Durham Stick Makers, based in Fence Houses, has been awarded £1,836 from the Banks Community Fund to purchase specialist equipment that will help grow its membership and continue teaching the traditional craft of stick making.

The group meets twice weekly at the Fence Houses Community Centre and is the only club of its kind in the North East.

Members range in age from their 20s to their 90s and come from across County Durham and the wider region.

Michael Timmins, secretary of Durham Stick Makers, said: “Our group was born out of a desire to keep this endangered heritage craft alive, and our aim is to preserve it, educate future generations about it and engage with the local community.

“The social side of what we do is also really valuable, with the chance to spend time in a welcoming environment a couple of times a week being especially important for the well-being of many of our older members.

“As a small community group, we don’t really have the cash available to make a capital purchase like this in one go.

“Having the Banks Group’s support is going to make a real difference to our long-term future, and we’d love to see more people coming along to our classes and workshops in the coming months.”

The club is working to raise membership to at least 50 by next year, through evolving links with a number of Durham University colleges.

The grant has funded three new sets of frames, which are used to prepare the materials before work on carving them begins and will give them more capacity to accommodate the new members they are looking to attract.

The club teaches and promotes the heritage craft of constructing traditional walking sticks, canes and shepherds’ crooks from timber, animal horn and antlers—a skill which dates back more than 2,000 years.

Members have made a number of items for King Charles, Queen Camilla and the Duke of Northumberland.

They also carry out stick repairs for a nominal fee and offer charitable help to people who require a walking stick due to injury, age-related disabilities and financial difficulties.

Beyond its craft work, the group provides a valuable source of companionship and social interaction for members, especially those who may otherwise feel isolated.

Mr Timmins said attracting younger members is key to ensuring the tradition continues.

He said: “Giving a craft like stick making a sustainable future means gaining younger people’s interest in it, giving them the chance to learn all about it from those who have the knowledge they need and providing the equipment they need to put their learning into action.”

Kate Culverhouse, community relations manager at the Banks Group, said: “Incredible levels of skill and craftsmanship go into making these wonderful creations and it’s a pleasure to see these local experts at work.

“The Durham Stick Makers have a real commitment to pass their knowledge on to future generations and we’re very pleased to be supporting their drive towards doing so.”

The Banks Group’s community funds are independently managed by Point North, formerly known as the County Durham Community Foundation.

Anyone from a community close to a Banks Group project who is interested in applying for funding from the Banks Community Fund should contact the company via its website enquiry form to find out if their group or project is eligible.

Known for her roles in Coronation Street, Waterloo Road and Casualty, Angela Griffin is directing Blue Lights series four as filming gets underway in Belfast

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Filming for the fourth series of Blue Lights is now in full swing, as confirmed by director Angela Griffin.

The accomplished actress, recognised for her work in Coronation Street, Waterloo Road, Casualty, and Lewis, is well-versed in front of the camera.

Now, she’s stepping back behind it to direct the fourth instalment of the acclaimed BBC One drama, having thoroughly enjoyed her involvement in series three.

Since its debut in 2023, the BAFTA award-winning series has proven to be a massive success for the broadcaster, with a fourth series already commissioned.

The show’s gritty storylines, unexpected twists, portrayal of post-conflict Northern Ireland, and endearing ensemble of main characters have captivated audiences nationwide. Griffin herself was a devoted fan long before joining the production, reports the Mirror.

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READ MORE: Blue Lights character set to return from the dead in series fourREAD MORE: Blue Lights series four plot revealed as filming begins in Belfast

Taking to Instagram at the weekend, Angela shared a photograph of herself proudly clutching her director’s clapperboard, writing: “Week one done.#BlueLights4 It’s cold, it’s windy, it’s cold, it’s rainy and it’s cold. But it’s brilliant. Firmly back in the saddle and loving it.

“Directing has three parts, the prep, the shoot and the edit… each one allows you to craft the story… but my favourite will always be the shoot, regardless of the weather.

“Being part of the crew, collaborating with cast and realising all the visuals we’ve discussed and planned for weeks is magical. It’s always better than I’ve imagined. Roll on week 2. #directorslife.”

**For the latest showbiz, TV, movie and streaming news, go to the new **Everything Gossip** website**

Angela’s announcement generated enthusiastic responses from her followers, with one fan commenting: “Love it! ! It’s going to be another unbelievable series xx.”

Another chimed in: “We can’t wait for the next series of Blue Lights.”

A third person remarked: “Just finished the last series, very late to the party. It was BRILLIANT. Delighted you’re working on the next.”

Someone else expressed: “Can’t wait to see the next series.”

