Jodie Chesney was killed on Friday evening after stabbing in Harold Hill
A 17-year-old girl has been stabbed in east London, taking the death toll from homicides in the capital to 18 so far this year.
She was named by the Metropolitan police on Saturday night as Jodie Chesney.
Continue reading...Ceon Broughton imprisoned for eight and a half years for manslaughter of Louella Fletcher-Michie
A musician who supplied his girlfriend with a lethal dose of drugs and filmed her as she lay dying at a music festival has been jailed for eight and a half years.
Ceon Broughton, 30, gave Louella Fletcher-Michie, 24, the party drug 2C-P at Bestival in Dorset in September 2017. Jurors at Winchester crown court were shown footage in which Fletcher-Michie repeatedly shouts at Broughton to phone her mother but he dismisses her, telling her to “put your phone away”.
Continue reading...A coalition of human rights groups is pressing the home secretary to scrap his new measures to tackle knife crime, branding them “deeply counterproductive”.
Sajid Javid’s knife crime prevention orders place a range of curbs and curfews on suspects, but groups working with young people including Liberty, the Runnymede Trust and the Children’s Society, say they have “profound human rights concerns”.
Continue reading...Tracking devices will be given to 100 people deemed likely to reoffend in four boroughs
Knife crime offenders in London will be tagged with tracking devices upon their release from prison in an attempt to reduce violence in the capital, the mayor has announced.
Those who have served custodial sentences for knife-related crimes such as possession, robbery, wounding, GBH and aggravated burglary will be subject to GPS tagging under a year-long pilot.
Continue reading...Warnings on coercion and blackmailing over smartphones went unheeded, say experts, as child exploitation spirals
A failure to grasp how technology and social media is being used to coerce, control, blackmail and track the movements of children as young as 11 by “county lines” drug gangs has seen an epidemic of child criminal exploitation spiral out of control in the UK.
“For the past seven or eight years we have been warning the government, the authorities, teachers, anyone who would listen, that technology is the central organising feature of the county lines business model,” said Sheldon Thomas, a consultant on gang behaviour through his organisation Gangsline.
Continue reading...Britain snorts more of the drug than almost anywhere in Europe, more young people are taking it and deaths are rising. Why?
The moment Dan (not his real name) realised he had a problem with cocaine, he had been off work for a week, sick with flu. His phone buzzed. It was his cocaine dealer, calling to check he was OK. When Dan, one of his favoured customers, hadn’t been in touch to buy the cocaine he usually took several times a week, the dealer knew something was wrong.
“I don’t like thinking about that,” Dan says, shaking his head as we sit in a London pub. Now 36, Dan estimates he has spent £25,000 on cocaine. Lines in the pub on a Friday night after work. Lines on a Wednesday evening at a friend’s house while earnestly discussing 90s hip-hop. Lines at house parties, weddings, birthday parties and for no reason at all, other than that cocaine – the white powder that makes no one a better version of themselves, but that many of us continue to do anyway – is everywhere and freely available.
Continue reading...Scotland and north of England dominate top five as measured by housing, crime and schools
Orkney is the best place to live in the UK, with cheap houses, low crime, good schools and a population who are among the happiest and healthiest in the country, according to the annual Halifax quality of life survey.
The survey found that all the top five best places to live in the UK were in Scotland or the north of England. Richmondshire in the north of the Yorkshire Dales came second, while the appropriately named Eden district in Cumbria was third.
Continue reading...Mark Fellows and an associate also convicted of killing John Kinsella during gangland feud
A gangland hitman has been convicted of the murder of the Salford criminal Paul Massey, known as “Mr Big”, and his associate John Kinsella.
Mark Fellows, 38, shot Massey in the chest with an Uzi machine gun in July 2015 as part of a deadly feud between rival gangs in Salford. The attack sparked a series of tit-for-tat repercussions.
Continue reading...Witnesses describe how teenager’s moped was hit by black Mercedes before he was stabbed by three men
The murder of a 14-year-old boy who was hit by a car and stabbed in east London was a targeted attack, police have said.
Scotland Yard said the boy was riding a moped in Leyton when the collision happened. Three men got out of the car and stabbed him before driving off. The car is thought to have been a black Mercedes B-Class that sustained extensive frontal damage.
Continue reading...Murder hunt underway after incident on service from Guildford to London Waterloo
A murder inquiry has been opened after a man was stabbed to death on a train in Surrey.
The man, who was believed to be 51, was with his 14-year-old son, and is not thought to have known his attacker, British Transport police said. He suffered multiple stab wounds and died at the scene.
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