Angharad Williamson is accused with partner, John Cole, and teenager of murdering her five-year-old son
A woman accused of murdering her five-year-old son has told a jury his stepfather violently attacked her “beautiful, happy boy” two days before he was found dead in a river.
Angharad Williamson, 31, claimed her 6ft 4in partner, John Cole, 40, punched 3ft 5in Logan Mwangi twice in the stomach, causing him to land hard on the floor.
Continue reading...Electricity System Operator, the division that keeps the lights on in Great Britain, will form part of a new public body
The job of keeping the UK’s electricity and gas flowing will be returned to public control by 2024, under government plans for the effective nationalisation of a division of National Grid.
A new public body, the “Future System Operator”, will have responsibility for planning and managing energy distribution, with a focus on the challenges posed by decarbonisation.
Continue reading...Lawyer’s wife still in critical condition while second son stable after rockslide in Blue Mountains near Sydney
Tributes have been paid to a British lawyer and his nine-year-old son killed in a landslide while on holiday in Australia.
Mehraab Nazir, 49, had been hiking with his family in the Wentworth Pass area of the Blue Mountains, a national park west of Sydney, on Monday when they were caught in the rockslide. His and his son’s bodies were recovered the next morning.
Continue reading...William Renny, Callum Lewis and Evan Lorne pleaded guilty to public order offences at December hunt in Lacock
Three hunt supporters have been fined for public order offences after admitting clashing with saboteurs at a post-Christmas meet in Wiltshire.
William Renny, 30, Callum Lewis, 26, and Evan Lorne, 18, pleaded guilty to using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause unlawful violence.
Continue reading...John Lansdown seeking up to £76m, which he will use to set up trust to help fellow seafarers
A former P&O Ferries chef is suing the company for £76m over its decision to sack almost 800 staff without notice last month.
John Lansdown, the only seafarer to launch a legal action, has filed a tribunal claim against the company and its chief executive for unfair dismissal, racial discrimination and harassment.
Continue reading...Former England midfielder Steve Hodge has owned Maradona’s no 10 shirt since the 1986 match
Diego Maradona’s infamous “hand of God” goal made footballing history and cemented the legendary status of the Argentinian superstar. Now the shirt he wore when he scored that goal at the 1986 World Cup is estimated to sell for at least £4m.
Maradona’s no 10 shirt has been owned for the past 35 years by the former England midfielder Steve Hodge. The two players swapped shirts at the end of the quarter-final between Argentina and England.
Continue reading...Cabinet Office won’t confirm or deny existence of taxpayer-funded pictures of illegal gatherings after freedom of information request
Ministers are refusing to disclose any pictures taken by official No 10 photographers of illegal gatherings held inside Downing Street, prompting Labour to call on Boris Johnson to “come clean and release these photos”.
The Cabinet Office refused to confirm or deny the existence of any photographs of events in the cabinet room, leaving parties, and a party in the prime minister’s Downing Street flat, after official pictures of the gatherings were requested under freedom of information laws.
Continue reading...Organisations pulled out of Safe to Be Me after government failure to ban conversion practices for transgender people
The government’s flagship LGBTQ+ conference is to be cancelled after it fell into disarray with more organisations pulling out and a key government adviser accusing ministers of waging a “woke war”.
With Downing Street under fire for watering down its commitment to ban conversion practices, the Safe to Be Me event due to be hosted in June has now been scrapped.
Continue reading...Milton Keynes coroner rules highways officer Richard Woodcock was unlawfully killed
A “heroic” neighbour who sacrificed his life to save a two-year-old boy died after being repeatedly hit with a kettlebell, a coroner has said.
The body of Richard Woodcock, 38, a highways officer, was found by Thames Valley police when they forced their way into a property in Milton Keynes on 26 June last year.
Continue reading...Analysis: why ministers are risking political capital pushing ahead now with privatisation plan is unclear
According to one key individual involved in the battle for Channel 4’s future, the broadcaster is a “wonderful company doing a fantastic job”, it is performing well financially and plays a crucial role in supporting the British television ecosystem.
Curiously, that individual is Stephen Parkinson, a government minister arguing that the only solution to secure Channel 4’s future is to rapidly privatise it and sell it off to a commercial owner, possibly one based overseas.
Continue reading...Conservatives seek to examine latest techniques, citing rising energy costs
Ministers have paved the way for a reconsideration of the moratorium on fracking in England by commissioning a new study to examine safety concerns about the controversial practice.
