Three women in their 40s, 50s and 60s interviewed under caution in relation to alleged abuse by late Harrods owner
Three women have been interviewed under caution on suspicion of facilitating one of Britain’s worst sexual abuse scandals, involving the former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed and his alleged attacks over four decades.
Scotland Yard said 154 women may have been raped or sexually assaulted by Fayed, or been subject to human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Continue reading...Government says it is working to solve ‘postcode lottery’ of access to green or blue spaces
There are urban areas of England where no one lives within a 15-minute walk of nature, government data shows, as ministers scramble to meet their access to nature targets.
While the data shows 80% of people live within walking distance of green or blue spaces such as a river, park or woodland, it also reveals a disparity between rural and poorer urban areas.
Continue reading...Met urges pupils not to get involved and asks platforms to ban accounts promoting ‘fights’ with images of weapons
Pupils aged 11 to 16 are being encouraged to join in school fights in posts circulating on TikTok and Snapchat, prompting police to urge children not to get involved.
The Metropolitan police have asked social media platforms to ban accounts promoting “school wars”, while headteachers have warned parents about the posts.
Continue reading...Drinks maker cuts annual sale and profit forecast for second time in four months amid weak demand in US and China
Diageo has slashed its dividend and cut its annual sales and profit forecast for the second time in four months, as the maker of Guinness warned of capacity constraints affecting drinkers of “the black stuff” in London pubs.
The world’s largest spirits maker – which owns brands including Smirnoff vodka, Johnnie Walker whisky and Don Julio tequila – reported weak demand in the US and China in the first results released under the new chief executive, Sir Dave Lewis.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Project Giving Back, set up in 2022 to help charities exhibit show gardens, says this year will be its last
Chelsea flower show is looking for new charity sponsors after the mystery philanthropic couple who have spent more than £23m on show gardens end their support.
Project Giving Back was set up by two anonymous donors in 2022, and since then it has paid for 63 gardens at the most prestigious horticultural event in the world, held each summer at the Royal Hospital gardens in south-west London.
Continue reading...London police say criminal gangs are using Snapchat to offer cash rewards of up to £380 for stolen iPhones
Gangs are recruiting children to go out to steal smartphones before they head to school, using Snapchat to offer rewards of up to £380 for the latest Apple iPhones, police have revealed.
The Metropolitan police said they were deploying new resources including drones and Surron ebikes to chase suspects as they step up their fight against phone snatching.
Continue reading...Museum revises labelling on maps and panels, saying term used inaccurately and no longer historically neutral
The British Museum has removed the word “Palestine” from some of its displays, saying the term was used inaccurately and is no longer historically neutral.
Maps and information panels in the museum’s ancient Middle East galleries had referred to the eastern Mediterranean coast as Palestine, with some people described as being “of Palestinian descent”.
Continue reading...New date to approve site near Tower Bridge in London aligns with Keir Starmer’s planned visit to Beijing
The government has delayed its decision on whether to approve China’s super-embassy in London until January, when Keir Starmer is expected to visit Beijing.
Ministers are expected to greenlight the controversial plans after formal submissions by the Home Office and Foreign Office raised no objections on security grounds.
Continue reading...Official report says forces in England and Wales yet to implement recommendations for investigations
A quarter of police forces in England and Wales are yet to implement “basic policies for investigating sexual offences”, an official report has found, with women still being failed despite promises of change after the murder of Sarah Everard four years ago.
The report by Dame Elish Angiolini follows an inquiry set up after Everard was murdered by a serving police officer, Wayne Couzens, in March 2021. She was abducted off a London street while walking home.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Letter says L&Q appears to have systematically failed in its duty to provide adequate standard of living
UN experts have said that one of England’s biggest social landlords appears to have systematically failed to ensure the habitability of its rental properties.
In a letter to the UK government, they cite the case of a disabled tenant, Sanjay Ramburn, 55, who they say lived with his family of five in an L&Q group property in Forest Gate, east London, for several years with no electricity. They experienced four ceiling collapses, as well as severe damp and mould that affected their health.
Continue reading...Undercover unit monitored Stephen Lawrence’s family, as well as thousands of mainly leftwing political activists
Two senior officers who supervised an undercover Scotland Yard unit spying on political campaigns were “horribly and incredibly” racist, a whistleblower has told a public inquiry.
