By Phil Noble and Sachin Ravikumar
LIVERPOOL, England (Reuters) -Four people were “very, very ill in hospital” after a car ploughed into a crowd of Liverpool fans during a Premier League title parade, the city’s mayor said on Tuesday, adding that he hoped they would “pull through.”
British police believe the incident, in a packed Liverpool city centre on Monday, was isolated and not an act of terrorism, but have not said why or how a man was able to drive at crowds celebrating in the streets on Monday evening.
Videos posted online showed a grey people-carrier driving through a crowded street that was closed to cars, sending several flying into the air and dragging at least four under its wheels.
When the car stopped, angry fans converged on it and began smashing the windows as police officers battled to prevent them from reaching the driver.
Police said late on Monday that 20 people were treated at the scene and 27 were taken to hospital, including children.
Liverpool City Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram told the BBC there were “still four people who are very, very ill in hospital”.
“We are hoping of course that they pull through”.
With most people off work for the Spring Bank Holiday, officials estimated that around one million people descended on the 10-mile parade route to watch the Liverpool team and its staff travel through the city centre on an open-top bus with the Premier League trophy.
Liverpool last won the league during the COVID pandemic when celebrations were not permitted due to lockdowns.
Police said the car hit the spectators as the event was winding down. In the aftermath, a Reuters photographer saw emergency services carrying victims on stretchers and in their arms to nearby ambulances.
Police were unusually quick to provide a description of the man they arrested, saying around two hours after the incident that they had arrested a “53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area.”
Former police officers and local politicians said that statement was needed to cool social media speculation that the episode was an Islamist attack.
“That was one of my first concerns, that we needed to get the story out quickly,” mayor Rotheram told the BBC.
“If there’s a vacuum, we know there are some elements that will try to inflame the situation and to create that speculation and to put misinformation out there.”
The same police force oversaw the response to the murder of three young girls in the nearby town of Southport last year, an incident which sparked days of rioting, fuelled initially by speculation online over the identity of the attacker.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer thanked the emergency services for their swift response, saying: “Everyone, especially children, should be able to celebrate their heroes without this horror”.
(Writing by Kate Holton: additional reporting by Sachin Ravikumar in LONDON; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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