Riots and the far right: The global network behind the violence
The narrow medieval streets and canals of Strasbourg in France, on the border with Germany, have little in common with Southport in the UK. Yet the stabbing of three little girls there resonated for one man here. And his subsequent posts on social media resonated around the world – and back to the UK
In a business park on the edge of town, Silvano Trotta runs a successful telecoms business. But from his large private office, filled with miniature cars and pictures of his family, he spends much of his time posting online.
He came to prominence during COVID, publishing anti-vax posts, and getting banned from YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, before subsequently being reinstated on Elon Musk’s rebranded X, where he posts mainly about immigration.
Silvano Trotta in Strasbourg, France. Pic: Sky News
Trotta is bespectacled, genial, and unafraid of controversial views.
When the Southport stabbings happened on 29 July, he posted false information to the messaging app Telegram that they were carried out by an immigrant who had arrived on a small boat and gave the false name Ali Al Shakati. Our investigation shows that his post was one of the most influential of any of those making similar misleading claims on Telegram.
Silvano Trotta’s post spread misinformation about the Southport suspect’s name.
Trotta shrugs it off when I point out that this was entirely false.
“Who doesn’t make mistakes? But whatever happened, he is still a migrant, even if he was born in Wales.”
I’ve come to Strasbourg because what happened here is crucial to understanding what happened in the UK riots.
Strasbourg, France
We’ve worked with Prose, an open-source intelligence start-up, to understand the online conversation around Southport on Telegram, the app where the stabbings were discussed, the narrative was developed, and the riots were organised.
Previous reporting has highlighted specific pieces of misinformation that fuelled the riots: the fake name from news publisher Channel 3 Now, which they subsequently retracted and apologised for, and the individual bad actors in Telegram groups abroad.
But now Sky News can reveal the full story.
Sky’s Tom Cheshire examines the data with Prose boss Al Baker
Prose monitors more than 10,000 extremist and conspiracist groups on Telegram, every day collecting and archiving everything they post. Together, we looked at how active those groups were around Southport, starting on the day of the stabbings and for two weeks afterwards, looking at 11,051 total messages from 1,496 different chats and channels.
And what we found belies the idea that this was just a British reaction to a British issue. Out of the top 20 most influential accounts, in terms of reach, views and interaction, only six were from the UK. The rest were based abroad.
Out of the top 20 most influential accounts, in terms of reach, views and interaction, only six were from the UK.
“While all the action is happening on the ground and people in Britain are dealing with the consequences of this misinformation,” says Al Baker, managing director of Prose, “the people stoking the violence, the people flooding Telegram and other platforms of misinformation are largely based outside the UK.”
What it shows is the nature of the new far-right – not a tightly organised hierarchy based in a specific location, but an international network of influencers and followers, working together almost like a swarm to stir up trouble.
And it is extremely worrying for the security services. The head of MI5 Ken McCallum last week told Sky News that, compared to traditional radicalisation, the extreme right instead relies on a “pick and mix ideology” where people pull on hatred and misinformation from mostly online sources.
Rather than specific organisations, it is, he said, a “crowd-sourced model”.
MI5 Director General Ken McCallum. Pic: PA
Bristol, Saturday, 3 August and the streets were seething. A confrontation between protesters and counter-protestors turned into a running battle, first at Castle Park, and then down to the bridge below. Police horses repeatedly charged the rioters. They threw bottles back: I got one in the head while I was reporting.
Protesters face police during a riot on 3 August that took place in Bristol after the Southport incident. Pic: AP
The skirmishes continued outside the centre, up towards a hill and a hotel which houses asylum seekers. Eventually, it died away.
Those who took part though were left with the consequences: several were sentenced to years in prison. But they were not far-right extremists, as is traditionally understood.
“The unrest has been fuelled by disinformation that has been circulating, particularly on social media,” the judge said in his remarks.
One of those convicted for violent disorder was Dominic Capaldi, 34. He handed himself into the police.
Capaldi’s neighbour David Lomax told us that he “is just a caring bloke and a very quiet chap”.
“He got dragged into it somehow, and he didn’t realise what he was getting dragged into.
“And a lot of these people that do all these things, they don’t come from Bristol.”
Inciting those on the ground was a specific goal of the online far-right, according to Mr Baker, at Prose.
“These are communities which are expressly specifically and in a very dedicated and organised fashion devoted to exploiting racial divisions internationally,” Baker says.
“Any incident which could plausibly involve an immigrant, a Muslim, someone who isn’t white, regardless of whether in fact they did it or not, these communities are going to kick into action and try and stoke up division and racial hatred.”
This network map shows how those groups interact.
