Category Archives: England

Coin trove from time of Norman conquest becomes England’s highest-value find

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£4.3m hoard acquired for the nation by South West Heritage Trust will be displayed at British Museum next month

It began with a speculative trip to a soggy field in south-west England by a seven-strong band of metal detectorists more intent on figuring out how to use some new kit rather than unearthing anything of great historical importance.

But the friends came upon an astonishing hoard of coins – 2,584 silver pennies – from the time of the Norman conquest, which has been valued at £4.3m, making it the highest-value treasure find ever in England.

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Met police officer who shot Chris Kaba acquitted of murder

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Martyn Blake shot Kaba, who was unarmed, in 2022, saying he feared Kaba would use his Audi to kill officers

A Metropolitan police armed officer on trial for murder after shooting an unarmed suspect in the head has been acquitted.

Martyn Blake shot Chris Kaba in September 2022 on a residential street in Streatham, south London.

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Woman in Leeds jailed for posting sexual images of father’s ex-lover online

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Eleanor Brown, 24, given three-year sentence for ‘vindictive, selfish and vengeful offending’ against woman

A woman who posted sexual images of her father’s former lover on an escort site has been jailed for three years by a judge who described it as “vindictive, selfish and vengeful offending”.

Eleanor Brown, 24, had held a deep-seated grudge against the victim after her father had a short-lived affair with the woman in 2012, Leeds crown court heard.

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Water companies raise bonuses to £9.1m despite record sewage discharges

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Third of total comprises bonuses at Severn Trent as indebted Thames nearly doubles payouts to executives

Bonuses for water company bosses in England and Wales rose to £9.1m this year despite record sewage discharges into rivers and seas.

More than a third of that total comprised bonuses at Severn Trent, which was fined £2m this year for “reckless” pollution but lifted its bonuses to £3.36m.

Thames Water almost doubled its payouts to executives, from £746,000 in 2021-22 to £1.3m in 2023-24, despite its CEO quitting halfway through the year.

Data from Companies House, analysed by the Liberal Democrats, show that overall bonuses increased from £9.013m last year to £9.127m this year.

The payouts pile further pressure on the regulator, Ofwat, to intervene in the decisions of water company boards. Last year, raw sewage was discharged for more than 3.6m hours into rivers and seas, a 105% increase on the previous 12 months.

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UK weather: Storm Ashley batters UK with strong winds and rain

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Met Office issues warnings for across the UK as the first named storm of the season sweeps in

Parts of the UK have been battered by strong winds and heavy rain, as Storm Ashley – the first named storm of the season – swept in.

The Met Office said the storm was likely to bring a threat of injuries and danger to life, with winds of up to 80mph and heavy rain expected in some areas.

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Robin Hood, morris dances and UFOs: English folklore survey gets post-Brexit reboot

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A fresh look at cultural identity will follow outline of 60-year-old Survey of Language and Folklore, conducted by two academics driving a red Mini

In 1964, two young academics clambered into a red Mini and, armed with a mountain of printed slips, set out to conduct what would become the definitive survey of English folklore and traditions for the next 60 years.

John Widdowson and Paul Smith went to town centres, ­community halls, Women’s Institute meetings. They handed the simple forms out to anyone who visited Sheffield University, where they were based. And they wanted to know the answer to one simple question: what do you know to be true?

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Ban smacking in England now, says children’s commissioner

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Rachel de Souza makes strongest intervention yet as three relatives go on trial for murder of Sara Sharif, the 10-year-old who allegedly suffered two years of abuse by her father

Ministers must ban smacking now, the children’s commissioner for England has said, in her strongest intervention yet on child safety.

Rachel de Souza said that banning smacking was “a necessary step” to keep children safe, and that bans in Scotland and Wales had “taught us we need to take that step in England too”, adding “now is the time to go further”.

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‘Piece of British history’: nuclear bunker in Norfolk to be sold at auction

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Bunker built in 1950s has no electricity or running water, but could be used as a wine cellar, auctioneer suggests

Online auctions are usually filled with fragile antiques and niche memorabilia that ought not to be touched. Those looking for something a bit more durable are now in luck.

An underground bunker with no running water or electricity but built to help survive a nuclear attack is to go on sale next month.

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Storm Ashley: Great South Run cancelled over safety concerns

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Forecast of high winds and rain leads to cancellation of event that was due to take place in Portsmouth on Sunday

High winds and rain expected from Storm Ashley have caused organisers to cancel the Great South Run, which was due to take place on Sunday.

