Willingham mum's crane equipment death trial halted until 2026
The trial of a man accused of causing the death of a woman who was struck on the head by crane equipment while pushing a pram has been halted due to insufficient time for witnesses.Rebecca Ableman, 30, was with her two-year-old daughter on the pavement by the B1050 in Willingham, Cambridgeshire, when she was hit in September 2022.Kevin Miller, 70, of King's Lynn, Norfolk, denies causing death by dangerous driving.The jury at Peterborough Crown Court was discharged on Monday after it was decided more time was needed to hear from expert witnesses.
Ms Ableman had left a farm shop in Station Road with her daughter Autumn when she was struck by the lorry just before 11:15 BST, the jury heard earlier.She died from head and brain injuries three weeks later.The current trial had been expected to last between five and seven days.A new trial date has been set for 23 February 2026 and is expected to last for two weeks.
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The Herald Scotland
3 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
'Vicious' killer's execution, blocked under Biden, is moving ahead
"I can't change the past," Hanson said at a recent clemency board hearing asking for mercy. "I would if I could." Hanson's execution will come the same week that he won a stay from a judge, only for it to be overturned by a higher court. If the execution moves forward as scheduled, it will be the 23rd in the U.S. this year and the third of four executions this week alone. Here's what you need to know about the execution, including why Hanson's fate changed after Trump took office for the second time. When is the execution? Hanson is scheduled to be executed at 10 a.m. CT on Thursday, June 12, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. It would be the second execution in Oklahoma this year. Nolan Clay, a reporter for The Oklahoman - part of the USA TODAY Network - is set to be among the witnesses to the execution. What was John Hanson convicted of? On Aug. 31, 1999, Mary Bowles was in the Promenade Mall in Tulsa, getting in one of the frequent walks she liked to do for exercise. When she got back to her car, John Hanson and Victor Miller pulled their guns, then carjacked and kidnapped Bowles. They took her to an isolated area near a dirt pit, according to court records. The owner of the pit, Jerald Thurman, was there and saw the car circling the pit before it drove up to him. Miller got out and shot Thurman four times, including once in the head, as Bowles sat helplessly in the back of the car, court records say. Miller drove a short distance away, during which Bowles asked the men: "Do you have any kids or anyone who loves you?" according to court records, prompting Hanson to punch her. Shortly after, Miller stopped the car, and Hanson forced Bowles out and shot her her at least six times, court records say. Thurman's nephew, who had been on the phone with him just before the attack, found his wounded uncle still alive shortly after the shooting. Thurman died two weeks later. Bowles's badly "significantly decomposed" body was found more than a week later on Sept. 7, 1999, court records say. Hanson and Miller continued on what prosecutors called an "armed-felony binge," robbing a video store and a bank at gunpoint over a five-day period before Miller's wife turned the men in following an argument. They were captured two days after Bowles' body was found. Miller was sentenced to life in prison, and Hanson got the death penalty. Miller also later bragged about having been the one to shoot Bowles, according to court records. All of that adds up to "a disturbing miscarriage of justice," Hanson's attorneys say. Hanson explained his actions at a recent clemency hearing, describing Miller as driving the violence. "I was caught in a situation I couldn't control," he said. "Things were happening so fast, and at the spur of the moment, due to my lack of decisiveness and fear, I responded incorrectly, and two people lost their lives." Who was Mary Bowles? 