Headlines: Nuclear power stations and Robbie Williams
Here's our daily pick of stories from across local websites in the West of England, and interesting content from social media.
Our pick of local website stories
The family of Jack O'Sullivan who went missing in Bristol in March, 2024, have told Bristol Live of the "unimaginable hell" they've been through as they continue their search for answers.Somerset Live shared the latest pictures from Hinkley Point C where work to build the domed roof on the second reactor is under way.And Gloucestershire Live told the story of how a group of women who all suffer with chronic pain have set up a group to support others living with the condition.
Our top three from yesterday
What to watch on social media
A Weston-super-Mare based funeral home have been offering free prom night limo rides for those who are struggling financially.The leader of North Somerset Council has addressed confusion over the ongoing restoration work at Birnbeck Pier and says every pound spent can be accounted for.Residents in Bath have expressed concern over the potential for a university open day, Ladies Day at Bath Racecourse and a Robbie Williams concert on the Royal Crescent all happening on the same day.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘Prison was the first place we felt sisterhood': six women return to the ruins of Holloway
The directors of Holloway use a simple but powerful visual device to demonstrate how badly the British prison system is failing the women it incarcerates. Towards the end of their eponynmous documentary, six former inmates are invited to play a version of Grandmother's Footsteps in the chapel of the deserted ex-prison, where they have been filming for five days. They begin lined up against the wall and a voice tells them: 'Step forward if you grew up in a chaotic household.' All six women step forward, before being instructed: 'Step forward if you experienced domestic violence growing up.' Again, they move ahead in unison. 'Step forward if somebody in your household has experienced drug use. Step forward if you grew up in a household where there wasn't very much money. Step forward if a member of your family has been to prison …' By the time the exercise is over, almost all the women have silently made their way from one side of the room to the other, starkly highlighting the film's fundamental theme: the UK's prisons are full of vulnerable women being punished – at great expense – and not helped. Shortly before Holloway prison began to be demolished in 2022, directors Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson secured permission to film inside the abandoned site in London, watching as six women returned to the cells where they were once held, to explore how they all ended up imprisoned as young women. Directors of a more conventional documentary might have plonked the participants on the bare iron frames of their old prison beds and instructed them to pour out their life stories, poking and prodding them for all the shocking details. Compton and Hudson take a subtler approach, arranging the women in a circle, supervised by a trained therapist, and waiting to see what emerges. It is a risky strategy. The flow of the conversation is faltering, interrupted by nervousness about how their words will be used, suspicion about the directors' intentions – and a sudden, uncomfortable request for the most difficult conversations to continue without the cameras rolling. The film includes all this uncertainty: they debate whether they should proceed before realising their desire to talk about the justice system's failures mostly outweighs their concerns about sharing chapters from their complicated pasts. Compton (Emmy nominated for her documentary on deepfake pornography, Another Body) and Hudson (who won a Bafta Breakthrough award for her film Half Way, documenting her own family's experience of homelessness) have the confidence to make their subjects collaborators on the project, inviting them into the editing process, to ensure everyone feels happy with how their experiences have been handled. 'They could say what they did and didn't like,' Hudson says. 'They wanted more laughter included. Our wish was that they felt proud of the film.' Once western Europe's largest women's prison, Holloway has a significant place in British history. More than 300 suffragettes were held in a wing of the original building during the early 20th century. Ruth Ellis was hanged there in 1955, the last woman to be executed in the UK. Greenham Common protesters spent time here. Sarah Reed, who had previously been a victim of police brutality in 2012, died in her cell in 2016. This is not the story the film sets out to tell. 'It's not a film about Holloway; other films can tell a historical story or show the realities of being in prison,' says Compton, who I meet along with Hudson and two of the film's participants, Aliyah Ali and Mandy Ogunmokun. 'This is about a group of women returning to Holloway, and finding they are not the same people they were when they were in prison.' The women each respond differently when they walk through the corridors of the site, which closed in 2016. Some take delight in defying forgotten rules, skipping along walkways that were previously out of bounds. One begins by cheerfully telling the cameras how she viewed her time at Holloway as a holiday camp experience – it takes days for her to admit the extent to which her attitude is just a protective front. Another observes approvingly the way that brambles and ferns have started to reclaim the space, springing from beneath the plug sockets and creeping through the windows. 