West Mercia Police urges reporting of non-contact sex offences
"Many women may have brushed it off as something that happens to all women," said Det Supt Emma Whitworth. "Our message is it does not have to be brushed off and when it happens we want to know."Reporting these crimes helps police investigate perpetrators earlier and identify patterns of offending, she said.The campaign has come in light of cases like the murders of Sarah Everard, Zara Aleena and Libby Squire, in which the perpetrators were found to have histories of non-contact sexual offending.
Police and crime commissioner John Campion said it was "vital" that victims of sexual offences were given "the support they need to cope and recover".They can access free and confidential support through the victim support gateway service, even if the crime has not been reported to the police.
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Daily Mail
17 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Veteran rider, 76, died after falling off his horse while trail hunting just hours after laying scent for event, inquest hears
A riding enthusiast died after falling from his horse just hours after laying a scent for a hunting event, an inquest heard. Guy Avis, 76, died while taking part in a Heythrop Hunt trail hunt with 90 other riders when his horse refused to jump a fence. He had been a lifelong member of the event, where he was known as the 'singing secretary'. Gloucestershire Coroners' Court heard Mr Avis, who also performed with Giffords Circus, had been riding his horse Jasper. The inquest was told Mr Avis fell forward over the horse's head after Jasper did not jump the fence. Mr Avis, of Dean, Chipping Norton, landed headfirst on the ground and died from a fractured cervical spine. Roland Wooderson, area coroner for Gloucestershire, reached a conclusion of accidental death on Thursday. The coroner said: 'It is clear from the evidence that on November 2 2024, at the farm in question, Mr Avis died as a result of injuries sustained when he fell from his horse. 'I accept the medical cause of death as 1a fractured cervical spine and 1b horse riding accident. 'On that information, on the balance of probability, the appropriate conclusion is one of accidental death.' In a statement read to the court, Hannah Goffe said Mr Avis had been taking part in a Heythrop Hunt event. Mrs Goffe described overhearing someone saying there had been an accident at about 2pm. 'I ran towards the jump and I saw Guy lying on the floor,' Mrs Goffe, who had known Mr Avis for 30 years, said. 'Guy was unresponsive and I started CPR. I was aware that someone was on the phone to 999.' Pathologist Dr Terry Jones reported how Mr Avis had been riding his horse when it refused a jump. The inquest heard paramedics were told Mr Avis was seen to fall forward and land headfirst on the ground. He was found on the floor by friends and received medical attention before his death was confirmed at 2.50pm. In a report, health and safety officer Beth Pritchard told how Mr Avis was a volunteer with the hunt. 'He was an experienced horse rider and was riding his own horse, Jasper, using his own tack,' she said. Her report described how Mr Avis had laid a trail earlier that day but was riding as a hunt participant when he died. In November last year, Giffords Circus said it was 'so saddened' to hear of Mr Avis's death. The travelling circus posted an image of Mr Avis taking part in the 2019 show, Xanadu. It said: 'We are so saddened to hear of the passing of Guy Avis. 'Guy worked with Giffords Circus over the years in many forms, here he is in 2019 in Xanadu while working alongside Nell in the ring. 'Our condolences to all his family and friends. With love from all at Giffords Circus.' In a post at the time, The British Hound Sports Association said: 'We are saddened to hear of the sudden loss while hunting yesterday of Guy Avis, known as 'the Singing Secretary' of the Heythrop. A post he held for 28 years. 'He had hunted for over 60 years. Condolences to family and friends.'
Daily Mail
17 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Lucy Connolly's jail torment revealed: Truth about the middle-class mother's 377 days in prison - and how one officer said she was the most petrified inmate they'd ever seen
Not long ago, Lucy Connolly found herself being manhandled by up to six prison officers on the wing of HMP Peterborough that has been her home in recent months. Roughly handcuffed, she was bundled to another wing housing violent inmates and treated so forcefully that she was left in agony. Several days later, her wrists were still bruised. Lucy's ' crime '? On this occasion it was to object to being moved to a new cell in an area of the prison known as 'The Bronx', so called because it houses the most troublesome inmates – the violent, aggressive and difficult ones. Lucy Connolly, a childminder, had been none of these things during her months behind bars. Or indeed in civilian life. But then as we now know, this was not the first time that vastly disproportionate measures were alleged to have been taken against the 42-year-old wife and mother, who found herself placed at His Majesty's Pleasure last October. Faced with a 31-month stretch for posting a deeply unpleasant tweet, which she quickly regretted and deleted, Lucy's incarceration finally came to an end yesterday after nine agonising months behind bars. But as the MP and deputy Reform leader Richard Tice, who recently visited Connolly in prison, told the Daily Mail, she faces further challenging times ahead as she readjusts to life on the outside. 'I know that her main priority will be spending time with her family – that has kept her going. But at the same time her freedom will be a significant readjustment, not in the least because the things that are meant to help prisoners with that adjustment, such as day release, were denied to her,' he says. 'It is wonderful news that she is no longer behind bars, but the horrendous trauma that has been inflicted on the whole family will take time to heal.' Indeed. Legal bills and the loss of Lucy's childminding income have left her husband Ray, a former Conservative councillor, in thousands of pounds of debt, while their 13-year-old daughter Holly has struggled so much with her mother's absence and the dreadful, public circumstances behind it, that this previously bright and diligent schoolgirl has been suspended from school more than once in recent months. She has recently been living with her grandmother, Lucy's mum Heather, and other female relatives, as the family attempted to generate extra female support. 