While foreign agitators and far-right leaders leapt upon false claims the Southport attack suspect was an immigrant who had arrived in a small boat, the allegations can be traced to social media accounts closer to home.

The woman accused of being first to post a false Muslim name for the suspect is the managing director of a clothing company. The mother of three in her mid-fifties enjoys walking, is married to an artist and counts an actor among her children. The family live in a £1.5 million farmhouse in the rural north.

She posted on Twitter/X that “Ali Al-Shakati” was the suspect, he was an “asylum seeker who came to the UK by boat last year” and was on an “MI6 watch list”.