'It feels kind of healing to see that Holloway prison is falling apart,' she says. Some remember with horror the noise of night-time screaming, but several are surprised by the unexpected feelings of affection the building triggers. 'It was probably the first time that I was in an environment which was controlled and felt safe,' Ali, 31, tells me. 'It's sad that for a lot of us, the first time we felt that connection of belonging and sisterhood, we found it in prison. What does that say about society?' She was sent to Holloway at 18. 'Growing up how I grew up, you're conditioned to just brush things off and get on with things, and wear masks and stay strong. When I went back to my first cell, I felt my 18-year-old self cry out.' Ali is initially the most reluctant of the six participants. The founder of a non-profit organisation, The Daddyless Daughters Project, she has rebuilt her life, radiates strength and seems visibly irritated by the entire setup. 'I was worried they could edit our voices and create a narrative that we weren't hoping for,' she says. 'I was thinking, 'We're trusting them with a level of vulnerability that we're not comfortable with. What are these people going to do with it?'' Gradually she was reassured and slowly began to reveal some of the childhood events that catapulted her into prison – family breakdown, domestic violence, a move to a women's refuge, then later into a residential children's home at the age of 12. Her problems escalated when she got caught up in county lines dealing, as a child exploited by criminal gangs to move and supply drugs. 'I was introduced to selling drugs, which I was very good at, and it was the first time that I started to feel a sense of worth,' she finally reveals on camera. She is dismayed to remember how little support she received as a child. 'The system saw me as a bad girl … as somebody who asked for all of this,' she says in the film. 'It was always, 'What's wrong with you? Why can't you just behave? Why can't you just stop doing this?' Nothing was asked about what actually happened to me,' she says. Her fury is echoed by Ogunmokun. 'It's so frustrating to see how similar the stories of people going in and out of prison are. Change is so slow,' she says. The daughter of a woman who struggled with addiction, she also spent some of her childhood in care, went to Holloway first aged 20, and was in and out repeatedly for two decades until she shook off her own drug addiction aged 40. 'I'm angry that some kids are born into certain circumstances, and what chance do they have?' Ogunmokun, 66, has dedicated the 25 years since leaving Holloway to helping former addicts break the cycle of addiction and offending. 'Every time I reoffended the judge would say: 'You haven't learned anything.'' She didn't get the support she needed to change while she was in prison, through no real fault of the prison staff. 'The officers see horrific things, but they're not trained counsellors – they're not mental health trained, they're not sex-trafficking trained, they're not domestic violence trained. They've got a regime they have to run by.' She hopes the film might persuade viewers that there needs to be a revolution in the way that female offenders are treated. It is almost 20 years since the seminal Corston report on vulnerable women in the criminal justice system called for a radically different strategy, but many of the report's key recommendations have yet to be implemented. Hudson and Compton struggled for several years to raise funding to finish their film. Now they feel happy that it is being released at a time when there is some emerging optimism about the possibility of change. 'The simple truth is that we are sending too many women to prison,' the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said earlier this year. 'We need to do things differently.' The film will be screened at an event with the prisons minister, James Timpson, in parliament later this month. Hudson's first fiction film, Lollipop, which comes out this month too, also features a woman who has recently left prison. She says both projects examine the way vulnerable women are shamed and blamed, as well as trying to showcase 'the power of women that society tries to put on the outskirts'. Ali is satisfied with how the film has turned out, and wants it to be shown to young people in prisons, to offer hope that lives can alter course. Despite her early reservations, she is impressed by the directors' creation. 'It's been emotionally turbulent,' she says, 'but they've done an amazing job.' Holloway is in UK cinemas from 20 June.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Confessions of a Parent Killer review – a grisly tale of the murderer who lived with her mum and dad's corpses