Great Run, which organises the annual 10-mile race in Portsmouth, said it had been monitoring weather conditions and they “haven’t improved to a point where we can safely stage Sunday’s event”.

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Man found guilty of rape and manslaughter of woman on London park bench

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Mohamed Iidow attacked Natalie Shotter after she apparently passed out in park in Southall after night out

A man has been convicted of the rape and manslaughter of a woman while she lay unconscious on a park bench in west London after a night out.

Natalie Shotter, 37, an NHS worker, was attacked after apparently passing out in Southall in July 2021. Mohamed Iidow orally raped her “until she died”, his trial heard.

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Police insisted second Salisbury novichok attack was drug overdose, inquiry told

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Inspector dismissed emergency services’ concerns that incident was similar to Skripal poisonings, KC says

Police officers urged paramedics and firefighters to treat the second novichok incident in 2018 as a drug overdose despite warnings from the ambulance and fire services that it had similarities to the first poisoning four months earlier in Salisbury, a public inquiry has heard.

The UK government believes the novichok was brought into Britain by agents tasked by Vladimir Putin to target the former spy Sergei Skripal, who had been settled in Salisbury after a spy exchange, the inquiry heard earlier this week. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned on 4 March 2018 and both survived.

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Lucy Letby gave baby morphine overdose years before first murder, inquiry hears

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Newborn received 10 times the correct amount of painkiller and could have died if colleagues had not spotted error

Lucy Letby gave a potentially fatal dose of morphine to a newborn baby two years before she murdered her first victim, an inquiry has heard.

The infant received 10 times the correct amount of the painkiller at the end of a night shift in July 2013 and could have died if colleagues at handover had not spotted the error an hour later.

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County Durham school drops plan to turn off heat on climate ‘blue nose day’

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Wolsingham school’s carbon-cutting event had been planned by pupils but parents raised concerns

A school has made a U-turn on a student-led plan to turn the heating off for a “blue nose” climate action day after parents raised concerns.

The heating was due to be turned off at Wolsingham school, County Durham, on Friday but the plan has now been postponed until the summer term of next year when it is likely to be warmer.

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Make black history mandatory in England to counter hatred, urges campaigner

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Summer riots were a consequence of relegating the subject to just one month, says Black Curriculum founder

Black history must be made mandatory in England to counter hatred and help prevent racist riots, a leading campaigner says.

Lavinya Stennett, who founded the Black Curriculum, warned of the real risks of black history and a diverse curriculum being relegated to just one month, or only being implemented in schools with diverse students and in metropolitan areas.

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Salford Lads Club: historic youth centre battles to keep doors open

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Building opened in 1904 and featured on Smiths album sleeve needs ‘urgent cash injection’ as grant income falls

Salford Lads Club, the youth centre immortalised by the Smiths on the sleeve of their third studio album The Queen Is Dead, is under threat of closure.

The rising costs of maintaining and running the Grade II-listed building, as well as a drop in grant funding, have left it with a shortfall of about £250,000.

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Woman jailed for life after murdering parents and living with bodies in Essex

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Virginia McCullough, 36, kept bodies of her father and mother in house for four years after their deaths

A woman who murdered her parents and lived with their bodies for four years has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years.

Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father, John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks, the prosecutor Lisa Wilding KC told Chelmsford crown court. She then murdered her mother, Lois McCullough, 71, the following day.

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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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School starters born during pandemic lack communication skills, Ofsted says

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English primary schools having to help infants catch up on speech and language to cope with lessons

Primary schools are having to teach infants how to communicate, as they struggle to make friends or cope with lessons because of speech and language difficulties, according to a report by Ofsted.

The research by Ofsted inspectors, based on visits to schools in England rated as good or outstanding, found that the Covid pandemic “is still having an impact on children’s behaviour and social skills”.

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Coleen Rooney claims libel battle with Rebekah Vardy cost her £1.8m

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Lawyers return to court in dispute over amount of legal costs to be paid from ‘Wagatha Christie’ case

Coleen Rooney has claimed she ran up a legal bill totalling more than £1.8m from her high-profile libel battle with Rebekah Vardy, the high court has been told.

Vardy, the wife of the Leicester City footballer Jamie Vardy, lost the legal action in July 2022 after she sued Rooney for libel in what became known as the “Wagatha Christie” case.

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Lancashire police apologise after XL bully put down due to ‘administration error’

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Seized dog, named Bruno, euthanised while owners were applying for exemption to keep him

Lancashire police has apologised after putting down an XL bully dog while the owners were in the process of applying for an exemption to keep him.

The seized dog, named Bruno, was euthanised due to an “administration error”.

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