Category Archives: Crime

Man guilty of murdering secret lover and their son near Inverness in 1976

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Circumstantial evidence enough to convict William MacDowell, now 80, of killing Renee and Andrew MacRae

An 80-year-old man has been found guilty of murdering his secret lover and their three-year-old son almost half a century after the pair vanished without trace from a layby on the A9 near Inverness, concluding one of Scotland’s most extensive and longest-running missing persons investigations.

Although the bodies of Renee MacRae, who was 36 when she disappeared in 1976, and her younger son, Andrew, have never been found, William MacDowell, now 80, was convicted by a “compelling and classic case of circumstantial evidence”, as the prosecutor Alex Prentice KC described it in his closing speech to the jury.

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Keir Starmer promises to launch publicly-owned UK energy company as he hails ‘Labour moment’ – UK politics live

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Latest updates: the Labour party leader used his conference speech to spell out his plan for the UK

The decision to pay Liz Truss’s new chief of staff, Mark Fullbrook, through a private company has been dropped after criticism from within the Conservatives as well as from opposition parties.

The government admitted over the weekend that Fullbrook would be paid through his lobbying firm, a move that could have helped him avoid paying tax. He had previously claimed the firm had stopped all commercial activities.

The world we are heading for is a bumpy few weeks. The chancellor is now going to have quite a tough time because he has now set out plans to balance the books in November. That is going to be very hard.

Actually balancing the books in November is going to be harder than it would have been to show you are balancing the books last week because higher interest rates will make it harder to do. You might need £15bn worth of tough choices now that you didn’t need last Friday.

In the end, lower taxes will mean worse public services, or other people’s taxes having to go up, and it is those choices and ducking those choices that markets are looking at and saying that is not what serious policymaking looks like.

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Online fraudsters adapt tactics to exploit UK cost of living crisis

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Phishing attacks have started to target people in difficult financial situations, ONS reports

Fraudsters have adapted their tactics to exploit the rising cost of living, officials have said.

A report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said anti-fraud squads had identified new trends as phishing attacks – when perpetrators attempt to trick users into clicking a bad link – have started to target those in difficult financial situations.

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Services for county lines victims in England and Wales get funding boost

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Up to £5m allocated to help young people escape drug gangs, with money also going to helpline

Up to £5m has been allocated by the Home Office to support victims of county lines exploitation over the next three years.

Hundreds of victims will be helped to escape drug gangs following the expansion of support services in London, the West Midlands, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

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Jeremy Vine attacks social media firms after jailing of stalker

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BBC and Channel 5 broadcaster says firms such as YouTube and Twitter have no moral values

Jeremy Vine has criticised social media companies for failing to take action against online hate in the wake of the jailing of stalker Alex Belfield.

Companies such as YouTube and Twitter had no moral values, said the BBC Radio 2 and Channel 5 broadcaster.

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Stephen Port: murder victims’ families say Met ‘insensitive’ to make settlements public

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Relatives ‘caught completely off guard’ by announcement of compensation – and two families have still to settle

The Metropolitan police have been accused of “insensitivity” over their announcement that they have settled compensation claims with relatives of some of the victims murdered by the serial killer Stephen Port.

Families were taken completely by surprise at the public announcement, while claims brought by relatives of two of the victims have yet to be settled, the families’ spokesperson said.

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Woman shot dead at home in Liverpool seven years after brother killed

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Tributes were paid to council worker Ashley Dale, 28, who police believe was killed in a mistaken identity attack

Tributes have been paid to a 28-year-old woman who was shot dead in her home in Liverpool in the early hours of Sunday, seven years after her brother was also fatally shot.

Ashley Dale was shot in the back garden of her home in what is believed by police to have been a mistaken identity attack. Her younger brother, Lewis Dunne, was killed in 2015 at age 16 after a gang mistook him for a rival gang member. Their deaths are not believed to be connected.

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Woman dies after being found with gunshot wounds in Liverpool

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Merseyside police launch murder investigation after incident in the Old Swan area of the city

A woman has died after she was found with gunshot wounds in the garden of a home in Liverpool, Merseyside police have said.

Officers were called just after 12.40am to a house in the Old Swan area of the city and found a woman in the rear garden of the property with injuries to her body consistent with gunshot wounds.

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Almost 1.5m England and Wales crime victims opt not to pursue cases

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Annual figures indicate ‘dramatic collapse’ in confidence in criminal justice system, says Labour

Almost 1.5 million victims of crime in England and Wales have decided not to pursue their cases, feeding concern that public confidence in the criminal justice system has collapsed.

Home Office figures unearthed by Labour show there were 1,411,650 victims who did not support continuing action after they had reported a crime in the year to March 2022.

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Report upskirting and cyberflashing to the police, victims told

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CPS move comes after it was found most women don’t think some forms of harassment are serious enough to report them

Victims of street harassment such as cyberflashing and upskirting are being encouraged to report offences to police, amid concerns there is a lack of awareness that such behaviour can amount to criminality.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for England and Wales has published new legal guidance on public sexual abuse, which also includes exposure of genitals, to clarify the law and “send a clear message that this intimidating behaviour can be a criminal offence”.