The points in the red cluster are UK-based, English-speaking accounts on Telegram, during the two weeks after the Southport murders. And they’re dwarfed by other groups. The purple is non-UK-based English-speaking accounts. Orange shows German, for example. Dark blue is pro-Russian accounts. Below them, in yellow, are Russian-speaking accounts.
And although the online far-right may be more shapeless, less structured, than the traditional version, it still contains the hardcore element.
“There are very extreme groups who routinely funnel information into these broader networks who were clearly, specifically, indirectly trying to incite a race war on the back of the Southport murders,” Mr Baker from Prose says.
Al Baker, the managing director at open-source intelligence firm Prose. Pic: Sky News
“The core of these communities are very serious people, including members of proscribed terrorist organisations, extreme neo-Nazi groups. The word ‘Nazis’ and the word ‘fascist’ is overused.
“But when I describe the groups that were influencing the tactics and the targets of the rioters, these are fully paid-up neo-Nazis who want to see the extermination of non-white people.”
Along with Telegram, X was also used to fuel the riots.
Here, research shared exclusively with Sky News by Ned Mendez, director of consultancy Clash Digital, found a similar emphasis on non-UK accounts. The most widely shared and retweeted content on Twitter/X during the initial three days of the unrest was primarily authored by non-domestic accounts from the USA and Europe, which repurposed local incidents to push inflammatory and divisive content into the UK discourse.
Jacqui McDonald, a freelance journalist who filmed the vigil after the Southport stabbing
Jacqui McDonald knows exactly how that works. She’s a freelance journalist who was covering a vigil in Southport the day after the attack and posted a video of the crowd that gathered to mourn together.
Amy Mek, an online influencer based in the US and known for promoting anti-immigration views, ripped Ms McDonald’s video and reposted it with her own comments, in which she said the Islamic community usually “swarm the streets” and “seize control of public spaces”.
This was the single most widely shared piece of content on X during the unrest. The original video earned 11,000 views; the repurposed content got 5.5million views in a few days.
I meet Jacqui in the square where she filmed the vigil. Tributes to the girls still stand – dolls tied to lampposts, handwritten cards in the flowerbeds. I show her Amy Mek’s post on X.
“It wasn’t true at all to what was happening in her language, the inflammatory use of what she was saying and the way she framed that video wasn’t what we were seeing in front of us,” she says.
“We were seeing a respectful, peaceful, quiet vigil for those children who had died that day.”
That is one of the tragedies of the riots, that they eclipsed the grief the town felt – and still feels.
A scene from the vigil filmed by Jacqui McDonald
Read more from Sky’s Data and Forensics team
How the far right hijacked Southport protests
Far-right outnumbers anti-racist movement on engagement
We asked several accounts for comment, including Amy Mek. She told us she rejected the labels far-right, hard-right and conspiracist, saying these were based on “biased generalisations” and added: “I unequivocally reject any form of violence that took place during the riots.”
She said Jacqui McDonald’s video had been sent to her as a tip and had assumed that the person who sent it had taken the footage. She said she was upset to hear it had originated from a freelance journalist and would ensure they received proper credit, along with a public statement.
“Just as I had no control over how the tipster’s video came to me without proper attribution, I also had no control over how others used or interpreted my content,” Mek said.
We also approached X but received no reply, while Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughan told us: “Telegram is not a place to spread violent content. Moderators removed UK groups and channels calling for violence when they were discovered in August…
“To dissuade criminal misuse of Telegram, IP Addresses and phone numbers of criminals who violate our rules can be disclosed to the authorities in response to valid legal requests. We are ready to cooperate with the UK government through the appropriate channels.”
The concern is that it may all happen again, that the online far-right remains active – as the head of MI5 warned – and that this wasn’t a one-off but a playbook, one that will be more effective next time.
“Large swathes of the online far-right see Southport as a missed opportunity,” Mr Baker says. “There is a huge amount of recrimination, people blaming one another for how quickly the riots fizzled out.”
“And I think we should be very concerned that they’re not going to make the same mistake twice.”
Southport is a memorial – and it is a warning.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
UK
Police investigating alleged attack on prison officer by Southport triple murderer Axel Rudakubana
Schoolchildren are asking teachers how to strangle a partner during sex safely, a charity says, while official figures show an alarming rise in the crime related to domestic abuse cases.
Warning: This article contains references to strangulation, domestic abuse and distressing images.
It comes as a woman whose former partner almost strangled her to death in a rage has advised anyone in an abusive relationship to seek help.
Bernie Ryan, chief executive of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation, has been running the charity since its inception in 2022 after non-fatal strangulation became a standalone offence.
