‘Obsessive’ David Richards lay in wait for Alex Alam to leave her home after their relationship broke down
A former manager of the Dreamboys stripper group has been jailed for 27 years for attempted murder after attacking his wife with an axe.
David Richards, 42, attacked Alex Alam, 32, outside her home after their relationship broke down, fracturing her skull and cutting her face and scalp.
Continue reading...Image believed to be of Constance Marten, who went missing last week with her baby and Mark Gordon
A couple and their newborn baby who went missing last week are thought to have been seen after travelling inland from an Essex port, police have said.
Constance Marten and Mark Gordon abandoned their vehicle when it broke down on the M61, near Bolton, on Thursday evening.
Continue reading...Shopping centre eatery said to have begun sinking before lunch service and observers describe it as ‘going down like the Titanic’
A restaurant on a converted paddle steamer has begun to sink into a lake in Essex.
Photographs of the Miller & Carter Steakhouse at the Lakeside shopping centre showing it partially submerged emerged online on Friday. Some observers described the venue as “going down like the Titanic”, while one wrote online: “Looks like my family meal is cancelled!”
Continue reading...Tory-led Essex authority is on brink of bankruptcy and has appealed to government for emergency bailout
A Tory-led council has admitted a series of disastrous investments in risky commercial projects caused it to run up an unprecedented deficit of nearly £500m and brought it to the brink of bankruptcy.
The staggering scale of the catastrophe at Thurrock council in Essex – one of the biggest ever financial disasters in local government – is contained in an internal report made to the council’s cabinet, which reveals it has lost £275m on investments it made in solar energy and other businesses, and has set aside a further £130m this year to pay back investment debts.
Continue reading...Authority lent total of £655m over four years to owner of 53 solar parks across Britain
One of the country’s largest solar farm owners has entered administration amid the fallout from a scandal that forced an Essex council leader to resign.
Administrators at Interpath Advisory have been appointed to Toucan Energy Holdings, which owns a portfolio of 53 solar parks with a combined capacity of 513 megawatts across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Continue reading...External commissioners to take charge of finances amid ‘grave concerns’ local services could be at risk
The government has launched an urgent investigation into the finances of a Tory-run council amid “grave concerns” that local services are at risk from the authority’s exposure to more than a billion pounds in loans it took out to fund a series of commercial investments.
The communities secretary, Greg Clark, said government-appointed commissioners would take full control of Thurrock’s finances because of fears over “the exceptional level of financial risk and debt incurred by the council”.
Continue reading...Essex police arrest 18 people at three locations as protesters try to disrupt distribution of fuel
Dozens of environmental protesters have blocked critical oil infrastructure in Essex and the Midlands as they revived a campaign to “just stop oil”.
At daybreak on Tuesday, about 50 people took part in protests targeting three oil terminals, from where fuel is distributed to petrol stations, the activist group Just Stop Oil said.
Continue reading...RHS Hyde Hall has made a virtue of its position in the driest county in England by embracing adaptable plants
It has not been artificially watered for 22 years, yet this garden, on an exposed slope in Essex, the driest county in the UK, is bursting with bloom.
A dry bed at the Royal Horticultural Society Hyde Hall dominated by cool greys and pale greens, and full of Mediterranean, Australian and African shrubs and flowers, could this be the future British garden?
Continue reading...Emergency services discover body in Jaywick following disappearance of 21-year-old on UK’s hottest ever day
The body of a man has been found on the Essex coast two miles from where a 21-year-old went missing in the sea on Tuesday.
Five people were pulled from the water near Clacton pier and taken to hospital on Britain’s hottest recorded day, but one man remained unaccounted for. The search was scaled down after more than 24 hours.
Continue reading...Man was attacked by two men and pronounced dead at the scene
A murder investigation has been launched after a man was killed at a shopping centre in Essex on Thursday.
Police were called to reports that a man had been attacked at Lakeside shopping centre, in Thurrock, at 4.30pm.
Continue reading...Amess’s family make plea for greater kindness in society after ‘beyond evil’ attack on MP
The family of Sir David Amess said they would “for ever shed tears” after his murder by a terrorist assassin who was sentenced to “die in prison” for an attack “on the heart of democracy”.
Ali Harbi Ali, 26, was handed a whole-life tariff by Mr Justice Sweeney after being convicted on Monday of murdering the MP and of planning terrorist attacks on other MPs, including the cabinet minister Michael Gove, for two years before he killed Amess.
Continue reading...Harlow joins seaside resorts on charity’s list of 52 vulnerable areas in England and Wales
It was conceived as an “essay in civilisation”, but some have argued that Harlow has on occasion fallen short of this lofty ambition. Now a new analysis heralds fresh woe for the Essex new town – designed in 1947 – by labelling it one of the places in England and Wales most “at risk” from the fallout of the pandemic, which could spill over into support for rightwing extremism.