In an effort to decrease Britain’s reliance on imported energy given spiralling costs, the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said it was “absolutely right that we explore all possible domestic energy sources”.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. You can find our latest stories on Channel 4 below:
DCMS select committee chair Julian Knight has questioned if the government’s plans to forge forward with the privatisation of Channel 4 are “revenge”, adding that many Tories believe the move is “payback time” for “biased coverage”.
Knight said Channel 4 could succeed if it was privatised and managed well, but it’s “a big risk” and “must be done as part of a thorough overhaul of all public service broadcasting”.
It is certainly true that Channel 4 will have greater freedom to compete once privatised and if managed well it should be able to continue to innovate and crucially appeal to young audiences - a real USP in today’s broadcast landscape.
However, this is a big risk. The question has to be, do you think a restricted but brilliant small state broadcaster will part compete with the likes of Apple and Amazon or does it need to be able to borrow and grow in a way only privatisation can unlock?
Continue reading...Conflict adds strain to developing economies in east Asia and Pacific already struggling with Covid and inflation
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further dampened the economic prospects for developing countries in east Asia and the Pacific, meaning lower economic growth and higher poverty in the region this year, the World Bank has warned.
The Ukraine factor came on top of the existing risks that the region – home to 2.1 billion people and stretching from China to Papua New Guinea – has been facing in recent years. They included the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the financial tightening in the US, and the pandemic resurgence amid China’s zero-Covid policies.
Continue reading...In a letter to Priti Patel, the cross-party group calls for temporary places where those displaced can study and carry out research
A cross-party group of MPs and peers has joined forces with UK universities in calling for the visa scheme for Ukrainian refugees to be extended to temporary placements for students and academics.
In a letter to Priti Patel, the home secretary, the parliamentarians and Universities UK, the advocacy organisation for universities, said the scheme should provide visas and temporary places for displaced students and academics to study and carry out research.
Continue reading...Watchdog expresses concern over safety of mothers and babies days after damning Shrewsbury report
Hospital inspectors have uncovered repeated maternity failings and expressed serious concern about the safety of mothers and babies in Sheffield just days after a damning report warned there had been hundreds of avoidable baby deaths in Shrewsbury.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found Sheffield teaching hospitals NHS foundation trust, one of the largest NHS trusts in England, had failed to make the required improvements to services when it visited in October and November, despite receiving previous warnings from the watchdog.
Continue reading...Peers find fault with many aspects of nationality and borders bill, in particular proposal to divide refugees into classes
Priti Patel’s nationality and borders bill has been ripped apart for a second time by the House of Lords as the government suffered more than 10 defeats over controversial proposals to tighten immigration rules.
Peers supported proposals to ensure that the bill complied with the 1951 Refugee Convention and challenged the government’s plan to redefine refugees into two classes based on how they arrived in the UK.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Concerns were aired over Pitch@Palace contest win for banker linked to over £1m of payments to Duke of York
Fresh questions have been raised over Prince Andrew’s Dragons’ Den-style scheme after it emerged that concerns were raised over a contest winner who since been linked to more than £1m of payments received by the royal.
Selman Turk, a Turkish businessman, received an award in November 2019 from the Duke of York at a Pitch@Palace event during which 40 entrepreneurs gave rapid-fire pitches in a room full of potential investors.
Continue reading...As the government presses ahead with the sale, what is the broadcaster worth and who would buy it?
The industry player most likely to buy Channel 4, with the least regulatory hurdles, is Discovery. The big US pay-TV company, which is merging with WarnerMedia, the parent company of CNN, HBO and the Hollywood studio behind the Batman and Harry Potter franchises, expressed interest the last time the broadcaster faced privatisation in 2016.
Continue reading...Ministers hope to raise £1bn from sell-off ending broadcaster’s 40 years in public ownership
The culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, is pushing ahead with controversial plans to privatise Channel 4, with the government backing proposals to sell off the broadcaster after 40 years in public ownership.
The government hopes to raise around £1bn from the sell-off, making it one of the biggest privatisations since Royal Mail went public a decade ago. Ministers have suggested they could spend the proceeds to boost creative training and independent production companies, essentially funding their levelling up agenda.
Continue reading...Move, after accusations against David Warburton, would help ‘bring parliament into the 21st century’
Unions representing parliamentary staff have called for MPs accused of sexual misconduct to be excluded from the Westminster estate while investigations take place, after allegations against the Conservative backbencher David Warburton.
The joint call by unions representing parliamentary workers – Prospect, the FDA, the Public and Commercial Services Union and the GMB – comes after Warburton was accused of sexual harassment as well as alleged cocaine use and potentially failing to declare a loan.
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