NewsBeat
US will fear the vacuum that could replace Assad
EPAThe speed and magnitude of Bashar al-Assad’s “historic” downfall has stunned the White House. But President Biden is also taking part of the credit.
In his statement, he portrayed the extraordinary shift in Syria’s control as a result of US strategy which has fundamentally weakened the roles of Russia and Iran in the region, helping precipitate Assad’s demise.
In reality, Washington never foresaw that its military support for Israel since the Hamas attacks last October and for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 would contribute to the collapse of half a century of Assad rule in Syria.
But it has, and now the US has to deal with the aftermath – a “historic opportunity” but a moment of “risk and uncertainty”, according to Biden.
Washington is trying to work out what comes next. Who rules Syria? The president met his national security team at the White House on Sunday morning.
The administration will not mourn Assad’s end, Iran’s emasculation or Russia’s humiliation in Syria.
Its fear is about a vacuum in which what it saw as an undesirable but relatively stabilised balance of forces could be filled by something it wants even less: a power grab by Islamist insurgents, including factions designated as terrorists by the US, unresponsive to the breadth of Syria’s wider population, potentially triggering further chaos and new risks for the region.
As Damascus echoes with celebratory gunfire at Assad’s downfall, most Syrians won’t share the American handwringing. The US will briefly join in on a moment to hail the demise of a brutal autocrat – but more profoundly it will fret about what fills the gap.
The Pentagon is already making clear American troops will stay put in eastern Syria, where it has a small number of forces officially to counter the Islamic State group.
Deputy US Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Daniel Shapiro has called on all parties to protect civilians, particularly minorities, and to respect international norms.
“We are aware that the chaotic and dynamic circumstances on the ground in Syria could give Isis space to find the ability to become active, to plan external operations, and we’re determined to work with those partners to continue to degrade their capabilities,” he said.
ReutersUS troops also train and equip what Washington sees as moderate Arab and Kurdish forces east of the Euphrates River and at the al-Tanf military base, close to the border with Iraq and Jordan.
We don’t know yet what approach Damascus will take to the US presence in Syria, but it seems likely Washington will now push for a negotiated stabilisation of the country leaning heavily on its favoured factions.
Earlier in Syria’s civil war, President Obama gave his permission for limited backing for what the US saw as moderate rebels elsewhere in the country. That was later abandoned as extremists began dominating the battlefield and Russia entered the war on Assad’s behalf.
Washington had since backed a United Nations process for a negotiated settlement between Assad and opposition forces. It’s likely this will to transition into US calls for a mediated outcome between the rebels and the remnants of Assad’s regime.
The group that led the fortnight-long charge to Damascus – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – has repeatedly signalled its apparent rebrand, rejecting violent revenge and abandoning its former links to al-Qaeda. Washington will be deeply distrustful of the group, which it has designated as a foreign terrorist organisation.
But some from the region in close contact with US officials see this approach as reductive, even cynical. They urge Washington to embrace a process of transition in Damascus taking account of the breadth of Syrian opposition.
Mouaz Moustafa from the Washington-based Syrian Emergency Task Force – which coordinates with the US military and partner forces in Syria – has described what is unfolding as an “indescribable good” that the Americans must not reduce to the actions of one faction.
“There is an operations room that has multiple factions of different political stripes – some are secular, some are conservative – but they agree on one thing. They are going to liberate Syria from al-Qaeda, Isis, Iran, Russia, and they will allow people to have their country back,” he told the BBC.
In his statement, President Biden said some the groups in Syria were “saying the right things now” but he would judge them on their actions.
Meanwhile President-elect Trump has been posting about Syria, describing it as a “mess” that the US should stay out of. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT,” he said.
In his comments he points blame at Obama and says Russia should now wash its hands of the country, apparently using its “weakened state” as a reason Moscow and Kyiv should engage in a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine.
“I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act,” says Trump.
As president in 2019, Trump famously made a surprise announcement withdrawing US troops from Syria. His officials gradually rowed that back, fearing ceding control to Russia and a resurgence of the Islamic State group.
Trump may well have an eye to resuming his previous position.
The UK has left open the possibility of following EU rules for food and farm products in order to return to frictionless access to European markets, the trade secretary has said.
Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC such an agreement – which lowers all trade barriers in return for mirroring EU rules and standards – would not cross the government’s red lines.
His comments come after EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic told the BBC a new agreement, including so-called dynamic alignment on standards, is possible alongside other areas of pan-European co-operation on customs.
Reynolds met Sefcovic at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.
