Category Archives: London

Woman who fell to her death from Hackney council flat ‘was trying to fix drainpipe’

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Coroner’s report finds Sarah McGreevy died after climbing on box on sixth floor balcony to unblock pipe repaired with tape

A woman who accidentally fell to her death from the sixth floor balcony of a Hackney council block was trying to fix a blocked drainpipe that had been repaired using “heavy duty tape”, a coroner has found.

Sarah McGreevy, 37, died on 16 June after climbing on to a wooden box on the balcony to manually unblock the pipe, a common practice among residents of the fifth and sixth floors of the building after heavy rainfall, according to the coroner’s report.

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China blocking UK plans in Beijing amid east London mega-embassy dispute

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Exclusive: UK rebuild of Beijing embassy held up as Angela Rayner faces fraught decision on Royal Mint Court site

China is blocking requests to rebuild the British embassy in Beijing while the fate of its controversial mega-embassy in east London is being decided, the Guardian can disclose.

Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary, faces a politically fraught decision over whether to approve plans for a new Chinese embassy at Royal Mint Court.

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Two more UK mpox cases found in household contacts of first case

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Total of three cases of Clade Ib strain now detected in UK but health security agency says risk to population still low

Two more UK cases of a strain of mpox that is thought to spread more easily have been detected in household contacts of the first case, the Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said.

This brings the total number of confirmed cases of the Clade Ib mpox strain in the country to three.

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More than meatballs: Ikea opens its first UK standalone restaurant in London

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Diners hail ‘great price’ of dishes at Swedish furniture chain’s food outlet next door to its Hammersmith store

Its meatballs are as famous as its flatpack furniture, with a meal in one of its restaurants often the highlight of an Ikea trip.

Now shoppers can enjoy an Ikea meal without lugging around their kitchen sink – literally – as the furniture company has opened its first standalone restaurant on the UK high street in King Street in Hammersmith. Located next door to its west London city store, the space seats 75 people and serves a range of Swedish dishes.

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Teenager found guilty of murder after Hackney woman was shot through her front door

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Lianne Gordon, 42, was hit in the head at her home as she tried to shield her two children from a gang feud

A teenager has been found guilty of murdering a mother who was shot in the head through her front door as she tried to shield her two children from a gang feud.

Lianne Gordon, 42, had only just returned from a holiday in Jamaica when she was attacked in her home in Hackney, east London on 5 December 2023, the Old Bailey was told.

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FA apologises to female Muslim footballer over tracksuit bottoms ban

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Iqra Ismail, who does not wear shorts for religious reasons, was prevented from entering field of play during game

The Football Association has apologised to a Muslim footballer after she was barred from playing in a match for refusing to wear shorts due to her religious beliefs.

Iqra Ismail was meant to come on as a half-time substitute for United Dragons in a Greater London Women’s Football League fixture against Tower Hamlets on Sunday, but she was prevented from entering the field of play by the referee.

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Police viewed sensitive files on Sarah Everard out of ‘curiosity’, panel hears

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Seven Met officers accused of accessing X-rays and witness information after Wayne Couzens was arrested

Police viewed confidential information about the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard such as her X-rays out of “curiosity”, a disciplinary hearing heard.

Seven Metropolitan police officers were accused of looking at sensitive information relating to the case after the arrest of the firearms officer Wayne Couzens, the Times reported.

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Linguist calls for London’s endangered language communities to be mapped

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British capital may be second only to New York in the number of at-risk languages spoken, says Ross Perlin

Life in London has been mapped according to its health, wealth, land ownership, politics and transport at key points in its long history. But it is now hoped it can be charted in a way that tells a different story: the story of language itself.

Ross Perlin, an academic who claimed a prestigious £25,000 book prize last week, now hopes to start work on a mapping project with British researchers that would reveal the whereabouts of the speakers of the capital’s most at-risk languages. The map, they believe, would be a first step to saving them.

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Jamie Oliver asks cheese lovers to help catch thieves behind £300,000 cheddar scam

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London’s Neal’s Yard Dairy swindled out of 950 wheels of award-winning cheddars delivered to alleged fraudster

The celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has encouraged cheese lovers to help police catch scammers who defrauded a London dairy out of more than £300,000 worth of English and Welsh cheddar.

Neal’s Yard Dairy, a distributor and retailer of British artisan cheese, delivered 22 tonnes of award-winning clothbound cheddar to the alleged fraudster posing as a wholesale distributor for a large French retailer before realising it had been duped.

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State-backed loans to go to firms importing critical minerals into UK

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Rachel Reeves to encourage import of raw materials from Commonwealth countries to counter China’s grip on market

Businesses that import critical minerals to the UK will be given access to state-backed loans in a move to counter China’s dominance in the market.

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is expected to announce extra government support to encourage the import of critical minerals such as lithium, graphite and cobalt in her budget next week. Companies that bring supplies of critical minerals into the UK will be able to access state-backed loans under the UK export finance mechanism.

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12 ebike fire survivors sue London landlords and battery manufacturer

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Legal action after fire that killed man at overcrowded flat in Shadwell thought to be the first of its kind involving ebikes

Twelve survivors of an ebike battery fire that killed a man have launched legal action against their landlords and the battery’s manufacturer.

