Category Archives: UK news

Southport killer ‘trying to retraumatise families from cell’, says lawyer

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Comment follows news Axel Rudakubana was transferred from prison to psychiatric hospital

The lawyer for the families of Axel Rudakubana’s victims has said the Southport killer is “trying to retraumatise the families from his cell” after it emerged he had been transferred from prison to a psychiatric hospital.

Rudakubana, now 19, was given a life sentence for the murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and the attempted murder of eight other children and two adults.

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Lucy Harrison’s father was holding the gun that killed her but was never arrested. Now her mother wants Andy Burnham to take up the case

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Eighteen months after her daughter’s death in Texas, Jane Coates hopes new PM can persuade US authorities to reopen case

Lucy Harrison felt that 2024 was her best year yet. The 23-year-old had graduated from university with first class honours, landed her dream job and bought her first house with her boyfriend. She was a “big girl adult” now, Lucy would say. She shed tears of joy seeing her idol, Taylor Swift, at Wembley on the Eras tour that summer. Life could hardly get any better. “All the hard work, all the tears, everything was coming to fruition,” said her mother, Jane Coates, from Warrington in north-west England.

That Christmas, Lucy and her boyfriend, Sam Littler, flew to Texas to spend time with her father, Kris Harrison, who had left the family home when she was two. The pair had a complex relationship – Harrison was a recovering alcoholic – and Littler, 24, did not want them to go. But Lucy enjoyed seeing her two younger half-sisters at their home in Prosper, an affluent suburb 30 miles north of Dallas.

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Entire Cairngorms village evacuated as raging wildfire nears

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Major incident declared over blaze that has intensified amid strengthening winds

A major incident has been declared over a wildfire that has been raging in the Cairngorms national park for more than a week, police have said, with a whole village having been evacuated.

Officers from Police Scotland said there had been a significant change in weather conditions, with strengthening winds making a fire that has been burning out of control for 11 days yet more difficult to contain.

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Home Office rejects Palestinian Jerusalemite woman’s UK visa but approves husband’s

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Officials not satisfied Therese Abdallah is a ‘genuine visitor’ and believe she would not leave after visit to son in London

A Palestinian Jerusalemite who lives in London has been left devastated after a planned trip by his parents had to be cancelled when the Home Office ruled his mother was not a “genuine visitor” but granted his father a visa.

Karim Abdallah, who has lived in the UK since 2019, was looking forward to hosting his parents, Therese Abdallah, 69, a retired English teacher, and his father, Ghassan Abdallah, a psychologist, for a few weeks.

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Existing care workers could be exempt from UK’s tough new immigration rules

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Exclusive: Andy Burnham thought to be considering waiving stricter right to remain rules for people already working in the sector

Hundreds of thousands of care workers could be exempted from the home secretary’s plans to toughen up the immigration system under proposals being considered by Andy Burnham as he looks for ways to relieve pressure on the social care sector.

The prime minister will give a speech next week spelling out his determination to start creating a National Care Service before the next general election as he looks to accelerate the process set up by his predecessor, Keir Starmer.

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Karim Khan ousted as prosecutor of international criminal court

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Member states vote to remove British barrister after allegations of sexual abuse

The prosecutor of the international criminal court, Karim Khan, has been removed from office after the court’s governing body concluded in June that he had committed serious misconduct in connection to allegations of sexual abuse.

The ICC’s member states voted on Friday to oust the British prosecutor in an unprecedented move that concludes a damaging episode for the court two years after the allegations were first raised.

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Five officers injured as police boat strikes Westminster Bridge

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Metropolitan police say officers on marine policing boat are receiving treatment after incident in central London

Five officers have been injured after a police boat struck Westminster Bridge in central London on Friday afternoon.

The Metropolitan police said the incident occurred at about 3.40pm and involved a boat from the marine policing unit.

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Water bosses’ pay rises despite bonus ban and public fury over bills and pollution

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Exclusive: Eight companies expect to be covered by the ban for 2025-26, the Guardian can reveal

Water company bosses’ total pay rose over the past year despite a government bonus ban and public outrage over pollution and bills, the Guardian can reveal.

One chief executive, Mark Thurston of Anglian Water, received £1.9m – including a £500,000 “retention payment”, despite the bonus ban.

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Burnham urged to lobby EU leaders directly to waive EES border controls

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Lib Dems call on PM to push for suspension of ‘bungled, malfunctioning’ system as overseas holiday travel peaks

Andy Burnham has been urged to lobby EU leaders directly to suspend the new entry-exit system, EES, as the peak weekend for overseas holidays begins.

About 2.2 million British holidaymakers are expected to head abroad between Friday and Monday, the majority to Europe, with all schools in the UK now on their summer break.

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Southport killer Axel Rudakubana is manipulating system, victims’ families say

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Rudakubana moved to psychiatric hospital after it was concluded he could not be safely managed in prison

The Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been accused of attempting to “manipulate the system” by the families of his victims, after it emerged he had been transferred from prison to a psychiatric hospital.