He said he thanked his EU counterpart for his “incredibly positive” and “helpful” comments. Reynolds add that Sefcovic’s tone was in keeping with what the government had already said about a “twin- track strategy” on trade.
“We can improve the terms of trade with the EU in a way which doesn’t revisit customs unions or single markets or the arguments of Brexit, and we can do that whilst pursuing closer trade links around the world,” Reynolds said.
Labour fought last year’s UK general election with a manifesto pledge to lower Brexit-related barriers and red tape for the export of food and farm products to the European Union.
The question has always been how deep such an agreement might be. It could be settled in the coming weeks, though firm decisions have not yet been made.
on Thursday the EU suggested to the BBC that complete eradication of barriers in the sector would be possible if the UK followed relevant EU rules and standards as they change, a process known as “dynamic alignment”.
Speaking to the BBC in Davos, Reynolds said that both ideas floated by Sefcovic – a fully fledged veterinary agreement with dynamic alignment – and a pan-European customs plan did not break the government’s red lines.
On the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention he said it did not cross red lines because “it is not a customs union”.
Asked if a “full-fat veterinary agreement with dynamic alignment” crossed red lines he said: “No, that’s part of our manifesto, an SPS agreement, a veterinary agreement.”
The Conservatives have voiced anger at reports of a potential new deal on UK-EU trade, with shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel telling MPs that the government was “bending the knee to the EU”.
“These latest reports that the government might shackle us to the European Union are deeply concerning, and once again make clear that Keir Starmer and his chums are all too happy to put their ideology ahead of our national interest, no matter the cost,” she said.
But the Liberal Democrats have said the government is not doing enough to smooth trade with the EU.
Party leader Sir Ed Davey told the Commons: “It is time for a proper UK-EU customs arrangement so we can strengthen our negotiations with Donald Trump, cut the red tape on our businesses and grow the economy.”
Reynolds told the BBC he was preparing the UK’s case to avoid potential US tariffs on exports, after President Donald Trump suggested the world could have to pay trillions of dollars to access markets in America.
After being delayed twice because of the recent devastating wildfires around Los Angeles, this week saw the nominations announced for the film industry’s biggest awards, and Donald Trump move into the White House for a second time.
But how much attention did you pay to what else had been going on in the world over the past seven days?
Quiz compiled by Ben Fell.
BBC Scotland political correspondent
Getty ImagesA code of practice for getting a dog is to be drawn up in Scotland under a new law passed by MSPs.
The Welfare of Dogs Bill aims to promote responsible ownership by making sure people understand the commitment required before they take on a pet.
Within 12 months the government will need to draw up a code, effectively a checklist of questions about whether the new owner has considered whether they have the time, space and money needed.
That would then inform a certificate, to be signed by the new owner and the person they are acquiring the dog from, to underline that both sides understand the commitment involved.
The new law is a member’s bill introduced by SNP MSP Christine Graham, who has been pushing for changes for more than seven years.
The Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale MSP first tabled a Welfare of Dogs bill in 2018 but saw it fall at the end of a term of parliament curtailed by Covid.
The inspiration behind the bill can readily be seen at Edinburgh’s dog and cat home, where Ms Grahame is a regular fixture – she literally has her name on the wall.
The facility is currently at capacity for dogs following a “worrying” increase in strays being brought in.
One of them is Susan, a four-year-old labrador-staffie cross. She is a friendly dog who has clearly had some training – she can sit, and offer a paw in exchange for a treat – but came in as a stray in October, having presumably been abandoned.
The home’s chief executive Lindsay Fyffe-Jardine says dogs do come to them because good owners see their circumstances change, through no fault of their own.
But she said there was also an issue with “decisions which perhaps aren’t talked through before purchase”.
She said: “It’s as easy to go out to the supermarket to buy your cereal as it is to get a dog from lots of different places and the reality is not everyone stops to think ‘can I afford this dog? can I fit them into my life?’.
“Because it’s a huge commitment.”
This is where Christine Grahame’s bill comes in.
The new law requires the government to produce – within 12 months – a code of practice which sets out steps that should be taken when buying, selling or giving away a dog.
This code must include a checklist of questions which prospective dog owners should ask of themselves and of the person they are acquiring the animal from.
These questions are intended to fit on a single side of A4 paper, and would include things like:
- whether the breed of dog is suitable for the new owner
- whether they have a suitable environment to house it
- whether they have time to exercise regularly
- whether they can afford the costs of having a pet on an ongoing basis
- and whether they can commit to caring for the dog throughout its entire life
The new owner would then have to sign a certificate showing that they have considered the questions set out in the code, while the seller would sign it to attest that they are content to hand the dog over.