Well, what do you think a 90-minute documentary entitled Confessions of a Parent Killer is going to be about? That's right, well done! It's the story of a murder by an (adult) child of her parents. Virginia – Ginny – McCullough killed her mother, Lois, and father, John, and confessed immediately to police when they raided her home in 2023 that she had done so four years previously. The twist was that she had been living with their bodies ever since. 'She was weird at school,' says a childhood friend. 'But not 'kill your parents and hide the bodies' weird.' You can probably tell from such unimpeachably phlegmatic commentary that this case occurred in England. Great Baddow, Essex, to be exact, and the film paints a portrait of quintessential small-town, almost-rural life in these sceptred isles that has gone unchanged for generations and, you suspect, will survive for many more. Everybody knew the family, yes. Grocer Paul; Alan, who rented John and Lois various bits of kit from his electronics shop on the high street; florists Rachel and Debbie and, of course, a number of thirtysomething women – 'Ella', Bethan, Kirsty, Lisa – knew Ginny from school. Everyone thought the family was a bit odd, yes. There were rumours that John, a university lecturer who liked a drink ('very curt, brusque', never said goodbye to Alan after he paid his monthly rent), was relentlessly strict with his daughters and that was why they all left home as soon as they could, though Ginny kept having to come back when her various jobs left her short of cash. And Lois was strange, quiet, unsmiling, 'subdued', 'withdrawn'. Ginny was more outgoing. She started coming in instead of her mum or dad to pay Alan. Spent a lot of time and money in the florist, too, since she came back to sort the house out four or five years ago. Always full of stories ('a bit of a fantasist', 'always some drama going on'), perhaps a little needy and annoying; you can see in the descriptions of her as an adult the shadow of the bullied, friendless child Bethan et al remembered. 'I don't like my mum at all,' young Ginny once told Bethan, on whom she lavished presents that 'she'd obviously just nicked from around the house' when they sat next to each other in year 2. But, well, every community has these people, don't they? It takes all sorts. You just accommodate them, make allowances, they don't hurt anyone. Until. Unless. Then you look back and, you wonder, don't you? Ginny returned the equipment to Alan in 2021 – she said her parents had moved to Clacton. People do. It was their GP who first contacted the police, after becoming concerned that John and Lois had missed numerous appointments. It turned out that no one had seen them for years. Investigations resulted in the raid. Bodycam footage shows an unfazed Ginny assuring officers of her cooperation and telling them that her father's body is in the sitting room. And mum? 'That's a little bit more complicated,' says Ginny, delicately. Mum is in a sleeping bag in a wardrobe upstairs, the doors taped against the flies and maggots that had been struggling to escape. 'Cheer up!' she cajoles the shocked officers. 'At least you caught the bad guy!' But why did she do it? Here, the programme becomes as manipulative as any psychopath. Numerous suggestions are trailed. 'Exclusive' letters (written, it seems, to one of the film-makers) from McCullough herself suggest an abused child of a mentally unwell mother and alcoholic father, who finally cracked. Some of the Great Baddowan testimonies appear to back this up. But a detective insists that she is a cold-blooded killer. A forensic psychiatrist – not the one on her case – does the intensely annoying thing of dressing up common sense as professional insight (she may have kept the bodies because she felt connected to them, or it may have been because it is so hard to dispose of corpses. Either way, it must have been 'psychologically taxing'). It is not until the final minutes that all the facts are laid before us. The new ones make it clear that psychopathy and a financial motive should have been given more weight, and that the viewer has been kept in a state of much greater uncertainty and intrigue than we would or could otherwise have been. A narrative must be shaped and an amount of storytelling leeway granted – but this goes far beyond that and taints the overall endeavour to an unpalatable extent. Confessions of a Parent Killer is on Paramount+ now
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Shakira is slammed by Love Island fans for double standards as she randomly kisses Blu after getting annoyed at Harry for flirting with Helena
Love Island fans were left baffled on Wednesday when Shakira Khan and Blu Chegini unexpectedly kissed in the hideaway at the end of the episode. Tuesday's recoupling saw Shakira choose to couple up with Harry Cooksley, despite Blu and Connor Phillips also showing interest in her. Things took a turn between the pair when Harry had a cheeky chat with Helena Ford, whispering 'hideaway' in the air hostess's ear before putting his hand on her leg - antics which left Shakira furious. However just moments later, Shakira was taken to the Hideaway by Blu where she then shared a sneaky kiss with him. The switch-up baffled viewers, who called Shakira 'hypocritical' for her 'double standards'. 'She is moving mad,' they claimed. