Labour abuses happening ‘at scale’ far beyond Leicester, warn rights groups

Exploitation occurring in UK farming, construction, contract cleaning, fishing, recycling and domestic work, say labour organisations

The labour abuses and sweatshop conditions reported in factories in Leicester are occurring “at scale” across the UK’s garment, manufacturing and farming industries, campaigners warn.

Reports of similar exploitative conditions and labour abuses alleged to be occurring in Leicester have also been linked to garment factories in Birmingham, Manchester and London, among other places.

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Manchester police refer Taser incident of man with child to IOPC

Video of officers Tasering Desmond Ziggy Mombeyarara was circulated on social media

Greater Manchester police have said they are investigating an incident in which a man was Tasered by officers in front of his young child, after a video circulated on social media.

A video of the incident, which happened at a petrol station in Stretford at approximately 11pm on Wednesday, shows Desmond Ziggy Mombeyarara, 34, being confronted by two GMP officers while carrying the boy.

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North-west overtakes London for number of Covid-19 hospital cases

Latest figures reveal English regional differences in spread and peak of coronavirus

More people are in hospital with coronavirus in the north-west of England than in London, as regional differences in the spread and peak of the pandemic become increasingly apparent.

Latest figures show 2,033 people in London hospitals compared to 2,191 in the north-west, where the peak for hospitalisation appears to have been on 13 April, compared to 8 April in the capital.

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Coronavirus crisis leads to steep drop in recorded crime

Offences including burglary and violence fall by as much as 20% in some areas

The coronavirus crisis has led to a drop in recorded crime, by as much as 20% in some areas.

Offences such as burglary and violence were down last week compared with the previous seven days, after Boris Johnson made his first request for people to stay home on the Monday.

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UK police chiefs: coronavirus could bring out worst in humanity

Warning after crimes including theft of oxygen canisters and puncturing of ambulance tyres

Police chiefs have warned the coronavirus pandemic could “bring out the worst in humanity” after a spate of opportunistic crimes hindered efforts to control the crisis.

The theft of oxygen canisters from a hospital, the puncturing of ambulance tyres and the raiding of food banks by thieves were among the “worrying isolated incidents” in recent days raised by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).

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Rochdale child sex offender who fled to Pakistan during trial extradited

Choudhry Ikhalaq Hussain has been returned to UK to serve 19-year jail term

A child sex offender who sexually exploited an underage girl in Rochdale has been returned to the UK to serve a 19-year jail sentence after fleeing to Pakistan halfway through his trial.

Choudhry Ikhalaq Hussain, 42, was extradited on Tuesday after being arrested in January last year in the province of Punjab, Greater Manchester police (GMP) said.

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Manchester cycle network plan could be national blueprint, says Burnham

Mayor urges backing as report sets out predicted gains from walking and cycling scheme

A joined-up cycling and walking network in Greater Manchester could provide a national blueprint for reducing congestion and air pollution and improving health, a report says.

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, and Chris Boardman, the region’s cycling and walking commissioner, are calling on the government to back plans for an 1,800-mile network of protected routes for pedestrians and cyclists.

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Reynhard Sinaga victim: ‘I thought I might have killed him’

Student fought back after waking during assault and was treated by police as a suspect

The student who exposed the serial rapist Reynhard Sinaga has said he feared he had killed him after he woke and fought back when he found he was being abused.

Sinaga, 36, was jailed this month for a minimum of 30 years for 136 rapes against dozens of young men in Manchester. Police believe he would have carried on offending had one of his victims not woken up during an attack and called 999.

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Reynhard Sinaga may have been raping men as far back as 2005

Photos, videos and ‘trophy items’ suggest ‘Britain’s worst ever rapist’ attacked 195 men between 2005 and 2017

Police in Manchester believe the PhD student dubbed “Britain’s worst ever rapist” may have attacked men as far back as 2005 – and have admitted he called them at least twice to help evict men from his flat.

Reynhard Sinaga, 36, from Indonesia, posed as a “good Samaritan” outside clubs in central Manchester, inviting men back to his flat for a drink or to charge their phones, before slipping the date rape drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) into their drink. He then recorded himself raping them, sometimes for hours at a time.

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Teenager who threatened suicide on road prosecuted for third time

In ‘worrying’ case woman told by Manchester judge to stop wasting police time

A teenager with long-term mental health problems has been prosecuted three times in the last nine months after threatening suicide near busy roads.

The 19-year-old woman was pulled to safety from a busy road by Greater Manchester police officers last Sunday, while still serving a community order for her previous offences.

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Exclusive: CPS seeks longer sentence for rapist Reynhard Sinaga

Crown Prosecution Service asks attorney general to review 30-year term for student who raped up to 195 men

A man described as Britain’s most prolific rapist could have his sentence increased after the Crown Prosecution Service wrote to the attorney general saying Reynhard Sinaga should serve longer than 30 years in prison.