This certificate isn’t a licence or a legally binding document. The point is to make people think carefully about what dog ownership entails before they take on a new pet.
Getty ImagesThere is already a 28-page code of practice for dog owners, which was introduced in 2010 under previous animal welfare reforms.
But Ms Grahame contends that few will have actually read that code, and that one which needs to be signed up to at the point of buying a dog would focus minds at the critical moment.
The Conservatives pushed to simply merge the two codes at committee stage, but otherwise there has been little dissent over the plans as they now stand.
The bill originally also included proposals to set up a Scotland-wide database for registering all dogs bred in unlicensed litters.
However, this was dropped after the government said it was “not convinced that developing a registration scheme would be an effective or proportionate way” to tackle issues around irresponsible breeding.
The final debate on the bill also included a row about shock collars, after Green MSP Ross Greer attempted to add in a ban on them at the final stage of debate.
This was voted down after the government pledged to return to the issue once further independent reports on the devices has been completed later this year.
Warning: This article contains graphic references to violence
When yoga instructor Leanne Lucas posted an advert for a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club in Southport, the two-hour dance class sold out within 11 days.
It was a beautiful summer’s morning on 29 July when 26 children, all girls aged between six and 13, were dropped off by their parents to dance, play and make friendship bracelets.
Meanwhile, at his family home in the nearby village of Banks, Lancashire, Axel Rudakubana, then 17, armed himself with a 20cm kitchen knife he had earlier bought on Amazon.
This is a timeline of what happened next:
Follow latest: Dance class killer Axel Rudakubana sentenced
10am: The workshop led by Leanne and her colleague Heidi Liddle gets under way.
11.04am: Rudakubana searches online for “Mar Mari Emmanuel stabbing” – the knife attack on a bishop in Sydney, Australia, earlier that year.
11.10am: Despite the sunshine, he is wearing a green hoodie with the hood up and a surgical face mask covering his face when he leaves his home in the village of Banks in Lancashire.
11.11am: One minute later, he is captured on CCTV at a bus stop making a call to book a taxi.
11.16am: Around five minutes later he heads back towards home.
11.30am: Rudakubana is picked up and travels in silence for the 4.5-mile journey to Hart Street in Southport.
On the first map start with the marker at the bottom and then click next.
11.43am: When he arrives, he asks the driver to direct him to 34a. But he refuses to pay the driver, who then follows him down a driveway towards Masters Vehicle Body Repairs at number 36a.
Read more:
What are the UK’s knife crime laws?
Southport attacker had ‘kill list’
11.44am: Rudakubana retreats after the owner of the car repair workshop, Colin Parry, and his colleague confront him, telling him to pay the fare but Rudakubana replies: “What are you going to do about it?”
Colin Parry owns a business near the scene of the crime
Inside the dance studio, on the first floor of an industrial unit down a path off the main road, children are gathered around tables making bracelets, while a life-size model of Taylor Swift stands nearby for the youngsters to pose for photos with.
As Ms Lucas opens a window because of the hot weather she sees the teenager outside but thinks nothing of it.
11.45am: Rudakubana walks into the 34a Hart Street building, climbs up the stairs to the first floor and opens the door armed with the black-handled kitchen knife.
Without saying a word, he grabs the girl nearest to him and begins stabbing her, before moving through the room, stabbing as many children as he can.
11.46am: CCTV shows one child as she tries to escape the building but is dragged back in by Rudakubana, before she staggers out and collapses.
11.47am: Merseyside Police receive their first emergency call.
11.48-11.56am: North West Ambulance Service respond after a call reporting the stabbings.
On the below map start with the marker at the bottom and then click next.
Joel Verite carried an injured child to the street to get help
Window cleaner, Joel Verite, then 25, is driving past with his work partner. They stop to help Leanne Lucas who has been stabbed in the back before fleeing the building with several children. She tells them children are being attacked.
Mr Verite runs down the driveway to the dance studio where a mother waiting to collect her daughter has parked. She has her daughter in the car and three other girls who have managed to escape.
She asks him to help a child who has been stabbed several times. He later described opening the door behind the driver’s seat to find the girl “had many holes in her body”.
An aerial view of the scene as police investigate.
Mr Verite carries the child back to the street, where other members of the public are gathering to help. Then he runs to the building’s entrance, where he is told by two men the attacker is in the dance studio.
