Seven people arrested following ‘altercation’ on Bromley High Street on Thursday afternoon
Seven people have been arrested after four men were stabbed in south-east London, the Metropolitan police said.
Officers were called to reports of “an altercation” on Bromley High Street at 2.15pm and found four men with stab wounds, the force added.
Continue reading...Experts say failure to immediately review cases involving corrupt police officers risks ‘ruining’ more lives
Convictions that imprisoned police officers were involved in obtaining should be automatically reviewed to correct miscarriages of justice such as those perpetrated by the corrupt and racist officer DS Derek Ridgewell, a report says.
The proposed Trew’s law, named after Winston Trew – who was framed by Ridgewell and spent decades fighting to clear his name – would trigger an immediate, independent review of past cases linked to any jailed officer in England and Wales.
Continue reading...Judge voices concern about possible copycat incidents after boy, 16, found guilty over attack at school in Pembrokeshire
A judge has expressed concern over possible copycat attacks on school staff as he sentenced a teenager who stabbed a teacher in the head to four and a half years in youth detention.
Judge Thomas KC said it was the second such attack in south-west Wales in two years and that the authorities might have to consider what security measures were in place to protect teachers.
Continue reading...City firms tapped for case studies to try to convince global watchdog that London has cleaned up its act
The government is asking bankers and lawyers to provide feelgood stories about how they blocked dirty money from entering the UK, as ministers try to prove the UK’s money-laundering controls are working.
The Treasury’s call for evidence is meant to illustrate that the UK has upped its game when it comes to preventing financial crime, particularly since its last dismal assessment by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) global crime watchdog in 2018, which fuelled allegations that London had become a hub for “dirty money”.
Continue reading...Sally-Anne Bowen, now 65, convicted of assaulting boys at Christ’s College, Finchley, where she was chemistry teacher
A chemistry teacher has been found guilty of indecently assaulting two teenage pupils at an all-boys school in the late 1980s.
Sally-Anne Bowen, who taught at Christ’s College in Finchley, north London, assaulted the teenage boys when they were aged around 14 to 15 and she was in her mid-20s.
Continue reading...Campaigners accuse ministers of trying to grab headlines with announcement before a working system is ready
Survivors of violent crime and families of victims have criticised the UK government for announcing “world first” plans to introduce restriction zones for serious offenders freed from prison within a few weeks without spelling out how they would work.
Key campaigners who have championed the idea of the zones, designed to “lock” offenders into specific areas, accused the government of seeking to grab headlines rather than providing the detail that would reassure survivors and families.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Voluntary use of sex drive-suppressing medication to expand to 20 prisons and expert says it could be rolled out widely by late 2028
Drugs that help control the libidos of people who have committed sexual offences could be rolled out for thousands of male prisoners in England and Wales from December 2028, an expert has said.
Prof Belinda Winder, who has evaluated the use of sex drive-suppressing medication in prisons, said about one in four sex offenders – equating to 3,750 current prisoners – would be considered for the treatment.
Continue reading...Separate criminal convictions come as domestic violence charities warn of tech-facilitated abuse and coercion
Two men have been convicted this week in separate criminal cases that revealed they had posted explicit content on OnlyFans without the full consent of the women whose images were uploaded.
In the first case, Alexander Tang, 37, took and uploaded 47 intimate images and four videos of a woman to OnlyFans without her consent, and was paid money for the material he posted to the website.
Continue reading...Separate criminal convictions come as domestic violence charities warn of tech-facilitated abuse and coercion
Two men have been convicted this week in separate criminal cases that revealed they had posted explicit content on OnlyFans without the full consent of the women whose images were uploaded.
In the first case, Alexander Tang, 37, took and uploaded 47 intimate images and four videos of a woman to OnlyFans without her consent, and was paid money for the material he posted to the website.
Continue reading...Research from King’s College London finds that Reform voters’ perceptions were furthest from the truth
The public overestimate how many minority ethnic people are killers, as well as how many foreign national offenders there are, a new study has found.
The research from King’s College London tested knowledge and perceptions of crime at a time when radical right parties are trying to link offending to ethnicity and nationality to gain votes.
Continue reading...Reform says it will free up space in jails in England and Wales by rapidly deporting all foreign offenders
With parts of Britain set to experience their fifth heatwave of the summer this week, Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has accused the government of not recognising the severity of the crisis.
In a statement, he said:
We are now facing the fifth heatwave in months following the recent deaths of 3,000 people in our country from extreme weather conditions.
This is the greatest crisis this country has faced since the second world war and to complacently dismiss the demands for immediate action by saying everything is under control is gross negligence, blatantly untrue and misses the severity of the crisis.
Continue reading...Katie and John Meehan say responses to campaign they launched after death of daughter Genevieve must be ‘wake-up call’
The parents of a nine-month-old girl who died after being placed in an unsafe sleeping position at nursery said they feared poor practice may be “rife” across England.
Genevieve Meehan suffocated when she was strapped face down to a beanbag for an hour and 37 minutes at a nursery in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, in May 2022.
