Latest news with #Kiera
Courier-Mail
2 days ago
- General
- Courier-Mail
How meeting your next door neighbours can lead to a second family
While some Aussies are becoming more split from their neighbours than ever, Pete Chapman couldn't believe the bond his family made with the people next door. 'We lived in our previous house for almost 9 years, and we never got to that kind of closeness with any of our neighbours at all,' he said. 'Within the first month of us moving here, we made friends with the neighbours … it's almost like an extended family, and we've barely known them for 12 months.' Mr Chapman, his wife Kiera and their three kids, moved to their new home in Forest Lake at a time when nearly three quarters of Queenslanders said they felt Aussies were less interested in knowing their neighbours than they were 20 years ago. New research from Real Insurance and MyMavins also showed a staggering 65 per cent of people said they had never met a neighbour despite living right next to them for more than six months. But it was no time at all before Mr Chapman's children were spending time with the kids next door. 'Our kids could see one of our neighbours standing at their door or the front yard, just watching our kids running around,' he said. 'So we just got them to go talk to them, and they've been best friends ever since.' Looking after them was neighbour Diane Greig, taking care of her two grandkids while their mother was out at work. 'She's really open and helps us out when Kiera and I are stuck,' he said. 'Every afternoon after school, [our kids] are hanging out – whether some of my kids go next door into Diane's place, or whether hers come into our place. It's kind of like our family's grown by three or four people.' Mr Chapman said he felt a big reason behind Australia's weaker neighbourly bonds was because people were much busier than they used to be. 'A lot of people are more time-poor than we were 20 years ago,' he said. 'With the cost of living nowadays, it's almost like both partners need to be working full time, which means you're not at home much. If you've got kids, you're sorting dinner and all that, so there's no time to get to know your neighbours.' But the Chapmans said they felt it was well worth it to take the extra step and reach out to the people around them. 'It helped us settle in to the new place really well, by having neighbours we could talk to,' Mr Chapman said. 'A lot of the neighbours around here have been in their houses for many years, so just having them [around] made us feel safer.' 'There's probably a lot of people with anxiety and other factors that hinder them being confident enough to reach out … but have a chat! You never know. You might have a chat to your neighbours and find out you have something in common that you didn't know about, and that could be a starting point to building a friendship.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Thousands of criminal cases collapsing due to missing or lost police evidence
Thousands of criminal cases - including some of the most serious violent and sexual offences - are collapsing every year because of lost, damaged or missing evidence, the BBC has found. More than 30,000 prosecutions in England and Wales collapsed between October 2020 and September 2024, data from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) reveals. They include 70 homicides and more than 550 sexual offences. Police chiefs say not all the cases relate to lost evidence and the figures include situations where officers may not be able to find an expert witness or get a medical statement. However, it follows a series of damning reports about how police forces are storing evidence. A Home Office spokesperson said: "We always expect forces to adhere to the National Police Chiefs' Council's (NPCC) guidance on storage and retention of evidence." A leading criminologist says the increase was largely "a resourcing issue" brought about by cuts to police forces throughout the 2010s. And ex-police officers told the BBC it was unsurprising and the amount of evidence they deal with is "overwhelming". When police forces build cases around defendants they hand a file to the CPS. But when the CPS cannot proceed to trial because police do not have the necessary evidence needed to secure a conviction - they record it in their data as an "E72". The BBC, alongside the University of Leicester, managed to obtain Freedom of Information (FOI) requests showing the number of E72s recorded between 2020 and 2024 at police forces in England and Wales. They can include: Physical evidence - including forensic evidence - being lost, damaged or contaminated during storage Digital evidence, such as victim interview footage or body camera footage, being lost Witness statements or pathology reports not being made available by police Key evidence not gathered from the crime scene The figures obtained by the BBC do not break down why cases have collapsed. However, the data does suggest the number of cases recorded as an E72 are increasing, with a higher proportion of prosecutions failing to result in a conviction because of lost or missing evidence each year. In 2020, a total of 7,484 prosecutions collapsed because of lost, missing or damaged evidence. In 2024, that had risen by 9%, to 8,180. When Kiera was just nine years old she gave an interview on camera to Lancashire Police describing the harrowing details of the sexual abuse she had been subjected to over several years. But a few months later, she says, police officers told her mother they had lost the recording. "It was really hard, because I sat