Mr Verite sees a man at the top of the stairs with his hood up, holding a knife. The attacker moves away when seen, while Mr Verite calls “for everyone to come over and block him in”.
On the below map start with the marker on the left and then click next.
Jonathan Hayes is at work in an office located across the landing from the dance studio when he hears screaming and looks out of the window to see some children running across the car park.
He leaves his desk intending to go outside to help but, as he walks on to the landing, he sees a child on the floor, motionless and bleeding. The attacker is crouching over her but starts to follow Mr Hayes as he retreats. Mr Hayes tries to grab the knife and the defendant swipes at him and stabs him in the leg. His colleague chases Rudakubana out of the office and shuts the door.
Car repair shop owner Colin Parry is also now on the scene, after being phoned by a colleague who’d heard the screaming next door. He sees children running past, some lying on the floor injured.
11.57am: The first police officer, Sergeant Gillespie, arrives at the scene to find Rudakubana holding the knife, which he drops when ordered to do so by the officer.
Mr Verite, a former rugby league player for Wigan and Salford, follows officers inside and sees blood everywhere as two officers tackle the attacker to the floor. He carries an injured child out to an ambulance and stays with her.
Police find Heidi Liddle and a little girl she protected hiding in a toilet. They are escorted from the building crying.
11.59am: Rudakubana is arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, then further arrested on suspicion of murder three minutes later.
Forensic officers at the scene of the murders as the probe continued. Pic: PA
Rudakubana stabbed 11 children and two adults (Leanne Lucas and John Hayes) – causing the deaths of Alice da Silva Aguiar (nine), Bebe King (six) and Elsie Dot Stancombe (seven).
He was taken to Copy Lane police station where he remained silent throughout his interviews with officers.
Despite later discovering he had a wide interest in violence, genocide and terrorism from an analysis of his digital devices, police say they still don’t know why he carried out the attack.
In the hours after the stabbings, false rumours spread online claiming the suspect was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK on a small boat, sparking a wave of rioting and unrest across the country.
Tributes laid in Southport for the three girls who died. Pic: PA
Read more:
Southport murders: Missed opportunities
‘Terrorism has changed’, PM says
On Monday, as his trial was about to start, Rudakubana pleaded guilty to the three murders and 10 other charges of attempted murder.
He also pleaded guilty to production of a biological toxin, ricin, found in a container under his bed the day after the attack, and possession of an academic analysis of an al Qaeda training manual under the Terrorism Act.
When he was charged with the offences in October, police maintained the attack was not being treated as a terrorist incident.
There was an outpouring of shock and grief at what happened. Pic: PA
During the sentencing hearing, Rudakubana repeatedly called for proceedings to be stopped, shouting: “I need to see a paramedic because I feel ill.” He was removed twice from court and wasn’t present to hear his sentence.
In his absence, Mr Justice Goose sentenced the 18-year-old to a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years. The judge said “it is likely he will never be released and will be in custody for all his life”.
Explaining his decision, the judge added: “The prosecution have made it clear this does not meet the definition of an act of terrorism within the meaning of the legislation as there is no evidence the purpose was to advance a particular political or ideological cause. I must accept that conclusion.
“However, his culpability is equivalent in its seriousness to terrorist murders, whatever his purpose.
“What he did on July 29 caused such shock and revulsion that it must be seen as the most extreme level of crime.”
Additional reporting by Adam Parker, OSINT editor, and Freya Gibson, junior OSINT producer. Maps credit: Google Earth
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open-source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
The cost of replacing more than 2,000 MPs and political staff after the election reached £52.8m, the body managing MPs’ pay has revealed.
Nearly all of that was spent on closing down former MPs’ offices and helping new MPs set theirs up, with around a third of the total spent on redundancy payments for staff.
The Independent Parliament Standards Authority (Ipsa) report said Labour’s landslide election had been a “once in a generation event” which saw 350 MPs leave office – more than at any general election in the last fifty years.
According to its report, 2,373 people lost their job as a result – including 2,023 staff who worked for MPs who either lost their seat or stood down.
At the 2019 election only 460 members of staff were effectively made redundant.
Ipsa, which is funded by public money through a grant from the Treasury, said the “almost-unprecedented” turnover had helped push up the cost of supporting those who lost their jobs by 286%.
Costs included ending rental agreements, settling outstanding payments and making staff redundant.
MPs themselves were entitled to a loss of office payment, set at twice the legal minimum, if they lost their seat and had been an MP for at least two years.
All MPs who either lost or stood down were also eligible for so-called “winding up” payments worth four month’s salary. Since April 2024, the basic annual salary of a MP is £91,346, plus expenses.
