Edward Little had travelled to London with £5,000 to buy weapon for attack on Christian preacher Hatun Tash
A dangerous extremist was 10 minutes from obtaining a gun that he wanted for an attack in Hyde Park in London when he was stopped in an armed police operation, a counter-terrorism chief has said.
Edward Little, 22, had travelled by taxi from his home in Brighton to London with £5,000 in cash when officers arrested him in September 2022.
Continue reading...CEO of University Hospitals Sussex urges staff to have courage to raise concerns, despite whistleblowers previously being sacked
The boss of a hospital trust being investigated by police for alleged negligence over 40 patient deaths has been accused of sending a hypocritical email urging staff to have the courage to raise concerns despite the dismissal of whistleblowing doctors.
Last week the Guardian revealed that the University Hospitals Sussex trust is under pressure to suspend surgeons whose cases are being reviewed by Sussex police in an investigation that involves more than 100 patients who either died or were seriously harmed between 2015 and 2021.
Continue reading...Hot boxes are popping up on the coast, as well as beside lakes and rivers, but not everyone is happy about the trend
Seaside saunas were just a wisp of a dream until 2018. Now anyone walking along a beach at one of the UK’s main resorts is likely to come across a converted horse box offering heat and steam as a respite from bleak skies and icy winds.
There are now 70 such saunas operating in the UK according to the British Sauna Society, mostly at beaches or lakes, fuelled by the growth in wild swimming and healthy living.
Continue reading...Green members select the party’s former co-leader to stand in Brighton Pavilion at next election
The Green party has selected Siân Berry as its candidate to stand in Brighton Pavilion to replace Caroline Lucas MP.
Berry, Emily O’Brien and Dan Rue were vying to be the Green’s candidate in the Sussex constituency which Lucas, the former leader of the party, has represented in parliament since 2010.
Continue reading...Hotel continues to smoulder after blaze broke out on Saturday, with council advising people to avoid area
A police cordon around the Royal Albion in Brighton has been extended as the hotel continues to smoulder after a fire broke out on Saturday evening.
Fifteen fire engines from across the south-east were dispatched to the scene just before 5.30pm on Saturday and continued to battle the blaze long into the night.
Continue reading...Emergency services working to put out blaze after being called to seafront hotel shortly before 5.30pm
A fire has broken out at a hotel in Brighton, with emergency services saying high winds are impeding their efforts to tackle the blaze.
East Sussex fire and rescue service (ESFR) was called to the Royal Albion hotel on the seafront at 5.24pm, and later tweeted that “15 fire appliances, one high volume pump and three aerial ladder platforms [were] in attendance”.
Continue reading...Arnon Milchan begins testimony via video link in Israeli prime minister’s corruption trial
An Israeli producer of blockbuster Hollywood films has taken the stand in Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial, describing how he routinely delivered tens of thousands of dollars worth of champagne, cigars and other gifts requested by the Israeli prime minister.
Arnon Milchan, who appeared by video-conference from the UK city of Brighton, near where he is based, is a key witness whose testimony is essential for prosecutors who are trying to prove that Netanyahu committed fraud and breach of trust in one of three cases brought against him.
Continue reading...Former party leader says she wants to ‘dedicate myself fully to climate and nature’
Caroline Lucas has said she feels more optimistic about the environment than when she first joined the Green party in 1986, as she prepares to retire from parliament after 13 years as her party’s only MP.
Lucas told the Guardian she felt “gratitude” for her career as the Greens’ first ever MP, adding that she took heart that many of the causes she has long championed were now the policies of both Labour and the Conservatives.
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...Many blue flag beaches were covered in waste, and Brighton was among the worst-hit, Lib Dem report shows
England’s most celebrated beaches faced 8,500 hours of sewage dumping last year, new figures show.
Many beaches with blue flag status– an international mark of recognition that a beach is deemed safe and has good water quality – were found to have been covered in waste over the last 12 months.
Continue reading...Two-man business contacted by lawyers of Middle-earth Enterprises, which owns rights to Lord of the Rings
A refuse firm in Brighton called Lord of the Bins has been ordered by lawyers to change its name after being accused of breaching trademark laws.
