Family of Paula Leeson sued Donald McPherson after criminal prosecution over fatal drowning collapsed
A man who stood to claim a £4.4m estate from his wealthy wife has had his inheritance blocked by a judge who ruled he killed her.
The family of Paula Leeson, 47, who was found dead in a swimming pool in a Denmark holiday home in 2017, sued her husband, Donald McPherson, 51, for unlawful killing after a criminal prosecution collapsed when there was not enough evidence.
Continue reading...Group including neonatal experts and statistics professors question its setup amid concerns about conviction
A group including some of the UK’s leading neonatal experts and professors of statistics is calling on the government to postpone or change the terms of a public inquiry over concerns about the conviction of the neonatal nurse Lucy Letby.
In a private letter to ministers, seen by the Guardian, the 24 experts said they were concerned that the inquiry’s narrow terms could prevent lessons being learned about “possible negligent deaths that were presumed to be murders” in the neonatal ward of the Countess of Chester hospital (CoC).
Continue reading...Paul and Luke Sissons among those sentenced over disorder earlier this month in English towns and cities
Two brothers have each been jailed for three years after being convicted of being at the forefront of a riot outside a hotel housing more than 200 asylum seekers in Rotherham.
Sheffield crown court heard that Luke and Paul Sissons were involved in several violent incidents at the Holiday Inn Express, in Manvers, on 4 August, including confrontations with riot police and an attack on a police dog van.
Continue reading...Michelle Charters urges more recognition and reconciliation on Unesco’s Slavery Remembrance Day
Liverpool must not “shy away” from its historic involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, the organiser of the city’s 25th Slavery Remembrance Day commemoration has said.
Michelle Charters, who is leading Liverpool’s events for Unesco’s Slavery Remembrance Day, said it was important to address and recognise the city’s tarnished history.
Continue reading...There are stark contrasts between north and south England, in Northern Ireland and Wales, and between private and state schools
Many students in England receiving their A-level grades on Thursday will be happy after overall results showed an increase in the number of As and A*s, exceeding not only last year’s results, but those recorded before the disruption caused by the pandemic. Nevertheless, disparities remain between northern and southern England, and in Northern Ireland and Wales where results fell compared with last year, as well as between private and state schools.
It is the second year in England that A-level and GCSE assessment has returned to pre-pandemic norms. Exams were cancelled in 2020 and 2021 after Covid closed schools for long periods, and A-level grades based on teachers’ predictions led to a sharp spike in top results.
Continue reading...Lewis Atkinson says rioters do not represent city and praises residents gathering to clear up debris
• Police brace for more disorder – latest updates
“Far-right racists” who brought violent disorder to the streets of Sunderland will not be allowed to win, the city’s MP has said as residents gathered to help clean up.
About 500 people, including some parents and their children, came together in the city centre on Friday evening, responding to far-right social media posts to turn up and demonstrate.
Continue reading...A group of Muslim men put themselves in danger to calm unrest in Harehills over children being taken into care
Nadsy Qurban bent his neck to show how the crown of his head was covered in a number of burns, each the size of coins. “The smell was like I’m burning some goat or something, like I’m cooking some goat. That’s how bad it was,” he said.
Needless to say, it hurt. But a week on, the burns he gained while putting out fires during unrest in the Harehills area of Leeds are starting to heal.
Continue reading...Shane Roller, Shannen Morgan and their daughters Lillie and Rubie died in collision between two vehicles
A couple who died in a crash with two children in West Yorkshire on Sunday that also killed two other adults have been named by police as Shane Roller and Shannen Morgan.
The collision between two vehicles, which also left an 11-year-old girl orphaned, happened on the A61 Barnsley Road between Staincross in Barnsley and Newmillerdam, Wakefield, on Sunday afternoon.
Continue reading...Northumbrian village was named as nation’s favourite, just ahead of Portmeirion and St Andrews
Bamburgh, the Northumbrian village known for its sprawling sand dunes and imposing castle, has retained its title as the UK’s best seaside destination for the fourth consecutive year.
A survey of 4,700 people by the consumer group Which? placed the Northumberland coastal village as the nation’s favourite, ahead of Portmeirion in Gwynedd and St Andrews in Fife.
Continue reading...Police patrols stepped up in area after man, 36, killed in Kirkby on Wednesday evening
A murder investigation has been launched after a 36-year-old man was shot dead on the streets of Merseyside.
Police said they received a report at 6.35pm on Wednesday from the North West ambulance service that a man had been shot in Kirkby.
Continue reading...Labour lost seats including Jonathan Ashworth’s in Leicester, where angry voters say they felt ignored
When Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth lost his Leicester South seat to the pro-Palestine independent candidate Shockat Adam, it was widely seen as one of the biggest upsets of election night.
But a walk along Evington Road, a busy shopping street with a large Muslim population in the constituency, showed that all the signs were there.
