No, this is not a photo of the Southport, U.K., attack suspect

The context 

On July 29, 2024, a knife attack occurred in Southport, England, resulting in the death of three young girls. Additionally, eight more children were injured; five of them are in a critical condition, and two adults suffered critical injuries. A 17-year-old has since been charged with murder. Merseyside Police confirmed that the attack is not currently being treated as terror-related. 

Following this incident, some social media users speculated about the attacker's identity. An image claiming to be of the Southport attacker has been circulated on platforms like X (formerly known as Twitter), TikTok and Threads. A post of the image on Facebook received 100,000 views and over 1,000 shares. Examples of the posts are archived here, here, here and here.

However, this is an image of a man who was identified as a suspect in an attack on four young children in a park in Annecy, in France's south-east in 2023. It does not depict the suspect in the Southport stabbing.

In fact

The image circulated online has been incorrectly attributed to the alleged Southport assailant. The suspect's identity in Southport had not been released at the time due to legal restrictions in the U.K. in identifying children below the age of 18 who have been charged in connection with a crime.

In a very rare move, Judge Andrew Menary KC made a specific ruling on August 1, 2024, that the suspect could be named as Axel Rudakubana. The judge said the decision was made "principally because he is 18 in six days' time," and that "continuing to prevent the full reporting has the disadvantage of allowing others to spread misinformation, in a vacuum."

The image actually depicts a man identified in media reports in June 2023 as a suspect in an attack that left four young children injured in Annecy, France, in 2023. The photo was widely published by multiple news outlets such as The Guardian, BBC and The Telegraph in their coverage following the Annecy attack.

In June 2023, a knife attack occurred in a park in Annecy, France. The alleged attacker was at the time identified as a 31-year-old Syrian who had refugee status in Sweden. Four young children, aged 22 months to three years old, were injured. Lead prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis stated in a news conference that there didn't seem to be any terrorist motivation.

Despite the clarifications, some online users speculated that the attacker had terrorist motives, a claim debunked by Logically Facts.

The verdict

The claim that the circulated image shows the suspect from the July 29 Southport incident is false. It depicts an entirely different person connected to a different incident. 

(Update: This fact-check was updated on August 1, 2024, to reflect the fact the person charged has been named)