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There has been talk around Merseyside Police’s unusual decision to publicly release the ethnicity (white) and nationality (British) of the alleged driver of the car that ploughed into football fans during Liverpool’s Premier League victory parade on Monday.
Merseyside police said they arrested a 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area about two hours after the incident that left dozens of people, including four children, injured.
The decision shows lessons may have been learned in the wake of the Southport attacks last year, when speculation about the identity of the suspect behind the stabbings had been rampant on social media and filled a void left by Merseyside police releasing few details about the 17-year-old they had in custody.
Usually when a suspect is arrested, police forces in England and Wales only reveal the person’s age and where they were arrested.
Opening summary
Welcome to our continued live coverage after a car ploughed into a crowd at Liverpool’s Premier League victory parade on Bank Holiday Monday.
Merseyside Police said there was a total of 65 confirmed casualties following the incident in Water Street.
More than 50 people, including children, were treated in different hospitals and 11 people remained there on Tuesday in a stable condition. There were no “major traumas” or life-threatening injuries among the victims, medical staff at Royal Liverpool university hospital said.
The alleged driver of the car, a 53-year-old British man, from the West Derby area of Liverpool, has been arrested on suspicion of drug driving and attempted murder and is being interviewed in custody.
Police say the man was also being detained on suspicion of dangerous driving and driving while unfit through drugs.
Detectives have been given additional time to question the man until around lunchtime on Wednesday. The incident is not being treated as terrorism.
Merseyside’s assistant chief constable Jenny Sims told a press conference:
It is believed the driver of the Ford Galaxy car involved in this incident was able to follow an ambulance onto Water Street after the road block was temporarily lifted so that the ambulance crew could attend to a member of the public who was having a heart attack.
