NewsBeat
Sky News reporter cries live on air reading Southport killing evidence | News
Warning: This video contains distressing content.
Sky News reporter Sarah-Jane Mee broke down in tears reading out evidence from court in the sentencing of Southport killer Axel Rudakubana.
Rudakubana, 18, stabbed and killed Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe., with a 20cm-long kitchen knife as he ambushed a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, Merseyside.
Reporting live from outside Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday (23 January), the broadcaster became visibly emotional as she recounted evidence from police arriving at the scene.
The broadcaster then had to step-off camera as her voice broke.
Politics
Rupert Lowe skewers human rights lawyer over outrageous illegal immigrant demand: ‘Pork barrelling a living!’
Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe has strongly rejected calls for an amnesty for illegal migrants in Britain, following suggestions by human rights lawyer Ivon Sampson.
Speaking on GB News, Sampson argued that offering an amnesty would enable better tracking of migrants, stating: “The only sensible thing to do is to offer an amnesty – then we have a sensible policy of ensuring those people who come in are tracked.”
Lowe hit back, saying: “These human rights lawyers pork barrel a living on the back of all this Tony Blair legislation which has created our problem.”
He called for tougher measures, suggesting migrants should be placed in “uncomfortable, untented camps” on remote islands.
Rupert Lowe said human rights lawyers like Sampson are ‘pork barrelling a living’
GB NEWS
The clash comes as new figures reveal up to one in 12 people living in London are illegal migrants.
A previously confidential report commissioned by Thames Water estimates between 390,355 and 585,533 illegal migrants are living in the capital, with a median figure of 487,944.
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Reform’s Rupert Lowe joined Matt Goodwin on GB News
GB NEWS
The study, conducted by Edge Analytics and Leeds University experts, suggests most illegal migrants initially arrived on work, study or visitor visas before overstaying.
The research indicates around one million illegal migrants could be living in the UK, with 60 per cent concentrated in London.
The findings were obtained through Freedom of Information requests to Thames Water, who commissioned the study to better understand their “hidden” service users.
Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf warned the situation represents “not just a national emergency, it’s a national security emergency.”
The human rights lawyer argued in favour of giving all illegal migrants amnesty
GB NEWS
He expressed particular concern about demographics, noting: “90 per cent of the people crossing the Channel are men.”
“The number of military age males making that journey legally surpasses the number of available soldiers, both standing and territorial,” Yusuf told GB News.
Deputy Reform UK leader Richard Tice added: “One in 12 people in London are here illegally, probably working illegally using taxpayer-funded public infrastructure and services. It is totally unacceptable.”
The Home Office reports having removed 16,400 illegal migrants in the past six months, the highest figure in half a decade.
More than 1,000 people have already crossed the Channel in small boats during the first 23 days of 2025.
This follows 38,816 Channel crossings in 2024, the second highest total on record.
A Home Office spokesman said: “This Government is strengthening global partnerships and rooting out the criminal gangs who profit from small boat crossings which threaten lives.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp called the figures “deeply alarming” and urged the Labour government to “urgently start deporting far more illegal immigrants.”
EPA“The dance club was full of laughter and excitement,” is how one girl, 14, described the atmosphere as a group of 26 children gathered for a Taylor Swift-themed class in Southport.
Their summer holidays had just begun and the sun was shining down on the town as they were dropped off by their parents. As the class got under way, 29 July 2024 had all the markings of a good day.
The attack that unfolded next saw Axel Rudakubana given a minimum of 52 years in prison. At his sentencing on Thursday, details of how the incident played out from the perspectives of those involved were revealed to the public for the first time.
With the class in full swing, a taxi driver followed a passenger he had just dropped off outside after he had refused to pay.
The passenger, in his teens, was not dressed for the weather: the hood of his thick green hoodie was pulled tight around his face and he was wearing a surgical mask. Inside his pocket was a 20cm kitchen knife.
Initially, Axel Rudakubana could not figure how to get into the studio and was caught on CCTV struggling with a locked door – but then he spotted another entrance and stepped inside.
That was, as one child survivor put it, the “beginning of my nightmare”.
Warning: This article contains distressing and upsetting details.
‘It wasn’t a prank’
Accounts from inside the dance class confirm that Rudakubana moved calmly and purposefully.
He had been planning this moment for some time. He did not hesitate, grabbing and stabbing the girl nearest to the door as soon as he walked in.
As Rudakubana attacked, he did not say a word.
For those inside the room, it took a moment to comprehend what was happening.