there for hours and hours telling people what had happened to me and for that to be lost, I just thought like what's the point in doing it again?" said Kiera, now 19. "They did want me to do it again, but I just couldn't go through with it at the time." It wasn't until nine years later, when Kiera was an adult, that she felt strong enough to provide her evidence again. In October 2024, her perpetrators were jailed for almost 30 years for raping and sexually assaulting seven children, including her. "It can really affect someone's mental state. It's also not protecting other people because these people then don't get convicted of crimes." A Lancashire Police spokesperson apologised for the lost interview disc in her case, and said, since 2015, it had introduced new processes to prevent similar issues happening again. Responding to the BBC's findings, Katie Kempen, chief executive at independent charity Victim Support, said: "Police forces must ensure crimes are thoroughly investigated and evidence is handled appropriately and sensitively. "All victim-survivors deserve the opportunity to seek justice." Former police officers have told the BBC they are not surprised by the findings. "It's [evidence] chucked all over the place," said one former officer. "The amount of it is overwhelming… it's unsurprising it gets lost or damaged," another told the BBC. Professor Carole McCartney, a criminologist and expert in evidence retention believes the loss of the dedicated Forensic Science Service (FSS) in 2012 is one of the reasons behind the growing proportion of cases affected by unavailable evidence. Before 2012, all police forces could send exhibits that needed storing or analysing to the service, but the government-owned company was closed that year after making large losses. Since then, police forces have had to make their own evidence storage arrangements and contract private providers for forensic services. Prof McCartney said she had witnessed an officer pull out what he called a "box of horrors" from underneath a desk which contained various pieces of un-catalogued evidence including a plastic bag with a broken wine bottle in it and a car numberplate. All Items held by the FSS from before 2012 were moved to a different facility - the National Forensics Archive just outside of Birmingham - that year, but that archive is for unsolved cases only and does not accept new items. Exhibits in the archive were crucial in overturning the convictions of both Andrew Malkinson and Peter Sullivan. Its director Alison Fendley says that without a dedicated forensic service, police forces were currently suffering from a lack of resources and expertise at a local level. "Police forces have got lots of other things to do - archiving is not their day job and there's so much material coming and going it must be difficult to keep on top of," she says. Meanwhile, backlogs at courts, the growth in online crime and the increase in digital evidence such as body worn video are all adding to a growth in the amount of exhibits police have to keep. The NPCC said police and the CPS worked together to ensure evidence was "gathered and presented in a timely manner, bringing offenders to justice and ensuring victims are safeguarded". It said the data obtained by the BBC refers to all evidence that is either missing or unavailable when a defendant is going to trial after being charged. And this could include situations where police cannot find an expert witness or may not be able to obtain a required medical statement. A number of recent reports have raised serious concerns about police storage of evidence. In 2022, His Majesty's inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) found police forces were "struggling to meet the demands placed on it by the digital age" as a result of the fast growth in digital evidence. The University of Leicester's study into police retention of investigative materials, found three quarters of lawyers it surveyed had worked on a criminal conviction where evidence had been lost, destroyed or contaminated. Almost half claimed this had happened on multiple occasions. And Baroness Casey's 2023 review into the culture of the Metropolitan Police found officers having to contend with "over-stuffed, dilapidated or broken fridges and freezers containing evidence including the rape kits of victims". It found an "overworked and inexperienced workforce" lacked the "infrastructure and specialism" for dealing with sexual offences, which existed before a specialist unit was disbanded in 2019. The BBC study found around one in 20 prosecutions by the Met had been dropped as a result of missing evidence between 2020 and 2024. By comparison around one in 50 were dropped across England and Wales. The Met said the number included situations where police could not find an expert witness or were not able to obtain a required medical statement and to suggest it was simply down to lost evidence was misleading. It acknowledged that on "a rare number of occasions" evidence is misplaced, adding: "We continue to make improvements to our recording systems to minimise this risk." The NPCC said: "When evidential issues occur in a case, the CPS will raise this with police for any action deemed necessary and we will work together to ensure these are resolved wherever possible." The results of a consultation by the Law Commission, which proposed re-establishing a national forensic service and making the mishandling of evidence a criminal offence in some circumstances, are set to go before Parliament next week. Additional reporting by Catherine Heuston and Claire Jones.