“It’s the ultimate form of control,” she says.
She says perpetrators and victims are getting younger, while the reason is unclear, but strangulation has seeped into popular culture and social media.
“We hear lots of sex education providers, teachers saying that they’re hearing it in schools.
“We know teachers have been asked, ‘how do I teach somebody to strangle safely?’
“Our message is there is no safe way to strangle – the anatomy is the anatomy. Reduction in oxygen to the brain or blood flow will result in the same medical consequences, regardless of context.”
Bernie Ryan, CEO of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation
A recent review by Conservative peer Baroness Gabby Bertin recommended banning “degrading, violent and misogynistic content” online.
Violent pornography showing women being choked during sex she found was “rife on mainstream platforms”.
Ms Ryan says she “wants to make sure that young people don’t have access to activities that demonstrate that this is normal behaviour”.
Read more from Sky News:
Suspect accused of Derby bank murder appears in court
Man whose body was found in suitcase ‘had raped teenager’
Strangulation is a violent act that is often committed in abusive relationships.
It is the second most common method used by men to kill women, the first is stabbing.
According to statistics shared by the Crown Prosecution Service, in 2024 there was an almost 50% rise in incidents of non-fatal strangulation and suffocation – compared to the year before.
Kerry Allan pleads for other victims of abuse to seek help
Domestic abuse victim Kerry Allan has a message for anyone who is in an abusive relationship.
Kerry met Michael Cosgrove in September 2022. While she said “at the beginning it was really good”, within months he became physically abusive.
In August last year her friends found his profile on a dating app.
“I confronted him and he denied it. I knew we were going to get into a big argument and I couldn’t face it, so I said I was going to my mum’s for a few days and take myself away from the situation.
“I came back a few days later and stupidly I agreed we could try again and everything escalated from that.”
Injuries to Kerry’s chest. Pic: CPS
In the early hours of 25 August the pair had come in from a night out at a concert and got into an argument.
“He was having a go at me, accusing me of flirting with other people, and I was angry. I told him he had a nerve after what he’d done to me in the week and how he humiliated me.
“I told him that I wanted to leave, that we were done and that I wanted to go to my mum’s and that’s when it got bad.
“He pinned me to the bed and that’s when he first strangled me.”
Kerry’s neck injury. Pic: CPS
Kerry says this was the first time she’d ever been violently assaulted. Cosgrove was eerily silent as he eventually let go and Kerry gasped for air.
“I remember trying to get my breath back, I was crying and hyperventilating… I was sick on the bedroom floor and I was asking him to go.”
Cosgrove strangled her for a second time before letting go again.
“He was saying I wasn’t getting out of this bedroom alive. I was dead tonight, he hoped that I knew that. Just kept saying how I’d ruined his life.”
Injury to Kerry’s eye. Pic: CPS
“I remember feeling a sort of shock thinking at this point, I’m not going to get out of this bedroom, he’s actually going to kill me.”
Kerry began screaming and shouting for help as loud as she could.
Her neighbours heard the commotion and called the police. While they were en route, Kerry was once again being assaulted.
Bleeding in Kerry’s eye
“I ran over to the bedroom window and tried to jump out, he grabbed me as I went to open the window, and we struggled. And then I was back in the same position, he was on top of me on the bed, and his hands were round the throat again. But this time it didn’t stop.
“I remember trying to struggle and trying to kick out and hit him and I just kept thinking that I definitely was going to die, because at this point, it wasn’t stopping.”
The next memory Kerry has is opening her eyes to see police and paramedics in the bedroom.
Michael Cosgrove. Pic: CPS
Cosgrove had heard the sirens, jumped out of the bedroom window and went to hide in Kerry’s car.
Kerry remembers opening her eyes to paramedics caring for her: “I remember thinking, I’m alive. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that I was alive and I wasn’t dead. My last memory is him being on top of me with his hands on my throat.”
Kerry met Michael Cosgrove in September 2022
She gives this advice to anyone who is in an abusive relationship: “Please speak to somebody, whether it’s friends, family, a work colleague, whether it’s somebody online, whether it’s a charity that you’re directed to, any sort of abuse is not okay.
“Whether it starts off emotional, they often start off that way, and they escalate, and they can escalate badly.
“Take what happened to me as a huge warning sign, because I wouldn’t want anyone else to be in the position I’ve been in the last eight months.”
Cosgrove was found guilty of attempting to murder Kerry and intentional strangulation.
He will be sentenced in July.
If you suspect you are being abused and need to speak to someone, there are people who can help you.