'I don't think you have to think about what happened to Lucy for very long to know that what happened has been incredibly hard for everyone,' says Richard Tice. Hard, and arguably deeply unfair. Today, so infamous is her name that the circumstances behind Lucy Connolly's incarceration barely need rehearsing. In the hours after killer Axel Rudakubana murdered three young girls and attempted to murder ten others at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29, 2024 – sparking nationwide unrest – Lucy posted a tweet in which she called for mass deportation of migrants and wrote that people could 'set fire' to hotels housing the 'b***ards' for all she cared. She deleted the tweet within hours, but sensed something was afoot after receiving a torrent of messages referring to what she had written. Her husband later revealed that she had said the tweet had 'come back to haunt me'. Yet neither could surely imagine to what extent: arrested at home by uniformed police officers on August 6, she was charged with inciting racial hatred and was handed a 31-month sentence in October after pleading guilty to the offence at Birmingham Crown Court. What has been less well documented is how Lucy and her family have navigated her time behind bars. Although when the Mail visited the pleasant semi-detached family home in Northamptonshire yesterday, ahead of Lucy's release, Ray told us his wife had coped with imprisonment 'relatively well', in truth the whole family have endured months of emotional turmoil, particularly their daughter Holly. Twelve when her mum was arrested – she had to celebrate her 13th birthday without her – she has missed her terribly. 'She has found it very difficult not having her mum at home,' as Ray put it yesterday. Her mother, in turn, has had to navigate all manner of emotional onslaughts throughout the course of her imprisonment, not in the least the hammer blow of her appeal being overturned in May, along with countless rejected requests for day release – something to which she has been entitled since last November, but which have never been granted. But then as we shall see, Lucy's time in prison seems to have been characterised by obfuscation, double standards and, on occasion, downright lies. Initially sent on remand to HMP Peterborough, a fragile and frightened Lucy arrived in prison with a 'reputation' already formed, said her husband. A couple of the officers subsequently told her that they'd been warned by the authorities to 'watch out' for her because she could be violent. Lucy had to inform them she had never had a fight in her life. She had only just settled into Peterborough when she was transferred to Drake Hall in Staffordshire, increasing the time it took for visitors to make the trip from her home town in Northampton from two hours to three. Nonetheless, nearly every Sunday – family day in the prison calendar – Ray and Holly would dutifully make the trip, alongside other relatives and family friends. Notably, also among her visitors, the Mail understands, were the parents of children in Lucy's care – past and present – some of whom were from immigrant backgrounds and many of whom wrote character references to the sentencing judge pleading for leniency. Even with the unwavering love from her family however – and the groundswell of support from many members of the public – one can only imagine how desperately frightened this previously law-abiding citizen must have been in those early days, mingling with drug dealers, thieves and murderers. One anonymous officer at Peterborough reported that he had never seen anyone look so petrified on arrival. In fact, despite her own and her family's fears, Lucy settled into prison life reasonably well. After initial suspicion about her perceived 'poshness' and marriage to a Conservative councillor, Lucy became something of a mother figure to many of the damaged women she was housed alongside. Many would sit in her cell for hours, chatting and putting the world to rights, while Ray subsequently revealed that his wife had asked him to send extra money to give to some of the needier inmates, many of whom were homeless. 'Lucy got on great with some of the most difficult prisoners,' he told one journalist. 'There was this strong, scary, very attractive, powerful Jamaican girl and she was really kicking off with the prison officers, and they didn't know what to do, and Lucy went over, sort of grabbed her and gave her a big cuddle. The officers said, '"What's wrong with her?", and Lucy said, "She wants her mum".' Tellingly, when other inmates asked Lucy what she was in for, her response that it was a post on social media bamboozled them. 'They cracked up, is the correct reaction, I think,' Ray revealed. Even so, Lucy has undeniably been through difficult times while inside, not least because despite repeated requests and well-argued letters to the governor, prison authorities repeatedly denied her temporary leave – known as ROTL, or Release on Temporary Licence. Among the reasons cited for depriving her of the chance to enjoy normal conditions leading up to release was 'media interest'. Desperate for answers, when her mother Heather asked the Home Office why her daughter wasn't getting the leave to which she was entitled, the reply came back that she 'hadn't been assessed yet'. The most brutal setback came in May, however, when the Court of Appeal overturned her request to shorten her sentence. The decision, said Ray, left her 'heartbroken'. Holly was also devastated: having excitedly prepared for her mother's early return, she was told instead she would have to wait another three months. 