Gang ringleader jailed for life for 2005 murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky

Piran Ditta Khan, 75, was last of seven men convicted for involvement in Bradford robbery in which Beshenivsky was shot

The mastermind of an armed robbery that ended in a police officer being shot dead has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 40 years.

PC Sharon Beshenivsky’s family watched from court as the last member of the gang responsible for the armed raid that claimed her life was sentenced after almost 20 years.

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Police hunt for man, 25, after fatal stabbing of woman in Bradford

Police appeal for any sightings of Habibur Masum, from Oldham, after woman with pram was attacked on Saturday

Police are searching for a 25-year-old man after the fatal stabbing of a woman who was attacked in Bradford city centre while pushing her baby in a pram.

West Yorkshire police are appealing for members of the public to report any sightings of Habibur Masum, who is from the Oldham area.

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Reader, they lived there: campaign to save Brontës’ Bradford birthplace as it goes on sale

A crowdfunding drive led by TV presenter Christa Ackroyd aims to make the first home of the literary siblings a tourist destination and source of inspiration

Around a million visitors a year beat a path to Haworth, the small West Yorkshire town nestling in the windy moors of the Worth Valley – mainly to see the home of the Brontë sisters.

The house that writers Charlotte, Anne and Emily shared with their father, church minister Patrick, and their wayward brother Branwell is a major tourist attraction. Visitors wander around the parsonage and surrounding cobbled streets to soak up the atmosphere of just how the Brontës lived two centuries ago.

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Zayn Malik urges Rishi Sunak to give free school meals to all children in poverty

Bradford-born singer who relied on free school lunches urges PM to extend provision to all families on universal credit

Zayn Malik has called on Rishi Sunak to “give all children living in poverty” free school meals during the cost of living crisis.

The former One Direction singer, 29, who relied on free school lunches as a child growing up in Bradford, recently became an ambassador for the Food Foundation and is backing its Feed the Future campaign.

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UK city of culture 2025: Southampton and Bradford among those on shortlist

Contenders hope to use the status as a springboard for social and economic recovery

Bradford, County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham county borough have been shortlisted to become the UK next city of culture, it has been announced.

The finalists were whittled down from a record 20 bids to eight longlisted regions, which also included Cornwall, Derby, Stirling, and the district of Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon.

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Clio Barnard on her Bradford love story Ali & Ava: ‘Joy is an act of resistance’

The director of The Arbor and The Selfish Giant returns to her favourite city for her new film. She talks about celebrating lives on the margins and how an ice-rink kiss changed her life

Would you like coffee?” Clio Barnard asks. “Is goat’s milk OK?” Ooh, that sounds exciting, I say. “There’s oat milk, too.” Barnard is scouring the fridge. “We’ve even got regular cow milk.” It’s early morning when I arrive at her house. Though, as she explains repeatedly, it’s not her house – she’s just renting it while working in London and Essex. It reminds me of Ali & Ava, her lovely new film. Every time Ali tells his friends that Ava is a teacher, she corrects him with “teaching assistant”. Details are important to Barnard.

“Right, would you like some breakfast?” She couldn’t be a warmer host. Then we sit down to talk, and suddenly she’s a bag of nerves. She loses her words, apologises for going blank, and looks to her producer Tracy O’Riordan for support. She eyes my recorder enviously. “I’d much rather be the person with the tape machine on the table asking you questions.” She pauses. “I’m quite a shy person, Simon.”

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Star Hobson verdict: mother’s girlfriend found guilty of murdering toddler

Amateur boxer punched 16-month-old to death in Keighley, West Yorkshire, while mother found guilty of allowing the death

A “cunning and clever” woman has been found guilty of murdering her girlfriend’s toddler after being caught on CCTV “terrorising” the child when she was left to babysit.

Savannah Brockhill, 28, an amateur boxer and security guard who called herself the “number one psycho”, punched 16-month Star Hobson to death in Keighley, West Yorkshire, on 22 September 2020.

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Peaceophobia: Muslim men who love their modified motors

Mistaken for drug dealers? Monitored by police? A new play staged in a Bradford car park weaves stories of everyday racism, faith and petrolheads


“I don’t go out, I don’t really go clubbing, I don’t drink, I don’t do none of that,” says Sohail Hussain, who is explaining how all encompassing his hobby is. “All my money goes on cars – for me it’s an investment.”

Hussain is one of three actors starring in Peaceophobia, a piece from collaborative theatre company Common Wealth and Fuel that interweaves stories about Islam, faith and modified car culture. Set in a car park in Bradford, the three drivers – Casper Ahmed, Mohammad Ali Yunis and Hussain – chat pistons and prayer over the constant hum of engine noise and tension.

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Family who fear daughter was killed sue Leeds NHS trust after body decomposes

Exclusive: pathologist unable to rule out third-party involvement in Emily Whelan’s death because of condition of corpse

The family of a woman who they suspect was killed is suing a health trust that allegedly stored her corpse incorrectly, allowing it to decompose to the point that experts were unable to rule out third-party involvement in her death, the Guardian can reveal.

Emily Whelan, 25, was found unresponsive in her bedroom in Leeds on 7 November 2016 and was rushed by ambulance to Leeds General Infirmary (LGI). Her family was told that Emily, who had epilepsy, had experienced a seizure, but she had never had any significant issues with the condition she had managed since childhood.

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Outsourced firms miss 46% of Covid test contacts in England’s worst-hit areas

Serco and Sitel paid more than £200m to test and trace but reach just over half of infected people’s contacts

Outsourcing companies running the government’s flagship test-and-trace system have failed to reach nearly half of potentially exposed people in areas with the highest Covid infections rates in England, official figures show.

In the country’s 20 worst-hit areas, Serco and Sitel – paid £200m between them – reached only 54% of people who had been in close proximity to an infected person, meaning more than 21,000 exposed people were not contacted.

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Outsourcing firms miss 46% of Covid contacts in England’s worst-hit areas

Serco and Sitel paid £200m to test and trace, but reach just over half of infected people’s contacts in some regions

Outsourcing companies leading the government’s flagship test-and-trace system have failed to reach nearly half of potentially exposed people in areas with the highest Covid infection rates in England, official figures show.

In the country’s 20 worst-hit areas, Serco and Sitel – paid £200m between them – reached only 54% of people who had been in close proximity to an infected person, meaning more than 21,000 exposed people were not contacted.

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Royal claims of India’s fake queen exposed as a web of elaborate lies

A widow claiming to be descended from royalty was believed, and even given a dilapidated palace to live in

For 40 years, stories about India’s most mysterious and reclusive royal family persisted among foreign correspondents in New Delhi. Few were granted an audience with them or were able to report on the tragic downfall of a dynasty said to have ruled a kingdom of five provinces in northern India until 1856.

The widowed Begum Wilayat and her children, Princess Sakina and Prince Ali Raza, also known as Cyrus, claimed to be the heirs of the Nawab of Oudh, descendants of Persian nobility. They reportedly regarded the Mughals, India’s imperial rulers from the 16th to the 19th century, as “common as dirt” and considered “ordinariness not just a crime [but] a sin!”.

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