“I thought the man who stabbed me was a cleaner,” one of the child victims recounted.
It must be a practical joke, she thought, but later said: “I realised it wasn’t a prank when I saw blood coming out of me”.
Her memories of what happened next are “fuzzy”, but the child said she remembers thinking: “I don’t want to die, I have got to get out of here”.
Another victim said the image of Rudakubana in her memory is that of a monster stalking around the studio.
In court, she would later tell her would-be killer: “The thing I remember most about you is your eyes.
“You looked possessed and you didn’t look human.”
PA MediaLeanne Lucas, who was leading the dance class, had first spotted Rudakubana outside when she went to open a window to let some air into the warm dance studio.
She thought nothing of it until the door swung open and he appeared.
What happened next, she said, left her and the girls with “scars we cannot un-see, scars we cannot move on from”.
The full horror of what was unfolding only became fully clear when she was stabbed in the back. She later told the girls: “I’m surviving for you”.
Heidi Liddle, who was also supervising the class, had been sitting on the floor helping the children to make friendship bracelets.
By the time she realised what was happening, the fast-moving attacker had already done unspeakable damage.
Heidi jumped into action and began trying to rush the girls towards the door.
One girl ran for a toilet on the other side of the landing and she followed.
Heidi locked the door behind them and pressed herself against it. Do not make a sound, she told the girl.
And then the door rattled. Rudakubana was still looking for victims.
Outside, she heard the screams of children who had not managed to escape.
‘Running for my life’
Rudakubana set out to kill as many children as he could: by the time the 15 minute frenzy was over, two girls were dead and one was dying.
Another eight children and two adults had been stabbed. Some were fighting for their lives.
If it was not for the quick-thinking and bravery of the girls, it is certain that more would have died.
One child remembers the world seeming to move in “slow motion” as Rudakubana moved towards her, attacking her friends as he made his way across the room.
Instinct kicked in.
She remembers “physically pushing” her friends who were still able to run as they fled down the stairs.
When she confronted Rudakubana in court by reading her statement, she told him: “I knew I was running for my life.
“I knew from your eyes you wanted to try to kill us all.”
When he was sentenced, the judge concluded that if Rudakubana had been able to, he would have killed each and every child present – and anyone else who got in his way.
One of the children who survived that day was stabbed 30 times. She was airlifted to hospital and doctors operated on her for six hours to try and save the use of her arms, hands and fingers.
“She watched two of the girls die,” her parents told investigators.
On one occasion during her recovery, the child told her parents: “I don’t know who I am anymore.”
But six months on, she is fighting back. Her mother said: “We could never be more proud of what she has achieved over the last six months.
“He has completely failed to destroy her spirit, her amazing sense of humour, her fierceness and her pure beautiful heart.”
The Southport survivors are slowly rebuilding their lives.
Investigators who dealt with the case said they were staggered by their spirit and resilience.
That was on full display when one girl was asked what she says when her classmates ask if she wishes she had not been there that day.
“In some ways, I wish I wasn’t,” she tells them.
“But also, if I wasn’t there, someone else would have been stabbed and they could have died – so I’m glad I might have stopped someone else getting hurt.”
NewsBeat
Rachel Reeves to soften non-dom tax crackdown after ‘listening to concerns’ | Politics News
Rachel Reeves is to water down her crackdown on the non-dom tax status after analysis showed it had prompted an exodus of millionaires.
The chancellor said she would be tabling an amendment to the plans after “listening to the concerns” of non-domiciled residents.
Politics Live: Ed Miliband won’t resign over Heathrow decision
The announcement was welcomed by tax advisers – but one expert told Sky News that the government should go further and make it easier for wealthy people to move to the UK, especially in light of the Trump presidency.
“Non-dom” status allows someone who lives in the UK to avoid paying tax on money made abroad because their permanent home is considered outside of the country.
Labour’s manifesto vowed to abolish the status to “address unfairness in the tax system” and raise funds for public services.
The planned changes relate to rules governing the “temporary repatriation facility” – a transition window which will allow non-doms to bring overseas income into the UK and pay a reduced tax rate.
The arrangement was due to last for three years from April 2025, as announced in the October budget.
However, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ms Reeves said she would be making this more generous.
She told the Wall Street Journal: “We have been listening to the concerns that have been raised by the non-dom community.
“And in the finance bill, we will be tabling an amendment which makes more generous the temporary repatriation facility, which enables non-doms to bring money into the UK without paying significant taxes.”
