Three-year-old girl and five-year-old boy die after being taken to hospital following blaze on Friday
Two children have died after a house fire in Preston.
Lancashire police said the three-year-old girl and five-year-old boy died on Tuesday after they and their mother were taken to hospital on Friday evening. Emergency services had been called to the address in Coronation Crescent at about 8pm following reports of a house fire with several people trapped inside.
Continue reading...Bailey says he has continued to suffer from trauma of nerve agent attack in Salisbury in March 2018
A police officer who suffered novichok poisoning when he searched the home of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal following the Salisbury nerve agent attack has reached a settlement with his former force.
Lawyers for Nick Bailey argued that he continued to suffer from the trauma of the poisoning more than four years on and made a personal injury claim against Wiltshire police.
Continue reading...Human rights group argues law unfairly attaches gang motives to black and minority-ethnic young men
The human rights group Liberty is threatening to sue the government and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over the bitterly contested law of joint enterprise, arguing that it is discredited and racist in the way the authorities pursue it.
Under the law, people present when a person is killed can be convicted of murder despite not committing any serious violence themselves, if they are found to have “encouraged or assisted” the perpetrator. Liberty is acting for the campaign group Joint Enterprise Not Guilty By Association (Jengba), which supports approximately 1,400 people in prison who believe they have been unjustly convicted of serious crimes perpetrated by somebody else.
Continue reading...Government polling finds a high fear of crime and little confidence anything will be done about it
The public do not believe ministers’ promises to tackle crime, official documents seen by the Guardian show.
The Home Office documents reveals polling carried out for the government found a high fear of crime, and low confidence much will be done about it.
Continue reading...Met commissioner to step down on 10 April, with search for replacement expected to take months
Cressida Dick will leave her role as commissioner of the Metropolitan police with a payoff of £166,000, the Guardian understands.
Dick announced her resignation in February after clashing with the London mayor, Sadiq Khan. She officially ceases to be commissioner on 24 April.
Continue reading...Home secretary says deputy commissioner Sir Stephen House will cover until successor appointed
The Metropolitan police commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, will leave her job in April, months before her replacement is named, the home secretary has confirmed.
Dick resigned last month but agreed to stay on in the post until arrangements to appoint her successor had been finalised.
Continue reading...Review may look at communications between police and City Hall after clash with Sadiq Khan but will not ‘change any outcomes’
Cressida Dick has won a victory after the government agreed to a review of how she came to leave office after a clash with the London mayor, Sadiq Khan.
The Home Office is expected to announce it will ask Sir Tom Winsor to examine how Dick came to be ousted as commissioner of the Metropolitan police last month, a government source confirmed.
Continue reading...Police commander also admits Met has problem with officers treating inner London children as ‘adults’
Two of the five officers who were involved in the traumatic strip search of a 15-year-old black girl in her school in Hackney, London, have been removed from frontline duties, the Metropolitan police has confirmed.
The admission came at a community meeting on Wednesday evening as anger over the treatment of the girl, known as Child Q, continues. The meeting was originally supposed to take place in person but had to be moved online after the police force could not find a venue. More than 250 people attended, with more wanting to but unable to join because of the meeting’s limit.
Continue reading...News comes after questionnaires were sent to more than 100 people thought to be involved in lockdown gatherings
Boris Johnson is facing a possible police interview over lockdown breaches in Downing Street as the Metropolitan police said they intended to start questioning witnesses after sending out questionnaires to more than 100 people.
But the police statement – issued two months since inquiries began – suggests officers have not yet found breaches that meet the evidentiary threshold for fixed-penalty notices to be issued without further interviews. No FPNs have been issued so far, the force said.
Continue reading...High court last week ruled that Metropolitan police had breached rights of vigil organisers
The Metropolitan police will appeal against a high court ruling that they breached the rights of the organisers of a planned vigil for Sarah Everard in their handling of the event.
The Met said it had “taken time to consider with great care the decision itself and the wider implications for policing” and planned to appeal against the ruling “to resolve what’s required by law when policing protests and events in the future”, in a statement published on Friday.
