Mark Ross to be sentenced on Friday over killing of Claudiu-Carol Kondor during theft of vehicle in Armley area
A “career criminal” has been found guilty of murdering an Amazon delivery driver who was trying to stop his van from being stolen.
Claudiu-Carol Kondor, 42, was dragged along a street at high speeds as he clung to his vehicle to try to stop the theft on 20 August last year.
Continue reading...Marta Bednarczyk’s family release tribute to loving mother and supportive friend who moved to England 15 years ago
A 13-year-old girl has appeared in court charged with murder and arson after the body of a woman was found in a house in Northamptonshire.
The teenager, who appeared in the dock holding a teddy bear, was remanded in custody at Northampton magistrates court on Wednesday, after being charged with the murder of 43-year-old Marta Bednarczyk.
Continue reading...Applications to the sustainable farming initiative no longer accepted but no clarity on what will replace it and when
Farming and countryside groups in England are furious that the government has paused a key post-Brexit farming payments scheme with little information about what will replace it and when.
In a statement on Tuesday evening the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the sustainable farming incentive would no longer accept new applications.
Continue reading...Checkpoints backed by education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, follow complaints from teachers of children arriving in nappies
Toilet training and the ability to use cutlery are two key checkpoints in a new list of “school-readiness” skills developed by a coalition of early-years educators and endorsed by Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary.
The group said the guidance was the first of its type, intended to help parents to prepare children starting in reception classes in England from the age of four and came after complaints from teachers of children arriving at school in nappies, lacking basic skills and unable to play with others.
Continue reading...Officer who investigated Rhianan Rudd, who killed herself, tells inquest ‘wider conversation’ needed on such cases
MI5 officers investigating a schoolgirl who went on to kill herself after being charged with far-right terror offences had complained of a lack of guidance on handling the growing number of such cases, according to internal emails heard at an inquest.
A special evidence session in London heard that intelligence agents working on the case of Rhianan Rudd, who died at the age of 16, lamented the lack of national strategy in dealing with a proliferation of vulnerable young people holding violent far-right views.
Continue reading...People in capital breathing much cleaner air, with significant improvements in capital’s most deprived areas
People in London have been breathing significantly cleaner air since the expansion of the ultra low emission zone (Ulez), a study has found.
Levels of deadly pollutants that are linked to a wide range of health problems – from cancer to impaired lung development, heart attacks to premature births – have dropped, with some of the biggest improvements coming in the capital’s most deprived areas.
Continue reading...Survey reveals senior officials think changes will do little to address local authorities’ dire financial crisis
Ministers’ plans to shake up the structure of English local government by merging councils are “ill-thought-out”, “insane” and a “bizarre diversion” that will fail to deliver savings, according to a survey of town hall leaders.
The depth of unhappiness with the plans is revealed in an annual poll of senior councillors and executives, most of whom said the changes would be costly, time-consuming and do little to address the dire financial crisis facing councils.
Continue reading...Alice Mackey, 42, remanded in custody over death of Annabel Mackey, who was found in a pond in 2023
A 42-year-old woman has been charged with the murder of her two-year-old daughter who died after being found in a pond.
Police were sent to a report that Annabel Mackey had gone missing from her home in Kingsley near Bordon, Hampshire, on 10 September 2023.
Continue reading...New method reported to cut number of false positives by 87% has been registered with regulator for approval
A new swab test could help hundreds of thousands of women a year in the UK who may have womb cancer avoid having an often painful invasive procedure to detect the disease.
About 800,000 women annually go to see a GP because they are suffering from abnormal bleeding from their uterus and then undergo uncomfortable and stressful investigations to identify the cause.
Continue reading...Parents banned from school sites after leaders spat at and trolled, poll finds
Four in five school leaders in England, Wales and Northern Ireland say they have suffered abuse from pupils’ parents in the past year, according to a poll that found they had been spat at, trolled on social media and even physically attacked.
The problem has become so serious that more than two out of five (42%) of those who took part in the survey said they had been forced to ban parents from the school site in the last year. Nearly a third (32%) have reported parents to the police and almost three-quarters (72%) have issued a warning letter or email.
Continue reading...Guardian analysis lays bare a neglected system that is ruinously expensive, and often fails children and parents
The alarming details of the special educational needs financial crisis in English local authorities are buried deep in internal council papers but the reality of the situation is crystal-clear to those close to it. “It’s a ticking timebomb,” one town hall boss told the Guardian. “It’s what keeps me awake at night.”
