After the building was evacuated, leaving hundreds temporarily homeless, we look at what happens next for residents and the council
What has happened at Barton House tower block in Bristol?
Barton House, a 65-year-old 15-storey tower block, was built in the late 1950s using reinforced concrete cross walls, pre-cast concrete floors and reinforced concrete external walls.
Continue reading...New series, Archie, screened in English hometown of Hollywood legend many think of as being wholly American
He is better known as a debonaire habitué of sun-splashed Californian beauty spots and glamorous New York nightclubs, but a flurry of screenings and special events this month will focus attention on a sometimes overlooked aspect of Cary Grant’s life – his very modest roots in Bristol, England.
A preview of a biopic of Grant called Archie – with Jason Isaacs taking on the tough task of playing one of the most famous of all film stars – is being screened in Bristol ahead of its showing on ITVX, and a new guided walk through Grant’s former haunts in the West Country city is being launched.
Continue reading...Xahra Saleem admitted offence relating to fundraiser before Bristol BLM protest when slave trader’s statue was dumped in harbour
A key organiser of the protest in Bristol during which a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was toppled and dumped in the city’s harbour has been jailed for two and a half years for fraud.
Xahra Saleem, 23, admitted using more than £30,000 that was supposed to go to a charity for disadvantaged youngsters in the city to fund her lifestyle, including spending almost £6,000 on Uber rides.
Continue reading...Members of the Unite union will picket in London, Brighton, Bristol and Oxford after ‘pitiful’ pay offer
Workers at the homelessness charity St Mungo’s will begin a month-long strike on Tuesday in a dispute over pay.
Members of Unite who work at the organisation will mount picket lines outside its head office in Tower Hill in London and in Brighton, Bristol and Oxford. The union said the industrial action was over a “pitiful” pay offer of 2.25%, which was made in April 2023.
Continue reading...Police say man in his 20s died after car carrying three people went through railings into river in Bedminster area
A man in his 20s has died after a car went into a river in Bristol.
Avon and Somerset police were called to York Road in the Bedminster area of the city at about 1.30am on Saturday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Liz Roberts says familial sexual abuse is a ‘hidden scourge’ that has long-term impact on victims
A woman who was sexually abused by her older brother half a century ago when she was a young girl has waived her right to anonymity to describe her decades of torment and to encourage other victims of familial abuse to come forward.
Liz Roberts, 59, a former police officer, said the abuse carried out Andrew Herbert when she was about eight had led to a life of self-loathing and shame punctuated by episodes of depression, anxiety and self-harm.
Continue reading...Exclusive: protesters say they were assaulted by officers at peaceful ‘kill the bill’ demonstration in March 2021
A police force has paid damages to protesters who allege they were assaulted by officers when they broke up a peaceful “kill the bill” demonstration in Bristol.
One of the protesters alleges that an officer struck him in the face with a shield, leaving him scarred, and a second claims she struggled to breathe when she was crushed beneath two police shields. They say they witnessed another protester being dragged along the ground by his long hair.
Continue reading...William Warrington slipped out of hospital in Gloucestershire and stabbed his mother before taking her car to kill father
A man with paranoid schizophrenia has admitted stabbing his parents to death on the same night in two attacks 15 miles apart, after slipping out of a psychiatric hospital in Gloucestershire.
William Warrington killed his mother, Valerie, 73, a hospital worker, at her home in the Cotswolds village of Bourton-on-the-Water in March. He then drove her car to his father, Clive’s, home in Cheltenham and killed him. Neighbours heard Warrington say “I’m going to enjoy this” as he attacked his father, 67.
Continue reading...Steven Craig served prison time for 1998 attack on Jacqueline Kirk and was re-arrested after her death in 2019
A man has been convicted of murdering his ex-partner, who died 21 years after he doused her with petrol and set her on fire.
Steven Craig, now 58, inflicted horrendous injuries on Jacqueline Kirk in a car park in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, in April 1998. Kirk had burns to 35% of her body, required a tracheotomy and operations including skin grafts, and was in hospital for nine months.
Continue reading...Civil rights activist led 1963 protests paving the way for passing of UK Race Relations Act
The civil rights activist Roy Hackett, who was one of the lead organisers of the Bristol bus boycott, has died at the age of 93.
