Mark Ross to be sentenced on Friday over killing of Claudiu-Carol Kondor during theft of vehicle in Armley area
A “career criminal” has been found guilty of murdering an Amazon delivery driver who was trying to stop his van from being stolen.
Claudiu-Carol Kondor, 42, was dragged along a street at high speeds as he clung to his vehicle to try to stop the theft on 20 August last year.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Justice minister James Timpson says more cell capacity means emergency early release schemes won’t be needed
Prisons are being prepared to cope with a sudden influx of offenders in case there is a repeat of last summer’s riots, the justice minister, James Timpson, has told the Guardian.
Hundreds of extra makeshift cells and newly refurbished cells will be in use by the end of this year, officials have disclosed, as the prisons minister said there will be “no more emergency measures” such as early release schemes.
Continue reading...After the spying convictions of six Bulgarians, police have warned of further Russian operations against opponents
A second Kremlin spy operation has been discovered targeting Russian dissidents in Britain, it can be revealed.
Roman Dobrokhotov, a journalist in the sights of the six Bulgarians convicted of spying for Russia, said he had been informed of fresh attempts to surveil his family.
Continue reading...Criminals dressed as utilities repair teams dug up roads to access cables to power industrial-scale drug production
A group of eight criminals who dug up roads and diverted electricity to cannabis farms run by organised crime gangs have been jailed by a judge in Liverpool.
The criminals used a legitimate company as cover and pretended to be workers who were digging up the roads to repair utilities in a “sophisticated operation”, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Continue reading...Jury convicts Katrin Ivanova, Vanya Gaberova and Tihomir Ivanchev over alleged plots around Europe
Three Bulgarian nationals accused of spying for Russia have been found guilty of espionage charges in a trial that heard how they were involved in a string of plots around Europe directed by a fugitive based in Moscow.
After more than 32 hours of deliberations, a jury at the Old Bailey reached unanimous verdicts on Katrin Ivanova, 33, a lab technician, Vanya Gaberova, 30, a beautician, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, a painter and decorator, all of whom were living in London before their arrest.
Continue reading...Officers in Operation Castle attend every reported break-in and no longer treat such crimes as ‘low level’
When Sean Edwards found his car and his neighbours’ houses had been broken into in Longsight, Greater Manchester, in 2022, he was not expecting much from the police based on previous experiences.
“I expected them to dust for prints and take statements, then give us a crime reference number and nothing else happen,” he said.
Continue reading...Experts say young men and boys ‘with strong sense of grievance’ are ‘idolising’ shooters involved in US massacres. They are also falling through the gaps of UK terrorism laws
On the morning of 13 September, 18-year-old Nicholas Prosper was arrested while walking on a residential road in Luton. Minutes before, he had murdered his mother, younger brother and sister, shooting them dead in their family home.
Neighbours called police after hearing gunfire coming from the flat in Leabank tower, on Luton’s Marsh Farm estate, and officers found Prosper shortly afterwards on Bramingham Road. Later that day, searches of the area uncovered a loaded shotgun and more than 30 cartridges hidden in a nearby bush.
Continue reading...Philip Foster lives in Spain and was sentenced in his absence after defrauding more than 6,000 people
A former TV soap actor has been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison after masterminding a £13.6m fraud that targeted aspiring models.
Former Brookside actor Philip Foster, 49, ran an operation involving a network of sham modelling agencies for more than eight years.
Continue reading...Prosecutors in England and Wales are failing to obtain orders requiring the deletion of intimate content shared without consent, analysis reveals
Perpetrators of “revenge porn” offences are being allowed to keep explicit images of their victims on their devices, after a failure by prosecutors to obtain orders requiring their deletion.
An Observer analysis of court records in intimate image abuse cases has found that orders for the offenders to give up their devices and delete photos and videos are rarely being made. Of 98 cases concluded in the magistrates courts in England and Wales in the past six months, just three resulted in a deprivation order.
Continue reading...Michael Stewart abused his position to target women and subject them to ‘traumatic ordeals’, said police
A postal worker described as a “calculating and dangerous predator” has been jailed for six and a half years for sexually assaulting women when he was making deliveries on his rounds.
Police said that Michael Stewart abused his position to target his victims and subject them to “traumatic ordeals”. The family of one of his victims have blamed Stewart for her suicide.
Continue reading...New raft of measures labelled Ronan’s law include tougher sentences for those caught selling blades to under-18s
Retailers will be required to report suspicious or bulk purchases of knives, and those caught selling blades to under-18s will face tougher sentences under a new raft of measures to clamp down on young people’s access to weapons labelled Ronan’s law.