Ms Reeves extended the two-year transition window that the Conservative government had planned to three years in her budget back in October.
‘Millionaire exodus’
The new extension comes after analysts found over 10,000 millionaires left the UK in 2024, a 157% increase on 2023 – meaning the UK lost more wealthy residents than any other country except China.
The research, conducted by global analytics firm New World Health and investment migration advisers Henley & Partners, shows the UK became a net outflow country of millionaires after the Brexit vote in 2016, but the big haemorrhage happened last year.
Up until 2016, the UK had always been a net inflow country when it came to high-net-worth individuals.
Peter Ferrigno, group tax director at Henley & Partners, told Sky News today’s announcement shows the government had listened to warnings that “people can leave and will leave if they feel like they are being unfairly treated”.
However, while welcoming the changes, he said there needs to be “joined up thinking with migration rules” so it is easier for millionaires to come here and contribute to the economy.
He said millionaires were “leaving anyway” because of Brexit and the “perception that things weren’t working” – but Donald Trump’s presidency in the US is a chance to attract some back.
‘Skewered priorities’
Controversy over non-doms erupted in 2022 when it emerged Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty, the daughter of an Indian billionaire, had the tax status.
No 10 Downing Street
After the row she said she would start paying taxes on her overseas income as she did not want to be a “distraction” from her husband – then the prime minister.
Labour repeatedly used the issue to attack the Tories while in opposition, and scrapping the status was a centrepiece of their election campaign, promising to use the £1bn a year proceeds to fund NHS and dental appointments, and school breakfast clubs.
Downing Street said the move does not “change the overall approach” to the government’s policy, which is to replace non-doms with “a new internationally competitive resident-based system”.
But Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party, accused the government of “totally skewed priorities” after it refused to row back down on its cut to winter fuel payments.
And the Tories said that Labour’s budget was “falling apart in front of our eyes”, with Ms Reeves “forced to admit” her plans to raise money “make the UK less attractive”.
A Treasury spokesperson said: “While we do not expect these changes to impact the £33.8bn of tax revenue that the OBR forecast to raise over five years, they reflect our continued engagement with stakeholders to make sure the reforms announced at budget operate as intended.
“The temporary repatriation facility is designed to encourage non-doms to bring their funds to the UK, encouraging them to spend and invest this money here.”
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A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman was found seriously injured in the street and later died.
Devon and Cornwall Police launched a manhunt for Paul Antony Butler, 53, after the woman was discovered in Plymouth, Devon, on Wednesday.
He was located and arrested in Liskeard, Cornwall, around 20 miles from Plymouth, and is now in police custody, the force said.
The force will make a mandatory referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) because of previous contact with the victim.
This is a breaking news story… More to follow
President Donald Trump said he would ask Saudi Arabia and other Opec nations to “bring down the cost of oil” and doubled-down on his threat to use tariffs.
In a speech to executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, the US president said he was ‘surprised’ that Opec hadn’t brought down the price of oil before the elections.
“Right now the price is high enough that that war will continue,” he said, referring to the Russia-Ukraine war and suggesting that the higher oil price was helping to sustain funding for the conflict in Moscow.
“You gotta bring down the oil price, that will end that war. You could end that war,” he added
The president’s comments on the oil price came after he spoke to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday. According to Saudi State media Bin Salman pledged to invest as much as $600bn in the US over the next four years, however this figure was not mentioned in the White House statement after the call.
Despite the cordial exchange, Trump said he would be asking “the Crown Prince, who’s a fantastic guy, to round it out to around $1tn”.
The price of crude fell by 1% following Trump’s comments.
According to David Oxley, Chief Climate and Commodities Economist at Capital Economics these comments are in keeping with Trump’s desire for lower gasoline prices.
“[It’s] his clear intention to use energy as leverage over Russia to end the war in Ukraine. That said, lower oil prices will certainly not incentivise US oil producers to “drill, baby, drill” – particularly in high-cost Alaska.”
“Of course, Saudi Arabia would not be guaranteed to heed a request by President Trump to expand oil production and to bring down global oil prices.”
The US president’s appearance via video at the World Economic Forum marked his first address to a global audience since his inauguration earlier this week.
He used the platform to insist that companies around the world manufacture their products in the US or face bruising tariffs on imported goods entering the American market.
The president also said he would demand an immediate drop in interest rates, which he said had led to deeper deficits and resulted in what he described as economic calamity under the tenure of his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
“This begins with confronting the economic chaos caused by the failed policies of the last administration,” he said.
