TEENAGERS who joined last summer’s far-right riots were driven mostly by thrill-seeking and a mistrust of police, the children’s commissioner has said.

Dame Rachel de Souza said interviews with 14 — around one-fifth — of children charged in relation to the unrest discredited the “prevailing narrative” that they were driven by online misinformation.

False reports circulating on social media in the days after Axel Rudakubana stabbed three girls to death during a Southport dance class last July was believed to have fuelled rioting across England.

Following the 18-year-old’s 52-year sentence last week for triple homicide and 10 counts of attempted murder, the commissioner said that while there is “no doubt” that online misinformation, racism or other right-wing influences “all played a role, they did not drive the children’s actions — they did not come up as the only significant factors in any of the conversations with the children who were charged.”