Category Archives: London

Police ‘could and should have’ stopped him: key points from Wayne Couzens report

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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.

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Cash-strapped London council starts crowdfunding drive to pay for green upgrades

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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.

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London’s Tower Bridge closed due to pro-Palestine demonstration

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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.

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Tory MP Lee Anderson claims ‘Islamists’ have got control of Sadiq Khan

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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.

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Body found in hunt for Clapham chemical assault suspect

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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.

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Julian Assange: key dates in the WikiLeaks founder’s case

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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.

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Westminster Abbey agrees ‘in principle’ to return sacred tablet to Ethiopia

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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.

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‘Take the Windrush, then change on to the Suffragette’: onboard the renamed London Overground lines causing controversy

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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.

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London Overground: new names and colours for six lines revealed

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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.

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Nine taken to hospital after police van and London bus collide

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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.

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Printworks London may reopen by 2026 after developers submit plans

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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.

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Chemical attack suspect Abdul Ezedi probably dead, police say

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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.

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Ulez fines scandal: Italian police ‘illegally accessed’ thousands of EU drivers’ data

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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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India’s wealthy ‘fear London is worse than Delhi for muggings’

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Fear of crime in UK capital is one of biggest concerns of rich Indians, says entrepreneur

Indian business people are avoiding being out and about in Mayfair over fears they could be mugged for their expensive watches after a 27% rise in “theft from a person” in London, an entrepreneur has said.

Devin Narang, an entrepreneur, told a meeting attended by David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, that fear of crime in London was one of the biggest concerns of India’s rich elite.

“People are being mugged in the heart of London – in Mayfair,” Narang, a member of the executive committee of the federation of Indian chambers of commerce and industry, said at a meeting in New Delhi, according to the Financial Times. “All CEOs in India have had an experience of physical mugging and the police [in London] not responding.”

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‘Sublime flavours’ at Ledbury in west London win it three Michelin stars

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Notting Hill restaurant is sixth in the capital to get the ultimate accolade, while two Indian eateries get two stars for the first time

The London restaurant the Ledbury has been awarded three stars in the Michelin Guide for Great Britain and Ireland.

The Notting Hill restaurant is the sixth in the capital to hold the guide’s most prestigious accolade, while Gymkhana is one of the first two Indian restaurants in the UK to receive two stars, alongside Birmingham’s Opheem.

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Black police officers’ group calls for ethnic minorities to boycott joining Met

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Move comes in protest at ‘racist and vexatious’ misconduct investigation into a leading officer

The National Black Police Association (NBPA) has called for ethnic minorities to boycott joining the Metropolitan police in protest at a “racist and vexatious” misconduct investigation into a leading officer.

In the first call for a boycott in 20 years, the association claims Charles Ehikioya, chair of the Met Black Police Association (Met BPA), has been targeted because he voiced concerns about the poor behaviour of senior officers – and the racism he and his colleagues are suffering.

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Met police appeal for help as Clapham chemical attack suspect hunt enters fourth day

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Searches carried out at Abdul Ezedi’s Newcastle home and in London as his female victim remains ‘critical but stable’

With the hunt for Abdul Ezedi entering its fourth day, police have appealed for the public to come forward with information about the suspected chemical attacker.

Investigators released two images of white plastic bottles with warnings about corrosive substances, which may be linked to the attack on a 31-year-old woman and her two daughters last week.

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Judge throws out case against Greta Thunberg and other London protesters

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Court rules not enough evidence provided to prove defendants failed to comply with section 14 order at anti-fossil fuel rally

Greta Thunberg and four others charged with public order offences over a protest in London have been cleared after a judge ruled that they had no case to answer.

Thunberg was charged alongside Christofer Kebbon, Joshua James Unwin, Jeff Rice and Peter Barker with “failing to comply with a condition imposed under section 14 of the Public Order Act”.

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‘I’m devastated it’s closing’: London shoppers bid sad farewell to Fenwick

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New Bond Street department store, which opened in 1890s, to close doors for final time this weekend

More than 130 years after it opened, the flagship Fenwick department store in central London, will close its doors for the last time on Saturday.

The historic four-storey shop in New Bond Street, Mayfair, is shutting after the retailer – which is owned by more than 40 descendants of John James Fenwick who founded the company with a single store in Newcastle in 1882 – sold the property to developers for £430m.

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Chemical assaults: how common are they and what’s the law?

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As a manhunt continues after a corrosive substance attack, we look at the legislation and the availability of products

A manhunt is under way for the perpetrator of a corrosive substance attack in south London.

Here we take a look at corrosive substance attacks, what they are, how often they occur and the relevant legislation.

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