'A gentle person' The turnout for Mary Bowles' funeral showed just how beloved the avid volunteer was in the community. Hundreds of family, friends and fellow volunteers packed her funeral to share their memories of the 77-year-old, according to an archived story in the Tulsa World. Among Bowles' many volunteer organizations was a local hospital where she had logged over 11,000 hours in the neonatal unit for critical newborn babies, the Oklahoman reported in 1999. "She was such a gentle person," Beverly Farrell, a hospital director, told The Oklahoman. "I can't imagine her offering resistance to anyone. She would have given up her car. I don't understand how anyone could be violent to her." Though Bowles never married and had no children herself, she treated over a dozen nephews and nieces as if they were her own, friends and family told media outlets at the time. "She had to be the greatest aunt in the world," Farrell said. Bowles also had a passion for music and traveling. She majored in music education at Oklahoma A&M and played at the Tulsa Philharmonic for three seasons, according to the Oklahoman. Bowles once took a hot-air balloon ride over Lake Tahoe and enjoyed cross-country skiing in the winter, niece Linda Behrends told the Tulsa World. Farrell said Bowles' murder was devastating for the hospital and the community: "She made such a meaningful impact here in all that she did." What does President Donald Trump have to do with this execution? Hanson was imprisoned in Louisiana, serving a life sentence for bank robbery and other federal crimes, when Oklahoma scheduled his execution for Bowles' murder. Hanson's execution had been set for Dec. 15, 2022, but the Biden administration blocked his transfer to Oklahoma from federal custody in Louisiana. The move was in line with Biden's opposition to the death penalty and came a couple years before Biden commuted the death sentences of all but three federal death row inmates just before he left office in December. During Trump's first month in office this year, he signed an executive order restoring federal executions, calling the death penalty "an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes." Three days later, Oklahoma's Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond asked the U.S. Department of Justice to transfer Hanson to his state. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer Hanson from Louisiana, and he arrived in Oklahoma in March. "For the family and friends of Mary Bowles, the wait for justice has been a long and frustrating one," Drummond said in a news release shortly after Hanson's transfer. "While the Biden Administration inexplicably protected this vicious killer from the execution chamber, I am grateful President Trump and Attorney General Bondi recognized the importance of this murderer being back in Oklahoma so justice can be served." John Hanson won a stay from a judge this week Hanson's execution was in doubt after an Oklahoma judge granted him a stay on Monday. The stay stemmed from Hanson's arguments that one of three members of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board who voted to deny him clemency was biased. (The board voted 3-2.) Hanson said that board member Sean Malloy was a prosecutor in Tulsa County when Hanson was resentenced in 2006 and therefore should not have been allowed to weigh in on his clemency petition. Malloy said he never worked on Hanson's case. Oklahoma County District Judge Richard Ogden ordered a stay of execution pending Hanson's lawsuit against the board over Malloy's participation. Drummond immediately appealed the ruling and on Wednesday, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned it, allowing the execution to proceed. Hanson's attorney, Emma Rolls, said in a statement that the appeals court's ruling "leaves Mr. Hanson at imminent risk of being executed without the constitutional safeguards he's entitled to under law." "No person facing execution should have to plead for mercy in front of a decisionmaker with direct ties to their prosecution," Rolls, said. "We are pursuing all available avenues to ensure that Mr. Hanson receives a fair process before this irreversible punishment is carried out." Contributing: Nolan Clay, The Oklahoman Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
Metro
4 days ago
- Metro
BBC's ‘brilliant' true crime drama made me question my own morals
It was a superb way to end the first season, telling us that in fact the six episodes we just watched had only been chasing half of the gold from the Brink's-Mat robbery. The second season of The Gold is concerned with the other half, half-inched by Charlie Miller (Sam Spruell), who was only half-glimpsed during the heist when the BBC show first aired in 2023. Unlike your standard heist drama, the 1983 robbery itself, which saw six men break into a depot near Heathrow for a bit of foreign currency, only to find £26million in gold bullion (equivalent to about quadruple that today), is of little interest to the show. Instead, we see how Miller and his gold slid under the radar for so long, before he decided to smelt the lot down and launder it. Miller fills the shoes of season one's Kenneth Noye (Jack Lowden) – who makes a return after being sent down by the Old Bailey – as the criminal at the heart of this enterprise, who is at pains to squirrel the cash away before the police catch up with