Despite having previously helmed episodes of Waterloo Road, a programme where she also featured prominently on-screen, Angela still considers herself a “proper baby” in the directing sphere.

Speaking to Radio Times recently, she explained: “I’ve acted for over 30 years but I am so new to the [directing] industry. So there’s nobody anywhere offering me anything. I’ve got to go through the process. I suppose there’s a slight thing of, ‘Does she know what she’s doing?’.

“I was really, really worried about what I had taken on and if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. But then, when the process started, it felt like the most natural thing I’ve ever done.

“Regarding her Blue Lights directing role, the opportunity followed a standard recruitment procedure, regardless of her established reputation in British television.”

There were no favours. There was no getting in round the back route of ‘Oh, I know this person, or I know this person’ – I didn’t know anybody at all and I’d never worked in Belfast,” Angela revealed.

Blue Lights is available to watch on BBC iPlayer

The family that saved the pub from demolition still run it today

After a long walk through the Cambridgeshire countryside, there is nothing better than visiting a cosy pub and enjoying a pint with family and friends. The county is lucky to have so many wonderful pubs to try out but for you next trip, you might want to visit this particular pub found in the tiny village of Newton.

The Financial Times recently released a list of the cosiest pubs in Britain including the Queen’s Head in Newton. The pub dates back to the 1700s and was saved in 1962 from demolition by the Short family, who still run it to this day.

The Queen’s Head features a games room with a darts board and bar billiards and a pub bar with the original settle and a wood burner. The pub also has a cosy Saloon Bar that has a large open fire and the Old Bar, which was the pub’s bar back in the 1700s.

The pub has been decorated with “a quirky collection of paintings and taxidermy” that only add to its charm. As well as being a good option for the wintertime, the pub also has a terrace at the front and a beer garden for the summer.

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The Queen’s Head is most well known for being the “brown soup pub”. The pub sells a different soup each day that can be identified using various shades of brown and are said to be “crammed full of fresh veggies and is homemade every day”.

As well as soup, the pub also serves sandwiches and its own ploughman’s on certain days of the week. You can also find a range of different food vans just outside the pub on Wednesday nights such as Steak & Honour and Pizza Mondo.

In terms of drinks, the Queen’s Head is known for its real ale that is served “straight from the barrel on our own custom-made stillage”. The pub also has a range of wines from Noel Young Wines and gins from Jakes Gin, which is distilled in Chrishall.

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On the pub, the Financial Times said: “When you pay a visit to this time capsule of a freehouse 20 minutes’ drive south of Cambridge – preferably on a brisk winter afternoon after a good dog walk – turn left into the coddling warmth of the saloon.

“There you’ll find tables just a smidgen too small and real ale from Adnams in Suffolk poured straight from the cask. Ask the third-generation landlord Rob Short what colour the soup is today, and bathe in the glow as you dip your beef and horseradish sandwich in it.”

The Queen’s Head can be found on Fowlmere Road. The pub is open from 12pm to 2.30pm and 6pm to 10pm on Tuesdays, from 12pm to 2.30pm and 5pm to 10pm on Wednesdays to Thursdays, from 12pm to 2.30pm and 5pm to 10.30pm on Fridays, from 12pm to 3pm and 5pm to 10.30pm on Saturdays, and from 12pm to 4pm on Sundays.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump wants to keep home prices high, bypassing calls to ramp up construction so people can afford what has been a ticket to the middle class.

Trump has instead argued for protecting existing owners who have watched the values of their homes climb. It’s a position that flies in the face of what many economists, the real estate industry, local officials and apartment dwellers say is needed to fix a big chunk of America’s affordability problem.

“I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes, and they can be assured that’s what’s going to happen,” Trump told his Cabinet on Jan. 29.

That approach could bolster the Republican president’s standing with older voters, a group that over time has been more likely to vote in midterm elections. Those races in November will determine whether Trump’s party can retain control of the House and Senate.

“You have a lot of people that have become wealthy in the last year because their house value has gone up,” Trump said. “And you know, when you get the housing — when you make it too easy and too cheap to buy houses — those values come down.”

But by catering to older baby boomers on housing, Trump risks alienating the younger voters who expanded his coalition in 2024 and helped him win a second term, and he could wade into a “generational war” in the midterms, said Brent Buchanan, whose polling firm Cygnal advises Republicans.

“The under-40 group is the most important right now — they are the ones who put Trump in the White House,” Buchanan said. “Their desire to show up in an election or not is going to make the difference in this election. If they feel that Donald Trump is taking care of the boomers at their expense, that is going to hurt Republicans.”