Named after Ronan Kanda, the 16-year-old killed in Wolverhampton in 2022 by a teenager carrying a 22in ninja blade he had ordered online, the new laws are part of a raft of anti-knife crime plans announced by the government on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Jack Bennett, 39, given 28 weeks for message sent a day after criticism of minister by X owner Elon Musk
A 39-year-old man has been jailed for sending an “utterly deplorable” email to safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, one day after she was criticised by X owner Elon Musk.
Jack Bennett, from Seaton, Devon, pleaded guilty to sending malicious communications to three people between February 2024 and January 2025, including the Birmingham Yardley MP, at Exeter magistrates court on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Former head of nursing at Countess of Chester says Letby ‘cried in my arms’ after being removed from the ward
Lucy Letby’s former boss has said “if she was acting she deserves an Oscar” as she described tearful meetings with the neonatal nurse after accusations against her first emerged.
Karen Rees, the head of nursing at the Countess of Chester hospital before her retirement in March 2018, revealed to the Sunday Times that she had always believed in Letby’s innocence. The pair developed a close relationship in the months after Letby was removed from the ward over concerns she was connected to a sharp rise in infant deaths.
Continue reading...Attorney general declines to refer Axel Rudakubana’s 52-year minimum sentence to unduly lenient sentence scheme
The sentence of the Southport killer will not be referred to the court of appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, the attorney general has said.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, was handed a 52-year minimum sentence for murdering three girls at a dance class, the second-longest sentence imposed by the courts in English history, but the Southport MP Patrick Hurley previously asked the attorney general to review the sentence as “unduly lenient”, saying it is “not severe enough”.
Continue reading...Judge-led statutory inquiry announced into killings of three people by Valdo Calocane in June 2023
A judge-led public inquiry into the Nottingham attacks will start in “a matter of weeks”, Keir Starmer has told the families of the three people killed and the injured survivors.
At a meeting at No 10 on Wednesday, the prime minister said the inquiry would scrutinise a “number of different agencies” and a retired judge would soon be appointed to lead the process.
Continue reading...Talks with UK government at early stage about returning Sinaga, found guilty in Manchester of assaulting 48 men
The UK has begun talks with Indonesia to repatriate a serial rapist convicted of assaulting scores of men.
Reynhard Sinaga, 41, was found guilty in Manchester in 2020 of assaulting 48 men, whom he drugged after taking them back to his apartment from bars and clubs in the city.
Continue reading...New UK ambassador to US says is hoping to persuade Trump administration to maintain isecurity guarantee for Europe and boost growth
During PMQs yesterday Keir Starmer implied there were national security factors not in the public domain that explained why the government was so committed to transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
Alex Wickham from Bloomberg says he has cracked the secret. It is all to do with the International Telecommunication Union, apparently. He explains this in a post on social media. Here is an extract.
The US and UK currently have full and unrestricted access to the electromagnetic spectrum at the Diego Garcia military base, allowing them to securely control American and British military and diplomatic communications in the region, as well as monitor hostile activity from foreign states, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity discussing sensitive information …
The US and UK are members of the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency based in Geneva, Switzerland which coordinates the electromagnetic spectrum and global satellite communications. If an international court was to rule in future that the US and UK were using Diego Garcia to run satellite communications in breach of international law, that would have consequences for the base and defense and technology companies involved in supply chains used there, the people said, highlighting the need to secure its legal status.
There must be no forced displacement of Palestinians, nor any reduction in the territory of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian civilians should be able to return to and rebuild their homes and their lives. That is a right, guaranteed under international law.
The UK is clear that we must see a negotiated two state solution, with a sovereign Palestinian state, which includes the West Bank and Gaza, alongside a safe and secure Israel with Jerusalem as the shared capital that has been the framework for peace for decades.
Continue reading...Bill could mean asylum seekers crossing the Channel who refuse rescue may face five years in prison
Keir Starmer’s planned people-smuggling laws risk “criminalising” hundreds of asylum seekers, refugee charities have said, after it emerged that people who refuse to be rescued by the French authorities could be jailed for five years.
Some parents who bring their children to the UK in small boats could also face prosecution, which could ultimately split their families, a human rights assessment of the border security, asylum and immigration bill has concluded.
Continue reading...Steve Samson given whole-life order and Gemma Watts at least 30 years after killing and dismembering 38-year-old
A couple who killed a woman and dumped her dismembered body in different parts of south London have been jailed for murder.
Steve Samson was out of prison on a life licence for the murder of a taxi driver in 1998 when he and his partner, Gemma Watts, killed Sarah Mayhew, 38, at his flat in Sutton last spring.
Continue reading...Seven people, whom the judge said had plumbed ‘the depths of human depravity’, will be monitored for life
Seven people convicted of being part of a Scottish child abuse ring that plumbed “the depths of human depravity” have been jailed for terms ranging eight from 20 years.
The two women and five men will be monitored for life after being convicted of gang-raping a child and abusing other children in a drugs den in Glasgow where heroin and crack cocaine were used.
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