him. He's joined on the baddie side by smooth-talking John Palmer (Tom Cullen). Viewers will remember Palmer as the smelter extraordinaire. We find him now having set up a money-grubbing timeshare business in the Canary Islands – one lucrative enough to land him on the Sunday Times Rich List. Both Palmer and Miller come from dirt poor backgrounds they never want to return to, continuing the first season's themes on the British class system. With much tactful speechifying, the criminals spin their ill-gotten gains as a way of getting back at the establishment. At times, it's hard not to be convinced, especially when they look like they're having so much fun. On the other side of the moral equation are Hugh Bonneville as the incorruptible copper Brian Boyce and his two young detectives, still beavering away years down the line. They're under-funded and under-staffed, often acting out their scenes in drab office buildings with little natural light and hawkish superiors telling them to pack up shop. It's not just the palpable absence of vibes that makes the police's side less of a rootin' tootin' good time. In the first episode alone Miller gets one over on Scotland Yard repeatedly – and has Danny Ocean-level swagger as he does so. In those moments, you can't help but think creator and writer Neil Forsyth hasn't also been a little bit seduced by the sexiness of being a bank robber. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video There were murmurs of this around season one, when Lowden's charismatic incarnation of Noye was compared to Robin Hood, endlessly speechifying on how the rich just get richer. TV is no stranger to an antihero (Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, to name just two) but it's further complicated when the real Noye was a gangster and murderer. When he was sentenced at the Old Bailey, he shouted to the jury: 'I hope you all die of cancer.' This fact was included in the drama, but a lot of Noye's behaviour was papered over by Lowden's cheeky chappy performance. With a true crime drama it can be easy to get sucked in and forget about the real people affected off screen. Especially when the ones doing the bad stuff are cocky, cool and flying around on a private jet. More Trending But the second season of The Gold has more creative license that also puts us slightly in the clear for being taken in by the villains. Miller and his snooty posh accomplice Douglas Baxter (Joshua McGuire) are composite characters, inspired by some of those involved in the Brink's-Mat story, instead of being real people. On the whole, The Gold is once again brilliant. Perhaps even better. Scenes zip along at a clip and Forsyth seems to have taken on board the criticism over last season's trite state-of-the-nation speeches. Just make sure you don't look up the Brink's-Mat Wikipedia page if you don't want spoilers. View More » The Gold season 2 is available to stream on BBC iPlayer now and airs on BBC One at 9pm on Sunday (June 8). Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Divisive horror movie full of 'grotesque monsters' now streaming on BBC iPlayer MORE: 'Doctor Who's finale infuriated fans – but the next series will fix everything' MORE: Bake Off legend claims she's been dropped by the BBC after 10 years on TV
BBC News
7 days ago
- BBC News
Surrey men fined after Lincolnshire hare coursing incident
Two men have been fined after they were found guilty of hare coursing in Connors, 24, and Jerry Connors, 19, both of Rectory Lane, Woodmansterne, Banstead, Surrey, were arrested and charged after an incident in Crowland in March pair, and two others, were found guilty of hunting a wild mammal with dogs and trespass during a trial in December for their arrests were later issued and they were sentenced at Lincoln Magistrates' Court on 29 May. Lincolnshire Police said officers had been called out on Sunday 12 March 2023 to reports of four men hare reported seeing the men walking across fields with one driving a blue Daihatsu Terios 4x4 through newly planted a short chase, the four members of the group were pair were both individually fined £875 and ordered to pay £4929.83 compensation and a £350 victim surcharge. What is hare coursing? Coursers will walk along a field to frighten the hare into the openThe dog catches the hare and kills it by "ragging" it - shaking the animal in its teethThe dogs - usually greyhounds, lurchers or salukis - are on a slip lead, threaded so it can be easily releasedThe dead hare is usually left in the field or thrown in a ditchHare coursing is illegal throughout the UK. The Hunting Act 2004, makes it an offence to hunt wild mammals with dogsSource: Lincolnshire Police Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.