Budget reports, schools forum minutes and financial planning documents help tell a story of a system woefully unprepared for the explosion in numbers of children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in recent years, chronically underfunded to meet the growing demand, and now struggling to keep afloat.
Continue reading...Government must scrap English baccalaureate to make arts more accessible to working-class children, critics say
Leading cultural figures have expressed doubts about the government’s commitment to restoring the creative arts in English schools, with one warning that Labour has “lost the plot” and “the current signs are they are worse than the Tories”.
When Labour won the election, it promised to expand opportunities for working-class children by broadening the school curriculum to include more drama, art, music and sport alongside the core academic subjects.
Continue reading...Officers in Operation Castle attend every reported break-in and no longer treat such crimes as ‘low level’
When Sean Edwards found his car and his neighbours’ houses had been broken into in Longsight, Greater Manchester, in 2022, he was not expecting much from the police based on previous experiences.
“I expected them to dust for prints and take statements, then give us a crime reference number and nothing else happen,” he said.
Continue reading...Union leader describes chain’s record on overseas-trained teachers as ‘Harris Federation’s Windrush’
The National Education Union has claimed a “resounding improvement” in workload and conditions for teachers from Jamaica and other countries at a leading academy chain, as part of a deal ending threats of strike action.
The Harris Federation of schools confirmed it will improve conditions for qualified teachers from Jamaica and others trained overseas, as part of a deal that eases the route for overseas-trained teachers to gain similar qualifications in England.
Continue reading...Nineteen-year-old attacked by animal believed to have been XL bully, which has been put down, police say
A 19-year-old woman who died after she was attacked by a dog in Bristol has been named as Morgan Dorsett, police say.
The teenager, from Shropshire, was attacked by a dog, believed to have been an XL bully, inside a flat in Cobhorn Drive in the Hartcliffe area of the city at 7.19pm on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Scathing committee report lambasts DfT and HS2 for failing to work together effectively
HS2 has become “a casebook example of how not to run a major project”, according to the latest scathing report on the high-speed rail line from MPs on the public accounts committee (PAC).
The PAC lambasted the Department for Transport (DfT) and HS2 Ltd for failing to work together effectively, and told them not to waste the opportunity to get a grip on costs during the project’s latest “reset”.
Continue reading...Pamela Marking, suffering severe stomach issues, diagnosed in hospital with nosebleed and sent home by PA
A coroner has issued a warning about the role of physician associates in NHS hospitals after a woman with severe abdominal problems was wrongly diagnosed as having a nosebleed and died four days later.
The family of Pamela Marking, 77, were under the mistaken impression she had been seen by a doctor when she was examined in an emergency department, rather than a physician associate (PA) with far less training.
Continue reading...Hilda Jackson and fellow residents partied with strobe lights, glowsticks and drum’n’bass from festival-headliner
It was a birthday party that would do even the most seasoned raver proud, with strobe lighting, glow sticks and a headline act who has played some of the biggest festivals in the UK.
The birthday girl sipped on champagne, while guests helped themselves to free-flowing cocktails from a pop-up bar run by Jägermeister. This was not an Instagram influencer’s Ibiza pool party, however – it was Hilda Jackson’s 105th-birthday rave in her Derbyshire care home.
Continue reading...Rachel Adam-Smith says stopping benefits when loved ones are in hospital fails to recognise carers’ ongoing role
The mother of a severely disabled young woman was left in financial hardship after her carer’s allowance was wrongly stopped while her daughter was seriously ill in hospital.
Rachel Adam-Smith, 48, spent five weeks in hospital alongside her 22-year-old daughter who was being treated for severe gastrointestinal issues last month.
Continue reading...Charity calls for move after poll finds ‘crisis’ levels of reading for pleasure and rise in 8- to 18-year-olds enjoying audio
The government has been urged to include audiobooks in the new schools curriculum in England, after research showed fewer children were reading books for pleasure and more were listening to them instead.
A poll by the National Literacy Trust (NLT) found that children’s enjoyment of listening to audio and podcasts had risen compared with the previous year, overtaking their enjoyment of reading for the first time since the charity began asking about audio in 2020.
Continue reading...