New Humberside neighbourhood police officers after £3.2m grant
The force's new Chief Constable Chris Todd said: "I welcome this news of the government's additional funding into neighbourhood policing as this remains a crucial part in how we engage with members of the public and connect with the communities we serve."Neighbourhood policing and officers on the streets are a vital part of building trust and confidence and helping to keep our communities safe, so I am delighted this investment will strengthen local policing even further."Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.
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Spectator
5 hours ago
- Spectator
Revealed: Mental health claims see Foreign Office absences soar
Back to the UK's bloated civil service. As if the government didn't have enough on its plate trying to slash Whitehall red tape, the number of sick days taken by civil servants won't help Sir Keir Starmer's army pick up the pace on progress. Civil servant absences are on track to reach a record high – and the Foreign Office is no exception to the trend. Mr S can reveal the number of sick days taken by David Lammy's mandarins shot up by more than 50 per cent in the financial year ending March 2024 compared to the previous year – while the number of days lost to mental health issues soared by more than three-quarters. A Freedom of Information response has shown that in the period from April 2023-March 2024, almost 30,000 days were lost to sick leave within the Foreign Office department, a rise of 51.4 per cent on the previous year. 8,400 days were lost to mental health issues within the department – a surge of 77.3 per cent on the year before – while those civil servants requiring sickness leave on mental health grounds rose to 254 in 2023-24, a 65 per cent increase on the previous financial year. These rather staggering absence rises are despite the total number of Foreign Office staff increasing between the years by just 500 people. Good heavens… Remarking on the revelation, the TaxPayers' Alliance's investigations manager Joanna Marchong noted: While families up and down the country are working hard and paying their bills, civil servants are increasingly absence for any reason in the book. Ministers must get a grip and ensure that the Foreign Office is run with the same discipline expected in private sector workplaces. It's unacceptable that civil servants don't show up. The findings come after central department data published earlier this month found that mandarin absences in 2025 could work out at more than eight days a year per employee. Last year, the average number of days off per worker was 4.4 – but this year, departmental reports are suggesting that the number of average days lost per worker could soar past the all-time high of 8.3 days per person, reached in the post-pandemic period of 2023. Staff sickness rates increased by 11.8 per cent in the year to March 2025 at the Home Office, while the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government saw absences shoot up by 12 per cent. Perhaps Starmer had a point when he insisted 'too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline', eh?
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Nothing is the same': Windrush victim allowed to return to UK after 28 years
When George Lee was last in the UK, Tony Blair was the newly elected prime minister, Diana, Princess of Wales had recently died and Elton John's Candle in the Wind was being played on repeat. A pint of bitter cost £1.63 and a packet of 20 cigarettes sold for about £2.94. After 28 years of exile in Poland, Lee, an English teacher, flew back to Britain a fortnight ago, his ticket paid for by the Home Office, where staff had belatedly acknowledged that he was a victim of the Windrush scandal and allowed him to return. He first contacted MPs and Home Office workers to request assistance in summer 2018 as the Windrush scandal unfolded. He says consular officials in Poland and Home Office staff in the UK failed to help him return, despite the government's repeated proclamations that everything was being done to assist those affected. Currently accommodated in a hotel room in Birmingham, Lee travelled to London last week, stepping off the train at Euston station into a city so transformed in the past three decades that he was instantly overwhelmed by culture shock. 'Nothing is the same – the taxis are different, the buses are different,' he said, as he made his way into the tube, puzzled by the Oyster card system. 'What do I do with this? Tap and go through?' He has spent the last two weeks walking around the streets, attempting to reacclimatise to the country he moved to from Jamaica in 1961 as an eight-year-old, assessing why he does not yet feel at home, despite the 37 years he lived here before being locked out. He is relieved to be back, but startled by the intense sense of dislocation after so long away. 'So much has changed. The homelessness is horrible – much worse than in Poland,' he said. 'People here look so stressed, there's a tiredness etched on their faces, as if they don't know what to expect of tomorrow. It's a little depressing. It's clear that the quality of life is better in Poland than here, which feels very sad.' Lee, 72, is one of a number of victims of the Windrush scandal who were prevented from returning to Britain after travelling abroad for work, or holiday or funerals; some were stopped by local border staff; many were given no assistance by UK consular officials who refused to acknowledge their right to travel to the UK. Lee says he struggled to persuade Home Office staff, MPs and officials at the UK consulate in Poland that he should be given help to return home, despite repeated appeals for assistance. It was only last November when he contacted Desmond Jaddoo, a Windrush campaigner and Birmingham-based bishop who runs the Windrush National Organisation support group, that Lee was able to collect the documentary evidence needed to demonstrate that he should be allowed to return. 