Continue reading...Response to Sewell inquiry also lays out plans for greater police scrutiny and a ‘model history curriculum’
Ministers will drop the term black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME), beef up local scrutiny of police stop and search and draft a model history curriculum to teach Britain’s “complex” past in response to the Sewell report on racial disparities.
Launched as a response to the Black Lives Matter protests, the Sewell report caused controversy when it was published last year for broadly rejecting institutional racism as an explanation for many of the challenges faced by ethnic minorities in the UK.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Andy Cook is said to have pledged to improve forces’ focus on detecting crime
The new head of the policing inspectorate will be Andy Cooke, the former chief constable of Merseyside, the Guardian understands.
Cooke is said to have impressed in interviews for the post of Her Majesty’s chief inspector of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) by pledging to get forces better focused on detecting more crime and locking up more criminals.
Continue reading...Black child’s ordeal, which involved exposure of intimate body parts, took place without parental consent, review finds
A black child was subjected by police to a strip search at her London school that involved exposure of intimate body parts, according to an official investigation which found racism was likely to have been an “influencing factor” in the officers’ actions.
No appropriate adult was present during the 15-year-old girl’s ordeal, described by a senior local authority figure as “humiliating, traumatising and utterly shocking” and which took place without parental consent and in the knowledge that she was menstruating.
Continue reading...Cherish Oteka’s film is about a former police officer who discusses his memories of homophobia and racial profiling in the Met
The Guardian documentary The Black Cop has won the Bafta for best short film.
Directed by Cherish Oteka and produced by Emma Cooper, The Black Cop is about Gamal “G” Turawa, a former Metropolitan police officer who explores his memories of homophobia, racial profiling and racial harassment in his early career.
Continue reading...Mariella Gedge-Rogers, 27, is convicted of riot during ‘kill the bill’ protest and jailed for five and half years
A woman who hit a police officer on the head with a skateboard during last year’s riot in Bristol has been jailed for five and a half years.
Mariella Gedge-Rogers, 27, also climbed on to the roof of the Bridewell police station in the centre of Bristol and threw missiles at officers.
Continue reading...Mistakes are still made in cases like their daughter’s, say Gracie’s parents, who are campaigning for more funding for anti-stalking advocates
Gracie Spinks was doing what she loved most – feeding her beloved horse one morning before work – when a stalker she had previously reported to the police killed her.
Her death came just a few months after Sarah Everard was murdered by police officer Wayne Couzens in March 2021, triggering a nationwide conversation about violence towards women and confidence in policing.
Continue reading...‘We miss her all the time,’ say relatives of woman killed by serving Met police officer Wayne Couzens
The family of Sarah Everard have paid tribute to her on the first anniversary of her murder by a police officer, saying she was “wonderful and we miss her all the time” and that they “live with the sadness of our loss”.
Everard, 33 was abducted, raped and killed by serving Met officer Wayne Couzens as she walked home in south London on 3 March last year.
Continue reading...Despite vowing change, plans set to be released by the NPCC will oppose an admission of institutional racism
Police leaders in England and Wales will decide not to accept that their forces are still institutionally racist, as they try to battle their way out of a race crisis.
Chief constables began considering a public admission in December and have held a series of private meetings among forces to try to find agreement.
Continue reading...Chair of forthcoming strategic review says force must modernise to tackle blockchain-era criminals
A “crisis of confidence in policing” can only be put right through fundamental reform or risk the end of policing by consent, the head of a review of the police service will warn on Tuesday.
Sir Michael Barber, the chair of the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales, will say that a “Betamax police force” is unsuccessfully pursuing “blockchain-enabled criminals” as he urges modernisation of crime-fighting technology and new training for officers.
Continue reading...Staff allowed ‘limited access’ before Sue Gray inquiry evidence passed to police
Downing Street staff being questioned by police about alleged lockdown breaches will be allowed to view notes on the evidence they gave to the Sue Gray inquiry.
Those spoken to as part of the Cabinet Office probe were told they could see the notes with a member of Gray’s team present but would not be allowed to bring a phone into the room, to be accompanied by a lawyer, or to request any changes.
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