Continue reading...Delays to sexual assault charges and failures to report past convictions in court hearings gave Simon Levy chance to attack more women
• Violence against women: has anything changed in policing since Sarah Everard’s killing?
Catastrophic errors left a persistent and proven sex offender free before he murdered two women in London, it can be revealed.
On Friday, an Old Bailey jury found Simon Levy, 40, guilty of murdering Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo in March 2025 and Sheryl Wilkins five months later.
Continue reading...Rapists, child abusers and groomers will not leave prison early but some of those serving sexual or violent offences will now leave after half their sentence
Rapists, child sexual abusers and groomers will be excluded from early release plans to ease critical prison overcrowding in a major intervention by Andy Burnham.
The prime minister said on Monday evening that he would delay the planned early release of thousands of prisoners across England and Wales by a month until October.
Continue reading...Family update on GoFundMe page says child, who was six when badly injured in 2019 incident, is now back at school
A boy thrown from the viewing balcony in London’s Tate Modern art gallery has a “smile back on his face” after being discharged from hospital, his family have said.
The French youngster, whose name remains undisclosed for privacy reasons, was six when he was badly hurt in an attack by then teenager Jonty Bravery at the London attraction on 4 August 2019.
Continue reading...Gibraltar-based Ros Astengo inspired four men to report sexual assaults carried out by Allan Grimson in 1990s
Ros Astengo, a journalist based in Gibraltar who usually focuses on politics and social issues, had qualms when she began investigating the case of the suspected serial killer Allan Grimson as he neared release from prison after serving more than 20 years.
She worried that she might reopen the scars of survivors of Grimson – but also that she could be putting herself in the “crosshairs” of a dangerous man who had sexually assaulted and battered two young men to death in the late 1990s when he was a Royal Navy petty officer.
Continue reading...Exclusive: CCRC will test serial killer as part of inquiry into whether Michael Stone was wrongly convicted of 1996 murders
The serial killer Levi Bellfield will have his DNA taken in an attempt to establish if he murdered Lin and Megan Russell in 1996.
Michael Stone has protested his innocence since his conviction in 1998 for the killing of Lin, 45, and her daughter, six-year-old Megan, as well as a vicious attack on Megan’s sister Josie, nine, who survived.
Continue reading...Reform UK leader claims he is victim of ‘hit job’ as parliamentary standards commissioner investigates £5m donation
On the subject of Andy Burnham, the Financial Times is running a story today saying the access talks his team is holding with senior civil servants, intended to help Whitehall departments get ready to implement the new PM’s policy agenda, are being hindered by the fact that Burnham has not decided who will do the top cabinet jobs.
In the story, Lucy Fisher, George Parker and Anna Gross say:
Talks have not yet formally started with the Treasury and Burnham’s refusal to nominate a chancellor has complicated transition planning.
One Labour figure complained Burnham’s operation was “skeletal”, adding: “Access talks require a shadow cabinet. Burnham needs to nominate key people in advance or he cannot have meaningful talks” ….
Yes. And look – I’m not going to go into what we discussed privately, but everything I’ve seen from Andy publicly suggests that he knows that welfare reform is absolutely necessary … [because] it’s fundamentally about the life chances of a whole generation of young people.
And if we think the best option and best opportunity that we can gift as a country to a generation of young people is a life on benefits – are we serious?
My sense is that the appetite, both within the parliamentary Labour party and the new administration, will be absolutely up for doing this.
One of those is how we support young people. I will not defend an education system that is overly focused on the university route and does not lay out paths to technical qualifications for our young people. Too many young people get to year 10 at school, and they can’t see where school is taking them, because the system isn’t focusing on those young people.
And then, at 16, I believe we need the guarantee of a work placement for 16 to 18-year-olds, apprenticeships for every 16 to 18-year-old who wants one, and what I’ve done in Great Manchester is something that might be looked at more broadly, free bus travel for 16 to 18-year-olds, so that they can access those opportunities.
Continue reading...Judge says evidence indicates attack on Pouria Zeraati outside home was carried out on behalf of Tehran regime
Two Romanians who took part in a “targeted” knife attack on a television journalist in London “on behalf of the Iranian state” have been jailed.
Pouria Zeraati, who worked for the Persian-language channel Iran International, which is critical of the Tehran regime, was left bleeding in the street after being stabbed three times outside his home in Wimbledon.
Continue reading...Exclusive: National Crime Agency and safety watchdog issue guidance amid rise in explicit material online
Parents should not put photos of their children on public display online, according to landmark guidance issued to tackle the rise of AI-generated sexual abuse material.
The recommendation has come from the National Crime Agency and the Internet Watch Foundation, which fear that most people are unaware of the dangers posed by paedophiles and criminal networks.
They suggest that parents and guardians make their social media accounts private or share pictures of their children through a “close friends” group. The NCA and the IWF stressed they were not telling parents how to behave online, but said they should be aware of the problem and how to tackle it.