'His case was a straightforward one, so it was easy to get him back once the documents were gathered,' Jaddoo said, adding that he was puzzled by why Lee had not received help to return sooner. Jaddoo traced school records, a marriage certificate, and Lee's son's birth certificate, proving he had a right to live in the UK. 'We worry that there are other cases like this. We need a proper campaign to encourage people who remain stuck abroad to come forward.' Lee moved to London in 1961, the year before Jamaican independence, travelling with his younger brother on his aunt's passport, to join his mother who was working as a nurse in east London, and his plumber father who was working on the North Sea oil pipelines. On arrival he would have been classified as a citizen of the UK and Colonies. He went to Princess May primary school in north London, where he passed the 11-plus and transferred to Dame Alice Owen's grammar school. He worked as a financial analyst in the City of London for a while, opened his own barbershop, before later deciding that teaching was his vocation. He married and had a son, but by the time he went to take up a teaching job in Poland the marriage had ended. He travelled to Warsaw on a Jamaican passport because he had failed to persuade UK officials that he was entitled to a British passport, despite having arrived in the country 37 years earlier. Because he stayed slightly over two years, he inadvertently breached the terms of his immigration status as someone who had been granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK. He was advised by staff at the Polish border that he would not be readmitted to the UK. Lee argued that he should have been recognised as a British citizen, because that was his status when he arrived as an eight-year-old. Throughout his time in Poland he was undocumented, which meant it was impossible to open a bank account. He taught English to hundreds of students. In one of the many emails he addressed to the Home Office in 2018, he noted that he had helped many Polish students pass exams to study at UK universities, and had at least 10 ex-students who now held PhDs from British institutions. 'Can you imagine how it feels preparing all these people to go to the UK, when I, as a citizen of the UK, cannot even enter. Believe me it is soul-destroying,' he wrote. Lee made contact with the Windrush taskforce, which was set up as a result of the scandal in 2018, with a view to securing the necessary documentation to return to Britain, and explained he wanted help from the British embassy in Warsaw. When he went there to seek advice, a Polish employee was sent to speak to him on the pavement outside. 'They refused to let me inside the building,' Lee said. Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion During his time abroad he lost touch with his son and two sisters. He hopes to track them down and re-establish contact, but feels nervous about reconnecting. 'I wonder if, during all the years I've been away, they have thought I abandoned them,' he said. In the next few weeks he needs to find somewhere permanent to live, reregister with a doctor, and sort out his pension. He is dismayed that officials are refusing to grant back payments of his state pension going back to 2018, when he turned 65. The barrister Martin Forde KC, who served as the independent adviser to the Windrush compensation scheme from 2018 to 2022, working to recompense those affected by the scandal that led to thousands of people who were living in the UK legally being misclassified as immigration offenders with catastrophic consequences for many. Some people lost their jobs or were evicted from their homes, or were denied benefits, free healthcare, and pensions; a few were arrested and deported to countries they had left decades earlier as children. Others were stuck for years abroad. Forde said Lee should be granted pension payments, adding: 'It seems inequitable not to give him the pension that he would otherwise have received.' When he feels more settled, Lee plans to visit the graves of his mother and younger brother in London, and revisit the London cinemas where he developed a love of French arthouse film. He is not ready to apply for compensation from the government because he does not believe ministers have acknowledged that immigration legislation which remains in place caused many of the Windrush generation's problems. A long-buried Home Office-commissioned history into the roots of the scandal, finally released last year, warned that 'during the period 1950-1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK'. 'How can I claim compensation when they haven't admitted that the legislation was wrong?' Lee said. 'I don't feel angry, I'm past the stage where I can feel angry. I'm very philosophical and thoughtful about all that's happened. But I do feel deep regret that the UK government conspired to take away the rights of the Windrush generation.' Clive Foster, who was appointed as the new Windrush commissioner in July, said he wanted the government to do more to 'proactively identify and reach individuals' still stranded abroad. The problem stretches 'far beyond the Caribbean, affecting communities across Africa, Asia, and the wider Commonwealth. Yet people from these communities, in the UK and overseas, may be unaware that the injustices they've suffered are directly linked to this scandal.' A Home Office spokesperson said: 'We are doing our best to ensure that justice and compensation for victims is delivered as quickly as possible. Some cases are more complex than others, but we will always try to work with each individual to get them the support they need.'