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Taking to X, formerly Twitter, viewers wrote: 'Shakira doesn't have a right to be mad at Harry when she's talking to Ben and Blu & also kissed Blu, I think she wanted to pick him last night,'; 'Harry inviting Helena to the hideaway, Blu and Shakira kissing in the hideaway after she was mad at Harry for touching Helena …. Omfgggg I LOVEEEEE this mess,'; 'Shakira: It's made me put my guard up. Shakira 10 minutes later.... [kissing gif],'; 'Shakira is mooooving maaad fam,Harry turn your head brudda your ting is eazyyy,'; 'Please I approve what shakira did. she's just a hypocrite for getting upset with Harry. They're not married abeg and Harry ain't it anyway. So let her do her worst,'; 'Shakira you weren't happy about your man flirting but you've gone and gave out two kisses,'; 'Shakira bombshelling more than the actual bombshell dkm,'; 'Shakira did all that crying just to kiss blu in the hideaway…??,'; 'But shakira you was mad at… and now you're… and went back for seconds….?'; 'I like shakira but girl telling Harry he was out of line touching Helegna leg and yours but the going and kissing blu is so shady,'; 'Shakira saying she'd be respectful and then kissing blu in the hideaway. love to see it,'; 'Shakira calling harry disrespectful for holding a leg then happily kissing blu doesn't add up.' Taking to X, formerly Twitter, viewers wrote: 'Shakira doesn't have a right to be mad at Harry when she's talking to Ben and Blu & also kissed Blu, I think she wanted to pick him last night' Love Island fans are set to enjoy the X-rated sex scenes happening in the famous Hideaway for the very first time in five years, according to bosses' comments. 'If sex happens, we'll show it. The Hideaway will be open 24 hours,' Mike Spencer, Love Island's Creative Director said. He added: 'We need to keep the show fresh and exciting. After 10 years, the stats speak for themselves. The show will continue to thrive.' Although the usual play of Love Island is to couple up with one other person from the opposite sex - bosses are hoping for potential throuples in the villa this year as they ' tear up the rule book' and install new furniture to create drama. The Love Island villa was left extremely shaken during Tuesday night's show as Sophie Lee was axed from the show, and two new bombshells arrived. Following the arrival of first bombshell Toni, who surprised the singletons at the close of Monday's episode, Semi pro footballer Shea Mannings and fitness influencer Remell Mullins are the latest arrivals. Following the arrival of first bombshell Toni, Semi pro footballer Shea Mannings (left) and fitness influencer Remell Mullins (right) are the latest arrivals Shea, who is a Scaffolder from Bristol, revealed he has a young son, and he will be taking that 'into consideration' when coupling up. He added: 'She needs to be bubbly and we need to have that initial spark. She needs to have a nice personality - like I think I have - so that we match together.' Meanwhile, Remell is a Self Improvement Content Creator who boasts a massive 18million likes and half a million followers on TikTok. Remell shared he is looking for 'a bubbly, confident, ambitious and fun girl' with 'a nice smile, nice teeth and someone that can keep me on my toes.' When asked where he might be found in the villa in the morning, he replied: 'I might be cooking a nice high protein meal, I might be doing my skincare routine, something to level up.' Sophie Lee NAME: Sophie Lee AGE: 29 FROM: Manchester OCCUPATION: Motivational Speaker and Author WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone who is fun, spontaneous, who has a lot of jokes and who is attentive. At the moment I'm only finding ones draped in red flags and 'do not cross' signs IF YOU WERE THE CEO OF SOMETHING, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I'm the CEO of empowerment. I want women to feel beautiful and validated in themselves and feel their best self. NAME: Dejon Noel Williams AGE: 26 FROM: London OCCUPATION: Semi-pro footballer and personal trainer WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone who is beautiful on the inside and out, looks after themselves and is healthy CLAIM TO FAME? My dad being an ex-professional footballer. I've met all kinds of famous people through him. When I was younger it was weird because he was just my dad, but we'd go to a game and fans were asking for photos. I've met David Beckham, he was really nice. Megan Moore NAME: Megan Moore AGE: 25 FROM: Southampton OCCUPATION: Payroll specialist WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? I'd like to meet someone who is tall, with a nice tan, nice eyes and a nice smile. He needs to have a good fashion sense and a really good, funny personality that I can get on with HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR LOVE LIFE? Bankrupt, right now. But we're going to make sales and get on that corporate ladder and be booming. Profits, profits, profits! NAME: Tommy Bradley AGE: 22 FROM: Hertfordshire OCCUPATION: Landscape Gardener WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? A girl who is very ambitious, with a big personality, caring, but also someone that doesn't take themselves too seriously. I don't know if that's asking for too much, but I want a bit of everything. I haven't got a specific type in terms of looks, though. WHAT WOULD YOU BE CEO OF? Taking hours to do my hair NAME: Alima Gagio AGE: 23 FROM: Glasgow OCCUPATION: Wealth Management Client Services Executive WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? A tall man with a handsome face. You know when you just look at a guy and they have that Disney prince look to them? That's it WOULD MAYA HIRE YOU FOR YOUR FLIRTING SKILLS? I think she'd hire me because I'm a good flirt. I always ask guys on a night out to guess which country I'm originally from. If they get it right, they can get my number. But they never guess correctly so it works really well if you don't want to give a guy your number. I'm originally from Guinea Bissau. If they're close and I really fancy them, I'll give them my number anyway. NAME: Ben Holbrough AGE: 23 FROM: Gloucester OCCUPATION: Private Hire Taxi driver WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone sexy, good looking, good chat, good vibes, nice teeth and good eye contact - they're all the traits I look for. Oh, and also a cute smile, I just look at you and know I can be around you all day, every day. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR LOVE LIFE? Bankrupt. I'd have been out of business a long time ago. That's exactly why I'm here. NAME: Helena Ford AGE: 29 FROM: London OCCUPATION: Cabin Crew WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Somebody funny or Northern. I feel like Northern people have much more banter than Southerners. If you look through my previous dating history, you'll see I clearly go for personality. You can pretty much laugh me into bed. WOULD MAYA HIRE YOU FOR YOUR FLIRTING SKILLS? I would say hire but then quickly fire soon after. It would only be a temporary contract. NAME: Megan Forte Clarke AGE: 24 FROM: Dublin OCCUPATION: Musical theatre performer and energy broker WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone who doesn't take themselves too seriously and has a sense of humour. If they're not bad looking, that's always a plus. I love a boy that's a bit pasty, like Timothée Chalamet. I don't mind scrawny, or a bit of a 'dad bod'. I'm 5ft1 so any height really. CLAIM TO FAME? Me and my friends made a Derry Girls TikTok for Halloween and it went a bit viral around Brighton. Sometimes I get stopped in the street about it. I've also done Panto. NAME: Blu Chegini AGE: 26 FROM: London OCCUPATION: Construction Project Manager WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone who is family oriented, has a lot of love to give and a lot of love to receive. Personality goes a long way. WOULD MAYA HIRE YOU FOR YOUR FLIRTING SKILLS? She'd fire me, but I've got the charm to smooth things over with a girl. The fact I speak fluent Spanish comes in handy when it comes to flirting! Shakira Khan NAME: Shakira Khan AGE: 26 FROM: London OCCUPATION: Construction Project Manager WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone who is tall, charming, witty, with big arms, a good smile and just really funny. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR LOVE LIFE? Booming, but they're all frogs. It's a busy love life but I've not found 'the husband', I'm looking for 'the one'. I'm looking for the ring. NAME: Harry Cooksley AGE: 30 FROM: Guildford OCCUPATION: Gold trader, semi-professional footballer and model WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? The girl next door that makes me laugh and can hold eye contact with me. I don't think I'd go for the most obvious girl, I like a real sweet girl. CLAIM TO FAME? I'm the body double for Declan Rice. So when he does a shoot, any body close ups will actually be me. You'll never see my face, but you'll see my shoulder or chest, that kind of thing. NAME: Conor Phillips AGE: 23 FROM: Limerick OCCUPATION: Professional rugby player WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?Someone who is really sure of themselves, ambitious, a bit of a go-getter and good craic. I like dark eyes and I don't mind a dominant woman. WOULD MAYA HIRE YOU FOR YOUR FLIRTING SKILLS? Definitely hire. I ask girls if they want to go halves on a baby. It doesn't work, but it gets them laughing. It's an ice-breaker, not a serious question of course! NAME: Toni Laites AGE: 24 FROM: Connecticut OCCUPATION: Las Vegas Pool Cabana Server WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? I'm looking for darker hair, definitely muscular but not too muscular. Super fit. Clean hair cut. Someone that can make me laugh - I'm super outgoing. And someone that's quite active. Maybe one day we could start our own family together. I WANT TO DATE A BRITISH GUY BECAUSE... I've lived in three different states and I'm still single. It's time to try something new! I have some British friends and they're pretty charming. I think all Americans love a good accent. British men are just more polite, with better manners. NAME: Kyle Ashman AGE: 23 FROM: Stafford OCCUPATION: Water operative WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone that's fun, confident and just themselves. WOULD MAYA HIRE YOU FOR YOUR FLIRTING SKILLS? I'd say I'd be hired. I just go with it, find something to compliment a girl on and go from there. NAME: Shea Mannings AGE: 25 FROM: Bristol OCCUPATION: Scaffolder WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? She needs to be bubbly and we need to have that initial spark. She needs to have a nice personality - like I think I have - so that we match together. Also, I have a little boy, so I'll be taking him into consideration with who I couple up with, too. WOULD MAYA HIRE YOU FOR YOUR FLIRTING SKILLS? Definitely hire. I'm confident to go up and introduce myself and say, 'You look beautiful', to get a conversation flowing. NAME: Remell Mullins AGE: 24 FROM: Essex OCCUPATION: Self Improvement Content Creator WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? A bubbly, confident, ambitious and fun girl. One feature that stands out to me is a nice smile, nice teeth and someone that can keep me on my toes. IF YOU WERE THE CEO OF ANYTHING, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I'm the CEO of flirting. Sometimes it's just unintentional.