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Six convicted of abusing BBC Newsnight journalist during protest

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Five men and a woman guilty of public order offences after Nicholas Watt was accosted in central London last year

Five men and a woman who verbally abused a BBC journalist at a protest have been convicted of a public order offence, according to police.

A court previously heard how members of the group intimidated Newsnight’s political editor Nicholas Watt during the politically charged incident in Whitehall on 14 June 2021.

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Tamara Ecclestone offers £6m reward for recovery of stolen jewels

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Cash and gems worth £25m were stolen from her Kensington mansion in 2019

Tamara Ecclestone, the daughter of ex-Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone, has offered a reward of up to £6m for information that may lead to the recovery of some of her “most precious” belongings stolen in 2019.

The 38-year-old was on holiday in Lapland with her husband, their daughter and their dog, when the £25m jewel heist occurred in their 57-room Kensington mansion, on 13 December 2019.

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Man who killed his wife in ‘act of love’ calls for assisted dying law

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Graham Mansfield, sentenced this week for killing terminally ill Dyanne, says if he had to do the ‘horrible act’ again, he would

A man who cut his terminally ill wife’s throat in an “act of love” said he would do the same again to give her peace, as he called for a change in the law to allow assisted dying.

Graham Mansfield, 73, was cleared of murder by a jury this week. They found the retired baggage handler guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter after hearing how he and his wife, Dyanne, 71, agreed to die together after the pain of her terminal cancer became too much to bear.

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Logan Mwangi’s mother and stepfather jailed for murder of five-year-old

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Angharad Williamson, John Cole and a teenager murdered boy after he suffered months of violent abuse

A mother and stepfather have been jailed for life after being found guilty of the murder of five-year-old Logan Mwangi, who died after months of violent abuse and imprisonment in the “dungeon” of his small, dark bedroom.

Logan’s mother, Angharad Williamson, was told she will serve at least 28 years before being considered for parole, while her partner, John Cole, will spend a minimum of 29 years in prison. A 14-year-old youth who was also convicted of Logan’s murder was told he will be detained for at least 15 years.

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BBC journalist tells court how he was chased by mob of anti-vaxxers

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Nick Watt said he was ‘very scared’ and ‘shaken’ after pursuit by protesters at anti-lockdown rally in London

A BBC journalist said he felt “very scared” and “shaken” as he was chased by a mob of anti-vaxxers in London last year.

Anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protesters, who had been attending at rally in central London, called Nick Watt a “traitor” and shouted in his face, Westminster magistrates court heard on Wednesday.

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James Watson sentenced to life for 1994 murder of Rikki Neave

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Watson, 41, evaded detection for over 20 years, changing his account as evidence against him piled up

A 41-year-old man has been sentenced to life with a minimum term of 15 years for the murder of the schoolboy Rikki Neave, who was found strangled in woods near Peterborough almost 28 years ago.

James Watson, of no fixed abode, was convicted in April at the Old Bailey in London of the 1994 murder after a DNA breakthrough in 2016 revealed that, as a 13-year-old, he had been in physical contact with the six-year-old boy on the day of his disappearance.

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Thousands of victims of violent and sexual crime stuck in England and Wales court backlog

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Sevenfold rise in those waiting at least a year for cases to be heard as lawyers quit over cuts in legal aid

More than 5,800 victims of violent crime and sexual offences are stuck in one of the worst-ever backlogs in the crown courts, enduring delays of at least a year before their cases are heard, the Observer can reveal.

The number of cases facing these delays once a defendant has been charged has increased more than sevenfold in two years, according to an analysis of crown court figures in England and Wales.

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Man, 44, arrested after 15-year-old boy stabbed to death in Manchester

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Man arrested in Kent after teenager was killed and his mother injured on Thursday night

A 44-year-old man has been arrested in Kent on suspicion of murder after a teenage boy was stabbed to death and his mother was injured at a Manchester home, Greater Manchester police said.

Police said the man, from Manchester, is believed to be known to the victims. Officers were called by colleagues from North West ambulance service at about 9.30pm on Thursday after the domestic incident in Miles Platting.

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Former head of ‘British FBI’ fears impact of Whitehall cuts on fight against crime

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Former National Crime Agency chief worries civil service reductions could have devastating effect

The former head of Britain’s equivalent of the FBI has said she fears ministers’ plans to cut civil servant posts could have a “devastating” impact on tackling serious and organised crime.

Speaking to Policing TV, Dame Lynne Owens, the former director general of the National Crime Agency (NCA), said she was keeping a “keen eye” on discussions about proposals to axe 90,000 jobs and how they may affect the agency she led for five years.

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‘Monster’ neighbour jailed for at least 37 years for Gloucestershire murder

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Can Arslan stabbed Matthew Boorman to death on lawn and seriously injured two others

A “monster” who murdered one neighbour and seriously wounded two others in a “spree of planned violence” after they took legal action to try to curtail his 12-year campaign of extreme harassment has been jailed for at least 37 years.

Can Arslan, 52, stabbed Matthew Boorman on Boorman’s front lawn in the village of Walton Cardiff, Gloucestershire, on 5 October last year. Boorman’s wife, Sarah, sustained a knife wound to her thigh as she tried to help, while another neighbour, Peter Marsden, was stabbed eight times but managed to fend off Arslan.

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