Rudakubana, 19, was jailed for life in January last year, with a minimum sentence of 52 years, for the murders of Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar.

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Record heat sends online retail sales to five-year high in Great Britain

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Soaring temperatures fuel demand for air conditioners and outdoor goods, helping retailers beat expectations in June

Online sales reached their highest share of retail spending in five years last month as record heat fuelled demand for air conditioners, outdoor products and clothing.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the volume of retail sales in Great Britain rose 1% month on month in June, beating analysts’ expectations of a 0.3% decline, helped by hot weather and World Cup spending.

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UK ‘ready to defend itself’ after Iranian threat over US bases

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IRGC claims base in south-west England was used by US to launch bombing missions, making it ‘legitimate target’

The government has said the UK is “ready to defend itself” after Iran’s military warned that any bases being used by the US were “legitimate targets”.

The UK has allowed the US to launch “defensive” operations from British bases hosting American planes since the start of its war on Iran but has refused to help in offensive operations.

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Kemi Badenoch ‘has to adapt’ her rhetoric to take on Andy Burnham

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Conservative leader is becoming more confident and forging a message for her party, but faces a new opponent

“So, Andy Burnham seems like a nice guy.” Those were the slightly unexpected opening words of Kemi Badenoch’s first speech since the change in prime minister. But make no mistake: she was there to bury her opponent.

Even Badenoch-sceptics inside the Conservative party and farther afield agree the Tory leader is becoming more confident, and has been able to forge an increasingly coherent message for her party, one based on a promise of economic competence.

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Southport killer Axel Rudakubana moved to Broadmoor psychiatric hospital

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Exclusive: Clinical assessments concluded Rudakubana could not be safely managed in prison, sources say

The Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been moved from prison to a psychiatric hospital after clinical assessment, the Guardian can disclose.

He was transferred to Broadmoor high-security hospital from the category A prison Belmarsh this week after it was concluded that he could not be managed safely in a prison environment, sources confirmed.

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‘Customers prefer AI chatbots,’ says British Gas owner as 1,300 call centre jobs axed

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CEO Chris O’Shea defends Centrica’s plans as it reports rise in retail profits following focus on bigger margins

The owner of British Gas has claimed that most households would rather speak with an AI chatbot than deal with the company’s staff as it prepares to cut 1,300 jobs from its call centres.

Centrica, the supplier’s FTSE 100 owner, plans to cut 800 jobs as the company carries out a “targeted deployment of AI tools”, on top of the 500 cuts it confirmed last month.

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MoD cancels army training in Kenya over powers to prosecute British soldiers

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September exercise called off after Kenya raises concerns over funding and jurisdiction for criminal offences

The British army has been forced to cancel training for its troops in Kenya after the Kenyan government refused to ratify a bilateral defence agreement.

While the UK government wanted to renew the existing agreement, Kenyan lawmakers had sought changes to give local authorities greater powers to hold British soldiers accountable for any offences committed in the country.

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Scottish Labour’s rivals decry ‘chancer’ Anas Sarwar for resigning to join Andy Burnham’s government

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New prime minister has made Sarwar – the first senior Labour figure to call for Keir Starmer’s resignation – a peer

Scottish Labour’s rivals in Holyrood have slammed Anas Sarwar’s shock decision to resign as leader to sit in Andy Burnham’s new government, calling him a “chancer” and accusing him of lying to voters.

The prime minister has made Sarwar – who was the first senior Labour figure to call for Keir Starmer to resign – a peer and given him a ministerial post at the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, No 10 announced on Wednesday.

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Paramount’s £80bn takeover of Warner Brothers a step closer after EU approval

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European Commission says Paramount Skydance’s decision to end Universal venture addresses merger concerns

Paramount Skydance’s £80bn takeover of Warner Brothers took a step closer to being realised after it won conditional approval from the European Union.

The European Commission said Paramount’s offer to ⁠end a film ⁠distribution ​joint venture with Universal Pictures addressed its concerns over the potential merger. As part of its commitments in the EU, Paramount has 13 months from the date of closing the deal to pull out from the venture.

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Burnham stirs up political row with review of release plans for violent criminals

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PM says he wants to ensure ‘everything has been looked at’ amid outrage at policy from family of PC Andrew Harper

Andy Burnham is immersed in a deepening political row after ordering a review of plans for the early release of thousands of killers, rapists and sex offenders from prison in September.

After the family of PC Andrew Harper expressed outrage that his killers may be eligible for release, the prime minister responded by pledging to make sure that “everything has been looked at again” before a fresh tranche of about 6,000 offenders were freed on tags.

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Woman, 70, charged with murder of British expat Karen Carter in France

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Public prosecutor for the region said suspect had been initially arrested shortly after the murder on 29 April last year

A 70-year-old woman has been charged with the murder of Karen Carter, the British expat found dead in south-western France last year.

The woman was charged on 2 July with Carter’s murder in Trémolat, in the Dordogne, and is “under judicial supervision”.

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