Sinaga, a 36-year-old mature student from Indonesia, was given a life sentence with a minimum tariff of 30 years by a judge at Manchester crown court last week. Suzanne Goddard QC told him it was “borderline” whether he should be given a whole-life term but decided that he should not be considered for release until he was 66, having been unanimously convicted by four juries of drugging and abusing 48 men while they lay comatose in his Manchester flat.

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Reynhard Sinaga jailed for life for raping dozens of men in Manchester

Reynhard Sinaga is believed to have lured nearly 200 victims to his flat and attacked them

A man described as “Britain’s most prolific rapist” will never be safe to be released, a court has heard, as he was jailed for a minimum of 30 years after being found guilty of raping or sexually assaulting 48 young men in Manchester.

Reynhard Sinaga, 36, a mature student from Indonesia, is thought by police to have abused at least 195 men over two-and-a-half years after luring them to his flat under the guise of being a “good samaritan”, drugging his victims and then attacking them after they passed out.

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Bolton fire: emergency crews battle blaze at student housing building

Witnesses describe flames ‘crawling up cladding’ of six-storey building on Bradshawgate

Fire crews are tackling a large blaze “crawling up the cladding” of a student accommodation building in Bolton.

Images posted on social media show firefighters tackling flames coming out of the windows on the top floors of a building on Bradshawgate.

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Public invited to 100-year-old Jamaican war veteran’s funeral

Oswald Dixon served in RAF in second world war and died at care home in Salford

A care home is inviting members of the public to attend the funeral of a second world war veteran from Jamaica with no family in the UK.

Oswald Dixon died on 25 September aged 100 after living his last four years at a home for retired service personnel in Salford, Greater Manchester.

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Jet2 plane diverted to Porto after pilot falls ill at the controls

Flight from Manchester to Madeira rerouted amid reports a passenger assisted landing

A pilot fell ill at the controls of an aeroplane flying from Manchester to the Atlantic island of Madeira, forcing the flight to be diverted to northern Portugal.

The airline, Jet2, confirmed that the aircraft had to land in Porto on Monday, adding that a replacement aircraft and crew had been dispatched to get passengers to their proper destination.

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‘Several lives lost’: note reveals early details of Peterloo massacre

Magistrate’s message released to mark 200th anniversary may be first account of bloodshed

It was a defining moment in British political history, paving the way in the long struggle for democratic representation of the disenfranchised working classes.

Now, 200 years on from the Peterloo massacre in which peaceful protesters were cut down by sabre-wielding cavalry, a hastily scribbled note has been unearthed to reveal what could be the first account of the bloodshed.

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Shukri Abdi death: police face inquiry over Bury drowning case

Watchdog received complaint that police did not properly investigate girl’s death

An independent investigation has been launched into how police responded to the death of a 12-year-old girl in a river in Greater Manchester.

Shukri Yahya Abdi drowned in the Irwell in Bury on 27 June. Greater Manchester police said there were no suspicious circumstances and warned people of the dangers of swimming in rivers, lakes and reservoirs in hot weather.

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UK weather: thunderstorms set to cause further flooding

Roads closed in north-west after Manchester area gets two weeks’ worth of rain in 24 hours

Thunderstorms are expected to hit parts of the UK this week with a risk of more flooding following a weekend of heavy downpours.

Commuters woke up to road closures and diverted trains after parts of Greater Manchester were hit with two weeks’ worth of rain in 24 hours.

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Public re-enactment to mark 200th anniversary of Peterloo massacre

Free tickets issued on Thursday for 16 August event including 3,000 members of the public

More than 3,000 members of the public will play a part in marking the Peterloo massacre on the 200th anniversary of the bloody protest for parliamentary reform and political representation at St Peter’s Field in Manchester.

There will be no passive spectators at From the Crowd, an immersive experience which will weave together eyewitness accounts of those present at Peterloo in 1819 and the words of contemporary protesters and poets.

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‘People think I’m very odd’: how Ibrahim Mahama brought Ghana’s past to Manchester

From second-hand train seats to old school cupboards, the artist has transported discarded objects from his west African homeland to create a ‘parliament of ghosts’

‘We’re haunted all the time by ghosts of the past,” says Ibrahim Mahama as we sit on dirty old plastic second-class Ghana Railways carriage seats in Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery. Even these seats from an abandoned railway? “Especially these,” he says, smiling.

Mahama, a junkyard utopian whose art involves recycling stuff that’s lost its purpose, bought up rows and rows of these seats. He packed them into shipping containers and sent them on a 5,000-mile trip, from his west African homeland to the Whitworth, along with some school cupboards no longer fit for purpose, exercise books of children now grown up, and the minutes of Ghanaian parliamentary debates now deemed obsolete.

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