Leasowe dog walker kicked in head in row over barking pets
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The Independent
23 minutes ago
- The Independent
Sturgeon: ‘Witch-hunt' MSPs investigating me were being directed by Salmond
Nicola Sturgeon has said she believes some MSPs who investigated the Scottish Government's handling of sexual harassment allegations against Alex Salmond were 'taking direction' from him. The former Scotland first minister wrote in her autobiography, Frankly, that she thought either Mr Salmond or his allies were guiding some opposition MSPs on what to ask her. She accused her opponents in the special Holyrood committee of a 'witch-hunt' against her. The committee ultimately found Ms Sturgeon misled the Scottish Parliament over the Salmond inquiry. However, she said the probe that 'really mattered' was the independent investigation by senior Irish lawyer James Hamilton which cleared her of breaking the ministerial code. The former SNP leader said that while she was 'certain' she had not breached the code, 'I had been obviously deeply anxious that James Hamilton might take a different view', admitting that 'had he done so, I would have had to resign'. She said that she felt 'on trial' as part of a wider phenomenon that when men were accused of impropriety, 'some people's first instinct is to find a woman to blame'. Ms Sturgeon did admit to 'misplaced trust and poor judgment' in her autobiography, which was published early by Waterstones on Monday, having been slated for release this Thursday. She wrote: 'This feeling of being on trial was most intense when it came to the work of the Scottish Parliament committee set up to investigate the Scottish government's handling of the original complaints against Alex. 'From day one, it seemed clear that some of the opposition members of the committee were much less interested in establishing facts, or making sure lessons were learned, than they were in finding some way to blame it all on me. 'If it sometimes felt to me like a 'witch-hunt', it is probably because for some of them that is exactly what it was. 'I was told, and I believe it to be true, that some of the opposition MSPs were taking direction from Alex himself – though possibly through an intermediary – on the points to pursue and the questions to ask.' Ms Sturgeon described the inquiry, to which she gave eight hours of sworn evidence, as 'gruelling' but also 'cathartic'. MSPs voted five to four that she misled them. The politicians began their inquiry after a judicial review in 2019 found the Scottish Government's investigation into Mr Salmond's alleged misconduct was unlawful, unfair and tainted by apparent bias. Mr Salmond, who died last year, was awarded £500,000 in legal expenses. Ms Sturgeon wrote of the inquiry: 'It also gave the significant number of people who tuned in to watch the chance to see for themselves just how partisan some of the committee members were being. 'Not surprisingly, the opposition majority on the committee managed to find some way of asserting in their report that I had breached the ministerial code. 'However, it was the verdict of the independent Hamilton report that mattered.' She said her infamous falling out with her predecessor was a 'bruising episode' of her life as she accused Mr Salmond of creating a 'conspiracy theory' to defend himself from reckoning with misconduct allegations, of which he was cleared in court. Ms Sturgeon said her former mentor was 'never able to produce a shred of hard evidence that he was' the victim of a conspiracy. She went on: 'All of which begs the question: how did he manage to persuade some people that he was the wronged party, and lead others to at least entertain the possibility? 'In short, he used all of his considerable political and media skills to divert attention from what was, for him, the inconvenient fact of the whole business. 'He sought to establish his conspiracy narrative by weaving together a number of incidents and developments, all of which had rational explanations, into something that, with his powers of persuasion, he was able to cast as sinister.' Ms Sturgeon speaks about Mr Salmond several times in her autobiography, which also has a dedicated chapter to him, simply titled 'Alex Salmond'. In it, she speaks of an 'overwhelming sense of sadness and loss' when she found out about his death, which she said hit her harder than she had anticipated. Ms Sturgeon says the breakdown in their relationship happened long before Mr Salmond's misconduct allegations. She said it had begun to deteriorate when she became first minister in 2014 following his resignation in light of the independence referendum defeat. Ms Sturgeon claims her former boss still wanted to 'call the shots' outside of Bute House and appeared unhappy that she was no longer his inferior. She also accuses him of trying to 'distort' and 'weaponise' his alleged victims' 'trauma' through his allegations of conspiracy. Ms Sturgeon claims that Mr Salmond, who later quit the SNP to form the Alba Party, would rather have seen the SNP destroyed than be successful without him. Despite her myriad claims against her predecessor, though, Ms Sturgeon said: 'Part of me still misses him, or at least the man I thought he was and the relationship we once had. 'I know I will never quite escape the shadow he casts, even in death.'