Irish Daily Mirror
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
Kiera Dignam: 'I was the one that was in denial and trying to avoid reality'
Christy Dignam's daughter felt like a 'double-decker bus was rammed' into her face the day she realised her father was going to die. The Aslan frontman passed away aged 63 on June 13, 2023 after a lengthy battle with cancer. But his only child Kiera Dignam said his loss is still so raw for her and the details of his death were traumatic. Christy was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer called amyloidosis in 2013 and had been in palliative care for a few months before his death. Despite this, Kiera said she was in denial and didn't fully believe her father was dying until a nurse spelt it out. The weekend before his death, the musician had a bad fall at home, and it was then that the family realised he might not have long left. Speaking for the first time on The Grief Pod with Venetia Quick, the Dubliner has recalled the singer's final days. Kiera said: 'Sunday morning my mum rang me, she was up all night with him. 'We went down, we knew this wasn't good. 'I remember Darren [my husband] saying 'When we go down here if he is sick enough that he needs to go into the hospice I'm going to suggest that.' 'But he did not want to die in a hospice or a hospital, so I was saying 'Darren I have to have my dad's back on that. He doesn't want to die in a hospice, I'm not letting him go back'. 'So Darren said, 'Christy, do you think maybe we should go back to the hospice?' So I looked at my dad like, 'We've got this'. And he said, 'Yeah, maybe'. 'I said, 'Are you winding me up? I was about to fight your corner here'. 'But when he said yes, I realised he was defeated then. He was sitting there in the bed, you could see he was in a lot of pain trying to take breaths.' A hospice nurse then called to the home and suggested she use 'a machine' to alleviate his pain. Also known as 'the pump' this is a syringe driver, a battery-operated device, that administers medication continuously via subcutaneous infusion and is commonly used in end-of-life care. Kiera added: 'I say [to her] 'When you say machine, are you saying you're putting my dad on a pump?' 'She said, 'Yes' and I said, 'Hang on a minute, as far as I'm concerned anybody I've ever heard been on the pump that's like days, hours at max. 'This is when I started realising, now hang on a minute. You're trying to kill my dad, he's fine, he just fell. 'She took my hand and pulled me in and said 'Kiera your dad is actively dying'. 'And I swear to God she may as well have gotten a double-decker and rammed it straight into my face. 'I remember it now and I feel sick. I thought my legs were going to buckle. I was standing in the hall and I remember holding on to the bannisters because I was like, 'What am I going to tell my mum and Darren?' 'At the time they knew, I was the one that was in denial and trying to avoid reality. 'In hindsight, I thought he fell and that's essentially why he died but he fell because he was dying.' The family then rallied around to get Kiera's son Cian, 21, who was at a festival in the UK, home. Two days later, Christy passed away surrounded by his family, including grandchildren Cian and Ava. Kiera said his death was traumatic but there was another layer to her grief because he was a public figure. There had also been numerous fake reports of him dying over the years, even before the family announced in January 2023 he was going into palliative care. Kiera recalled: 'It was very, very hard and now it's all in the past it's almost like PTSD because when you are dealing with death it can be very traumatic and I was also taking that aspect on, I can't explain how hard it was. I remember Darren saying, 'Maybe you should work out a statement for when he dies' and I said, 'I don't want to think about that'. 'But he said, 'You need to be realistic, this is something you're going to have to do and when it happens you're not going to be in the headspace to do that. 'So I had to sit and work out how I'm wording his death announcement and he's sitting beside me. That's traumatic, traumatic probably isn't even the word for that.' After Christy's death, this statement was needed much quicker than Kiera had hoped, as the word got out an hour after he died. She said: 'When he did pass away we were sitting with him for a few minutes and we had his music playing, music that he loved. 'We leave the room and I'm standing in the kitchen like what just happened? And Darren said, 'Kiera you're probably going to have to get that statement'. 'I remember taking my phone out, it was in my notes, copying and pasting it and writing out the time and date that he died. 'In an ideal world, he died Tuesday, I was hoping I could announce he died Friday, have the funeral on Saturday and we don't have to deal with the public frenzy.' However, Christy died at 4.03pm and at 5.15pm the word was out. Kiera added: 'We were all in the house, how has this happened? But there were nurses and staff from the hospital and hospices coming back and forth and it got to a receptionist that got to a friend of a friend kind of thing. 'He was only an hour gone and I'm having to share this statement, which I was not prepared for.'