“Over the past four years, our government racked up $8 trillion in wasteful deficit spending and inflicted nation wrecking energy restrictions, crippling regulations and hidden taxes like never before.”
Trump also spoke of “good, clean, coal” to power data centres needed for artificial intelligence. “We need double the energy we currently have in the US, for AI to be as big as we want to have it,” he said, adding that he would use emergency decrees to speed the construction of new power plants.
“Nothing can destroy coal — not the weather, not a bomb, nothing,” said Trump.
Politics
Donald Trump poised to release JFK assassination files as President signs latest executive order
Donald Trump has signed an executive order to release the assassination files of John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
In his latest high-profile signing since returning to the White House on Monday, Trump vowed that “all will be revealed” as he put pen to paper on bringing the details of JFK’s death to light.
“That’s a a big one, huh?” Trump said to reporters in the Oval Office. “A lot of people have been waiting for this for years, for decades. Everything will be revealed.”
And in a show of faith to JFK’s nephew – and Trump’s incoming health secretary – Robert F Kennedy Jr, the President directed aides to pass the signing pen to his key ally.
‘That’s a a big one, huh?’ Trump said to reporters in the Oval Office
REUTERS
On the campaign trail on the path back to office, Trump had vowed to release classified intelligence and law enforcement files on JFK’s mysterious November 1963 killing.
On Sunday, he told supporters at a Washington DC rally: “In the coming days, we are going to make public remaining records related to the assassinations of President John F Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, as well as Dr Martin Luther King Jr and other topics of great public interest.”
But he may face resistance from what he calls the “swamp”.
Trump had released some documents related to the assassination, but ultimately caved to pressure from the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and kept a significant chunk of documents under wraps over “national security concerns”.
Soon-to-be-health chief RFK Jr has said he believes the CIA was involved in his uncle’s death – which the agency has described as “baseless”.
Kennedy Jr has also said he believes his father, Robert Kennedy, was killed by multiple gunmen – which flies in the face of public accounts of his death.
More to follow…
Italy’s highest court has decided to uphold the conviction of Amanda Knox for slander related to the 2007 murder of her British flatmate, Meredith Kercher.
The ruling is the latest part of a 17-year legal saga which ultimately exonerated her for the 2007 fatal stabbing in the Italian university town of Perugia, north of Rome.
British exchange student Meredith Kercher was killed in 2007
British student Meredith Kercher, 21, was brutally murdered in the apartment she shared with Amanda Knox, the American who was initially found guilty of the killing along with her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
Ms Knox served four years in prison before being acquitted in 2011, along with Mr Sollecito. They were fully exonerated by Italy’s highest court in 2015.
But among a complex series of legal twists and turns, in June 2024, an appeals court in Florence handed Ms Knox, 37, a
three-year sentence for wrongly accusing a Congolese man of the murder.
Patrick Lumumba was the owner of a bar where Ms Knox, then a 20-year-old university student, had worked part-time.
She avoided jail as the sentence counted as time already served in prison.
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Amanda Knox on ‘unjust and incorrect verdict’
Last June, she lost her bid to overturn that conviction and later told Sky TG24, Sky News’ sister channel in Italy, that she was a “victim” and did not slander anyone.
“I didn’t slander Patrick; I didn’t kill my friend [Meredith]. I have been unjustly accused for 17 years. I spent four years in prison as an innocent,” she said.
She claimed that during her initial police questioning, she was “psychologically tortured, abused and mistreated” by officers.
Patrick Lumumba (right) and his lawyer Carlo at court on Thursday. Pic: Reuters
Ms Knox was not at the hearing at Italy’s top court on Thursday, instead following it from the US. Earlier this week she wrote on X that “waiting is the hardest part”.
But her lawyer, Luca Luparia Donati, told Sky News they were “incredulous” at the decision and would consider “supranational initiatives to rectify what we believe to be a judicial error”.
Patrick Lumumba, who was in the court, said: “I am very satisfied because Amanda made a mistake and this sentence must accompany her for her entire life.”
Ms Knox was ordered to pay the trial’s legal costs, as well as those of Mr Lumumba’s lawyer.
The former home of Meredith Kercher in 2008 in the Umbrian city of Perugia. File pic: Reuters
Read more:
Knox: Why was she back in court?
Knox Film: Trial Was ‘Soap Opera’
Amanda Knox is now a mother of two small children who advocates for criminal justice reform and campaigns against wrongful convictions.