The Guardian
24 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Lucy Letby: Who to Believe? review – just when you thought this case couldn't get any more confusing …
In May 2024, the New Yorker published an article with the headline 'A British nurse was found guilty of killing seven babies. Did she do it?' Access to the online version of Rachel Aviv's piece was banned in the UK due to reporting restrictions, with Letby's retrial on an additional count of attempted murder then imminent. Rules aside, asking whether Letby was in fact innocent also felt taboo at the time, a pursuit for social media conspiracy theorists. Fast forward 15 months, and 'did she do it?' is merely par for the course when it comes to the case, with even experts cited by the prosecution apparently unconvinced of Letby's guilt. This new Panorama comes hot on the heels of an ITV documentary that aired earlier this month, Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt?. That programme focused on holes in the evidence that was presented to the jury who found Letby guilty of killing seven babies and attempting to kill seven more at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016. Hers had been, said Neena Modi, a professor of neonatal medicine, a 'deeply disturbing' trial based on flawed evidence. Claims made in the trial were roundly rubbished by a panel of specialists who reviewed the case, and by experts found by the programme makers, making the evidence sound more like a series of sad anomalies than conclusive proof of wrongdoing by Letby. In any case, one would be unlikely to come away from that programme without at least a measure of doubt about her convictions. And yet, many other doubts do persist, leading – one fears – to a continued stream of programmes about the case. This is the third instalment of Panorama that Judith Moritz has made about Letby; the first, released in 2023, was subtitled The Nurse Who Killed, another last year was named Unanswered Questions, and now, in keeping with the rising sense of uncertainty, we have Who to Believe?. Like the ITV documentary, it considers the limitations of the evidence that put the 35-year-old behind bars. Unlike that documentary, though, it also considers whether the alternative version of events put forward by experts such as Modi and Shoo Lee – who rebutted the prosecution's interpretation of his work on air embolisms – holds water. It is a muddled hour of television, in which Moritz and producer-director Jonathan Coffey (who have also written a book about the case together) describe various things as conjecture, before supplying more conjecture of their own, and ultimately concluding that it's a right old mess. It certainly wouldn't be right to take the ITV documentary – or any other for that matter – as the ultimate authority on the case. But this Panorama seems to add very little in the way of conclusive information. Take, for example, this lightly heated exchange between Moritz and Coffey, who are discussing whether or not it is significant that the prosecution's expert witness, Dr Dewi Evans, changed his mind on one of the babies' cause of death, from air pumped into the stomach to an intravenous air embolism. Moritz: 'It's not like you had a situation where [someone was] saying, this person was shot … actually, no sorry, there's no gunshot wounds at all, I've decided instead they drowned.' Coffey: 'Some people would say that's exactly what we're dealing with here.' Moritz: 'It's certainly a difficult case to get your head around.' Coffey: 'Well, some people would say it's not a difficult case to get your head around, that actually they have got their head around it and the prosecution expert evidence is all over the place.' Moritz: 'Yeah – and other people would say they got their head around it and convicted her!' It's more like a drivetime phone-in than serious investigative journalism. Clearly, Moritz and Coffey care about the case, and about finding out whether Letby has indeed been wrongfully convicted. But in an investigation remarkable for the sheer number of theories involved – and now counter-theories – the addition of counter-counter-theories is hard to compute. A long tangent into the death of one child – Baby O – and how he may or may not have sustained injuries to his liver, only underscores the lack of consensus among experts, and the possibility of falling down rabbitholes at every turn. Similarly, inflated insulin levels in Baby F and Baby L lead to wildly different interpretations depending on who is explaining it all. We are told that the immunoassay tests that were used during the trial were highly unreliable, and shouldn't have been relied on in court. And yet, we also hear that those levels of insulin just cannot be explained away. Unless, of course, the tests were wrong …? And around and around we go. In determinedly not taking any claims at face value, Who to Believe? will surely confuse viewers even more, and brings us no closer to understanding whether there is indeed a compelling alternative to the events set out by the prosecution. It concludes that Letby was either 'spectacularly bad' at her job or this was a major miscarriage of justice. Taking us right back to where we started. Lucy Letby: Who to Believe? aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer now.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Attacker asked priest if he would hear his confession before assault
Det Chief Insp Gary Robinson said: 'On Sunday morning, Aug 10, at approximately 10.10am, police received a report that a priest had been seriously assaulted. 'This was in a church in the St Patrick's Avenue area of the town. A man entered the church and brutally attacked the priest with a bottle. The victim was taken to hospital for treatment to a head injury. Here, he remains in a serious, but stable, condition. 'While attending this serious assault, at around midday, police received a report of the death of a man at an address in the Marian Park area... sadly, the man, who is aged in his 50s, was pronounced dead at the scene.' Police confirmed a 30-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder, as well as on suspicion of attempted murder, and remains in custody. Det Chief Insp Robinson said: 'Our investigations into both the murder and attempted murder are at the early stages. 'While I can confirm that one line of inquiry is that the two are connected, I would reiterate that our inquiries are ongoing in an effort to establish the facts surrounding both incidents. 'I am keen to appeal to anyone who was in the St Patrick's Avenue area of Downpatrick between 9am and 11am on Sunday, or the Marian Park area between 12 midnight and 12 noon on Sunday, and saw or heard anything untoward, to please come forward and speak to us. 'Any detail, no matter how small, could be of vital importance to our investigation. I would ask anyone with information, CCTV or dash cam footage to contact us on 101, quoting reference 713 of 10/08/25.' Prayers are to be offered for both the Brannigan family and Fr Murray at a service led by Bishop Alan McGuckian in St Colmcille's Church in Downpatrick on Tuesday morning.
