Southport Murders: More should have been shared, says Watchdog

He wrote: “He would go beyond that: he led to dangerous fictions that could have been much more harmful to the prosecution of Rudakubana than some of the true facts that were suppressed in the name of the contempt of the court.

“If there had been a trial, the jury members could have entered the Court with the impression that Rudakubana was an applicant for Muslim asylum and, more toxic, that the authorities were determined to silence him.”

Earlier this month, Mersyside police officer, Serena Kennedy, told parliamentarians that she wanted dissinformation immediately after Southport’s murders by releasing information about Rudakubana’s religion, but local prosecutors did not tell her not to do so.

Police revealed that the suspect was a 17 -year -old man of Banks in Lancashire, who was born in Cardiff.

Mr. Hall added that an involuntary consequence of Leveson’s investigation into telephone piracy has been a “cooling of relations” between the police and the main media, but that cases such as Southport show how empty information will be “full of speculation and mischief.”

“The precise information is crucial for public confidence and trust, particularly following terrorist attacks and other horrors,” he wrote.