Category: UK News

Ibrahima Bah, an asylum seeker who steered a boat in the English Channel that resulted in the death of four passengers, has had his attempt to challenge his convictions and sentence dismissed. Bah was found guilty of manslaughter and of facilitating a breach of UK immigration law during his retrial at Canterbury Crown Court. He… Continue reading Ibrahima Bah: Migrant boat pilot loses bid to appeal sentence

Tom Voyce, a former rugby player for England, has been missing since Sunday after attempting to cross Abberwick Ford, which was flooded by Storm Darragh, in his car and being pulled along by the river’s current. While a search has been ongoing since then, an official spokesperson from Northumbria Police has since announced it is… Continue reading Tom Voyce: Rugby community rallies around family as search goes on

The Southern Health Trust has apologised after a major review found that eight women developed cancer due to misread smear tests. The review, which also found that 11 women’s slides had pre-cancerous changes in the cells when reviewed, was trigged by an investigation into the diagnoses of three women. Two of the women have since… Continue reading Cervical cancer: Eight women develop cancer 'after smear misread'

Welsh Ambulance staff granted dying patients their final wishes, including taking them to concerts or the beach, in a scheme that has run over the past five years. The service has granted a total of 74 wishes throughout Wales, including granting a terminally ill man’s wish to accompany his daughter down the aisle just six days… Continue reading End-of-life care dying wishes are granted by paramedics

The average monthly rent for a newly let property has increased by £270 since the start of the pandemic, according to figures from Zoopla. This increase is due to high demand from tenants after lockdowns were lifted and the limited numbers of available properties made the rental market “red-hot”. Rent has gone up by 27%… Continue reading UK rent soars by average £3,240 since Covid, says Zoopla

GCHQ, the UK’s national spy agency, has released a new Christmas challenge for 2021. The challenge is incorporated into the agency’s annual Christmas card, which is sent by the agency’s director, Anne Keast-Butler. It challenges the public to decode the names of UK landmarks, testing skills like codebreaking, maths, and lateral thinking. The tasks require… Continue reading GCHQ Christmas challenge: Can you solve the puzzle?

The UK’s justice secretary has warned that even with plans to add 14,000 new prison places, the country could still face space shortages in the near future. Shabana Mahmood emphasised that “building alone is not enough” to address the critical lack of capacity in the UK’s jails during a recent BBC interview. The issue has… Continue reading Shabana Mahmood: Prison space may run out despite plans to expand

A model of Santa Claus has been equipped with a location tracker after the previous one was stolen from outside a home in Little Milton, Oxfordshire. Paul De Fraine had displayed the life-size figure outside his house for the past four or five years and said the replacement had been created from pipes with the… Continue reading Oxfordshire: Life-size Santa Claus model taken from village

The National Audit Office (NAO) has revealed that debt from Carer’s Allowance overpayments has exceeded £250m in the past year, an increase of £100m since 2018/19. The charity Carers UK called this report “further evidence of a broken system that is failing unpaid carers”. In October, the UK government initiated an independent review of overpayments,… Continue reading Carer's Allowance overpayment debt rises to £250m

New guidance published by the advisory Family Justice Council in England and Wales is urging family courts to prioritise allegations of domestic abuse over claims of “parental alienation”. These latter claims – often made by a father who claims the mother has manipulated their shared children against him – have been described as “harmful pseudo-science”.… Continue reading Family courts get new guidance on 'parental alienation' in family court battles