's going to be done.

He comes back on the bus, shouting,

"Do you want to call the police?

"Cos I'll call the police!"

- INDISTINCT SHOUTING

- Just go!

- I can see his phone in his hand. - Yeah.

- Go away! Go away!

Go away! Look at him!

- THEY SHOUT Ohh!

- This is when the bus driver gets upset,

pushes them out,

and everyone's starting to move away.

- Oh, my God! - LOUD IMPACT

- Did he just throw his phone? - Yeah, at the window!

- Shut the door! Please!

- I mean, people might think that she's overreacting,

but she was genuinely scared.

- You can hear her, she's scared. - Yeah.

- What Stacey saw is inexcusable.

But what was reported online...

Well, that's in another league.

So, when you saw it unfold, did you think it was an abduction?

- No. I think that he was pushing his luck on trying to hit on a girl.

- And just talk me - talk me through, like, what was the thinking?

Like, why did you upload it?

- Not causing any kind of...

..hatred towards people or anything.

It was just, "This is what's happening on the bus."

I wouldn't want anyone to think that I was putting it out there

to be racist in any way, cos to me, it had something

to do with the man, not a colour. Does that make sense? - Mm-hm.

I don't think I saw it on your Facebook.

- No, someone must have just taken it and shared it,

and shared it, and shared it within, like, minutes.

Put a clickbait name on it,

and then, it gets turned into something that it wasn't.

- This disinformation was shared by a ton of anonymous accounts,

but guess who got the most eyeballs on it?

The infamous far-right extremist

who calls himself Tommy Robinson.

His post about this clip was seen by more than two million people,

alongside a caption suggesting it was an attempted abduction.

He wasn't just spreading a lie.

He was using it to promote a protest.

You can see the pattern.

Twisted stories used to fire people up

and get them out onto the streets.

These keyboard warriors make it look like a screwed-up game.

But when all that anger spills out into the real world,

it can be life-changing.

Back at Liverpool Crown Court,

a group of people charged with violent disorder for the riot

outside the Suites Hotel were about to hear their fate.

- Eight men have been sentenced

for between 16 months and three-and-a-half years

for violent disorder outside a hotel

housing asylum seekers.

The judge at Liverpool Crown Court

said it brought shame to the town of Kirkby.

- I think they're pretty surprised,

you know, that they got the sentences they got.

There's people doing some serious time.

I mean, there's one suspended sentence but, apart from that,

everyone is staying in.

I was really interested in the judge's summation.

He mentioned the viral video that had been going

around Kirkby before the riot.

- I'm 15.

- He said, "It was reported to the police that a young girl

"had been approached by a man

"that asked for a kiss and her phone number,

"but there was no charge.

"And, without a single piece of evidence,

"a grotesquely-distorted narrative was spread."

So, he's talking about disinformation, essentially.

I mean, the judge didn't split words, he's saying...

..that riot, what we saw unfolding,

it was racially-aggravated,

and it was to do with disinformation.

Almost all the people I'd wanted to speak to

were now locked up.

As their families poured out of the courts,

some of them made it pretty clear

they weren't interested in telling me

their side of the story on camera.

But once the news sunk in,

one of them had a change of heart.

Hey, Maurice. - Hi. - How are you doing?

Are you all right? - Yeah.

- Hey, sweetheart. Yeah, I'm good, thank you.

Look who's come to greet me.

How are they doing? SHE CHUCKLES

- The dog's doing good, you?

- Yeah, I'm really good, thank you.

Thanks for inviting me around.

Maurice is Jonjo's mum.

Remember him?

At 21, he was just starting his stretch in prison

for violent disorder.

- Here he is when he was little.

- Oh, he's a little kid! Where's that picture taken?

- That's taken in the Welsh Mountain Zoo.

- SHOUTING ON PHONE

- Music in my bedroom.

- He wants to be a promoter, doesn't he? - A promoter.

That's it, promoter.

- How long was this sentence?

It was three... - Three years, nine months.

- Three years, nine months? - Ridiculous.

- He hasn't had the easiest time, has he?

- No, he hasn't, and that's what it is. Mm-hm.

- During the trial, I'd had a few off-camera chats

with Jonjo and Maurice about life before the riots.

- He was in care for a good seven years.

- What was...? And only answer this...

- What was going on... - ..what was going on?

- ..because I was with his dad for 23 years,

me and him split up,

and obviously, my head went.

Erm, I started drinking.

And the drink got hold of me.

Jonjo's seen all that.

And then, he just decides, at the age of 11-12,

that he's not going to school no more.

And I couldn't... I never had no control over him.

So, at the end, he got took...