Another man, Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was convicted of sexual assault and murder after his DNA was found at the crime scene.
He was freed in 2021, after serving 13 years of a 16-year term.
Former Perugia public prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, who led the investigation into Ms Kercher’s murder, told Sky News last year that “there may still be a culprit who took part in the murder and who has not been discovered yet”.
Mobile network Three has apologised after customers across the country reported problems making and receiving voice calls.
More than 10,000 people have logged problems on outage site Downdetector, with the first issues reported around 1pm.
The network said a “small percentage” of customers were affected and that it was working hard to fix it.
People on X reported problems in places such as Yorkshire, Derbyshire, North Lanarkshire and London.
“Six hours in and I still can’t make or receive a call!” said user @nameisrichard.
“I’m trying to organise my mother’s funeral and I can’t make, or receive, a single call. It’s appalling,” said @flynn1965.
@bertis100 posted: “We have no coverage since 1pm in Motherwell Scotland.”
The network first apologised this afternoon but said data and 999 calls were working as normal.
Three repeated the message at 7.30pm and said it was “really sorry” for the inconvenience.
However, its latest message only mentioned data services were unaffected, suggesting emergency calls might be impacted after all.
The firm’s coverage checker is currently unavailable on its website.
Read more from Sky News:
Meta denies ‘forcing’ people to follow Trump
Digital driving licences to be introduced this year
More than 5,000 people were still self-reporting problems on the Downdetector site just before 8pm.
It was announced last month that Three’s merger with Vodafone had been approved, with the companies promising an improved service and an £11bn investment programme.
The merger is expected to formally complete during the first half of 2025.
NewsBeat
Watch live: Sentencing of Southport killer Axel Rudakubana for murdering three girls at Taylor Swift dance class
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Warning: This livestream may contain distressing content.
Watch live as Southport killer Axel Rudakubana is sentenced today (23 January) for murdering three young girls in a frenzied knife attack last year.
Rudakubana, 18, stabbed and killed the girls, aged between six and nine, with a 20cm-long kitchen knife as he ambushed a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, Merseyside.
Wearing a surgical face mask while armed with the blade, the then 17-year-old travelled five miles from his family home to the studio where he killed Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe.
As a trial was set to begin at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday, the teenager pleaded guilty to the murder of the three children as well as the attempted murders of eight others.
He also admitted production of a biological toxin and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism. He also pleaded guilty to possession of a knife.
Back at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday, he will be sentenced for a total of 16 charges.
Customers of the mobile network, Three, have told the BBC they cannot make 999 calls, as the network faces a significant outage.
The firm has apologised after more than ten thousand people told outage tracker Downdetector they were unable to make or receive phone calls on Thursday.
The BBC has been told by members of the public that 999 calls will not connect from their devices using the Three network. The BBC has not been able to independently verify their claims.
Three told the BBC it was “investigating this urgently”, adding that data from emergency services showed the “majority” of 999 calls were being “connected via other networks”.
There have also been several thousand reports from users of Smarty and ID Mobile – smaller mobile companies which use Three’s network.
Three’s support team has been telling customers that it does not “have a timeframe” for a fix, but that the firm is “working hard to resolve this as soon as possible”.
In a statement to the BBC, a Three spokesperson said the company is “aware of a number of reports that customers have not been able to connect to 999 calls”.
“We are taking this very seriously and are investigating this urgently and we apologise if anyone has been unable to successfully contact emergency services.
“Call data from the emergency services shows that the majority of 999 calls being placed via our network are being connected via other networks,” the spokesperson added.
In an earlier statement, Three had said that people were still able to use mobile data services and make 999 calls during the outage, though multiple people had told the BBC that was not the case for them.
Three has around 10.5m customers across the UK, according to its website, but it is unclear how many of them are affected by the outages.
Many people on social media have shared their frustration at the outage and described the disruption they said it had caused them.
One person claimed they had “missed a medical appointment” as a result of being unable to receive calls, while another said the issues had left their daughter “stranded”.
And several people have claimed they would be leaving the network altogether.
In a statement the regulator Ofcom said: “We are aware that Three is experiencing problems with its network. We are in contact with Three to establish the scale and cause of the problem as soon as possible.”
It is not known whether customers will be able to claim compensation for the outage, although according to the Ofcom website it “may be appropriate” for providers to offer refunds “while repairs are being made”.
It comes a month after the UK regulator gave the go-ahead for Three to merge with former rival Vodafone in a £16.5bn deal.
It comes the same day a major outage affected artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT.
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