7NEWS
18-05-2025
- 7NEWS
Sydney man previously convicted over Nazi salute now charged with 53 hate crime offences over month-long spree
A young man previously convicted for performing a Nazi salute is now facing more than 50 fresh charges after allegedly vandalising public property for nearly a month. Felix John Jerzy Kiera, 21, was allegedly caught spraying paint on decals supporting Indigenous and gay communities along Crystal St in Sydney's Petersham about 12.20am on Sunday. He was arrested at the scene and taken to Newtown Police Station. Following further investigation, police allege Kiera had been defacing buildings and political posters with offensive messages in the Erskineville and Newtown areas since April 22. His alleged targets include the Greens, and members of the Indigenous, Jewish and gay communities. The Newtown man now faces 23 charges of damaging property, 21 charges of publicly displaying Nazi symbols without a valid reason, eight charges of marking premises without permission, and one charge of entering enclosed land without lawful excuse. He was refused bail to appear before Parramatta Local Court on Sunday. In November last year, Kiera was arrested after he gatecrashed the Trans Day of Resistance Rally, a march of about 60 people to protest against the marginalisation of trans and non-binary people. He stepped in front of the crowd and raised his right arm, palm down before shouting the Nazi salute and spouting a homophobic remark and other profanities. He pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol in public without a reasonable excuse at the time. In court, Kiera said performing a Nazi salute was not an offence, but a legitimate political statement. He told the magistrate he was ignorant and did not want to go to jail. Taking into account his age and lack of criminal history, the magistrate convicted Kiera and fined him $1000. Outside court, his father told reporters his son was not a Nazi and was sorry.
Extra.ie
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
Kiera Dignam: Singing helps me deal with the grief of losing Dad
Sometimes, out of the blue, Kiera Dignam will hear her father's voice suddenly coming from a radio, a post on Facebook or a TV screen, and the pain of hearing him is almost too much to bear. In just a few weeks, it will be the second anniversary of Christy Dignam's death and though for some, it would be a great comfort to hear the voice of a loved one who has died, for Kiera it brings back a wave of grief that is still too painful to cope with. 'I am very lucky that I have so much of him, whether it's music or interviews or television performances that I can access,' says the Dubliner. 'But at the moment I find it quite difficult. My mam and my husband and oldest son find it almost therapeutic and enjoy listening to him, but for me once I hear his voice I have to turn it off straight away. Kiera Dignam. Pic: Fran Veale 'Maybe in six months, or five years or at some point I could find it comforting.' It's understandable too, given that losing Christy is still so raw. Next month it will be the second anniversary of his death and on May 29, Kiera and her family are putting on another concert in his memory. Remembering Christy Dignam will feature special guests including Tom Dunne, Brian McFadden, Mundy, Steve Wall and The Four of Us to name but a few. It's the second concert of its type – the first was meant to be a one-off but was such a warm-hearted celebration of Christy's life that Kiera and her family have been persuaded to fo it again. Christy Dignam of Aslan. Pic: Getty Images 'The more we talked about it, the more we thought maybe it could be therapeutic,' Kiera says of the first gig. 'It was emotional but it was an incredible night. 'Anyone who was there, online fans and so on were commenting and sending messages saying they hoped it would be an annual thing. I said no, as to my mind it was a once-off.' But this year they have decided to do one more, persuaded by Christy's fans and also the idea that these gigs are a way of keeping his memory alive. Christy Dignam with his daughter Kieran on her wedding day in 2013. Pic: Collins Dublin 'We have some amazing acts on board and it is the same idea,' Kiera says. 