Man dies after coach and car crash near Malvern
"There were no occupants of the coach requiring medical assistance."
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The Independent
9 minutes ago
- The Independent
Former Arsenal midfielder Thomas Partey granted conditional bail
Former Arsenal footballer Thomas Partey has been granted conditional bail after appearing in court on rape and sexual assault charges. The Ghanaian midfielder, 32, has been charged with five counts of rape against two women, as well as a charge of sexual assault against a third woman. The alleged offences took place between 2021 and 2022, when he was an Arsenal player. Partey stood with his arms behind his back in the dock at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, wearing a black zip-neck jumper. He was charged four days after leaving Arsenal when his contract expired at the end of June. The Metropolitan Police said it first received reports of an allegation of rape in February 2022. Partey's lawyer Jenny Wiltshire previously said he 'denies all the charges against him', adding he welcomed 'the opportunity to finally clear his name'.
The Independent
9 minutes ago
- The Independent
Prison system was days from ‘total meltdown' three times under last government, review finds
Prisons across the UK were 'on the brink of collapse' on three occasions after Rishi Sunak 's last government refused to cut the numbers in jail, an independent review by a former prisons watchdog has revealed. Dame Anne Owers, former chief inspector of prisons, wrote in her 72-page report titled 'Independent Review of Prison Capacity' that the overcrowded system was 'in crisis' between autumn 2023 and the summer of 2024. At one point, there were fewer than 100 spaces left in adult male prisons, with the network at times 'running very close to the edge of capacity' and 'within three days of meltdown', the report said. It remains at nearly 97.5 per capacity, despite Labour's introduction of several early release schemes. Officials were so anxious about potential breakdowns that they maintained an audit of every decision and document 'in case there was a public or parliamentary inquiry', the report found. Interviews for the review found that former ministers and senior officials 'expressed frustration and sometimes anger' at the repeated refusal to back contingency plans, with many convinced that delaying tactics from No 10 were deliberate. 'Many believed that the default position was to do as little as possible as late as possible, with the consequence that the system repeatedly reached the brink of collapse,' Dame Anne said. Pressure on the criminal justice system is set to ramp up this weekend, as police warn they may arrest hundreds of people planning to show support for Palestine Action. Forces are also gearing up for further protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers in Greater London, the North East and East Anglia. Commissioned by justice secretary Shabana Mahmood in February, the review suggests ministers only secured agreement for early release powers when prisons were literally days from being overwhelmed. 'Although departmental ministers were convinced by mid-2023 that some form of early release was both necessary and urgent, this required prime ministerial agreement, which was not forthcoming until the system was within three days of potential collapse, and only in incremental stages,' Dame Anne wrote. From mid-2023, Alex Chalk, who served as justice secretary at the time, reportedly urged the government to approve an early release scheme to free those serving standard determinate sentences. But the report found that his proposals were repeatedly rebuffed. 'Without exception, all those the review spoke to expressed frustration and sometimes anger at the reluctance to accept and then act on the well-documented and imminent crisis, or to agree any coherent plan to avert it,' Dame Anne After the general election was called in May 2024, the report discloses that Mr Sunak convened emergency Cobra meetings to discuss 'invoking emergency powers' to release prisoners early should the system collapse. 'This might be necessary to avert the risk of public disorder if the criminal justice system collapsed during the election campaign,' the report disclosed. The Sunak administration later deployed early release schemes on three occasions, using compassionate grounds provisions to ease pressure as jails neared capacity. Labour minister Ms Mahmood said the report 'lays bare the disgraceful way the last Conservative government ran our prisons'. She said: 'They added less than 500 cells to the prison estate over 14 years, released over 10,000 prisoners early under a veil of secrecy, and brought our jails close to total collapse on countless occasions.' A Conservative Party spokesperson said: 'In office, the Conservatives rightly listened to the public demand to see criminals punished with proper sentences, and to tackle the capacity issues we had plans to use prisons abroad. Labour scrapped those plans and instead chose to release violent criminals back on our streets. 'Labour aren't serious about tackling these issues. They blocked our deportation bill that would have mandated the deportation of all foreign criminals. Whilst Labour and Reform want shorter sentences, the Conservatives will make no apology for ensuring that heinous criminals are kept off our streets and behind bars.'
BBC News
10 minutes ago
- BBC News
Protests in China over viral school bullying case
A school bullying incident in southern China has sparked a series of protests and calls for more justice for the 14-year-old victim.A video of the girl being slapped, kicked and forced to kneel by three other minors went viral in the Jiangyou city in Sichuan province last police said the three suspects are all female, aged 13, 14 and 15 - and two of them had been sent to "specialised schools for corrective education".As news of the incident spread on social media, many felt the punishment was too light - especially after claims that the girl had been bullied for some time and that her mother, who is reportedly deaf, had pleaded with the authorities for more justice for her daughter. It has prompted a wave of public anger online and protests erupted outside the local government offices in than 1,000 people gathered in the street on 4 August and stayed until past midnight, according to local shop of them told the BBC that "things got bloody" after police used batons and electric prods to control the crowd. Several videos posted online appear to verify his account. Officers can be seen dragging protesters along the street and hitting them with batons. A witness also said he saw a few water bottles being thrown at the police."People just wanted justice," he said. "People were upset about the [lack of] punishment."The witnesses who spoke to the BBC were unwilling to give their names as the police have reportedly urged local people not to talk about the a call to the local Public Security Bureau, the BBC was told that there were "limitations on foreign press asking questions". Protests in China are not uncommon, but they are quickly shut down and censored on state-run media and the internet. The demonstrations in Jiangyou have forced the police to issue a second statement to clarify rumours that the assailants were the daughters of a lawyer and a police inspector. These claims are false, police said."Two of the parents are unemployed, two are working outside the province, one is a local salesperson, and one is a local delivery driver," the statement police have punished two people for spreading fake information online saying their posts have "seriously disrupted public order and caused bad social impact".A lawyer based in Shanghai said in an online post that this incident has highlighted an ongoing legal dilemma for Chinese officials. "The penalty for causing minor injuries is too mild, while the physical and mental trauma suffered by victims is overlooked by the law, which leads to a significant imbalance in the protection of their rights," he wrote on the Chinese social media platform credentials have been verified by the BBC, but he is unwilling to be has become a highly sensitive topic in China in recent years, and student deaths over alleged bullying have triggered protests in the January this year, the death of a teenage boy sparked violent protests in a city in north-west China. Objects were hurled at police during demonstrations in Pucheng in Shaanxi province. Authorities said the teenager fell to his death in an accident at his school dormitory, but there were allegations on social media of a year a Chinese court handed down lengthy sentences to two teenagers who murdered a classmate in Hebei province with a shovel. The 13-year-olds buried the victim in an abandoned vegetable victim was bullied by his classmates, his family and lawyer had alleged, while the court said that he had "experienced conflict" with the convicted teens.