The National Domestic Violence Helpline: 0808 2000 247
Respect, the helpline for male domestic abuse victims: 0808 8010327
Galop, the LGBT+ anti-violence charity: 0800 999 5428
Two men have been found guilty of cutting down the famous Sycamore Gap tree that stood for more than 150 years.
Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers were convicted of causing more than £620,000 worth of damage to the tree and more than £1,000 worth of damage to Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland.
On 27 September 2023, the pair drove 30 miles through a storm to Northumberland from Cumbria, where they both lived, before felling the tree overnight in a matter of minutes.
The Sycamore Gap tree before it was cut down. Pic: CPS
The pair each denied two counts of criminal damage to the sycamore and to Hadrian’s Wall, which was damaged when the tree fell on it, but were convicted by a jury at Newcastle Crown Court on Friday.
The Sycamore Gap tree sat in a dip in the landscape and held a place in pop culture, featuring in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
It also formed part of people’s personal lives, as the scene of wedding proposals, ashes being scattered and countless photographs.
Footage of the moment the tree was felled was played during the trial.
Daniel Graham. Pic: Northumbria Police/PA
Adam Carruthers. Pic: Northumbria Police/PA
In the clip, the sound of a chainsaw can be heard, and the silhouette of a person can be seen, before the trunk eventually tumbled.
The footage was shot on Graham’s iPhone 13, with the metadata providing the coordinates of the tree.
Part of tree kept as ‘trophy’
Over the course of the trial, the pair blamed one another, but the prosecution argued they were both responsible for what the court heard was a “mindless act of vandalism”.
As well as the video footage of the felling, an image of a piece of wood and a chainsaw was found on Graham’s phone.
Adam Carruthers (R) and Daniel Graham (L) worked together felling trees. Pic: CPS/PA
An image of a piece of wood and a chainsaw was found on Graham’s phone. Pic: PA
Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, told the court: “This was perhaps a trophy taken from the scene to remind them of their actions, actions that they appear to have been revelling in.”
Voice notes played in court
The jury was also played voice notes the pair had sent one another, commenting on the media coverage the incident was receiving.
In one of them, Graham, 39, said to 32-year-old Carruthers: “Someone there has tagged like ITV News, BBC News, Sky News, like News News News”, before adding: “I think it’s going to go wild.”
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Sycamore Gap seeds saved
Another piece of evidence was a photo of the defendants felling a different tree, about a month before the Sycamore Gap was cut down.
The prosecution said Graham, who owned a groundworks company and Carruthers, who worked in property management and mechanics, were “friends with knowledge and experience in chainsaws and tree felling”.
From the beginning, much of the trial focused on the significance of the tree, with Judge Mrs Justice Lambert telling the jury to put their “emotion to one side” before proceedings began.
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Voicenotes from Sycamore Gap tree trial
‘Mindless acts of violence’
Northumberland Superintendent Kevin Waring, of Northumbria Police, said: “We often hear references made to mindless acts of vandalism – but that term has never been more relevant than today in describing the actions of those individuals”.
Graham and Carruthers gave no explanation for why they targeted the tree, he said, “and there never could be a justifiable one”.
Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, Susan Dungworth, called the felling of the tree “unfathomable” and said, although “there was no remorse [from the defendants], there was compelling evidence, and now there will be justice”.
Gale Gilchrist, chief crown prosecutor for CPS North East, said Graham and Carruthers took “under three minutes” to bring down the “iconic landmark” in a “deliberate and mindless act of destruction”.
She said she hoped the community “can take some measure of comfort in seeing those responsible convicted”.
‘Enormity of the loss’
Reflecting on the verdict and the actions of the pair, Tony Gates, chief executive of Northumberland National Parks Authority, said: “It just took a few days to sink in – I think because of the enormity of the loss.
“We knew how important that location was for many people at an emotional level, almost at a spiritual level in terms of people’s connection to this case.”
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Moment Sycamore Gap tree cut down
Read more from the trial:
Two men went on ‘moronic mission’ to fell Sycamore Gap tree
Man told police he was being ‘framed’ over tree felling
Defendant says friend wanted to cut down world’s ‘most famous tree’
Jurors played voicenotes in Sycamore Gap tree trial
The tree’s stump still sits by Hadrian’s Wall, where new shoots have been emerging.
Its largest remaining section will go on display at the National Landscape Discovery Centre in the Northumberland National Park later this year.
The effort to preserve the tree’s legacy also goes beyond the region where it stood.
Forty-nine saplings taken from the tree have been conserved by the National Trust. They will be planted in accessible public spaces across the country as “trees of hope”, which will allow parts of the Sycamore Gap to live on.
The defendants, who didn’t react when the verdicts were delivered, will be sentenced in July.
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