He got put away for his own safety.

Erm, oh, it breaks my heart.

Sorry. - SHE SOBS QUIETLY

PHONE RINGS

Is that him? - Yes.

- AUTOMATED VOICE: - This call is from a person currently in

- PHONE BEEPS a prison in England.

- Hi.

Hiya, love, you're all right?

Do you want to speak to Mobeen?

Here. - Hey, Jonjo, how you doing?

I'm good, thank you.

Tell me what went through your head when the sentence came through.

- Yeah. They've let the big boys go.

- When...

When you said there were other people,

your mum just said "the big boys".

Do you mean there were other people that were organising?

Is that what you're saying?

- It wasn't organised, it was on social media

to get all the kids to get up there.

All the kids.

Wasn't adults, it was just, "All the kids, get up there."

- It just went on social media? - Yeah, that's what happened.

And they all followed.

Yeah. And as soon as the kids have heard the girl getting nonced on,

spoke to the way she did,

then the kids have all gone up there. - Do you know...?

- Sorry. - Go for it, Jonjo. Go on.

You seem angry that you're associated with people

who were there saying they were there for, you know,

a righteous reason.

Am I right in thinking you don't want to be associated with them?

Thanks so much, Jonjo.

I reckon Jonjo is starting his stretch

for something he doesn't entirely understand.

I'm not making excuses for him at all,

because the fact is, he turned up to a riot

and started shooting fireworks.

But he said he didn't do it for a cause.

And I don't believe he signed up to an ideology.

But that doesn't stop people...

..believing that he is,

and even applauding him for being some kind of far-right activist.

And so, you've got to ask yourself,

is someone like Jonjo

collateral damage

for someone else's agenda?

I needed to join the dots between far-right agitators

that I now knew were all over this story.

We already know about a guy called James Costello.

I wanted to speak to him but, as I mentioned earlier,

he's doing a five-year stretch for stirring up racial hatred.

So, he's from Kirkby.

He's part of a white supremacist neo-Nazi group

called Patriotic Alternative.

And we know that group were agitating in the build-up

to the riot at the Suites Hotel.

He was hardly the only foot soldier in Patriotic Alternative.

And actually, if you do some digging,

there's a bunch of research that says that Patriotic Alternative

are one of the main groups that do this kind of thing.

You can look at that and you can say, "Well, it's a free country,

"they can do what they want".

But I reckon, if they're investing all that time,

they're not doing it for fun.

It's not a hobby for them.

So, what is the endgame?

With Costello banged up,

I reached out to another one of PA's former foot soldiers

to ask them that question.

The guy I'm seeing today is called Alek Yerbury.

He isn't in PA any more,

but he's been in those circles.

He will speak at places that are housing asylum seekers,

and he puts in the hours.

So, I just want to get an insight into why it's so important to him.

Because it clearly is.

If you look at a lot of the language he uses,

he will talk about this as if he's at war -

that's what it really feels like -

as if he's at war, or he's preparing for war.

CHEERING

As well as marches and speeches

outside asylum hotels,

Alek has got form for extremist comments online.

It's violent rhetoric like this

that takes the discussion about asylum seekers

into an even more dangerous place.

Alek. Hello, I'm Mobeen.

How are you doing? - Well, afternoon.

Yeah, good to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

- Good to meet you. - Are you well?

- I-I imagine there's probably not many people

on my side of the political spectrum

that would actually speak to the BBC.

- Oh, so that's the hotel?

- Yeah, so that is the hotel just there.

- Are there still...?

Is this still being used to house asylum seekers?

- Yes, that's why there's all the security and why it's closed off.

- I've seen a video of you speaking here.

So, you do this a fair bit, don't you,

in terms of public speaking at these kind of events,

or anti-asylum-seeker housing...?

- At these kind of events, yes.

I mean, this is a very deprived area.

You know, it is a very deprived part of Leeds,

and that's through no fault of the people that live here.

You know, it's... - Send 'em home!

- ..it's really badly done.

- He just said, "Send 'em home". - Yeah, that...

- Is that the kind of sentiment around here, quite a bit, then?

- Yeah. No, no, it is.

- What kind of stuff are people saying to you locally?

You know, what are people's concerns? What kind of stuff?

- Issues related to harassment of particularly young women

in the subway here,

people walking through the estate.

There is a school not far from here.

- To be specific, you said one of the concerns,

young women being harassed in this...

Just in this underpass here. - Yeah.

And this is something that's been reported on local Facebook groups.

- Then, has that resulted in someone being charged or arrested?

- To my knowledge, no.

- So, you know, I told you,

I've been spending quite a bit of time in Kirkby.

