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Football hooligan jailed for attacking Guardian writer
A football hooligan who attacked columnist Owen Jones as he celebrated his birthday last year has been jailed. A judge found James Healy, 40, targeted the Guardian writer outside a London pub because of his left-wing political beliefs and sexuality. Snaresbrook Crown Court heard he possessed a collection of farright paraphernalia including a football flag adorned with SS symbols and a badge carrying the name of neoNazi group Combat 18.
Healy, from Portsmouth, denied holding extremist views, claiming that Mr Jones had spilled his drink and he did not know who he was. Judge Anne Studd QC sentenced him to two years and eight months imprisonment for assault, and 10 months to run concurrently for affray yesterday. Co-defendants Liam Tracey, 35, from Camden, and Charlie Ambrose, 30, from Brighton, were given suspended sentences after pleading guilty to affray.
Statue of ‘sadistic slave owner’ to be removed in Cardiff
The statue of a “sadistic” 19th-century slave owner found guilty of torturing a 14-year-old girl of dual heritage is to be removed from a “Heroes of Wales” gallery at Cardiff City Hall. The marble likeness of Sir Thomas Picton, which remembers him as the most senior officer killed at the Battle of Waterloo, has stood in the city’s civic building since 1916 when it was unveiled by future prime minister David Lloyd George.
Calls to remove the statue have grown since the toppling of the Edward Colston memorial in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter march in June. Cardiff mayor Dan De’Ath was the first official to raise the suggestion of taking down the statue of Picton in a letter to Cardiff Council. The council voted to remove the memorial, which will now be covered up while an application to permanently remove it is made, because the building is Grade I listed.
Campaigner caught up in Windrush scandal dies aged 64
A Windrush campaigner who was wrongly detained and almost deported after living in the UK for 50 years has died aged 64. Paulette Wilson, who arrived in the UK at the age of 10 to join her grandparents, was one of thousands of people treated as illegal immigrants despite being lawfully in the country for decades, in what has come to be known as the Windrush scandal.
The Jamaican national’s daughter, Natalie Barnes, found her mother on Thursday morning. She appeared to have died in her sleep and her death was unexpected. “My mum was a fighter and she was ready to fight for anyone. She was an inspiration to many people. She was my heart and my soul and I loved her to pieces,” Ms Barnes said in a statement.
Beached shark dies despite public’s attempt to save it
Efforts to save a large shark that became stranded on a Yorkshire beach have ended in failure after the creature had to be put down. The 4.4m long basking shark was spotted in trouble on Filey beach in North Yorkshire on Thursday evening. A large crowd of onlookers gathered to try to help the animal back into the water, and were helped by experts from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR), the coastguard and local lifeboat teams.
The BDMLR said: “Despite attempts to move it into deeper water the shark continued to head back to the beach where it restranded, and later in the evening was put to sleep by a vet due to the poor prognosis.” This activity could have indicated the basking shark was weak, unwell or may even have suffered some brain damage during the stranding, they added