PM to face Tory leader following decision to announce tougher checks for people buying knives online
A new online train ticket retailer backed by the UK government is to be created, the Department for Transport (DfT) has announced, with the aim of simplifying the process of buying tickets from different rail operators. Joanna Partridge has the story.
PMQs is almost with us.
Continue reading...Case was fast-tracked after crime in Kolkata sparked protests across India amid concern for women’s safety
A police volunteer has been found guilty of the rape and murder of a trainee doctor who was on duty in Kolkata, a crime that sparked protests across India amid concern about violence against women and girls.
The outcry over the killing of the 31-year-old physician in August led to the trial being fast-tracked through the legal system.
Continue reading...Michael Whitbread, 75, is on trial in Lanciano for murder of fellow Briton Michele Faiers, 66, in October 2023
A British man living in Italy has admitted stabbing his partner to death, claiming he did it after she accused him of cheating on her.
Michael Whitbread, 75, told a court he could not remember how many times he stabbed fellow Briton Michele Faiers, 66, in October 2023.
Continue reading...Prime minister told Commons any new inquiry into child abuse would delay progress however spokesperson says he has not ruled one out
Reform UK has also tabled a reasoned amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill motion tonight. It says:
That this house declines to give a second reading to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill because the secretary of state for the Home Department has not launched a UK-wide public inquiry into grooming gangs and has not committed to updating Members of this House every quarter on the progress of the inquiry.
The Conservatives are using the victims of this scandal as a political football.
The Conservatives alongside Reform, goaded along by Elon Musk will be voting for a motion which will not secure a national inquiry for victims of child sexual abuse, but instead it would kill these crucial child protection measures completely.
Continue reading...Palestinians trapped in a ‘doom loop of hell’, MPs told
At the end of last week Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary and runner-up in last year’s Tory leadership contest, said the child abuse grooming scandal started with “mass migration” and “importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women”. In response Samuel Kasumu, a former Tory adviser on race issues, said that comments like that could lead to people being killed, while Kemi Badenoch defended her colleague.
In an inteview on the Today programme this morning, asked if Kasumu’s comments made him reconsider his views, Jenrick replied:
That’s complete nonsense. MPs have been killed in this country in recent times by a jihadist and by a neo-Nazi. They were killed because of the views of those individuals, not what anything an MP has said. We have to fight extremism in this country, wherever we find it, and you fight that by standing up to the extremists, you don’t fight it by shying away, by turning a blind eye, by looking the other way.
I’m not going to tiptoe around this issue. Millions of people in our country are listening to your programme this morning, and they are appalled by what is happening to young girls, and they are shocked that there might be girls in that situation today. We have to stop this.
I think some people who come from that country do. I’m not saying everybody.
NR: Did Sajid Javid’s family [the former Tory chancellor] come with a medieval culture to this county?
RJ: I’m saying some people do.
Robert Jenrick’s attempt to exploit this appalling scandal for his own political gain is completely shameless. He didn’t lift a finger to help the victims when a minister, now he’s jumping on the bandwagon and acting like a pound shop Farage.
Kemi Badenoch should sack him as shadow justice secretary and condemn his divisive comments, instead of letting him run a leadership campaign under her nose.
Continue reading...Election manifesto promise to set up specialist tribunals to deal with huge backlog of cases has been put on hold
The government appears to have stalled on plans to set up dozens of specialist rape courts to deal with a huge backlog of cases, amid warnings there are not enough lawyers to make the proposals work.
Labour pledged during the election campaign to use vacant rooms and buildings on crown court sites to fast-track rape cases and reduce the numbers awaiting trial.
Continue reading...Lawyer says he wishes to spare Gisèle Pelicot a new ordeal after marathon trial convicted all 51 accused
Dominique Pelicot will not appeal against his conviction for drugging and raping his wife and inviting strangers to rape her, his lawyer has said.
Béatrice Zavarro said the former electrician, 72, who was jailed for the maximum 20 years this month, wished to spare his now ex-wife, Gisèle Pelicot, a new ordeal but admitted there was also the risk a new trial in front of a public jury could mean a longer prison sentence.
Continue reading...Court found 51 men guilty including Dominique Pelicot, who was given a 20-year prison sentence
At least 15 of the men found guilty of raping or sexually abusing Gisèle Pelicot have appealed against their convictions and will be given a second trial.
All 51 men, including her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, were convicted and given prison sentences of between three and 20 years before Christmas after a trial lasting three and a half months. Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years.
Continue reading...MPs vote to give leave to bring in private members’ bill on PR but it will have no practical effect
Lord Robertson, the former Labour defence secretary and former Nato secretary who is leading the government’s strategic defence review, is giving evidence to the Commons defence committee. He has told MPs that the Americans are being fully consulted about the review. This is from Shashank Joshi, the Economist’s defence editor.
Listening to George Robertson & Richard Barrons, who are writing the UK’s defence review alongside Fiona Hill, giving evidence to the Commons defence committee. They’re in “constant contact” with allies, Robertson says, and have a US officer on the review team.
Continue reading...Raj Sidpara, 50, given minimum 21-year sentence after punching, kicking and stamping on Tarnjeet Riaz
A man who murdered his girlfriend by punching, kicking and stamping on her before falling asleep and leaving her to die has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years.
Raj Sidpara, 50, was convicted of the murder of Tarnjeet Riaz, also known by her maiden name Chagger, at Leicester crown court last week.
Continue reading...Phillips says people have to be mindful of their own safety but ‘you can definitely ask if someone is alright’
Q: Are you feeling the pressure? There is a petition signed by 2 million people calling for another election.