'It won't just be Aslan songs, there will be solo Christy Dignam songs, Dignam & Goff songs, songs that my dad loved like Gilbert O'Sullivan and David Bowie, covers he would have been known to sing like The Green Fields Of France, Waltzing Matilda, traditional songs he loved to sing and songs that make us think of him.' They aren't a big organisation, it's just the family, Mark, Kiera's manager and the team at Vicar Street, but anyone who has been asked to sing has said yes, unless they are away on tour. Of course Kiera, who is a singer herself, will pay her own tribute to her dad. Christy Dignam of Aslan. Pic: Ilpo Musto/Shutterstock 'Anyone we have asked has been amazing about it,' Kiera says. 'They are really excited and want to come and remember him with us.' There is, of course, one name missing – Aslan themselves, who are still performing with a new singer, Lee Tomkins, and who were also absent from the first celebration of Christy's life. The last time Kiera said there were reasons for this that she wouldn't go into and pointed out her father had not spoken to the band for seven months before he died. Kiera Dignam. Pic: Fran Veale But she refused to go into the details and said the band had every right to continue as Aslan, and the songs were as much theirs as they were her father's. 'No, we don't speak,' she says when I ask if she talks to the rest of the band. 'I have no need to now. My dad is gone and that's water under the bridge for me,' is all she will say on the matter. But she was viciously attacked by online trolls when it first came to light that the band were not included in the initial celebration of Christy's life and being forced to grieve in the public eye has been difficult for the mother-of-three. 'I can't explain how difficult it is,' Kiera says, with an honesty and clarity that most would shy away from. 'When you're in the public eye people have their minds made up and there is a perception of you. It happens a lot and when I am doing stuff like this concert, it can be misconstrued. Christy Dignam Pic: Gareth Chaney Collins 'We literally want to have a celebration. This was my dad. We just want to keep him alive and celebrate him and remember him in a positive way that he would want because music was his life and music is my life. 'The nastiness in some people – it has literally been said to me by trolls online that I am milking his death, which is a horrible thing to say, it is a horrible thing to hear and it's absolutely not the case. 'That aspect of being in the public eye and almost having to defend why you are trying to do a nice thing is hard. Even grieving publicly is very difficult because everyone feels they own a little bit of him. Sometimes you want to shout, 'He was my dad'. I understand his fans do miss him and they grieve him and it is genuine. But he was my dad and it is very hard to grieve that loss anyway but to do it in public is tough.' Kiera does her best to ignore the trolls but admitted that last year she was vulnerable. 'I was trying to protect the kids too because my kids are old enough to read newspapers online and see horrible, untrue things being said about their mother,' she says. 'I did get to a point where I got into a very dark place and that was somewhere I had never been before. But I had never grieved before and I was very vulnerable anyway.' She knows being in the music business demands a thick skin and tries her best to ignore any of the horrible comments. Christy Dignam. Pic: Sam Boal/ ' You shouldn't have to say, 'people are going to be nasty and you have to grin and bear it', but unfortunately that's the way it is. It's not fair but I am aware of it so I do try as best I can to take it that strangers' opinions of me are none of my business. I can't read into that and I choose not to read the comments because 99 per cent of them are lovely and supportive and it is brilliant to have that. But then you get the one per cent that are negative and those can get on top of you.' Kiera was 36 when Christy died after a long period of illness – he had amyloidosis, a type of cancer. It is well documented that the man with the powerful voice behind hits like This Is and Crazy World had battled his own demons after becoming addicted to heroin following childhood sexual abuse. Finally clean of heroin, Christy got his cancer diagnosis which he bore bravely before it all became too much. Christy Dignam in 1988. Pic: Independent News'Nothing prepares you for that,' Kiera says. 'You feel, why was there another battle given to him? Why was he taken so young? I was 36 and my dad was gone. All of these things come up. It's rough. Now we are heading into the third year without him, I am finding it more difficult. 