Author: Darren Smith

Hertfordshire Constabulary has been told to reopen its investigation into claims of homophobic bias following the death of Scott Gough, after the police watchdog found the force made “several errors” and failed to properly examine whether his sexuality influenced key decisions in the case. Police have been ordered to reexamine allegations of homophobia after the Independent Office for Police Conduct found Hertfordshire Constabulary made “several errors” in its handling of the death of Scott Gough, a man allegedly targeted through the dating app Grindr. Mr Gough was found dead at his home in Chandler’s Cross, Hertfordshire, two years ago by…

Daniel Dunbar, a 30-year-old Royal Bank of Canada employee from Kent, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after a Lisbon court found he murdered 19-year-old Daniel Galhanas by stabbing him in the neck with a broken bottle, rejecting his claim of self-defence. A British banking executive has been jailed in Portugal for murdering a local teenager with a broken bottle during a night out in Lisbon. Daniel Dunbar, 30, of Sidcup, Kent, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after a court found he thrust a jagged bottle into the neck of 19-year-old Daniel Galhanas in the city’s…

Both terminals at Gatwick Airport were left without running water after low pressure from a nearby treatment works disrupted toilets, cafés and drinking fountains, forcing staff to hand out bottled water while flights continued unaffected. Both terminals at Gatwick Airport suffered a severe water outage, leaving toilets unable to flush and hand-washing facilities out of action, as staff handed out bottled water to passengers. The disruption was caused by low water pressure from SES Water’s Bough Beech Water Treatment Works, which supplies parts of Surrey, West Sussex, Kent and south London. Despite the scale of the outage, flights at the…

Longyearbyen, a remote Arctic settlement in Norway’s Svalbard islands, has built its reputation as one of the world’s loneliest towns around a set of highly unusual rules, from a longstanding restriction on new burials to a ban on keeping cats. Perched at the top of the world, the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen could easily be mistaken for the loneliest place on Earth. Situated at a latitude of 78 degrees on the Svalbard islands, it holds the distinction of being the world’s northernmost permanently inhabited settlement, sitting just over 1,000km from the North Pole. With polar bears and reindeer roaming freely…

New DWP figures show benefit fraudsters are costing British taxpayers £4.3 million a week by falsely claiming to live in the UK while actually residing overseas, with £226 million lost to abroad-based fraud in the year to March. Benefit fraudsters are costing taxpayers £4.3 million a week by continuing to claim fully funded British benefits while living abroad, according to new analysis. Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that £226 million was lost to fraud involving claimants living overseas in the year to March, with many falsely maintaining they still reside in Britain while in fact enjoying…

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies are appealing for the public’s help in locating nine-year-old twins Solomon and Marozhina Sukonick, who authorities say were abducted by their father, David Sukonick, near Lancaster on Thursday evening. Authorities in Los Angeles have launched an urgent search for nine-year-old twins they say were abducted by their father. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said siblings Solomon and Marozhina Sukonick have been missing since the evening of July 23, when their father, 71-year-old David Sukonick, took them from near the 1000 block of West Avenue J-8 in Lancaster, roughly 70 miles north of Los Angeles,…

A major manhunt is under way in Berlin after a vehicle was driven into crowds at the city’s Pride celebrations, leaving one person dead and 17 injured, with police identifying the fugitive suspect as 21-year-old Abdul B. and warning he may be armed and dangerous. A major police operation is under way in Berlin after a vehicle was driven into a crowd near the city’s Pride celebrations, leaving one person dead and at least 17 others injured. The nearby Pride parade was cancelled hours after it had begun. German police and prosecutors have since issued a public wanted notice identifying…

A vehicle drove into crowds gathered in Berlin’s Tiergarten park during the city’s Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations on Saturday evening, killing one person and injuring several others, as police launched a manhunt for the driver, who reportedly fled on foot. A driver has ploughed into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride celebrations, leaving one person dead and several others injured, Berlin police have confirmed. According to Bild, the incident took place in Tiergarten Park, close to the Brandenburg Gate, shortly before 10pm local time on Saturday, after hundreds of thousands of people had taken part in the day’s Christopher Street…

Sara Gilson, a 43-year-old hairstylist and TikTok creator from Owasso, Oklahoma, was shot and killed by her estranged husband, Jeremiah Shawn Duffey, who then took his own life, police say, days after she posted a TikTok video making allegations against him. An Owasso mother has died in an apparent murder-suicide, days after she posted a TikTok video making allegations about her estranged husband. Sara Gilson, 43, and Jeremiah Shawn Duffey, 48, were found dead of apparent gunshot wounds on Wednesday, July 23, according to the Owasso Police Department. Investigators say Duffey shot and killed Gilson before turning the gun on…

A Metropolitan Police patrol boat responding to reports of a person in the water near Battersea crashed into Westminster Bridge, throwing three armed officers into the River Thames and leaving five in total injured, four of them seriously. A police patrol boat crashed into Westminster Bridge on Friday afternoon, throwing officers into the River Thames and leaving five injured, four of them seriously with non-life-threatening injuries. The vessel, belonging to the Metropolitan Police’s Marine Policing Unit, which patrols around 75 kilometres of the Thames, was responding to reports of a person in the water near Battersea when it struck one…