This was to compensate them for the time spent closing down their offices, which was extended at this election from two months to four. They could also claim costs during this time.
Ipsa said an average of £35,200 was spent per MP on redundancy payments to both MPs and their staff – up from an average of £19,900 at the 2019 election.
Ipsa’s chair Richard Lloyd said: “An MP’s office is like a small business. They are the employer, and any MP not returned in the 2024 general election had until 4 November to close down their office entirely.”
He added: “Ipsa is proud of its role in supporting a representative Parliament, where people without private finances shouldn’t be prevented from becoming an MP – or working for one.”
Established in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal, Ipsa oversees both MPs’ pay and expenses, including the salaries of the constituency caseworkers, parliamentary assistants and other staff that work for them.
NewsBeat
Children in B&Bs beyond legal limit as homelessness crisis pushes councils to ‘breaking point’ | Politics News
A record number of children are living in B&Bs beyond the legal limit as England’s homelessness crisis pushes councils to breaking point.
MPs said there is a “dire need” for housing reform, with the lack of affordable homes forcing cash-strapped local authorities to haemorrhage their funds on temporary accommodation.
The “crisis situation” means there is less money in the pot to focus on homelessness prevention, the cross-party Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said.
Councils are instead having to prioritise short-term solutions which can include putting families in bed and breakfasts – the fastest rising temporary accommodation type over the past decade, a Sky News analysis of government data found.
Temporary accommodation is meant to be a short-term solution for people who are homeless while they wait for more suitable and long-term housing options.
But the rising number of homeless households in England, driven by a shortage of social or otherwise affordable housing to move on to, means that increasingly this fix is anything but temporary.
A recent Sky News investigation found that children in some parts of England are spending as long as five-and-a-half years on average in temporary accommodation.
Length of stay has increased significantly in many areas since 2021, with particularly long stays in London and the South East.
B&B use was the fastest rising temporary accommodation type over the past decade, rising fourfold from 4,400 households in 2014 to a record high of 18,400 by 2024, according to government figures.
The data shows 6,000 of these households included children, of which two in three had been living there for longer than the 6-week legal limit.
All of this is cripplingly expensive for councils. B&Bs, meant to be reserved for emergencies only, were the largest single spending category in council homelessness budgets in 2024, at £723.9m.
This is more than triple the amount spent in 2014, which was £218m adjusted for inflation.
Overall, temporary accommodation costs to local authorities have risen from more than £1.6bn in 2022-23 to around £2.1bn in 2023-24, the PAC said.
‘Crisis situation’
The PAC is calling for a clear strategy and stronger support for local authorities to address what it called “a crisis situation”.
Despite there being an overarching homelessness strategy for each of the devolved nations, England does not have one.
Committee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said this had left local authorities “attempting to save a sinking ship with a little more than a leaky bucket”.
Read More:
Mum-of-three left homeless after reporting threats to police
National scandal’ as number of children living in temporary accommodation reaches record high
MPs also urged the government to justify its Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, which calculate housing benefit for tenants renting from private landlords.
The committee said 45% of households in receipt of the benefit face a shortfall between what they receive from the government and what they are being asked to pay in rent, and the issue is “exacerbated by the lack of affordable housing”.
The government has pledged to build 1.5 million homes by the end of this parliament, but it has not set a target of how many of them will be classed as affordable.
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What are Labour’s housing plans?
Sir Geoffrey said: “My committee is deeply concerned by the number of people currently being housed in sub-standard, overpriced and at times, wholly inappropriate accommodation, sometimes a long way from their previous home.
“A lack of affordable housing, a focus on short-term solutions and no clear strategy to tackle this issue have left us with thousands of families in deeply troubling circumstances.”
He added: “Local authorities find themselves at breaking point as they haemorrhage funds to cover the rising costs of housing families in temporary accommodation.
“We are calling for an overarching strategy that addresses the need for better connectivity across government departments to tackle the root causes of this crisis.
“Without one, we fear this will remain an issue into which money is simply poured, without effectively tackling the blight of homelessness.”
There’s been a record jump in the number of UK businesses in critical financial distress, according to insolvency specialists.
This comes at the same time as a drop in consumer confidence as more people have concerns over the UK’s financial prospects as well as their own.
In their latest report, insolvency experts at Begbies Traynor said a company can be considered in critical financial distress if they have an outstanding county court judgment of over £5,000 or face a winding-up petition.
Businesses in the most distress include those in hospitality, leisure, and retail.
