Category Archives: Essex

Woman jailed for life after murdering parents and living with bodies in Essex

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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.

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Burglar awarded £5m after being stabbed in Chelmsford prison kitchen

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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.

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‘He could be here more’: Clacton split over Nigel Farage’s first months as MP

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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.

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‘Really special’: Farm near London to be rewilded to enable new housing in Essex

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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.

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Nigel Farage ‘has questions to answer’ over Reform racism, says Rishi Sunak

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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.

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Labour ‘not putting up a fight’ against Farage in Clacton

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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.

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Man arrested after death of Gogglebox’s George Gilbey released

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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.

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First person in England and Wales convicted of cyberflashing

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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.

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Underpaid and overstretched: Essex yoga instructors ballot to strike over pay

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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.

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Baker’s cake of cottage in Christmas film The Holiday is TikTok sensation

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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.

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Asylum seekers housed at ex-RAF base tried to kill themselves, finds study

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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”.

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Asylum seekers can be housed at former RAF bases, high court rules

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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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Former football club managing director found by police in Cornwall after going missing

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Danny Macklin, who left his role at AFC Wimbledon in September, went missing in Essex

A former football club managing director has been found by police after he was reported missing.

In a post on X, Danny Macklin said he had been found by police in Cornwall. Earlier, Essex police said its officers had been trying to find Macklin, who was last seen on foot in Great Notley near Braintree, Essex

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Cleverly says he hopes to close Wethersfield asylum centre as soon as he can

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Discontent among people housed at Essex site is growing, with residents complaining about conditions

James Cleverly has said he hopes to close down the controversial mass accommodation centre in Wethersfield “as soon as practicable”, in a departure from government policy to move asylum seekers out of hotels and on to sites like the Essex military base.

Wethersfield, most recently used by Ministry of Defence police, is the Home Office’s largest mass accommodation site in the UK for people seeking asylum, with several hundred people accommodated there.

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From field to classrooms in six weeks: Raac-hit Essex school’s new home

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Head of Honywood school says building of temporary structure is a near miracle after crisis it faced

“Three and a half weeks ago, there was nothing here,” said James Saunders, the headteacher of Honywood school, looking with pride – and disbelief – at the scene unfolding in front of him. “It was a field!”

Before us is a brand new school, built in the space of six weeks – a temporary home for the 800 pupils at Honywood in Coggeshall, Essex, one of the schools most severely affected by the recent concrete crisis that threw the start of the new term across England into chaos.

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Armed police surround plane at Stansted airport after security alert

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Unconfirmed reports say flight from Nairobi, which was diverted from Heathrow to Stansted, was intercepted by RAF fighters

Armed police have surrounded a Kenyan Airways flight at London Stansted airport after a security alert.

The Boeing 787 from Nairobi was due to arrive at Heathrow this afternoon but was diverted to Stansted in Essex 45 minutes before its expected arrival.

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Former rubbish dump in Essex becomes UK’s third largest solar farm

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Ockendon solar farm to generate enough clean electricity to power the equivalent of 15,000 homes


The largest solar farm in Europe to be built on a closed landfill site has begun generating renewable electricity from a former rubbish dump in Essex.

The Ockendon solar farm, the third largest in the UK, includes more than 100,000 solar modules covering 70 hectares (173 acres) of land.

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‘An absolute nightmare’: teachers and parents shocked by concrete closures in England’s schools

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From Essex to Cumbria, many are dismayed by timing of the government’s action on aerated concrete in buildings

On Thursday, the emails that have left headteachers reeling started to arrive. A ruling from ministers in the Department for Education said their schools, built using potentially dangerous concrete, would need to close or partially close.

Within hours, parents and children had been informed. Many were left angry and confused by the timing of the announcement, just before the start of a new school year. Schools across England were left with days to improvise temporary classrooms from marquees or empty office buildings, or arrange to share space with unaffected schools. The majority of schools will open as usual but for tens of thousands of pupils the new academic year will start like no other.

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Seven-year-old boy praised for calling 999 after mum collapsed

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Ronnie-Lee Gray, from Essex, calmly phoned emergency services and explained the situation

A seven-year-old boy has been praised for his quick thinking after he dialled 999 when his mother collapsed at home.

Ronnie-Lee Gray, from Tilbury in Essex, called emergency services after his mother, Becky, fell unconscious at their home earlier this month. His mature actions meant an ambulance arrived quickly.

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Twiglet the burgled dachshund back with owner after successful dog-hunt

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Essex police continue to appeal for witnesses after release of video leads member of public to rescue pet

Twiglet, the miniature dachshund who was stolen by a masked man during a burglary, is safe and well and has been reunited with her owner, police have said.

Officers in Essex launched a dog-hunt, releasing a video of the theft and appealing for information after an intruder took the 16-month-old dachshund from her home in Catmere End, Saffron Walden, at about 3pm on Wednesday.

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