What was claimed
Six people were stabbed in London on Saturday 6 July 2019, including three 12 year-olds.
Our verdict
That’s correct. We don’t know their exact ages, but the three children stabbed were reportedly all younger than 12.
Metropolitan police taking part in London Pride were on duty
11 July 2019
What was claimed
On duty police officers participated in the London Pride parade.
Our verdict
Correct. The Metropolitan police taking part in the Pride parade were on duty.
A post shared on Facebook almost 800 times claims that on-duty officers were participating in the London Pride parade on the same day that six people were stabbed in London, including three 12 year-olds.
It’s correct that there were six stabbings on the same day as the Pride parade in London. And it’s correct that the Metropolitan police officers taking part in the parade were in full uniform with equipment and radios and would technically have been on duty.
A woman and her three children, including a child who is reportedly 11 years old, were stabbed in Palmers Green in London on Saturday. We think that must be what the post is referring to, as an early police report said all three children were under 12. According to the Metropolitan Police, as of Monday, all four were in “a non-life threatening condition in hospital”. A man was arrested and has been charged.
Two men were also stabbed in Hounslow in London on Saturday. At the time of writing, they were believed to be in a stable condition.
Altogether, that means six people were stabbed in two incidents that were reported in London on the day of the Pride parade. We asked the Metropolitan police how many stabbings there were in total that day, but they were not able to confirm this to us.
There was a Metropolitan police presence at Pride, both in an active policing capacity (as you would expect at a large public event), and within the procession. One of the pictures used in the Facebook post was taken at last year’s event, and seems to be of a British Transport Police officer. The other was taken at the 2019 event.
The Metropolitan police told us: “Officers taking part in the parade for Pride London on Saturday, 6 July represented the [Metropolitan Police] in full uniform, including personal protection equipment and radios.”
“As such they could be deployed to deal with any incident, so it is regarded as a tour of duty.”
The Metropolitan police reported that 150 officers and staff took part in 2017’s London Pride parade.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as true as Metropolitan police officers in the parade were on duty and there were six stabbings in London on the same day.