South Wales Argus
8 hours ago
- South Wales Argus
Mother of murdered Olivia Pratt-Korbel joins call for communities to speak out
Olivia was shot by gunman Thomas Cashman as he chased another drug dealer into her home in Dovecot, Liverpool, on August 22 2022. Her death was the third fatal shooting within a week in Merseyside, where 28-year-old Ashley Dale had been shot in her home in Old Swan, Liverpool, in the early hours of the previous day and Sam Rimmer, 22, had been killed in Dingle on August 16. Speaking ahead of the third anniversary of her death, Olivia's mother Cheryl Korbel said: 'My little girl was only nine years old when she was shot in her own home. She had her whole life ahead of her and the pain of her loss is indescribable. 'It has been three years since I last heard her laugh, put her to bed or held her hand but the pain of her loss still feels like it happened yesterday. 'I will never see her grow up, get married, have children of her own or fulfil her dreams and that is devastating.' Olivia Pratt Korbel was shot dead by gunman Thomas Cashman (Merseyside Police/PA) In the wake of the three murders, Merseyside Police received Home Office funding for a Clear, Hold, Build operation, known locally as Evolve, designed to clear communities of crime and rebuild them. Ms Korbel said: 'Evolve was created to help prevent further tragedies and other families from having to endure the pain we feel every single day. 'While it's making a difference we need your help. To keep our communities safest, if you know anything about criminality, please speak out.' Cheryl Korbel (third from right) and Tim Edwards, father of shooting victim Elle Edwards (second from right) with representatives of Merseyside Police and other organisations involved in the Evolve scheme (Merseyside Police/PA) Last week, Ms Korbel was at Olivia's Tree – planted in her memory in Dovecot – to meet partners from the Evolve programme as well as Tim Edwards, whose daughter Elle Edwards, 26, died in a shooting outside a pub on the Wirral on Christmas Eve 2022. Mr Edwards said the families had got to know each other since the tragedies. He said: 'It's the club that you don't want to be in and we're all in that club, so we're always looking out for each other.' Tim Edwards, the father of shooting victim Elle Edwards (Merseyside Police/PA) He said the Evolve programme, which was set up in Wirral after Elle's death, gave him hope. He added: 'Elle should still be here, living her life and making plans for her future. We can't change what happened to her but we can help stop it from happening to someone else. 'If you know something, please come forward. Your courage could save a life and spare another family the pain we live with every day.' Ms Dale's mother Julie said the last three years had been a 'living nightmare'. Four men – James Witham, Niall Barry, Sean Zeisz and Joseph Peers – were convicted of the environmental health worker's murder. Ashley Dale, 28, was shot in her home in Old Swan, Liverpool (Family handout/PA) She said: 'We count ourselves one of the 'lucky' ones as we have been able to get justice for Ashley. 'Without the support of the community, who knows what position we would be in now? 'Sadly, there are families who are still waiting for their justice knowing that their loved one's killers are still out there walking our streets. 'No parent should have to go through this. Losing a child in such an horrific way and knowing that someone knows who has committed these crimes is just unbearable. 'So I appeal to anyone who may have information that could help give the families the justice they deserve and help ease the lifelong pain they are facing to come forward to police or Crimestoppers.' Sam Rimmer was with friends when shots were fired at them by people on electric bikes (Merseyside Police/PA) No one has been charged in connection with the death of Mr Rimmer, who was with friends when shots were fired at them by people on electric bikes. His mother, Jo Rimmer, appealed for anyone who knew who his killers were to come forward. She said: 'If you know something and you are reading this, please, please speak up. 'No one will ever know as it will be completely anonymous. 'Sam was shot in his back. He was turned away from his killers. This image haunts me. In his final moments, was he scared? Was he in pain? 'I died the day Sam did. I function but I do not live. I know the pain of losing Sam will never go but if I see justice for his murder, maybe the family and I can begin to move forward and remember the happy memories of Sam.'
