Law will change to stop attackers fixated on violence, says Home Secretary
She said: 'We have to make sure that the system is able to respond to violent fixated individuals. We will tighten that legislation so that that is taken as seriously as terrorism.'
Her commitment, first made in an interview with the BBC, would implement a recommendation from the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, who examined whether terror laws needed to be changed to deal with people such as Southport attacker Axel Rudakubana.
The review was prompted by revelations that Rudakubana had been referred to the counter-extremism Prevent programme, but his case had not been followed up as he lacked an ideological motivation.
He went on to murder three young girls and seriously wound 10 other people at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last year and is currently serving a life sentence.
Mr Hall's review recommended against widening the definition of terrorism to include individuals such as Rudakubana, but suggested creating a new offence to deal with people who plan mass casualty attacks motivated by personal grievance or an obsession with violence for its own sake.
Ms Cooper said there was now a 'pattern' of teenagers being 'drawn into extreme violence and extreme ideologies' in their own bedrooms thanks to 'a really distorted and warped online world'.
She said: 'The sorts of things that we're now increasingly seeing online with violent fixated individuals, where there may not be a clear ideology, it may be a fixation with violence, or they may switch between different ideologies.'
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Telegraph
39 minutes ago
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It's time to kill the BBC's News at Ten
Has television news had its day? It's a serious question because the way that we consume our news is changing fast and the big set-piece news bulletins are beginning to look anachronistic. Programmes like the BBC's News at Ten resemble great beached whales: once upon a time they were the biggest, most important thing in news, but now the audience is seeping away. And the problem is they cost a lot when money is tight and, it is argued, could be better spent elsewhere. A BBC insider working at Westminster tells me that he is constantly being harried by the big legacy bulletins – always referred to internally as 'The One,' 'The Six' and 'The Ten' – to provide tailor-made content for their programmes. He regards their demands as sometimes unreasonable and nearly always a poor use of scarce resources: 'If I had my way I would concentrate more on the online stuff,' he told me 'that's where the audience is nowadays, but I'm always having to service the needs of the bulletins and it feels like a bit of a waste because no one's watching.' That's a bit of an exaggeration. Currently, the audience for the BBC's News at Six averages around the 3.3 million mark while the News at Ten gets around 2.7 million. But it's still a far cry from the glory days of the past; in the 1980s, the BBC's Nine O'Clock News regularly pulled in 11 million. Those were the days when the BBC's political editor, John Cole, with an Ulster accent as broad as his political understanding, was an indispensable guide to Westminster. What he said on the Nine O'Clock News mattered; today, not so much. Chris Mason, the well-respected current BBC political editor, won't have saved up his insights for The Ten; if you want his analysis, it will be available online, often hours before the so-called 'flagship' goes to air. The BBC itself reported in September last year that online news had overtaken television news as the most used source across the UK as a whole; the BBC's own website regularly chalks up around 1.2 billion visits a month. Not all of those visits are for news, but many of them will be. That is a huge and growing audience rightly recognised by the Corporation as where most future growth will occur. Figures out today show that ITV is particularly suffering in the digital age. A report from media watchdog Ofcom shows that YouTube is now ahead of the 60-year-old broadcaster in terms of media viewing. Of course, the BBC is not suddenly going to abandon the time-honoured format of the big bulletin; it is an article of faith in the institutional creed that at the end of the working day, the audience will be offered an 'authoritative' round-up of the day's most important news. And while many of us question the BBC's judgment in deciding what really should be on the news (its liberal-Left bias still sticks out like a sore thumb), a loyal, though diminishing, audience for the bulletins remains. In a recent magazine profile piece, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, revealed that watching the News at Ten is part of his daily routine. This may appear a reassuring instance of Sir Keir's ordinariness, but