There is lots of local people that I've spoken to that

have concerns about, you know, people that were living there

at the Suites Hotel. - Yeah.

- I know Patriotic Alternative were really pivotal, actually,

they were there kind of days before the riot happened.

I'm sure you heard about the riot. - Yeah, I know about the riot.

- How would PA have been organising

what their objective would have been?

- A lot of it is to do with trying to create an environment

where it's OK to talk about issues related to immigration

without fear of being bullied or abused.

You know, that is what I would say they were doing.

- You're essentially saying that these places are like magnets,

and then you'll go in and you'll instigate that conversation

with an audience that perhaps you otherwise wouldn't have. - Yes.

Some people might say, "Well, that's exploitative",

but it's not really,

because people do want to have those conversations,

and they do want to talk about it.

And I think it's absolutely been a good thing.

- I can see how Alek Yerbury and Patriotic Alternative

saw these protests as a recruitment drive,

a way to spread their ideas.

- Remember those qualities

that have enabled our people

to create the world that we want to live in in the past!

- Did you share your objectives,

as far as your work at the time,

with Patriotic Alternative?

- Some of them.

- What are the things you did agree with? Where was that overlap?

- So, I do actually agree

that there should be some kind of ethnocentrism in society.

I do agree with that.

- What was the phrase you used?

- "Ethnocentrism."

- I watched your speech that was here,

you referred quite a few times, you used a very particular phrase,

you said, "Our people".

And is that what you're talking about,

when you reference ethnocentrism?

Who are "our people"?

- British people who have some kind of link to this country,

you know, whether it's by generations of heritage,

or whether it's a some sort of tie to the land.

All ethnically British people would be some degree of white,

but just being white wouldn't make you an ethnically British person.

- You know, I could introduce you to a ton of people

who might have been born in the country and lived in the country

for a few generations, and they are British and feel very British...

..but I get that you're saying, in your view,

they wouldn't count as "our people"

and therefore, they'd be excluded.

Do you understand why that might get someone's back up?

- It's different for people who are,

you know, maybe ten, 20, 30 generations totally British

to people who are maybe, you know,

mixed race or maybe who's...

Who have maybe a grandparent

who moved here in the 1950s.

It is different.

- Where did you grow up?

- So, I grew up in Australia to British parents.

- How long did you spend in Australia?

- Well, for about 19 years of my life.

- So, you're an immigrant to Britain.

- Yes, but I'm not foreign to Britain.

Ethnically, I am a British person.

- Right.

- I don't go to migrant hotels with placards any more,

and I probably won't.

If I come back here,

or when I come back here,

it's going to be more in the sense of a serious political meeting

where the objective will be things like running an election campaign.

- Alek was doing his best to try and present himself

as a credible politician.

But scratch the surface

and the extremism from his online statements is alive and kicking.

That guy knows exactly what he's doing.

I think he sees this whole thing as a recruitment opportunity.

So, when he turns up to these demos and people are angry,

and they're looking for answers

to some really complex questions,

he can sweep right in there.

And that kind of racism in a suit

and being well-spoken...

..that hasn't happened in a vacuum.

I reckon he's seen an opportunity,

and he's looking for a job.

I think that's what this is really about.

And that comes off the back of decades of politicians

telling us that immigration is bad

and if you have refugees or asylum seekers

and they're living in your neighbourhood,

then you need to be scared of them.

And I do think there's been a failure -

and I include the press in this, as well -

to push back on that,

and just point to the facts of the matter and say that,

"This stuff is rooted in fear mongering.

"It's not rooted in facts."

I had one last stop in Kirkby.

Becca was the first person to talk to me about stuff

kicking off online before the riots...

Hey, Becca! - Hi! You OK?

- Oi! You can't run out. Come here! SHE LAUGHS

Oi!

Come in, this is your house! - Angel!

- Oh, my God, licking my face. How are you doing?

- Good, you all right? - You're looking lovely. - Oh!

Thank you. Mwah! - Have you had your hair done?

- Erm, a few weeks ago...

- ..and now, she was hosting a meeting about

what could be learned a year on.

- Hi! - Hi!

- So, we've got Laura, we've got After Dark, and we've got Ash.

What do you think that, like, could've been done differently

to prevent it and would've made people feel less anxious about

everybody moving into the Suites?

- I've got an issue with the way media reports things,

because if somebody who is, like, British does commit a crime,

that's just a person committing a crime.

But if it's an immigrant that is, like, forefront -

that is in the headline - "Immigrant commits crime" -

and it creates this scaremongering.

- I agree with everything that went on that night.