'We're a good little team but this has knocked my daughter a little bit. She's got bad anxiety,' Ray told Talk television in the aftermath of the news. By June, at least, Lucy had been moved closer to home, having been moved back to HMP Peterborough. She was placed on the induction unit until a space became available on the enhanced wing where, as a prisoner of good character, she would receive better accommodation and her own television. Which brings us to what Richard Tice calls the 'shocking assault' on Lucy just over two months ago. Having been led to believe a room had become free on the enhanced wing, Lucy was instead told by an officer that she was being placed on A1, a wing known as 'The Bronx' due to its frequent chaotic scenes. After politely telling officers she would not go, she says she was subsequently set upon by a group or five or six officers using restraining methods that are meant to be reserved for violent or abusive prisoners. She was bent forwards, her arms bent sharply back, and her hands tightly handcuffed, leaving her in what she later described to Ray as 'excruciating pain,' before being manhandled up three flights of stairs and dumped in a filthy cell. She was then told she was on 23 hour lockdown for 14 days on what is known as 'Basics' – meaning no TV, no privilege, and food being brought to her cell. Richard Tice visited Lucy in the wake of this experience, and said he was deeply impressed by her forbearance. 'I saw Lucy in the wake of what had been fundamentally a shocking assault undertaken on her by prison officers who were clearly playing games with her,' he said. 'She was coping not only with this, but with adapting to prison life, also to the news of her appeal being rejected, but she did so with enormous equanimity although she was clearly very upset.' Having complained to the prison about her treatment and requested an investigation, Richard says he has been met with silence. 'They did not give me the courtesy of a reply which I am hugely disappointed by; I wonder if that means they cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing,' he told the Mail. Meanwhile life on the outside has not been easy for Ray. As well as trying to parent a daughter experiencing all the trials and tribulations of adolescence without a guiding maternal hand, he has also had to navigate a number of personal brickbats of his own. A hugely popular Conservative councillor at West Northamptonshire Council, his public loyalty to his wife – he appeared on television saying she was a 'good person and not a racist' – led to 13 anonymous complaints about his 'behaviour' to the council which were referred to a London law firm to investigate. The Labour MP for Northampton South Mike Reader also called for his resignation in a statement referring to 'high standards in public discourse'. 'As [councillor] Connolly repeatedly defended the comments made, I hope he will now do the right thing and resign from West Northamptonshire Council,' Mr Reader said. In the event Ray Connolly did not resign, although he went on to lose his seat following elections in May. He remains on the town council. Arguably, he has more to worry about than his career: alongside his own health issues – he has a compromised immune system because of bone marrow issues – the family have faced enormous financial problems. Earlier this year Ray was forced to sell the family car, alongside other possessions, to pay his wife's legal fees, and at one point was facing the prospect of losing the family home. His circumstances have been eased by the creation of a JustGiving page – set up by supporters – which to date has raised nearly £160,000. The Mail understands that Ray has received £60,000 of this so far to help settle his debts. Let us not forget either that both Ray and Lucy continue to endure the almost unfathomable loss of a child, after their toddler son Harry died in 2011 as a result of gross medical negligence. It says much about the strain Lucy's imprisonment has placed him under that two months ago, in the wake of his wife's move to 'The Bronx', Ray was reduced to tears for the first time since Harry's death. Unable to cry since the loss, he confided to friends that he had wept after hearing Lucy sobbing uncontrollably down the phone. Finally husband, wife and daughter are now reunited under one roof for the first time in nine months. When asked about their plans yesterday, Ray responded only that their focus was 'to get our lives back on track'.
Times
36 minutes ago
- Times
Fisherman who met King jailed for £18m drug smuggling plot
A fisherman who met the King several times has been jailed for attempting to smuggle £18.4 million worth of cocaine into the UK. Peter Williams, 44, met Charles, who was Prince of Wales at the time, through his work for the Fishing into the Future charity. After his father died, however, Williams started taking drugs and debts piled up. Truro crown court was told that Williams was arrested with other gang members on Gwynver beach at Sennen, Cornwall, last September as the speedboat he was captaining ran aground after leading Border Force officers in a 28-mile chase. Their rigid-hulled inflatable boat was found packed with cocaine after it was spotted off the coast by the crew of a Border Force cutter. Williams has been sentenced to 16 years and nine months in prison. Frederick Hookway, for the prosecution, said his maritime expertise was crucial to the smuggling plot and his 'control of the vessel was fundamental to the conspiracy' to go out to a fixed point and collect bales of cocaine that had been dumped from a cargo ship and fitted with GPS tracking devices. Judge James Atkin told the court that an international conspiracy to smuggle large quantities of cocaine into the UK had taken place and two organised crime groups in the southeast and southwest of England had conspired 'to flood the streets of Essex and London with cocaine, with grave societal harm'. Williams was vice-chairman of the Fishing into the Future charity, which promoted sustainable fishing and encouraged young people into the industry, when the future King was a trustee. Harry Laidlaw, in mitigation, said: '[Williams] knew full well what he was getting himself into. He just captained the boat. He was a foot soldier acting under instruction. He did not have an operational or management role in the chain. His role was simple albeit skilled.' Laidlaw said Williams had experienced a 'massive fall from grace' and highlighted to the court that he had not made any money from his crime. 'He was an upstanding member of the local coastal community,' Williams said. 'He has made a terrible series of decisions.'