Continue reading...Ahmed Alid, 45, stabbed Terence Carney, 70, and tried to kill another man in attacks described as terrorism
A terrorist who murdered a pensioner in Hartlepool town centre as “revenge” for “the people of Gaza” has been jailed for 45 years.
Ahmed Alid, 45, an asylum seeker from Morocco, stabbed 70-year-old Terence Carney, a complete stranger he encountered on the street, on 15 October.
Continue reading...Bob Olley’s unsettling vision of clash between miners and police is part of 40th anniversary show in Bishop Auckland
Bob Olley was there 40 years ago at the “battle of Orgreave”. “I saw the violence,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought I was in a foreign country when I saw what the police did. It is hard to believe it happened in this country.”
The brutality he and others witnessed on 18 June 1984 as striking miners met 6,000 police officers on horses or wielding batons on foot will stay in the memory. It was in his head as, some years later, he embarked on his response to one of the world’s greatest artworks, Picasso’s Guernica.
Continue reading...Party source describes region as ‘beating heart of general election battleground’ as prime minister says Labour threw ‘lot of mud’
The results of the London mayoral contest and London assembly elections are due on Saturday. Labour’s Sadiq Khan is seeking a third term and polls have put him comfortably ahead of Tory Susan Hall, despite jitters in Khan’s campaign team.
Following the closure of the polls tonight, Khan said his campaign and Labour activists “sent out a message of fairness, of equality and of hope”.
Continue reading...With almost all council elections declared, Conservatives are on course to lose up to 500 seats
At the start of a long weekend of election results, the first outcomes have been every bit as dire for the Conservatives and Rishi Sunak as analysts had predicted. Here is the state of play.
Continue reading...£25bn of public money would have been saved between 2019 and 2023 if north had same care entry rates as south, report says
One in every 52 children in Blackpool are in care compared with one in 140 across England, leading to calls for more to be done to urgently tackle the widening north-south divide, brought on by “decades of underinvestment”.
Nine in every thousand children are in care in the north, compared with six in the rest of England, according to a report by Health Equity North.
Continue reading...Hi-tech ‘golden triangle’ of Oxford, Cambridge and London risks deeper regional inequalities, says thinktank
Investments in new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are “profoundly skewed” towards the “golden triangle” of Oxford, Cambridge and London, and risk deepening existing regional inequalities in England, according to research.
Ministers have promised to level up the country, narrowing the gap between the best- and worst-performing areas, but the rapid rollout of generative AI and automation could cut against that aspiration, according to the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW).
Continue reading...In unusual election pledge, Keane Duncan says he will use public money to buy 1867 hotel, forcibly if necessary
Built for wealthy Victorian holidaymakers as the biggest hotel in Europe, Scarborough’s iconic Grand has stood proud since 1867, perched high on the seafront, just metres above the sandy South Bay beach.
So for many in the town, it has been embarrassing to watch the Grade II-listed building suffer a sad reversal of fortunes in recent decades, becoming the “shame of Scarborough”.
Continue reading...Losing party says ‘Galloway only won because Labour did not stand’ and calls him ‘a damaging force in our public life’
Labour says George Galloway is “only interested in stoking fear and division”.
In a statement issued about the byelection result, the party apologised to the people of Rochdale for the fact that it did not have a proper candidate. (Azhar Ali, who was selected as Labour’s candidate, was disowned by the party after nominations closed because it was revealed that he had made antisemitic comments after the Hamas attack on Gaza. But it was too late to change nominations, and so he was listed as a Labour candidate on the ballot paper.) A Labour spokesperson said:
We deeply regret that the Labour party was unable to field a candidate in this byelection and apologise to the people of Rochdale. George Galloway only won because Labour did not stand.
Rochdale deserved the chance to vote for an MP that would bring communities together and deliver for working people. George Galloway is only interested in stoking fear and division. As an MP he will be a damaging force in our communities and public life.
I think Mr Tice has rather lost his balance, and Mr [Nigel] Farage too, and I remind Mr Tice that I have on my telephone a text from him inviting me to be the Reform UK candidate in a by-election not that long ago.
I’d prefer not to publish it, but if he keeps telling lies about me I will have to tell the truth about him.
Absolutely none. Ask the police, ask the police if a single one of our supporters has been arrested or spoken to by them.
Continue reading...Ministers say smaller towns and cities in north of England and Midlands to benefit from scrapping of Leeds and Manchester lines
About £4.7bn that would have been spent bringing HS2 to Manchester and Leeds is to be reallocated to transport projects in smaller towns and cities in the north of England and Midlands, ministers have said.
The money is specifically for communities that are outside city regions, in places such as Blackpool, Hull and Leicester, as well as counties including Staffordshire and Lincolnshire, which don’t have directly elected metro mayors.
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