Main content

Episode 2

Mobeen Azhar investigates how online rumours and disinformation combined with extremist agitation led to real-world consequences for the people of Kirkby.

Mobeen Azhar returns to Kirkby to try to connect the dots between a whirlwind of misinformation and growing unrest outside sites housing asylum seekers. He soon finds out that a local man with white supremacist views and connections was campaigning outside the Suites hotel in the run-up to the riot. The question is, how much did this influence what took place days later?

With that man now serving time in prison for stirring up racial hatred, Mobeen鈥檚 investigation takes him further afield to a former RAF base called Scampton. Since the night of the riot in Kirkby, the policy of the then Conservative government shifted. They began shutting down asylum seeker hotels in favour of bigger sites like Scampton.

Available now

58 minutes

Signed Audio described

Last on

Mon 30 Sep 2024 23:30

More episodes

Next

You are at the last episode

See all episodes from Small Town, Big Riot

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Mobeen Azhar
Writer Mobeen Azhar
Editor Michael McGill
Executive Producer Catey Sexton
Executive Producer Jeremy Lee
Series Producer Stefan Mattison
Director Leo Fawkes
Production Company Forest

Broadcasts