Category Archives: England

Met officer who held Taser to black boy’s neck found guilty of gross misconduct

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Jamar Powell says PC Connor Jones should be sacked rather than receiving written warning over traumatising action

A Metropolitan police officer who put a Taser to the neck of an innocent black child after he had been forced to kneel in the street has been found guilty of gross misconduct but allowed to keep his job.

Jamar Powell told the Guardian he had feared he might die during the incident in September 2020, was left traumatised and would struggle to ever trust the police again, having been stopped and searched more than 30 times with nothing ever being found.

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‘He could be here more’: Clacton split over Nigel Farage’s first months as MP

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Many remain positive about their high-profile politician but others complain that he ‘got his seat and disappeared’

It happened sometime on Monday morning, locals think, though no one seems to know exactly when. But as staff in the shops on Old Road in Clacton stepped out of work for lunch, they spotted that the billboard on the corner of Crossfield Road had been ripped to ribbons.

Plenty had approved of the poster, placed there by the political campaign group Led By Donkeys, drawing attention to the huge scale of the local MP Nigel Farage’s earnings outside politics. A photo of the billboard posted on X by the group has 24,000 likes.

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Teachers in England offered lie-ins to make job more appealing

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Other perks including nine-day fortnight and more planning time at home offered to attract recruits

Teachers in England are being offered a range of incentives to make the job more appealing, including two free periods a week to give them a lie-in, a nine-day fortnight and more planning time at home to help with work-life balance.

An escalating crisis in teacher recruitment and retention is forcing schools and academy trusts to come up with novel ways to attract new recruits into the profession and keep experienced staff in front of classes.

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Poor NHS maternity care in danger of becoming normalised, regulator warns

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CQC issues damning report on maternity services in England as minister admits anxiety over ‘risk of disaster’

Maternity services in England are so inadequate that cases of women receiving poor care and being harmed in childbirth are in danger of becoming “normalised”, the NHS regulator has said.

A Care Quality Commission (CQC) report based on inspections of 131 maternity units sets out an array of problems, adding to the sense of crisis that has enveloped an NHS service that cares for the 600,000 women a year who give birth and their babies.

Some women, frustrated at facing such long delays in being assessed at triage, discharge themselves before they are seen.

65% of units are not safe for women to give birth in, 47% of trusts are rated as requiring improvement on safety and another 18% are rated as inadequate.

Some hospitals do not record incidents that have resulted in serious harm.

There is a widespread lack of staff and in some places a lack of potentially life-saving equipment.

Hospitals do not always consider women’s suffering after receiving poor care.

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Traffic to be banned from London’s Oxford Street under Sadiq Khan plan

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Mayor to be given power to overrule Westminster council, which blocked previous plan amid concerns over rerouting buses

Traffic will be banned from London’s Oxford Street under plans announced by the mayor, Sadiq Khan, using new powers from Labour to push through long-thwarted pedestrianisation of the capital’s famous shopping strip.

Khan said urgent action was needed so that the mile-long street could “once again become the leading retail destination in the world.”

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Solved: the mystery of how Victorians built Crystal Palace in just 190 days

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Rapid assembly of structure for 1851 Great Exhibition in London was possible thanks to nut-and-bolt revolution

It was built at unprecedented speed to exhibit the British empire’s greatest treasures and manufacturing achievements to the world. Now, the mystery of how the Victorians managed to erect the Crystal Palace so quickly in 1851 has finally been solved.

Experts have discovered that the answer to this 173-year-old riddle lies in the first known use of standardised nuts and bolts in construction – a humble engineering innovation that would power the British empire and revolutionise the industrial world.

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River Stour sculpture commemorates 16th century drowning that inspired Shakespeare

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Figure of woman on her back underwater draws inspiration from Hamlet’s Ophelia and death of senior Tudor judge

Almost 500 years ago, a wealthy and well-connected judge named Sir James Hales walked into the River Stour near Canterbury in order to take his own life. Hales had risen to favour under King Henry VIII but had refused to convert to Catholicism under the repressive regime of his daughter Mary, and had been imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Struggling with his mental health after his release in 1554, he drowned himself. But as suicide was a crime at the time, his widow was denied the right to inherit his property and so took the matter to law, in a case that became so famous in the 16th century that it inspired Shakespeare’s portrayal of the suicide by drowning of Hamlet’s Ophelia.

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Nurseries in England say new rules have reduced care to ‘crowd control’

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The first study into Tory shake-up of childcare shows staff are overwhelmed

The first major study into the Conservatives’ controversial shake-up of childcare has revealed that nursery staff are often doing more “crowd control” than education, because of the increased number of children they are looking after.

Since September last year, nurseries in England have been allowed to increase child-to-staff ratios, so one adult now looks after five two-year-olds rather than four. The change was intended to help deliver the party’s pledge of 15 hours’ free childcare a week from this month for working parents of children aged from nine months to three years.

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TfL to refund drivers wrongly issued with Ulez fines after cameras vandalised

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Two cameras in Chingford were twisted around to face roads outside the low-emission zone boundary

Transport for London (TfL) has said it will refund drivers wrongly issued with ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) charges because of vandalised enforcement cameras.

The transport body confirmed two cameras in Chingford, north-east London, “became misaligned” for a short period and many fines were issued incorrectly. It is understood the cameras were twisted the wrong way so that they were facing roads outside the Ulez boundary.

