Peering through the gaslight; i can find no evidence regarding the girl's accusation or the muslim man making a statement in his defence and unless anyone can provide credible reports of their encounter i'll assume y'all going to maintain an unsubstantiated position on the matter.
From the
MiddleEastEye.net:
There’s no question that the far right played a major role in stirring up the terrible events in Knowsley. Big Tech must also answer for its culpability in enabling fascism: calls to action circulated on social media, including a YouTube video from the
neo-Nazi group Patriotic Alternative.
Knowsley saw the convergence of two moral panics: "Muslim grooming gangs" and an "invasion" of asylum seekers.
Both narratives have been heavily promoted in the mainstream press - fuelled by the Conservative government, including
Braverman.
Indeed the Guardian
reported that government lawyers had previously warned Braverman that her "inflammatory immigration rhetoric risked inspiring a far-right terror attack".
Just as important was the second moral panic, virtually ignored in media reports, namely the
baying chants of "nonces" (British slang for paedophile), graffiti with the same slur, and how various far-right actors explicitly linked the riot to "grooming gangs".
The far-right has form both in
courting genuine victims of child sexual abuse and
exploiting false allegations. The official Telegram channel of far-right propagandist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who usually goes by the pseudonym of
Tommy Robinson, posted footage of the Knowsley riot with the caption: "A clear message sent to the police, to the UK government and to the hotels who house illegal economic migrants accused or suspected of grooming school children."
But as with the “invasion” narrative, this propaganda has been enabled by Conservative politicians.
Successive Conservative home secretaries -
Sajid Javid,
Priti Patel and
Braverman - have
actively fuelled racial stereotyping around "grooming gangs" - the latter two even when faced with their own civil servants’ evidence to the contrary.
That is painfully evident in
accounts of Muslim children being bullied as "groomers" and the
racially aggravated murder of an innocent 81-year-old man in Rotherham.
The riot at Knowsley is the latest in
extensive far-right actions targeting accommodation for asylum seekers, including hotels where unaccompanied children are housed.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-islam-demonising-prevent-right-wing-media
Knowsley ought to be a long-overdue wake-up call about the dangers of toxic narratives around migrants, minorities and "grooming gangs".
Remember: another demonstration at a hotel housing asylum-seekers is already scheduled for [today]. It will be in Rotherham - the town most synonymous with "grooming gangs".