While there’s often a jump at year-end of companies in critical financial distress, the report found a record increase of 50% from September to December 2024, taking the number of companies in this category to 46,583 businesses.
One factor was HMRC becoming more aggressive in recovering overdue taxes owed.
The number of UK businesses considered to be in significant financial distress also rose by 3.5% on the prior quarter to 654,765.
Ric Traynor, executive chairman of Begbies Traynor, said: “After a historic rise in critical financial distress in the last quarter of 2024, it’s clear that many distressed UK businesses are finding it almost impossible to navigate the challenges they face as we start 2025.”
“For many businesses which were already dealing with weak consumer confidence and higher borrowing costs, the increase in national insurance contributions and the national minimum wage, announced at the last Budget, could be the last straw.”
He said sectors like retail and hospitality could be impacted in particular because they typically “operate on razor-thin margins”.
“I fear 2025 could end up being a watershed moment where thousands of UK businesses ‘call time’ after struggling to survive for years,” he added.
A separate report showed a slight fall in confidence among consumers in their own finances and a much sharper one over the prospects for the wider economy.
The long-running survey from GfK showed people’s intentions to spend on big-ticket items fell while the number of people considering putting money aside in savings rose.
GfK said that was a negative for the economy as it was a sign that many people saw dark days ahead and were putting money aside for safety.
Neil Bellamy, consumer insights director at GfK, said: “New year is traditionally a time for change, but looking at these figures, consumers don’t think things are changing for the better.
“These figures underline that consumers are losing confidence in the UK’s economic prospects.”
NewsBeat
Attorney general to review ‘unduly lenient’ sentence of Southport child killer Axel Rudakubana | UK News
The 52-year prison sentence of Axel Rudakubana is to be reviewed following complaints it was “unduly lenient”.
Southport’s MP Patrick Hurley was among those calling for a longer term on Thursday after the 18-year-old was jailed for murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, in July last year.
The Labour backbencher said: “In my view, the sentence passed is unduly lenient. The crimes he committed were horrific and natural justice demands he spends the rest of his life behind bars.
“I have therefore made a request to the attorney general to have the sentence reviewed urgently, with a view to making sure he is never released. My community deserves nothing less.”
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‘He’s a coward’
The Attorney General’s Office later confirmed the case had been referred under the unduly lenient sentence (ULS) scheme, which requires just one request in order for punishments handed out in court to be reconsidered.
A spokesperson said: “There is a high threshold for a successful ULS reference. The sentence must be not just lenient but unduly so, for example if the sentencing judge made a gross error or imposed a sentence outside the range of sentences reasonably available in the circumstances of the offence.”
Attorney General Lord Hermer and Solicitor General Lucy Rigby now have 28 days to decide whether to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal for further consideration.
Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice da Silva Aguiar and Bebe King.
Pic: Merseyside Police
Rudakubana was sentenced after earlier pleading guilty to the murders, along with the attempted murders of eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.
He was also convicted of having a knife, which he had bought on Amazon, on the date of the killings, production of the deadly poison ricin, and possessing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.
Axel Rudakubana. Pic: Merseyside Police
His 52-year minimum term is thought to be the longest imposed on a killer of his age. Once the minimum term is reached, he would be subjected to a Parole Board review before he could ever be considered for release.
Because he carried out the crimes just nine days short of his 18th birthday, it means by law he could not be sentenced to a whole life order, which would mean he would never be released from jail.
This tariff is usually only imposed on criminals aged 21 or over but can be considered for those aged 18 to 20 in exceptional circumstances.
Read more:
Police investigation continues
The 14 minutes of terror
Victim’s parents describe horror
Describing the minimum sentence as “substantial”, Mr Justice Goose, sentencing at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday, said he would serve “almost the whole of his life in custody”.
He added: “I consider at this time that it is likely that he will never be released and that he will be in custody for all his life.”
The judge also said he “must accept” that the prosecution had made it clear the attack did not meet the legal definition of an act of terrorism because there was no evidence of attempting to advance a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.
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Could the killings have been prevented?
A parent of one of the children who survived the attack, who cannot be named, told The Sun the crimes were so horrific the killer should “rot in jail” and the “law needs changing”.
Mr Hurley said he supported demands for a law change, as did Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who said there was a “strong case” for amending the law to allow for whole life orders to be imposed on people aged under 18 in some cases.
Downing Street declined to comment when earlier asked about the proposal.
Getty Images“It’s like the United States doesn’t actually understand what I did for this country, it’s a betrayal,” Abdullah tells the BBC.