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Teenager arrested after deaths of three people at property in Luton

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Man, 18, held after emergency services find three people with injuries who were pronounced dead at scene

A teenager has been arrested after the deaths of three people at a property in Luton on Friday morning.

Officers were called at about 5.30am to reports of concerns for welfare at a flat in Leabank, off Wauluds Bank Drive. Emergency services attended and discovered three people with injuries. All three were pronounced dead at the scene.

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Experts raise concerns over ‘unreliable’ marking of GCSE English

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Some high-achieving pupils in England received lower than expected grades that rose after being re-marked

Concerns have been raised about the reliability of the marking of GCSE English this summer, after complaints that normally high-achieving pupils in schools in England were awarded lower than expected results, which then went up after being re-marked.

In some cases, marks for individual questions doubled after a review, and at least one pupil’s grade jumped from 6 to 9. GCSEs are graded on a scale of 1 to 9, with 9 the highest grade.

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‘The UK is invited’: Bradford reveals 2025 City of Culture lineup

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West Yorkshire city to host magic, music, film and theatre performances celebrating local talent, plus Turner prize

A city centre magic show, the Brontës as you’ve never seen them before, and a bassline house symphony are all part of Bradford’s City of Culture lineup, which its organisers call a celebration of everything that makes the West Yorkshire city great.

Shanaz Gulzar, the creative director of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, said the whole of the country was invited to come next year to a place she billed as young, diverse, creative and “the heart of the UK”.

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NHS restricting access to obesity services across England, BMJ finds

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Budget cuts to local services fell disproportionately on care for obese patients, leading to ‘postcode lottery’

The NHS is restricting access to obesity services across England, leading to patients in nearly half the country being unable to book appointments with specialist teams for support and treatments such as weight-loss jabs.

An investigation by the British Medical Journal found budget cuts to local services fell disproportionately on obesity care, with patients living with the condition often deemed less worthy of care than others.

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Police ‘left to deal with fallout’ of poorly planned early release of 1,700 prisoners

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Police association chief says criminals potentially being freed in England and Wales without proper rehabilitation plans

Police are at “the centre of a storm” caused by poor planning after 1,700 prisoners were released early across England and Wales to ease overcrowding, a senior officer has said.

Amid concerns that hundreds of inmates could end up homeless or return to crime, the president of the Police Superintendents’ Association, Nick Smart, said some inmates were being set free without a programme and that the police would be left to deal with the consequences.

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Some crime victims ‘unaware’ of offenders’ early prison release in England and Wales

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‘Sizeable minority’ of survivors of crime have not been informed that perpetrators will be freed on Tuesday

Hundreds of survivors of crime are unaware that their perpetrators will be freed on Tuesday despite requests that this would not happen, the victims’ commissioner has claimed.

As the government prepares to release 1,700 offenders to ease overcrowding in prisons in England and Wales, Helen Newlove said some victims were “unaware of their offender’s release” and could not seek protective measures.

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Couples may soon be able to marry in the sea in Cornwall

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Bude Sea Pool could become what is believed would be only the seawater wedding venue in England

Couples may soon be able to get married while floating on the tide, should Bude Sea Pool in Cornwall become the first such venue in England to receive a wedding licence.

A mass commitment ceremony was held earlier this month to raise funds for the application, with organisers saying they believe it would be the only place in the country where people would be able to marry in seawater.

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Heavy rain to hit parts of UK over weekend as flooding risks remain

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Met Office says new band of ‘heavy and thundery rain’ to sweep north through southern and central England and Wales

Heavy rain is due to sweep across large parts of the UK this weekend, with many at risk of flooding.

A new band of “heavy and thundery rain” will arrive on the south coast on Saturday and move northwards overnight, affecting central and southern England and Wales, the Met Office said.

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Lucy Letby victims’ families call for CCTV on neonatal wards

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Lawyer for relatives says Thirlwall inquiry into case of killer nurse, due to begin next week, is ‘vitally important’

Families of some of Lucy Letby’s victims are calling for CCTV on neonatal wards, tighter control of insulin in hospitals and more protection for NHS whistleblowers, their lawyer has said before a public inquiry begins next week.

The Thirlwall inquiry, which starts on Tuesday, has been set up to examine what happened at the Countess of Chester hospital, where Letby worked. She has been convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more while based there as a neonatal nurse.

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Target for cutting premature birthrate in England will not be met, minister says

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Gillian Merron tells Lords the goal of reducing rate of preterm births to 6%, which was set in 2019, may be changed

The women’s health minister has admitted there is no chance the government will meet its target of reducing the premature birthrate to 6% in England by 2025.

Preterm birth, when a baby is born before 37 weeks of pregnancy, is the biggest cause of death among children under five in the UK. The previous government set a target in 2019 to reduce the preterm birthrate to 6% by 2025.

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US playwright donates £1m to save home of Shakespeare’s daughter

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Exclusive: Ken Ludwig gives Shakespeare Birthplace Trust largest private donation in its 177-year history

The charity that cares for historic Shakespeare sites in Stratford-upon-Avon has received an unprecedented donation of £1m from the Olivier award-winning US playwright Ken Ludwig.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (SBT) can now pay for crucial conservation work on Hall’s Croft, the home of Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna and her physician husband, John Hall, who is believed to have advised his father-in-law on medical matters.

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