Starmer says he is not surprised that people who did not support Labour in the first place want the election to be re-run. But that is not how the system worked.
I’m not surprised, quite frankly, that as we’re doing the tough stuff, there are plenty of people who say, ‘Well, I’m impacted.’
I think anybody who’s turned around an organisation or a business will tell you, and they’re right, if you’re really going to turn something around, you have to do the hard yards upfront. Don’t look at a tough decision and then leave it for a year or two.
So we’re doing the tough stuff. But in the budget, which is probably the toughest, I’m really pleased that we were able to put so much money into the National Health Service … Anybody watching this who uses the NHS will know we absolutely had to make that a priority.
Continue reading...Woman who has become a feminist hero says she is ‘determined to change society’, as trial approaches its end
More than a hundred women formed a line and applauded as Gisèle Pelicot left the courtroom of the French mass rape trial this week. Pelicot, whose husband has admitted drugging her and inviting dozens of strangers into her bedroom to rape her for a decade, thanked supporters, putting a hand to her heart.
She would, she told the court, now go for walk. “I heal by hours and hours of walking – it’s a way to protect myself. That and my psychologist, music and chocolate … Everyone has their own therapy for suffering.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: Sister says Harshita Brella reported abuse but ‘police processes made her feel more scared and alone’
The family of a woman found dead in a car boot in east London have accused police of not doing enough to protect her, saying she had filed a complaint alleging domestic abuse by her husband weeks before.
The body of Harshita Brella, a 24-year-old Indian citizen who was living in Northamptonshire, was discovered last Thursday in a car in Ilford. Police have named her husband, Pankaj Lamba, as the main suspect for the killing. Officers believe he has fled the country.
Continue reading...Paul Biddiss, who trained Paul Mescal and Day of the Jackal star Eddie Redmayne, says streetwise women are more aware of surveillance and harder to follow
He has trained would-be assassins and marshalled invading hordes, Napoleonic forces and Roman regiments, but movie military adviser Paul Biddiss found himself in the midst of his biggest Hollywood skirmish last month when the actor Saoirse Ronan made a powerful intervention about women’s personal safety.
Ronan, a guest on Graham Norton’s BBC chatshow sofa, sparked a nationwide debate about women’s security fears when she interrupted fellow actors as they discussed techniques that Biddiss had taught the casts of both Gladiator II and the new drama series The Day of the Jackal.
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The treasurer, Jim Chalmers will today announce funding of $900m for states and territories through a new national productivity fund to boost competition and productivity across the economy.
Launching the plan in a speech to the Australian Business Economists in Sydney, Chalmers is hoping the plan will will incentivise states to achieve productivity gains through pro-competitive policies such as streamlining commercial planning and zoning, and removing barriers to the uptake of modern construction methods.
In March this year, on behalf of the Council on Federal Financial Relations, I asked the Productivity Commission to model the potential impacts of a revitalised NCP.
Its final report landed this month and the benefits on offer are substantial, if not staggering. The PC found a revitalised NCP could boost GDP by up to $45bn a year and reduce prices by 1.45 percentage points. That GDP boost represents about $5,000 per household, per year.
Continue reading...Family violence unit officers missed opportunities to protect Noeline Dalzell before James Fairhall murdered her, Victoria’s coroner says
Police missed an opportunity to protect a woman who was stabbed to death by her ex-partner in front of their three children, Victoria’s state coroner has found.
Noeline Dalzell was murdered by James Fairhall at her home in Melbourne’s south-east in February 2020, three months after he was released from custody for breaching a family violence intervention order.
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Continue reading...Ombudsman’s report on death of Katie Simpson, 21, adds to concerns at levels of gender-based violence in Northern Ireland
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) “failed” the family of a 21-year-old woman after her death two years ago in Derry, initially treating it as suicide rather than a suspected murder, the police watchdog has said.
The report by the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland comes amid renewed concerns that gender-based violence is not being taken seriously enough in the region with the highest rate of femicide per capita of all nations in the UK and in the island of Ireland.
Continue reading...Some ex-girlfriends of accused men tell court of burden of not knowing if they had been sedated and molested in past
Giving evidence in Avignon’s criminal court, a softly spoken woman in her 30s pondered the question if the medication she took as part of managing her multiple sclerosis might have allowed her ex-partner, Cédric G, to sexually abuse her without her knowledge. She described their relationship as “lies, from start to finish”.
Cédric G, 50, a software technician who used to run a record shop in Avignon, looked on from behind the glass-screened dock in the court. He is one of 51 men on trial over the rape of Gisèle Pelicot, whose then husband, Dominique Pelicot, crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her food and invited dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious over a nine-year period from 2011 to 2020 in the village of Mazan in Provence.
Continue reading...Women have had to share bedrooms with unrelated men and some have faced further sexual violence, charities say
The UK asylum system is retraumatising women and girls who have fled rape and sexual abuse and putting them at risk of further harm, leading charities have said.
Sexual violence and abuse is often a major driver for women to leave their country of origin, as well as a common experience on their journey to the UK, but when they get here they are failed, according to Rape Crisis England and Wales (RCEW) and Imkaan.
Continue reading...Amnesty International calls on authorities to release student, who reportedly had a violent confrontation with Basij paramilitaries
Amnesty International has called on authorities in Iran to “immediately and unconditionally” release a female student who was arrested after stripping to her underwear in what the organisation described as a public protest against harassment relating to the country’s strict dress code.
The incident took place after the woman, who has not been identified, reportedly had a confrontation with members of the Basij paramilitary force who ripped her headscarf and tore at her clothes inside Tehran’s prestigious Islamic Azad University.
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