The 12 managed to escape in the early hours of 5 March 2023, after an overcrowded flat they were living in – in Maddocks House in Shadwell, east London – caught fire due to an explosion found by a coroner to have been caused by a faulty ebike battery. Mizanur Rahman, a 41-year-old father-of-two, died in the fire.

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Met police officer who shot Chris Kaba acquitted of murder

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Martyn Blake shot Kaba, who was unarmed, in 2022, saying he feared Kaba would use his Audi to kill officers

A Metropolitan police armed officer on trial for murder after shooting an unarmed suspect in the head has been acquitted.

Martyn Blake shot Chris Kaba in September 2022 on a residential street in Streatham, south London.

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TfL could be forced to pay millions over Dutch lorry drivers’ low emission zone fines

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Hauliers’ group Transport in Nood BV launched judicial review earlier this year over fines issued in Ulez and Lez

Transport for London (TfL) could be forced to pay back millions of pounds in low emission zone fines issued to Dutch lorry drivers after agreeing they had been issued unlawfully.

The body said it had agreed to settle a claim regarding the Ulez fines after a company representing dozens of Dutch haulage companies launched a legal challenge into the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) and low emission zone (Lez) fines earlier this year.

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Undercover film exposing UK far-right activists pulled from London festival

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Film festival organisers make ‘heartbreaking’ decision not to show Undercover: Exposing the Far Right amid concerns over staff welfare

A documentary that lifts the lid on a “race science” network of far-right activists in Britain and its links to a rich American funder of eugenics research has been pulled from the London Film Festival (LFF) at the last minute due to safety concerns.

The organisers have taken the “heartbreaking decision” to cancel the planned screening of the “exceptional” Undercover: Exposing the Far Right this weekend due to fears about the welfare of audiences, staff and security working in the festival venues.

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Man found guilty of rape and manslaughter of woman on London park bench

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Mohamed Iidow attacked Natalie Shotter after she apparently passed out in park in Southall after night out

A man has been convicted of the rape and manslaughter of a woman while she lay unconscious on a park bench in west London after a night out.

Natalie Shotter, 37, an NHS worker, was attacked after apparently passing out in Southall in July 2021. Mohamed Iidow orally raped her “until she died”, his trial heard.

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Keir Starmer met Taylor Swift at Wembley concert, No 10 confirms

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Source says backstage ‘brush-by’ did not include discussion of VIP protection given to star, a decision made by Scotland Yard

Keir Starmer met Taylor Swift at one of her London concerts days after a decision was taken to grant her a “blue light” police escort, No 10 sources have confirmed.

The prime minister and his family had a 10-minute meeting with the pop megastar and her mother, Andrea, backstage at Wembley on 20 August, with the conversation covering the Southport murders, which took place at a Swift-themed holiday club.

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Family of British woman who fell to her death in Spain call on Met to investigate

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Guardia Civil report on Piia Hokkanen indicates Spanish detectives believe cause of death was suicide

The family and friends of a British IT executive who fell to her death from an apartment block in Spain on the evening of her 50th birthday have called on the Metropolitan police to intervene in a Spanish police investigation into the fatality.

Piia Hokkanen, who at the time of her death had borrowed her sister’s holiday home for a three-day mini-break in Torrevieja, near Alicante, was found lifeless after falling from a communal window on to a neighbour’s patio shortly after midnight on 4 September.

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Councillor who oversaw Grenfell works donated to Badenoch’s Tory leadership bid

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Survivor of blaze which killed 72 ‘disgusted’ Quentin Marshall gave £5,000 to candidate promoting deregulation

One of Kemi Badenoch’s Tory leadership campaign funders is a councillor who had oversight of Grenfell Tower and dismissed some residents’ complaints about the pre-fire refurbishment as “grossly exaggerated”.

One survivor of the blaze that killed 72 people said he was “disgusted” that Quentin Marshall, a senior politician at the Conservative-controlled Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) which owned the block, has given £5,000 to the current shadow housing secretary to help her become the leader of the opposition.

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Children being traumatised at Gatwick deportation centre, finds watchdog

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Assessment finds detention unit is subjecting families to ‘unnecessary suffering’ amid lengthy Home Office delays

Young children are being traumatised while held at a Gatwick airport deportation centre that should be closed down, a watchdog has found.

The independent monitoring board (IMB) also said the children’s parents were being subjected to “callous treatment and unnecessary suffering” because of the Home Office’s lengthy decision-making process over removals.

Children are witnessing or overhearing their parents’ “considerable distress” at their expected deportation, despite staff efforts to shield them.

Children are being asked by staff to translate for their distraught parents, despite having been taken from their homes and facing removal to a country they may know very little about.

The use of the Family PDA may prolong or add to trauma already experienced, particularly for children.

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Homeless man who pushed stranger on to tube tracks jailed for life

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Brwa Shorsh, 24, found guilty of attempted murder after postman pushed into path of oncoming train at Oxford Circus station

A homeless man who pushed a stranger on to the tracks of the tube has been jailed for life with a minimum term of eight years.

Brwa Shorsh, 24, was sentenced on Thursday at Inner London crown court after being found guilty of attempted murder, in an attack a judge said would “strike fear into every traveller on the Underground”.

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