He fled Afghanistan with his parents amid the US withdrawal in August 2021 and is now a paratrooper for the US military. He worries he can’t help his sister and her husband escape too, because of President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending a resettlement programme.
The order cancels all flights and applications for Afghan refugees, without any exemption for families of active servicemembers.
Trump argues the decision addresses “record levels of migration” that threaten “the availability of resources for Americans”.
But Abdullah and several other Afghan refugees have told the BBC they feel the US has “turned its back” on them, despite years of working alongside American officials, troops and non-profit organisations in Afghanistan. We are not using their real names, as they worry doing so could jeopardise their cases or put their families at risk.
As soon as Abdullah heard about the order, he called his sister. “She was crying, she’s lost all hope,” he said. He believes his work has made her a target of the Taliban government which took power in 2021.
“The anxiety, it’s just unimaginable. She thinks we’ll never be able to see each other again,” he says.
During the war, Abdullah says he was an interpreter for US forces. When he left Afghanistan, his sister and her husband couldn’t get passports in time to board the flight.
Suhail Shaheen, a spokesperson for the Taliban government, told the BBC there is an amnesty for anyone who worked with international forces and all Afghans can “live in the country without any fear”. He claims these refugees are “economic migrants”.
But a UN report in 2023 cast doubt on assurances from the Taliban government. It found hundreds of former government officials and armed forces members were allegedly killed despite a general amnesty.
Abdullah’s sister and her husband had completed the medical exams and interviews required for resettlement in the US. The BBC has seen a document from the US Department of Defense endorsing their application.
Now Abdullah says Trump’s insistence that immigration is too high does not justify his separation from his family. He describes sleepless nights, and says the anxiety is affecting his work in his combat unit, serving the United States.
Babak, a former legal adviser to the Afghan Air Force, is still in hiding in Afghanistan.
“They’re not just breaking their promise to us – they’re breaking us,” he says.
Getty ImagesThe BBC has seen letters from the United Nations confirming his role, as well as a letter endorsing his asylum claim by a Lt Colonel in the US Air Force. The endorsement adds that he provided advice on strikes targeting militants linked to both the Taliban and the Islamic State group.
Babak can’t understand the president’s decision, given that he worked alongside US troops. “We risked our lives because of those missions. Now we’re in grave danger,” he says.
He has been moving his wife and young son from location to location, desperately trying to stay hidden. He claims his brother was tortured for his whereabouts. The BBC cannot verify this part of his story, given the nature of his claims.
Babak is appealing to Trump and his National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to change their minds.
“Mike Waltz, you served in Afghanistan. Please encourage the president,” he tells us.
Before saying goodbye, he adds: “The one ray of light we’ve been holding onto has been extinguished.”
Ahmad managed to fly out to the US amid the chaos of the withdrawal but is now separated from his family. He felt he had no choice but to leave his father, mother and teenage siblings behind.
If he and his father had not worked with the US, he says, his family would not be targets of the Taliban government. “I can’t sleep knowing I’m one of the reasons they’re in this situation,” he adds.
Before the Taliban takeover, Ahmad worked for a non-profit called Open Government Partnership (OGP), co-founded by the US 13 years ago and headquartered in Washington. He says the work he’s proudest of is establishing a special court to address abuses against women.
But he claims his work at OGP and his advocacy for women made him a target and he was shot by Taliban fighters in 2021 before the Taliban took over the country.
The BBC has seen a letter from a hospital in Pennsylvania assessing “evidence of injury from bullet and bullet fragments” which they say is “consistent with his account of what happened to him in Kabul”.
Getty ImagesMaking matters worse, he says his family is also in danger because his father was a colonel with the Afghan army and assisted the CIA. The BBC has seen a certificate, provided by the Afghan National Security Forces, thanking his father for his service.
Ahmad says the Taliban government has harassed his parents, brothers and sisters, so they fled to Pakistan. The BBC has seen photos showing Ahmad’s father and brother being treated in a hospital for injuries he claims were inflicted by people from the Taliban government.
His family had completed several steps of the resettlement programme. He says he even provided evidence that he has enough funds to support his family once they arrive in the US, without any government help.
Now Ahmad says the situation is critical. His family are in Pakistan on visas that will expire within months. He has contacted the IOM and has been told to “be patient”.
The head of #AfghanEvac, a non-profit group helping eligible Afghan refugees resettle, said he estimated 10,000-15,000 people were in the late stages of their applications.
Mina, who is pregnant, has been waiting for a flight out of Islamabad for six months. She worries her terror will threaten her unborn child. “If I lose the baby, I’ll kill myself,” she told the BBC.