The fact that they were just going 'round

thinking it's OK just to speak to girls, and stuff like that.

It was just so wrong anyway,

so I am so glad that they're out of the Suites Hotel now.

The further away, the better.

- They're human beings, do you know what I mean?

Get to know their names, but instead,

people say "them," "these" -

it's terminology that we're getting passing to our kids.

- It was good to see people being open and talking,

hearing each other out.

But more so, I was pleased to see people in the community talking

about this stuff with compassion.

- So, obviously, we've got this one gentleman who did approach,

like, this girl, which was a very vile, unfortunate incident.

But again, we've still today got people branching...

Hundreds of people in this hotel into being

sort of, like, the same person

without any kind of, like, knowledge or proof, or, like, awareness.

- Everyone in this country now is struggling so much.

And for them just to come here and get everything on a plate to them,

it's all comes from our taxpayers' money.

Cos, like, I heard they got their phones free, better food,

erm, obviously living there,

and gas, electric,

everything like that.

- Is that true, Bex? Or again, is that misinformation,

like, from what, you know, working directly with these people?

- I think the mobile phone one is something I hear quite a lot of.

A majority of the people that I support -

it's not something where they just kind of land on the shores of,

like, down south, and someone walks up to them and says,

"Here's an iPhone 15, be on your way".

It just absolutely doesn't work like that.

- I've learned a lot today myself, do you know what I mean?

Like, just one other person watching it might learn.

Thank you so much for everyone for popping in as well.

I do really appreciate it.

- You've been at the centre of this story... - Yeah.

- ..since it kicked off. - Yeah.

- Do you worry about the kind of

legitimacy of why it kicked off?

- The police and the council majorly let everybody down,

like, they didn't take no proactive measures,

and if they would've been stepping in, saying,

"This is not what's happening, that male has been spoken to,

"he resides from there, he doesn't reside from there,"

none of this would have happened.

- So, there wasn't a conversation? - Yeah. Like, yeah.

- There's one big, massive part of this story which came...

I think it was probably the word I'd say that came up again and again

more than any other - and that was you and lots of other people

talking about misinformation and disinformation.

I feel it's had an effect on this community. - Yeah.

Lessons do need to be learned, do you know what I mean?

And it's so important that, like, things do happen proactively

in future like, otherwise, it's going to happen again.

Like, it's OK to talk about who was right and who was wrong,

and people were believing things online -

but how are we going to change it?

I think that's the most important thing.

- I think you have got such an important role to play,

because people interact with you in a different way to how,

for example, they'd interact with me or anyone else that's an outsider.

- Yeah. - I think, if you had more of those conversations with people,

you could take those people with you. - Yeah.

And I hope, if anything, something positive like that

does come out of it.

- Leaving Becca's house, I'd like to think that something shifted,

that people would be more cautious about stuff they see online.

But Becca is one person in one town.

Months later, someone else from Kirkby got in touch.

Remember ThatScouseKid?

One of the anonymous accounts that promoted the protest

outside the Suites Hotel?

Well, that wasn't the only demo he was plugging

that turned into a riot.

He sent me a flyer promoting a protest in Southport, too.

That riot was followed by a wave of violent disorder

across the country this summer.

All of it fuelled by disinformation.

And of course, I'm not suggesting

there's anything wrong with protesting,

if that's what you're doing.

That's your right.

But I think there's a bigger question here about responsibility.

I wanted to speak to the person behind the meme page ThatScouseKid.

And after seven months of chasing,

he was finally up for talking.

- You all right, mate? - So I want to understand, like,

why are you promoting this stuff?

- We want to speak to you cos it needs to be spoke about, really.

The media is drawing it out as, like, a race war.

- Right, do you think it's gone a bit wrong?

Do you think it's different to what you...?

- A bit wrong, yeah.

They're just trying to turn, like, people against each other.

It was never...that.

- Right. Do you feel responsible?

- No, cos I didn't, like,

start the protest.

I was just promoting it.

- One last thing - can you actually give me your name?

- Yeah, I can't do that

because I don't give my name out.

- All right. - I don't want my face to be shown either.

- Right.

Another person chasing influence

whilst running from accountability.

This didn't happen overnight.

For years, some of our politicians, and sections of our press,

built a bonfire.

An online army struck a match.

Half-truths turn into ugly lies

and spread like wildfire.

The results can be devastating.

Immigrant communities can have their lives turned upside down.

Those fired up with rage can end up in prison,

collateral damage for someone else's racist agenda.

If this summer has taught us anything,

we all have a part to play.

It all comes down to one simple thing - the truth.

Losing sight of it is not an option.