Adrian and Joanne Fenton hit with penalty after calling police when they found a boy hiding inside bike-rack cover
A couple who were fined £1,500 after reporting a boy who had stowed away on the back of their motorhome for their journey from France to Essex have had the penalty cancelled.
Adrian and Joanne Fenton from Heybridge were fined by the Home Office for “failing to check that no clandestine entrant was concealed” when they returned to their home across the Channel.
Continue reading...Misconduct hearing found Tyler Coppin had breached standards of professional behaviour over offence
An Essex police officer has been sacked after admitting “tragedy chanting” at Liverpool fans during a Premier League match last year.
Essex police instigated misconduct proceedings against Sgt Tyler Coppin after he pleaded guilty to the public order offence during the Liverpool game against Chelsea at Anfield last October.
Continue reading...Essex police said a boy and a girl died at the scene and the car involved failed to stop
Two people have been arrested after two children died in a car collision in Essex, police have said.
Officers were called to Walthams Place in Basildon at about 6.25pm on Saturday to reports of a crash and a car failing to stop.
Continue reading...Families have been informed of the incident, say Essex police, but no details of the deceased have been released
Four people have died after a vehicle crashed into a building in Essex, police have said.
Officers were called to Magdalen Street in Colchester at about 4.40am on Saturday to reports of a crash.
Continue reading...Minister says there was error when Manningtree station car park extension was approved under last government
Campaigners have celebrated an “important victory” in a closely watched case that will determine whether the government will enforce new legislation aimed at protecting national parks and landscapes in England.
Dedham Vale is a designated “national landscape” on the border of Essex and Suffolk, home to increasingly rare species including hazel dormice and hedgehogs. Within it is Manningtree station, where the train operator Greater Anglia built an extension to the car park to cope with increased traffic.
Continue reading...Exclusive: NGOs say safeguarding policies need improving, as victims tell of multiple assaults and incidents of race hate
NGOs are calling for improvements in UK government safeguarding policies after multiple acts of violence and race hate incidents in Home Office accommodation.
The incidents include 20 assaults of asylum seekers in one small area of Essex and a separate incident where another was attacked and threatened with a knife by a man recently released into shared asylum accommodation from prison on licence. Slices of bacon were also laid over food belonging to Muslim residents stored in a communal kitchen fridge.
Continue reading...Linguistics professor says London dialect is most likely to be spoken in Essex, but aspects have traversed the globe
The cockney dialect, as associated with the late EastEnders icon Dame Barbara Windsor, may not be as prevalent in today’s London, but it remains possibly the most influential English dialect across the world, according to academic research.
No longer the preserve of those born within earshot of the Bow Bells in the City of London, today cockney is more likely to be spoken in Essex.
Continue reading...Police were advised there was no chance of conviction against journalist after hate crime investigation, Guardian understands
Essex police have dropped their hate crime investigation into Allison Pearson, the Daily Telegraph columnist visited by police after she wrongly accused people of colour of being antisemitic.
The decision followed advice from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that there was no reasonable chance of a conviction, the Guardian understands.
Continue reading...Virginia McCullough, 36, kept bodies of her father and mother in house for four years after their deaths
A woman who murdered her parents and lived with their bodies for four years has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father, John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks, the prosecutor Lisa Wilding KC told Chelmsford crown court. She then murdered her mother, Lois McCullough, 71, the following day.
Continue reading...Steven Wilson was attacked after risk assessment failed to stop convicted murderer working in kitchen with access to knives
A career burglar has been awarded more than £5m in damages by a high court judge due to “life-changing” injuries he sustained after being stabbed in prison.
Steven Wilson, 36, sued the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) after a convicted murderer stabbed him multiple times with a 9-in knife in July 2018 while working in the canteen at HMP Chelmsford.
Continue reading...Many remain positive about their high-profile politician but others complain that he ‘got his seat and disappeared’
It happened sometime on Monday morning, locals think, though no one seems to know exactly when. But as staff in the shops on Old Road in Clacton stepped out of work for lunch, they spotted that the billboard on the corner of Crossfield Road had been ripped to ribbons.