'There is a certain numbness because when you get to the second year you don't have that, 'this time last year we were in the hospital' or 'he came home'. I know they are negative things because he was sick but you still cling on to them. 'Now I don't have anything at all. Now I say, 'this time last year he wasn't here'. It's a strange feeling and a kind of a panic you have because he is getting further away from you. Christy Dignam performing in 2003. Pic: 'Anyone who is grieving will be able to relate to that.' Kiera was told about her dad's issues with addiction when she hit her teens as her father insisted that nothing was kept as a 'dirty secret.' 'I was going into secondary school and because I was old enough to understand newspapers, he wanted me to be aware of it,' she says. Christy sat her down and explained everything to her so that she knew before anyone said it to her. Christy Dignam. Pic: Sam Boal/ 'He always wanted to explain why and how he went in that direction,' she says. 'He and my mam were always very honest about those things. It was a case of, 'This is the way it is, have you any questions or would you like to talk about it? And if anything is said to you in school or by friends on the road come and talk to me and if you have any questions I am here for that.' 'I think that is all you can really do in a situation, it's the best way of dealing with it.' Now, with three children of her own – Kian, 21, Ava, 17 and Jake, 11 – Kiera finds her father's tragic past all the more upsetting, given that it happened in an era where these things weren't spoken of and the supports were not there for him. Christy Dignam getting music lessons off Frank Merriman at the Parnell School of Music in 1989. Pic: Independent NewsChristy was a doting grandfather to Kiera's kids and he and her mam Kathryn supported her when she fell pregnant at 17. 'I was petrified,' she says of telling her parents. 'I had no idea what I was getting myself into but I did know that I was going to do my very best for him. It wasn't what I had planned. I had planned to go to college the following September and Kian was due in the October, so I never got to go. 'But at that stage I was already singing, and I was lucky enough that I had good supports around. Me and Darren, my husband, have been together since we were 16 and when I got my confidence back up, I was able to go back into music.' Christy Dignam of Aslan performs on stage at Shepherds Bush Empire in London. Pic: C Brandon/Redferns via Getty Images This is one of the reasons that Kiera won't be bullied into giving up the career she loves. 'When you get a bit of aggro off people you can think, is it worth having to put up with this just because I love to sing? Why should I have to be bullied just because I want to sing?' she says, pointing out that people who follow their parents into other careers don't get the same level of abuse. 'I have never known any different, I have never wanted to do anything else. 'Singing is hands down the one thing that has help me get this far through my grief. 'I am writing and putting any negative thoughts down, when I am upset and need to vent in some way, I am writing and some of the music I am producing because of it is free therapy for me. Music and singing has always been my go-to and I can't see it ever being any different. 'It is just a language for me and I don't know any different.' Though Christy's loss is great, the gig in Vicar Street this year will be a way to remember him and cherish him for the Dignams and his fans. Christy Dignam with Billy McGuinness in 2018. Pic: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos 'When you lose someone, regardless of who that person is or what that person was in life, all you want is to remember them and keep their memory alive,' says Kiera. 'We just happen to be in a lucky position that other people outside our family circle want to do the same, whether that be fans or other people in music who are willing to come along and pay their respect to him and talk about the memories they would have with him over the years. 'It is a lovely thing to be able to do and it is a privilege to be able to do that and just stand on a stage that I stood on with him numerous times and be able to celebrate him and keep his memory alive a little bit longer for us and for everyone in the crowd.' Remebering Christy Dignam is at Vicar Street on May 29, tickets, priced €44, are available from