Peter Francis, a former member of the unit, testified that one regularly used the “N-word”, while the other used a repertoire of explicit racist slurs.
Continue reading...MP for Hampstead and Highgate in London denies allegations and condemns ‘flawed and farcical’ trial
A court in Bangladesh has sentenced the British MP Tulip Siddiq to two years in jail after a judge ruled she was complicit in corrupt land deals with her aunt, the country’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
In a ruling on Monday, a judge found Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, guilty of misusing her “special influence” as a British politician to coerce Hasina into giving valuable pieces of land to her mother, brother and sister.
Continue reading...Avanti service was to have been axed from mid-December but would have still run because of needs out of Euston
The express Manchester-London 7am Avanti service will take passengers after all, after the rail regulator conceded defeat in the face of public outcry over a ruling that would have left it running as an empty “ghost train” each day.
The 7am train, the only service linking the cities in under two hours, was set to be axed from the passenger table from mid-December – but would, as the Guardian reported on Saturday, have kept running empty from Piccadilly each day so it could run morning trains back out of Euston.
Continue reading...Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea says it is checking whether data taken contained residents’ details
A London council has urged thousands of residents to be “extra vigilant” when receiving calls, emails or text messages after confirming that data had been taken in a cyber-attack.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), which has 147,500 residents, said some data had been copied from its systems in an attack this week.
Continue reading...The one-act play Oh, Mary! – ‘the stupidest, funniest thing possible’ – to open after blockbuster run in New York
What if, in the final weeks before Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, the first lady could not care less about the American civil war and was instead hell-bent on becoming a cabaret star?
That is the question posed by Oh, Mary!, the smash-hit show that reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln as a gloriously unhinged alcoholic who despises her closeted husband.
Continue reading...Rahmeh Aladwan barred from practising for 15 months pending inquiry amid claims she ‘celebrated terrorist acts’
An NHS doctor accused of antisemitism has been suspended for 15 months pending an investigation, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in the UK has ruled.
The General Medical Council (GMC) is investigating Dr Rahmeh Aladwan over posts and comments made across various social media platforms after several complaints, including from the Jewish Medical Association UK and the Campaign Against Antisemitism.
Continue reading...Star turns are boosting ticket sales this season, including Islington show featuring MP’s Wizard of Oz and Olivier winner’s Toto
We’re a third of the way through the fabulously camp production of Wicked Witches, a mashup of Wicked and The Wizard of Oz, at the Pleasance theatre in Islington, north London. Dor (formerly known as Dorothy) and Tin 2.0 need guidance on how to take down the Wicked Witch and save the borough of Oz-lington from a great blizzard.
But wait! Who’s that Facetiming? It’s only Jeremy Corbyn, the wise Wizard of Oz-lington! The 200-person audience cheers and applauds the Islington North MP, who looks as if he’s beaming in from the allotment.
Continue reading...Stephen Lawrence’s mother tells inquiry she did not believe Michael Howard when he told her he did not know police had spied on her family
The mother of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence has told a public inquiry that she does not believe claims by the former home secretary Michael Howard that he did not know undercover police officers had spied on her family.
Doreen Lawrence told the spycops inquiry on Thursday that Lord Howard, a former leader of the Conservative party, invited her to a meeting shortly after the inquiry was set up in 2014.
Continue reading...Mick Meaney made global headlines when he beat world record in 1968, but returned to Ireland penniless
They were known as burial artists – people who had themselves buried alive in macabre feats of endurance – and Mick Meaney resolved to be the best there ever was.
It was 1968 and the Irish labourer had barely a pound to his name but he believed that if he stayed underground in a coffin longer than anyone else the world would remember his name.
Continue reading...Sprinklers could save 500-year-old tree that had branches cut off without authorisation in April, says expert
The restaurant chain Toby Carvery is being urged to pay for life support for an ancient oak tree that its owner had chainsawed last spring to widespread public dismay.
Experts say the trunk of the 500-year-old tree, on the edge of a Toby Carvery car park in Whitewebbs Park, Enfield, has shown signs of regrowth, despite its branches being sawn off by the restaurant’s contractors in April.
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