Plenty had approved of the poster, placed there by the political campaign group Led By Donkeys, drawing attention to the huge scale of the local MP Nigel Farage’s earnings outside politics. A photo of the billboard posted on X by the group has 24,000 likes.
Continue reading...Farm north of London to be returned to something like pasture once enjoyed by Anglo-Saxon king
It was once woodland where Harold Godwinson, the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king, rode in pursuit of deer. Over recent decades, the hillside with a panoramic view of London has become arable fields, pony paddocks and a Christmas tree plantation.
But now Harold’s Park, a 200-hectare (500 acre) farm just north of the M25 on the edge of the capital, is to be rewilded and returned to something like the tangled wood pasture once enjoyed by King Harold.
Continue reading...Essex police say they are ‘urgently assessing’ racist and homophobic remarks made by party’s volunteers
Rishi Sunak has said he was hurt and angry to hear a Reform UK canvasser calling him a racial slur, saying Nigel Farage “has some questions to answer”.
The prime minister responded after a Channel 4 undercover investigation found a Reform campaigner had called him a “fucking [P-word]”. Sunak repeated the slur and said he had done so because it was important to call it out for what it was.
Continue reading...Labour officials said to be upset that Jovan Owusu-Nepaul was gaining traction for viral social media posts
Labour has been accused of “not putting up a fight” against Nigel Farage in Clacton after the party’s candidate was instructed to leave the constituency after “distracting” from Keir Starmer’s campaign.
Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, 27, who works for Labour’s equalities team, was installed by the party last month to contest the seat, weeks before Farage changed his mind and decided to stand in the Essex constituency.
Continue reading...Police continue investigation after Gilbey reportedly died in a workplace accident in Southend-on-Sea
A man arrested in connection with the death of the Gogglebox star George Gilbey has been released under investigation by police.
The man, who is in his 40s and from Witham in Essex, was arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter after Gilbey reportedly died after an accident at work on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Nicholas Hawkes, 39, from Basildon in Essex found guilty under provisions of Online Safety Act
A 39-year-old man has become the first person in England and Wales to be convicted of cyberflashing, which became an offence in January as part of the Online Safety Act.
Nicholas Hawkes, from Basildon in Essex, sent unsolicited photos of his erect penis to a 15-year-old girl and a woman on 9 February, the Crown Prosecution Service said. The woman took screenshots of the image on WhatsApp and reported Hawkes to Essex police the same day.
Continue reading...Teachers at Colchester council say they’re paid less than those at other councils despite ‘bending over backwards’ to provide classes
To those who turn up in Lycra to practise their sun salutations and downward dogs, a yoga class can represent a moment of calm reflection. For a group of instructors in Colchester, however, teaching yoga has become a much more stressful business.
Yoga, pilates and aerobics instructors employed by Colchester city council are balloting on possible strike action, after what their union says is nearly a decade without a pay rise.
Continue reading...Essex-based Bridie West’s edible creation based on setting in Cameron Diaz romcom got more than 1.2m views
An Essex cake baker has gone viral after making a cake version of a cottage that had a starring role in the Christmas movie The Holiday.
The clip of Bridie West meticulously piping butter cream over a cottage-shaped cake has garnered more than 1.2m views on TikTok and almost 50,000 on Instagram.
Continue reading...Report calls for immediate closure of Wethersfield as conditions causing irreparable harm to residents
Asylum seekers housed in the UK’s largest mass accommodation site have attempted to kill themselves and set themselves on fire because of conditions “no different from Libya”, according to a report.
The controversial Wethersfield site, on a remote military airbase near Braintree in Essex, is in the constituency of the home secretary, James Cleverly, who said earlier this year in a social media post that the site was not “appropriate”.
Continue reading...Council says it will apply to appeal court after judge rules in favour of government plans citing high risk of migrants being made homeless
Council bosses are planning to appeal against a high court ruling that gives the government the green light to use two military sites to accommodate thousands of asylum seekers.
Lawyers representing West Lindsey district council in Lincolnshire argued that plans to use the disused RAF Scampton, where the “dambusters” were based during the second world war, were unlawful. Lawyers for Braintree district council where Wethersfield airfield is based, made similar arguments. A local Braintree resident, Gabriel Clarke-Holland, was also involved in the legal challenge.
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