Of 336 councils, researchers identified 52 – including Harlow – where Covid is believed to have caused community tension and could inspire far-right activity. A report out on Monday from the Hope not Hate charitable trust says each of the places suffered a significant downturn in the pandemic, has a history of slow recovery from economic shocks and displays “less liberal than average” attitudes to migration and multiculturalism.
Continue reading...Eight people have been arrested on suspicion of murder after teenagers’ deaths on Sunday
Two boys who were killed in Essex in what detectives are treating as suspected murders were 16 years old, the local MP has said.
Police were called to an address in Regency Court, Brentwood, at about 1.30am on Sunday. Three people were found injured at the scene and, two of them died. The third boy’s injuries were not life-threatening or life-changing, police said.
Continue reading...Sir David Amess, who has died aged 69 after being stabbed while holding a constituents’ surgery at a church in Leigh-on-Sea, was the Conservative MP for Southend West in Essex. Though he spent more than half his life in the Commons without ever attaining ministerial office, the likelihood is that he would not have wanted it any other way.
He devoted his career to the promotion of his constituencies – first Basildon, then from 1997 Southend West – and to dealing with their voters’ concerns. He had a high local profile and was always willing to meet constituents, advertising his regular weekly surgeries in advance.
Continue reading...Growing up in Essex, my summers in Iran felt like magical interludes from reality – but it was a spell that always had to be broken
When I was 12, a bespectacled boy with a shock of thick hair and his forearm in plaster gave me the first Harry Potter book. We were at that age when gifts need little occasion, and this marked the last day of our first year of secondary school. It was 1999, and the book was unknown to me. I was mildly embarrassed by its childish watercolour cover, but I dutifully packed it in my satchel when, two days later, my family flew to Iran for our six-week summer holiday. On the large, faded floor cushions of my grandparents’ apartment in Tehran’s central district, I read the book aloud, flanked by my twin younger sisters, while the adults took their siesta and scorched air and car horns filtered through the mosquito blinds. We fell for it instantly, rooting for Harry as he was transported from life as a misfit in a gloomy suburban cupboard to the secret world of wizardry in which he found fellowship, adventure and belonging.
In the years that followed, I would read each successive book to my sisters. Even from the start, they were too old to be read to, but it was more gratifying and companionable to follow Harry’s story together, and besides, we could only ever get our hands on one copy. Every now and then one of us would sigh and say, “Don’t you feel sad when it hits you that Harry Potter isn’t real?” We lived in Southend-on-Sea and attended the local school, an underperforming comprehensive housed in a squat brutalist building on the edge of a large council estate. Most of the pupils were poor, and many underfed, which gave rise to an unshakeable fog of hopelessness, shame and anxiety. While there were few children of colour, racism prospered alongside the many other casual cruelties. With our packed lunches and summer holidays, we were the lucky ones (as our parents often reminded us), but we nonetheless lived in hope that the prosaic, heartless world around us was just the opening scene of a story with a stronger narrative, a better set of characters, and the clean justice of magic.
Continue reading...Two ringleaders receive sentences of 27 and 20 years after 39 Vietnamese people suffocated in container
The two ringleaders of the people-smuggling gang responsible for the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people who suffocated in a sealed refrigeration container as they were transported across the Channel from France have received prison sentences of 27 and 20 years.
Ronan Hughes, 41, who ran a haulage company and organised the lorries and drivers to transport the migrants, was sentenced to 20 years at the Old Bailey on Friday. He pleaded guilty last year to 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiring to bring people into the country unlawfully.
Continue reading...The health secretary told the Commons that several areas of England were being moved to the tier 2 level of coronavirus restrictions designed for high-risk areas. The new rules will come into force at one minute past midnight on Saturday, for an undetermined amount of time, in areas including London, Essex, York and north-east Derbyshire
BLM in the Stix promotes online toolkit to encourage UK communities to take a stand
Black Lives Matter activists have launched a toolkit designed to help rural communities across the UK to fight racism in their local area.
Their campaign, BLM in the Stix, is aimed at building on the momentum of June and July, when more than 260 towns and cities held anti-racism protests, from Monmouth in south Wales to Shetland in Scotland. It offers rural communities support to take a stand against racism at a local level.
Continue reading...Crowds far exceed lifeguards’ capacity as coastguard records busiest day for four years
Holidaymakers in Kent have been asked to avoid four of the county’s beaches after fears some have become “unmanageable” due to the number of visitors.
The coastguard had its busiest day in more than four years on Friday – when the UK recorded its third hottest day on record – dealing with 329 incidents. Local authorities have expressed concern that there are not enough lifeguards as crowds swell.
Continue reading...National Piers Society says award recognises decade of improvements made by owners
Clacton pier has been crowned pier of the year in what its co-owner called a “perfect morale booster” at a difficult time.
The Essex attraction reopened on 4 July after lockdown measures were eased, having been closed since late March.
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