in fact it marks him out as a member of a dwindling band. Why would anyone still feel the need to plonk themselves down on the sofa late in the evening to watch the BBC's (or ITN's) take on the day's news? The news is available any time of the day by computer, tablet or smartphone and that way you get to choose from hundreds of sources who provide up-to-the-minute news, not a pre-digested, pre-recorded compilation of what some television news editor thinks you should know. I think the answer is that the main TV bulletins now cater for those people who aren't really all that interested in news. They're the sort of responsible citizens who feel they 'ought' to watch the news; to them it's a duty, like paying their taxes, and they long ago swallowed the idea that the best place to get it is from the usual suspects – either ITN or the BBC. So why is so much time and effort ploughed into a news format pioneered back in the 1950s and now in decline? Linear news is also at a disadvantage politically. Few now dispute that Donald Trump's first victory in 2016 was achieved partly because of his astute use of social media; he was able to sideline the influence of his political enemies in the main US networks, which were all (except Fox News) against him. There's good statistical evidence which backs all this up; the annual Reuters Institute Digital News Report does in-depth research around the world and this year reports: 'The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54 per cent) is sharply up – overtaking both TV news (50 per cent) and news websites/apps (48 per cent) for the first time. 'Eight years ago, the so-called 'Trump bump' raised all boats ... including access to news websites, TV and radio, but this time around only social and video networks (and most likely podcasts too) have grown, supporting a sense that traditional journalism media in the US are being eclipsed by a shift towards online personalities and creators.' The internet has already usurped television as the place where most Americans get their news and the same is happening here. In 2013, television was the main news source for 79 per cent of the UK population; today that figure is 48 per cent. Print journalism has suffered an even steeper decline, while social media and digital usage have greatly increased. There is one TV outlet that has bucked the trend; GB News. The Reuters report comments: 'Although TV and radio news audience figures continue to fall for the main providers, GB News – a relatively new entrant – has seen its position grow both for its broadcast and online output in our weekly usage rankings (up from eighth to fourth in the TV, radio and print ranking).' I am told by a senior source at GB News that the company is now 'close to break-even'; 'the numbers are very good' he told me, 'and our growth has made what I call 'non-BBC' points of view acceptable'. However, there's still a reluctance by the big ad agencies to promote their clients on the channel 'they are DEI-stricken' he says. But if the audience keeps growing, the admen will, however reluctantly, have to bow to the commercial logic of selling to its audience. So what do all these changes mean for the traditional broadcasters and, in particular, for the BBC? The Corporation is currently suffering a haemorrhage of revenue (in the past year, upwards of 800,000 licence-fee payers stopped paying), so money is tight. Senior BBC journalists are well aware of how the ground is shifting under their feet; a couple of years ago, the Corporation updated its 'News Priority' guidelines. For the first time, correspondents and producers in the field were told that their priority was now digital; so, on a breaking story, a BBC journalist must now write something for the BBC website before any other customers (including TV news). That is a big and significant re-ordering of priorities and it does mean that the whole cost structure of BBC News and Current Affairs is under scrutiny; will the traditional bulletins survive in their present form? It's an open question. Meanwhile, as the rise of GB News shows, the BBC's Achilles heel remains its perceived bias; a substantial proportion of the electorate simply don't trust the BBC to be straight with them. The BBC and ITN still dominate online news traffic in the UK but their dominance is weakening; other players, such as GB News, are growing in strength. At GB News they like to speak of their audience as a 'community' and it is clear that people who use the station identify strongly with it, perhaps because they see their own views reflected back at them. Financial pressures on both BBC and ITV (where advertising revenue is falling) mean the day cannot be that far off when a complete overhaul of the way both organisations deliver news will become both inevitable and commonsensical. The old television order is passing away before our eyes.
