People bereaved by Covid want government recognition and protection for South Bank place of remembrance
Volunteers at the Covid memorial wall are urging ministers to make the monument permanent as Britain marks its first national day of reflection after the pandemic.
The wall runs between Westminster Bridge and Lambeth Bridge on South Bank in London and is looked after by a group of volunteers, who rely on public donations to maintain it.
Continue reading...RSPCA take in young rodent after Canning Town staff discover cage in alleyway
A guinea pig has been found abandoned outside an east London tube station, with a note reading: “I need a new owner.”
Staff at Canning Town station discovered the animal, which has been named DiscoPig, alone inside a cage with the piece of paper taped to it.
Continue reading...Force was previously unable to locate sim belonging to Mia Janin, 14, after investigation into her death in 2021
Scotland Yard will return the lost sim card and phone of a bullied schoolgirl who killed herself, after the items were found months after her family requested their return.
Mia Janin, a 14-year-old pupil at Jewish free school (JFS) in Kenton, north-west London, died on 12 March 2021. Police admitted losing evidence it had gathered following her death last year – including the teenager’s main phone, second phone and sim card – but have since recovered them.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...Legal adviser to pro-Palestinian protesters was taken to hospital by passersby after the incident on Westminster Bridge in London
A 71-year-old legal observer has accused a group of police officers of deliberately knocking her over and leaving her bloodied and unconscious on the ground during a Gaza ceasefire protest in London.
Lesley Wertheimer – who was wearing a hi-vis bib with “legal observer” printed on the back – crashed face down into the road when a phalanx of about 30 police officers ran towards Westminster Bridge during the first pro-Palestine demonstration of 2024.
Continue reading...Person on moped fired weapon in Clapham Common area and suspects remain at large, police say
Three people have been taken to hospital after shots were fired by a moped rider in south London, the Metropolitan police said.
Police were seen chasing the bike through Clapham after the incident on Friday afternoon. The firearm, believed to be a shotgun, was discharged from the vehicle in the Clapham Common area.
Anyone who saw the moped, or captured the incident on dashcam, should phone 101 and quote ref CAD 5008/1 Mar.
Continue reading...Eleven people treated for smoke inhalation after fire breaks out in residential building in London
Eleven people have been taken to hospital after a fire broke out at a converted terraced house in the upmarket London neighbourhood of South Kensington.
Fifteen fire engines and about 100 firefighters were called to the fire at a terraced house converted into apartments on Emperor’s Gate, in the south-west of London, close to the Natural History Museum.
Continue reading...Inquiry chair says there is ‘nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight’ and radical overhaul is needed
Sarah Everard’s “devastating” murder was “entirely preventable”, campaigners have said, as they called for urgent reform of policing to restore women’s trust.
The Angiolini inquiry found that Wayne Couzens should never have been given a job as a police officer and that chances to stop him were repeatedly ignored and missed.
Continue reading...Former firearms officer’s history of alleged sexual offending dated back to 1995, 347-page report finds
Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer and three separate forces “could and should have” stopped him, a damning report by Lady Elish Angiolini has found.
The 51-year-old former firearms officer’s history of alleged sexual offending and predilection for violent and extreme pornography dated back to 1995, it said. Couzens allegedly sexually assaulted a child and attempted to kidnap a woman at knife-point in the years before he abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard on 3 March 2021.
Continue reading...Southwark asks residents to invest as little as £5 to help fund eco-projects such as cycle hangars and school upgrades
Deep cuts to government funding have led a council in south London to ask its residents to invest their own money, for a financial return, to build cycle hangars, new LED street lighting and green upgrades at schools and leisure centres.
In the midst of a financial crisis hitting town halls across England, councillors in Southwark have resorted to a crowdfunding scheme to raise £6m over the next six years to help fund climate-friendly projects.
Continue reading...Historic landmark closed for about an hour as activists call for ceasefire to the conflict in Gaza
Police were forced to close Tower Bridge to vehicles and pedestrians following a protest by pro-Palestine demonstrators.
Some activists were seen lighting flares and waving Palestinian flags and calling for a ceasefire to the ongoing violence in Gaza, according to footage on social media. The landmark was closed by City of London police at about 5.30pm on Saturday before being reopened approximately an hour later.