She says she used to protest for women’s rights, even after the Taliban government took control of Afghanistan. She claims she was arrested in 2023 and detained overnight.
“Even then I didn’t want to leave Afghanistan. I went into hiding after my release, but they called me and said next time, they’d kill me,” she says.
Mina worries the Pakistani government will send her back to Afghanistan. That’s partly because Pakistan will not grant Afghan refugees asylum indefinitely.
The country has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees from its neighbour, over decades of instability in the region. According to the UN refugee agency, the country hosts three million Afghan nationals, about 1.4 million of whom are documented.
As cross-border tensions with the Taliban government have flared, there has been growing concern over the fate of Afghans in Pakistan, with reports of alleged intimidation and detentions. The UN special rapporteur has said he’s concerned and Afghans in the region deserve better treatment.
Pakistan’s government says it is expelling foreign nationals who are in the country illegally back to Afghanistan and confirmed search raids were conducted in January.
According to the IOM, more than 795,000 Afghans have been expelled from Pakistan since last September.
The Afghan refugees we’ve spoken to feel caught between a homeland where their lives are in danger, and a host country whose patience is running out.
They had been pinning their hopes on the US – but what seemed a safe harbour has been abruptly blocked off by the new president until further notice.
Entertainment Correspondent
Lol Crawley/Universal PicturesThe Brutalist tells the story of Hungarian immigrant and holocaust survivor László Tóth, who is trying to rebuild his life in post-war America through his work as an architect.
Oscar winner Adrien Brody delved deep into his own family history for his portrayal of the character, reflecting on his mother and grandparents’ experiences in fleeing their native Hungary, which after World War Two was becoming a satellite state of the Soviet Union.
“The wonderful thing is, it’s an opportunity for me to honour my ancestral struggles – my mother and my grandparents’ hardships and loss in fleeing Hungary in the ’50s and emigrating to the United States.
“[It’s] very moving to be reminded of the details and hardships that they experienced that very much parallel the lived experience of my character,” Brody says.
The actor says his character’s drive to create also reflects his own path as an actor.
“Any artistic person, I think, can relate to the struggle and yearnings to leave, create a body of work and leave behind something of great meaning,” he says.
‘Epic length’
The relationships in the film might be intimate and personal, but they’re set against a backdrop that is in so many ways epic – not least its running time. It clocks in at over three-and-a-half hours – something that might put off some moviegoers.
But director Brady Corbet believes The Brutalist’s length really shouldn’t deter audiences.
“For me, I think that the length of a movie is similar to the length of a book, a double album, a painting with a big canvas.
“I love small portraits and I love Anselm Kiefer (a German artist known for his large-scale installations). There’s a space for both of them, you know. And at the end of the day, especially because the film has an intermission, it’s only 100 minutes on each side, so it’s not so bad.”
Lol Crawley/Universal PicturesFelicity Jones, who plays his wife, Erzsébet, says she spends a huge amount of time looking for realistic female characters who are more than just weak offshoots of their husbands.
“I spend most of my life foraging through scripts, trying to find decent characters to play. That’s a huge part of it,” she explains.
“I have to find someone who has some kind of spunk, or has some fight in them. Some sense of defiance is so key, so when I read the script it was an absolute no-brainer.
“I thought this woman is tremendous. But… they are few and far between, for sure. When you get something like this, you just grab it with both hands.”
Lol Crawley/Universal PicturesIn the film, Tóth is hired by rich industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren to design and build a vast project as a tribute to his late mother. Van Buren, played by Guy Pearce, is a man who is in awe of the architect’s talent. A useful parallel, then, for the actor.
“I suppose so,” admits the Australian. “I really admire Adrien and his work. I think he’s an extraordinary actor.
“It was really interesting the way Adrien played his role. He plays a man who has almost more sense of self than Van Buren does, which was a great thing for me to work off because I think Van Buren, even though he admires László, he probably is patronising of him.
“He probably expects him to be more subservient than he is, so it was a great dynamic between the two of us.”
Lol Crawley/Universal PicturesOn Thursday, the film was nominated for 10 Oscars, including a best-actor nomination for Brody. Even before the Academy Awards shortlists were announced, Brody said how thankful he was for the reception the film had received from awards bodies.
“I’m just really grateful and I’m very appreciative of having had a chance to flourish in a work that I’ve dedicated a life towards. And when that is received with respect and appreciation. It’s very rewarding.”
The Brutalist is released in cinemas on 24 January
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