The two-man waste collection business was contacted by Middle-earth Enterprises, which owns the worldwide rights to The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Continue reading...Whistleblower tells of threats and illegal detention in fresh revelations about failures that drove children into hands of criminals
Children seeking asylum in the UK were threatened and subjected to racist abuse by staff at a Home Office-run hotel, a whistleblower has claimed as pressure grows on the government to act over the growing crisis in the system.
The source, who worked in the Brighton hotel for more than a year, said that in such an environment of “emotional abuse”, scores of children, who had arrived in the UK without parents or a carer, were driven on to the streets and into the hands of criminals.
Continue reading...Medical student Milad Rouf imprisoned for 15 years for doorstep attack that disfigured junior doctor Rym Alaoui
A medical student who threw acid over his ex-girlfriend while disguised in a fat suit has been jailed for 15 years.
Milad Rouf put on the disguise, which also included makeup and sunglasses, before throwing sulphuric acid over Rym Alaoui, his ex-girlfriend and a former colleague, when she came to the door of her home in May.
Continue reading...Across the UK, there are long waiting lists for a beach hut – and prices go up and up. A day on Hove promenade reveals why they are so popular and the problems that persist (mainly locks)
Everyone who meets Bonny Holland says the same thing: she really loves beach huts. “Bonny posts in our Facebook group about four times a day,” says the Hove and Portslade councillor Robert Nemeth, who founded the Hove Beach Hut Association. “I have to approve the posts.”
Inside Holland’s beach hut, the 62-year-old retired headteacher keeps a double-ring stove, a frying pan, a griddle pan, graffiti removal wipes, and, best of all, a loo. “You sit on this,” Holland says merrily, unfolding a portable toilet seat for my benefit, “and go in here.”
Continue reading...Lockdown hit LGBTQ+ communities hard but even as Pride events are called off there is hope and a promise that the parades will return
This month, for the second year in a row, there was no Pride parade in San Francisco, arguably the city most laden with history and symbolism for the LGBTQ+ community.
It is a decision Fred Lopez, who took over as executive director of San Francisco Pride at the beginning of last year describes as “heartbreaking”.
Continue reading...What would it have been like to be inside the Big Bang? We meet the ultra-hi-tech art duo who are using light, sound and sub-atomic astro data to recreate the biggest explosion ever
‘Step into the heart of the Big Bang,” says the advert for Halo, a walk-in, 360-degree, audiovisual installation about to open in Brighton. Come off it, I want to retort. You couldn’t “step” into the Big Bang without first travelling 13.8 billion years back in time and then being extremely miniaturised. After all, the universe was, according to one estimate, just 17cm in diameter at its inception.
What’s more, it was dark inside the Big Bang. In fact, there was no light at all. True, if you stuck around for 380,000 years, according to Nasa, you might have been able to see something because that was when free electrons met up with nuclei and created neutral atoms that would have allowed light to pass through. But who has 380,000 years to hang around waiting in the dark?
Continue reading...The scene has been made safe but members of the public are being advised to keep clear of the area
Beachgoers enjoying the warm April sunshine in Brighton were interrupted by police on Sunday afternoon after a possible unexploded mortar shell was found.
A large cordon was put in place by officers on the seafront.
Continue reading...Climate protests including ‘funeral march’ due to take place across UK, with focus on airports
Climate demonstrations are due to take place across the UK this weekend, as the environmental campaign group Extinction Rebellion launches its latest “uprising”.
This weekend’s events will include a “funeral march” in Lewes, East Sussex, to “mark the death and destruction wrought by humans on our natural world”. The march, described as a Procession for the Planet, will include mourners dressed in black and a jazz band.
Continue reading...Tens of thousands descend on south coast on hottest day of the year
Tens of thousands of people descended on beaches on the south coast of England on the hottest day of the year, prompting some local authorities to plead with people to stay away so that social distancing could be maintained.
While many parts of the north of England were facing a fresh lockdown, stretches of beaches at Bournemouth, Poole and Brighton were packed.
Continue reading...And a great-great grandmother enjoyed her 100th birthday with only her 25th party on the day
Women may well feel free to propose to their partners any day of the week these days, but the Irish tradition of female proposals on Leap Day is in full swing after a man was left “gobsmacked” when his girlfriend popped the question 450ft above Brighton beach.
“It was 9am and a leap year so Bobby didn’t hang about,” said lighting designer Steve Haw, who described how they had ascended the British Airways i360 observation tower next to Brighton Pier before legal secretary Bobby Davison popped the question early on Saturday.
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