Author: Darren Smith

A Derby sex offender who posed as teenagers online to blackmail 152 children — some as young as nine — into sending him sexual material has been jailed for 31 years and branded “every parent’s worst nightmare” by the judge who sentenced him. Siah Riley, 36, of Walbrook Road, Normanton, carried out his campaign of abuse over a period of two years and eight months between 2021 and 2023, using fake Snapchat profiles to target girls aged between nine and 16. He created two accounts — one under the name Josh King, posing as a teenage boy, and another under…

A five-year-old girl cried out “the bath is too hot, mummy” before being forced into scalding water that killed her, a court has heard — nearly half a century after her death, which was not treated as suspicious at the time. Andrea Bernard died in a specialist burns unit five weeks after being pulled limp from the water at the family home in Thornton Heath, south London, in 1978. Her skin was falling off her body. She was five years old. Now, 67-year-old Janice Nix stands trial accused of her manslaughter — allegedly carried out when Nix herself was just…

The man accused of killing disgraced Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins in his prison cell told him to “have a good night’s sleep, lad” moments after allegedly slicing through his jugular vein with a homemade weapon, a murder trial has heard. Watkins, 48, who was serving a 29-year sentence for child sex offences, was attacked in his cell at HMP Wakefield on 11 October last year. Rico Gedel, 25, is alleged to have entered the singer’s cell and stabbed him three times in the head and neck, severing his jugular vein and surrounding muscle tissue. As Gedel was later escorted past…

Israel’s military has launched an investigation into a soldier photographed placing a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary in an occupied Christian village in southern Lebanon, in the latest incident of alleged desecration by Israeli troops that has drawn condemnation from the Catholic Church. The photograph was taken in the village of Debel several weeks ago, according to IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, and shows the soldier smoking while positioning another cigarette on the statue’s mouth. It is the second such incident in the same village within weeks — last month, a separate soldier…

A 19-year-old man has been arrested in Portsmouth in connection with an attempted arson attack on a north London synagogue, bringing the total number of people detained as part of investigations into attacks on Jewish sites across the capital to 30. The teenager was arrested at an address in Portsmouth on Thursday morning and taken into custody by the Metropolitan Police, becoming the third person held over the attempted attack on Finchley Reform Synagogue on Fallow Court Avenue in the early hours of 15 April. No damage was caused to the building and nobody was injured. A 38-year-old woman and…

British Transport Police have released CCTV images of a man they wish to identify after a woman was sexually assaulted on a train travelling between Warrington Bank Quay and Manchester Oxford Road last month. The incident took place on 23 April at around 1pm. The victim was standing in the vestibule area between the seating and the doors when the assault occurred. Detectives are treating the matter with urgency and have appealed to the public for help in identifying the man captured on footage from the train. The individual seen in the CCTV images is described as having a shaved…

A British tour guide who was critically airlifted from a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship has broken his silence, saying he has “no idea” how long his recovery will take as authorities scramble to track dozens of passengers who disembarked the vessel and have since scattered across the globe. Martin Anstee, 56, a former police officer working as an expedition guide aboard the MV Hondius, is now being treated in isolation in a Dutch hospital after contracting the deadly Andes variant of hantavirus. Speaking to Sky News from his hospital bed, Mr Anstee said he was “doing okay” but that “there are…

Britannia Daily has obtained a deeply controversial video produced by a World Health Organisation collaborator showing a facilitator discussing masturbation and genital pleasure with children as young as four — footage that has sparked widespread outrage from parents and critics across the world. The footage, which Britannia Daily can reveal was produced by Rutgers — a Netherlands-based sexual health organisation and formal WHO collaborator — shows a female facilitator calmly questioning young children about touching their bodies. In the clip, a girl aged approximately nine and a younger boy are asked directly about their genitals. The facilitator explains to the…

A Ukrainian man charged with setting fire to properties linked to Sir Keir Starmer told detectives he had never heard of the Prime Minister and had no idea who he was, the Old Bailey has heard. Roman Lavrynovych, 22, is one of three men on trial accused of targeting two properties and a car connected to Sir Keir in a series of arson attacks in north London in May 2025. A transcript of his police interview, read to jurors on Wednesday, revealed that when a detective asked whether he knew who the UK Prime Minister was, Lavrynovych replied simply: “No.”…

A 25-year-old man has been shot and killed by drive-by gunmen at a barbecue party in Brixton, south London, as his devastated family paid tribute to a young man whose “smile could light up a room.” Keanu Taylor, also known as Bish or Lil Bish, was among four people struck by gunfire outside the Southwyck House estate on Coldharbour Lane in the early hours of Saturday morning. He was rushed to hospital in a life-threatening condition but later died. Three others — aged 21, 47 and 70 — were also hospitalised, though their injuries are not believed to be life-threatening…