Rhyl Journal
an hour ago
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Missing Brady pages could hold clues to victim's burial site, documentary claims
The last 200 pages of Brady's manuscript could contain his account of 12-year-old Keith Bennett's murder and burial in 1964, according to a BBC documentary. Keith's body is the only one of Brady and Myra Hindley's five victims to have never been recovered from their burial site for victims on the Pennine Moors above Manchester. The Glasgow-born serial killer's crimes shocked the nation as he abducted, tortured and murdered children in the 1960s along with Hindley, who died in prison in 2002. The missing part of Brady's manuscript is believed to have been deposited with his solicitor, Robin Makin, after his death in 2017 aged 79. Mr Makin has previously said he did not believe Brady had any information that could lead to the discovery of Keith Bennet's body. Pauline Reade, 16, disappeared on her way to a disco on July 12 1963 and John Kilbride, 12, was snatched in November the same year. Keith Bennett was taken on June 16 1964 after he left home to visit his grandmother; Lesley Ann Downey, 10, was lured away from a funfair on Boxing Day 1964; and Edward Evans, 17, was killed in October 1965. In 1966, Brady was given a life sentence at Chester Assizes for the murders of John, Lesley Ann and Edward. Hindley was convicted of killing Lesley Ann and Edward and shielding Brady after John's murder, and also jailed for life. In 1987, the pair finally admitted killing Keith and Pauline and were taken back to Saddleworth Moor to help police find the remains of the missing victims, but only Pauline's body was found. Theologian Dr Alan Keightley published a book about the killer, based on hours of interviews with him at Ashworth Special Hospital, where Brady was held. Keightley himself died in 2023, but his widow, Joan, has given the documentary-makers access to her late husband's extensive archive. This includes an incomplete copy of a typed manuscript titled Black Light, which Brady appears to have written. Keightley writes in his own book that Brady told him Black Light was at least 600 pages long. The copy in his own archive stops abruptly at page 394, shortly before the murder of John Kilbride, Brady and Hindley's second victim. The missing pages could contain information about the whereabouts of the remains of Keith Bennett, according to the makers of documentary, titled, The Moors Murders – A Search For Justice. Keightley wrote in his book that Brady once asked him to deliver a 'double sealed parcel', which he assumed to contain the autobiography, to a solicitor in London. This ended up with Mr Makin's law firm in Liverpool. Mr Makin has not responded for comment, according to the BBC. Winnie Johnson, 78, the mother of Keith Bennett, died in 2012, without fulfilling her life-long wish to give her son a Christian burial. Greater Manchester Police have said they will never close the case of Keith Bennett, and while they are currently not actively searching the Moors they will act on 'credible and actionable' information that would help them locate his body. Their last search, in 2022, prompted by claims from a member of the public researching the murder, resulted in nothing being found. The Moors Murders: A Search for Justice is on BBC Two at 9pm. Both episodes are available on BBC iPlayer now.
BBC News
2 hours ago
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Warwick councillor deactivated social media after online abuse
A councillor who deactivated her social media accounts after receiving hate messages has said women's voices are being silenced by Davidson posted her first video online after a one-year hiatus and has again received hundreds of negative and sexist Warwick district councillor said in the past she had received misogynistic comments - including being told to "go back into the kitchen" as well as inappropriate references to her body parts. She told the BBC: "It's done purposefully, to belittle me, to make me feel embarrassed, make me not want to speak up again because they're trying to quieten my voice." The Green Party councillor said she made the decision to deactivate her social media after she received abuse last year. "I thought I don't need to be online, it doesn't matter - but why do women need to come off to protect themselves?"They're losing their voice online and that's not fair."Davidson said she first tried to turn off the comments - but realised it meant people that supported her would not be able to interact with her. She said: "I did my first video, updating people on a local political situation and I was expressing my views and feelings about it."Then came hundreds of comments on my appearance, a lot of name calling, referring to parts of body, what I was wearing - calling me a woman of the night. "It was just removing the attention from the issue I was talking about and making it about my body and what I was wearing." Davidson said she called out people leaving negative comments on her TikTok and Instagram, by telling them their posts were inappropriate and said: "I thought what they're doing is not OK, and I will not be silenced."Speaking on negative comments she had received about her dress sense, she added: "I always said once I got elected I'm going to wear what I've always worn. "Because I'm not a career politician - I am a local resident who cares about her community."It's OK to have a debate, but hatred comes from a fear of not understanding. "If you feel this way about women and feel they don't belong in public, politics, football - why?"What is it that you're threatened by women taking up space?" Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
