Category Archives: Dorset

Woman, 60, arrested on suspicion of manslaughter over Dorset care home deaths

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Police confirm ‘possible carbon monoxide poisoning’ is main line of inquiry after fatalities at care home in Swanage

A 60-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter by detectives investigating the deaths of three people at a care home in Dorset.

Officers are still treating the deaths at the Gainsborough care home in Swanage as unexplained and have confirmed that “possible carbon monoxide poisoning” is the primary line of inquiry. Seven other residents were taken to hospital.

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Digger stolen from Dorset found 1,200 miles away in rural Poland

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Hitachi digger tracked down to town of Pruchnik, with arrangements made to reunite it with its owner

A digger stolen from a development site in Dorset has been found five months later and 1,200 miles away in a rural town in south-eastern Poland.

Dorset police received a report on 1 April that a Hitachi digger and a JCB digger had been stolen in the small town of Ferndown, near Bournemouth.

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Dorset ‘Stonehenge’ discovered under Thomas Hardy’s home

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Enclosure older than Salisbury monument found under late novelist’s garden is given heritage protection

When the author Thomas Hardy was writing Tess of the D’Urbervilles in 1891, he chose to set the novel’s dramatic conclusion at Stonehenge, where Tess sleeps on one of the stones the night before she is arrested for murder.

What the author did not know, as he wrote in the study of his home, Max Gate in Dorchester, was that he was sitting right in the heart of a large henge-like enclosure that was even older than the famous monument on Salisbury Plain.

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Man jailed after shoplifting hundreds of Cadbury Creme Eggs

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Layton Richards, 29, sentenced to eight months in prison for string of thefts in Dorset, Hampshire and West Sussex

A thief has been jailed for eight months after being found guilty of shoplifting almost 800 Cadbury Creme Eggs over a three-month period.

Layton Richards, 29, had been charged with 24 shoplifting offences between 6 January and 18 April this year, with Hampshire and Isle of Wight constabulary accusing him of stealing as many as 798 of the confectionery items.

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Dorset auction house withdraws Egyptian human skulls from sale

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MP says trade in remains is ‘gross violation of human dignity’, as skulls from Pitt Rivers collection removed

An auction house has withdrawn 18 ancient Egyptian human skulls from sale after an MP said selling them would perpetuate the atrocities of colonialism.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan reparations, believes the sale of human remains for any purposes should be outlawed, adding that the trade was “a gross violation of human dignity”.

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Fate of precious Henry VIII stained glass in dispute as ‘haunted house’ auction halted at last minute

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Intervention by conservationists halts sale of 1530s roundel from Grade-I listed manor, created to celebrate king’s union with Anne Boleyn

The fate of precious Tudor stained glass marking the union of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is in dispute after its last-minute withdrawal from a private auction, the Observer has learned.

Urgent intervention by conservationists prevented the sale of English glasswork “of exceptional importance”, including a window made in the 1530s as well as older ­medieval glass. The windows were hanging in a 16th-century Dorset manor and were destined for a private contents auction until spotted listed alongside vintage furniture and china.

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Family of man found dead on Bibby Stockholm calls for independent inquiry

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‘Closed quasi-detention conditions’ mean death of Leonard Farruku should be examined, lawyers say

The family of Leonard Farruku is calling for an independent inquiry into his death on the Bibby Stockholm barge, the Guardian has learned.

The Albanian asylum seeker, 27, was found dead on the barge, moored in Portland, Dorset, on 12 December last year, after a suspected suicide.

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Student died after allergic reaction to Dorset pub risotto, inquest hears

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Georgina Mansergh, 24, reacted to sesame oil in a tahini sauce in the meal and collapsed at the Angel Inn in Ferndown

A student died after suffering an allergic reaction to sesame seed oil in a mushroom risotto she ate at a family dinner in a Dorset pub, an inquest has heard.

Georgina Mansergh, 24, was visiting the Angel Inn in Ferndown with her family on 11 February when she suffered the reaction to the oil used in the tahini sauce included in the dish. She was studying for her masters degree.

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