Continue reading...Ex-deputy party chair says on GB News Islamists control London as well as its mayor, prompting calls for him to lose the whip
The Conservative MP Lee Anderson has claimed that “Islamists” have “got control of London” and its mayor, Sadiq Khan.
Speaking on GB News, Anderson said of Khan, the first Muslim mayor of London: “He’s given our capital city away to his mates.
Continue reading...Police had been searching Thames for Abdul Ezedi after attack on a mother and her two daughters in south London
A body has been found in connection with the hunt for a suspect who severely injured a “vulnerable” mother and her two young daughters in a chemical assault, Scotland Yard have said.
Abdul Ezedi has been sought by police since the attack on 31 January in Clapham, south London, with officers appealing to the public to call 999 if they saw him.
Continue reading...How Assange went from being questioned in Sweden to living for years in Ecuador’s embassy in London
Julian Assange is to make his final bid for an appeal against a UK judge’s ruling over his extradition to the US.
The WikiLeaks founder is wanted in the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information after the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Continue reading...Carved wooden tabot has been at Abbey since British forces looted it at Battle of Maqdala in 1868
Westminster Abbey has agreed “in principle” to returning a sacred tablet to the Ethiopian Orthodox church, igniting a debate around restitution claims made by the East African nation.
The tabot – a blackened flat piece of wood featuring a carved inscription that symbolically represents the Ark of the Covenant and the Ten Commandments – has been at the Abbey since British forces returned with it from the Battle of Maqdala, where it was looted in 1868.
Continue reading...Mayor Sadiq Khan thinks his new line names for the capital’s ever-expanding rail network bring clarity, but not everyone agrees
The ancient Egyptians saw names as magical. It was said that Isis tricked Ra, the sun god, into telling her his true name, to give her power over him and put her son Horus on the throne.
Londoners have a different take. The Northern line was nearly named TootanCamden in the 1920s, the historian Robert Graves wrote – a pun on the Tutankhamun craze of the time and the line’s route through Tooting and Camden.
Continue reading...Web of orange on tube map revamped to celebrate city’s unique local history and culture, says mayor
The London Overground is to be rebranded into six lines with names inspired by the capital’s and the country’s diverse modern history, from Windrush to the Lionesses.
The web of orange on the tube map will be replaced by six colours and routes in August to help make the capital’s public transport network easier to navigate.
Continue reading...One officer trapped in wreckage at non-lethal incident near Oval tube station had to be rescued by firefighters
Nine people, including six police officers, have been taken to hospital after a collision between a doubledecker bus and a police van in south London.
Emergency services responded to the incident on Kennington Park Road, near Oval tube station, at about 11.30am.
Continue reading...British Land and AustraliaSuper want to create cultural venue that will include offices and shops
Printworks London, the 6,000-capacity post-industrial superclub, could reopen by 2026 after property developers that own the site filed their plans to Southwark council.
British Land and its partner AustralianSuper, one of the country’s largest pension funds, submitted a detailed proposal to the council on Monday to redevelop the site in Rotherhithe into a permanent cultural venue just over a year after the cavernous club shut its doors.
Continue reading...Met police say no body found but Ezedi has not been seen since assault on woman and her daughters in London
Police hunting the Clapham chemical attack suspect, Abdul Ezedi, say they believe he is dead after going into the River Thames at Chelsea Bridge four hours after he left a woman severely injured.
Scotland Yard said Ezedi’s body had not been found but he was last seen close to the River Thames. Officers had been looking for the 35-year-old since Wednesday 31 January when he was suspected of using a strong alkaline substance in an attack on a mother and her daughters, aged three and eight. The mother, 31, is still in hospital in an induced coma.
Continue reading...Italy’s data protection body investigates claims police shared names and addresses with firm collecting penalties for TfL
The names and addresses of thousands of EU drivers were unlawfully accessed by Italian police and shared with the company that collects Ulez penalties on behalf of Transport for London (TfL), investigators believe.
The Italian data protection authority is investigating claims by Belgium’s government that an unnamed police department misused official powers to pass the personal details of Belgian drivers to Euro Parking Collections, which is employed by TfL to issue fines to enforce London’s low emission zone (Lez) and ultra-low emission zone.
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