The 1963 campaign, which lasted four months, mobilised people across the city to stop using Bristol Omnibus Company buses because of its refusal to hire black and Asian people. At the time, a “colour bar” in Britain meant that people from minority ethnic backgrounds could legally be banned from housing, employment and public places.
Continue reading...Public urged to get in contact about vulnerable child Maddie Thomas, who disappeared on 26 April
Police believe a 15-year-old girl who disappeared from Bristol more than a fortnight ago after saying she was going to the shops has been abducted.
Maddie Thomas went missing from the Southmead area, north of the city centre, where she lives with a foster family, on 26 April.
Continue reading...PM insists ‘mixed’ results also included some ‘remarkable gains’ for Conservatives; Labour, Lib Dems and Greens celebrate key wins
One of the trickiest contests for Labour is in Sunderland, where it risks losing control of the council for the first time since it was founded in 1974, says the Guardian’s North Of England correspondent Josh Halliday.
Labour has a majority of only six councillors on the 75-seat authority, meaning it could easily fall into no overall control when ballots are counted.
There are enough clues on the doorstep and judging by the scale of the postal vote, that’s gone extremely well and we’re getting a big turnout. That said, neither party can be overly confident about which way many seats will go.
Partygate doesn’t come up as much as you’d think and for those who have brought it up they’ve said things like ‘You’re all as bad as each other’ or ‘that’s politics’.
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...Grant Shapps leads calls to change law limiting prosecution of people who damage memorials
Britain is not a country where “destroying public property can ever be acceptable”, a cabinet minister has said, as Conservative MPs vented their frustration at four people being cleared of tearing down a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, said the law would be changed to close a “potential loophole” limiting the prosecution of people who damage memorials as part of the police, crime, sentencing and courts (PCSC) bill.
Continue reading...Anonymous artist says sales proceeds will go to the four people accused of Edward Colston statue damage ‘so they can go for a pint’
Banksy says he has made T-shirts that he will be selling to support four people facing trial accused of criminal damage over the toppling of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston.
The anonymous artist posted on Instagram pictures of limited-edition grey souvenir T-shirts, which will go on sale on Saturday in Bristol.
Continue reading...Hollywood actor paints over original work, which was created for Stephen Merchant’s TV series The Outlaws
A piece of art created by Banksy was painted over by Hollywood actor Christopher Walken in the final episode of BBC series The Outlaws.
The six-part comedy-drama, which Stephen Merchant co-created with US writer and producer Elgin James, and also directed, follows a group of misfits renovating a derelict community centre in Bristol, as part of community service for crimes they have committed.
Continue reading...She used to worry about ‘not making enough to pay the rent’. But with a solo show, a commission to make UK’s first Windrush monument and an OBE, the artist has stepped out of the shadows
Veronica Ryan’s handbag is always heavy. The British sculptor has been a collector since childhood, and her bag is her toolbox, her magpie’s nest, her anchor for a life lived in many places. It’s also fertile ground. Ryan’s mother once caught a glimpse of a date stone she was attempting to germinate in there. “You’re not going to get dates to grow here,” she said, referring to Britain and its climate. “I’m just really excited to see if I can,” replied Ryan. And she did.
Much like the seed, Ryan too is flourishing. For years, she worked in the art world’s shadows, using whatever materials she could find and often “not really making enough money to pay the rent”. But in 2018, aged 62, she won the Freelands award, which puts £100,000 towards showcasing a mid-career female artist yet to receive the recognition she deserves. The artist gets £25,000 and the gallery the remainder.
Continue reading...A round-up of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to China
Continue reading...Mark Runacres says claim officers had bones broken at ‘kill the bill’ event were ‘hugely regrettable’
A police commander has accepted that his force was too slow to correct a false claim that two officers had suffered broken bones during clashes with “kill the bill” protesters in Bristol.
Supt Mark Runacres, the Bristol area commander, also said he regretted that demonstrators had been injured during a subsequent night of violence when police with riot shields, dogs and horses dispersed them.
Continue reading...PM condemns violence at latest protest against police, crime, sentencing and courts bill
Boris Johnson has condemned violent scenes in Bristol as “disgraceful”, after a protest against a new policing bill on Friday night resulted in clashes between demonstrators and police.
The protest was against the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, which would give police greater powers to restrict protests, and initially attracted around 300 people before the crowd swelled to more than 1,000.
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