The logic in appealing to older voters

In the 2024 presidential election, 81% of Trump’s voters were homeowners, according to AP VoteCast data. This means many of his supporters already have mortgages with low rates or own their homes outright, possibly blunting the importance of housing as an issue.

Older voters tend to show up to vote more than do younger people, said Oscar Pocasangre, a senior data analyst at liberal think tank New America who has studied the age divide in U.S. politics. “However, appealing to older voters may prove to be a misguided policy if what’s needed to win is to expand the voting base,” Pocasangre said.

Before the 2026 elections, voters have consistently rated affordability as a top concern, and that is especially true for younger voters with regard to housing.

Booker Lightman, 30, a software engineer in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, who identifies politically as a libertarian Republican, said the shortage of housing has been a leading problem in his state.

Lightman just closed on a home last month, and while he and his wife, Alice, were able to manage the cost, he said that the lack of construction is pushing people out of Colorado. “There’s just not enough housing supply,” he said.

Shay Hata, a real estate agent in the Chicago and Denver areas, said she handles about 100 to 150 transactions a year. But she sees the potential for a lot more. “We have a lack of inventory to the point where most properties, particularly in the suburbs, are getting between five and 20 offers,” she said, describing what she sees in the Chicago area.

New construction could help more people afford homes because in some cases, buyers qualify for discounted mortgage rates from the builders’ preferred lenders, Hata said. She called the current situation “very discouraging for buyers because they’re getting priced out of the market.”

But pending construction has fallen under Trump. Permits to build single-family homes have plunged 9.4% over the past 12 months in October, the most recent month available, to an annual rate of 876,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Trump’s other ideas to help people buy houses

Trump has not always been against increasing housing supply.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump’s team said he would create tax breaks for homebuyers, trim regulations on construction, open up federal land for housing developments and make monthly payments more manageable by cutting mortgage rates. Advisers also claimed that housing stock would open up because of Trump’s push for mass deportations of people who were in the United States illegally.

As recently as October, Trump urged builders to ramp up construction. “They’re sitting on 2 Million empty lots, A RECORD. I’m asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get Big Homebuilders going and, by so doing, help restore the American Dream!” Trump posted on social media, referring to the government-backed lenders.

But more recently, he has been unequivocal on not wanting to pursue policies that would boost supply and lower prices.

In office, Trump has so far focused his housing policy on lobbying the Federal Reserve to cut its benchmark interest rates. He believes that would make mortgages more affordable, although critics say it could spur higher inflation. Trump announced that the two mortgage companies, which are under government conservatorship, would buy at least $200 billion in home loan securities in a bid to reduce rates.

Trump also wants Congress to ban large financial institutions from buying homes. But he has rejected suggestions for expanding rules to let buyers use 401(k) retirement accounts for down payments, telling reporters that he did not want people to take their money out of the stock market because it was doing so well.

There are signs that lawmakers in both parties see the benefits of taking steps to add houses before this year’s elections. There are efforts in the Senate and House to jump-start construction through the use of incentives to change zoning restrictions, among other policies.

One of the underlying challenges on affordability is that home prices have been generally rising faster than incomes for several years.

This makes it harder to save for down payments or upgrade to a nicer home. It also means that the places where people live increasingly double as their key financial asset, one that leaves many families looking moneyed on paper even if they are struggling with monthly bills.

There is another risk for Trump. If the economy grows this year, as he has promised, that could push up demand for houses — as well as their prices — making the affordability problem more pronounced, said Edward Pinto, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank.

Pinto said construction of single-family homes would have to rise by 50% to 100% during the next three years for average home price gains to be flat — a sign, he said, that Trump’s fears about falling home prices were probably unwarranted.

“It’s very hard to crater home prices,” Pinto said.

The application by TCC Land Limited and Jollie Hollies Company Limited envisages the development would take place on an 12 hectare site currently used for agricultural purposes south of Stokesley Road and also describes plans for associated road infrastructure.

Approval at this stage would mean the principle of development had been established, allowing a developer to bring forward more detailed plans.

Dozens of objections have so far been raised with Redcar and Cleveland Council which has yet to determine the application, but has deemed the proposal to be in the ‘major’ category.

Guisborough Town Council has also objected, stating the scheme would be contrary to various elements of planning policy.

It said it was outside the development limits of Guisborough and also highlighted the site’s proximity to the North York Moors National Park.

Guisborough ward councillor Bill Suthers made similar points in his objection, stating the planned housing would extend beyond the residential boundary of Guisborough as defined by the council’s Local Plan.

He also said it would “negatively impact” on the national park setting and have the same impact on improvements to the Guisbrough Forest Walkway, in Pinchinthorpe. 

A design and access statement compiled on behalf of the applicant, accompanying the submission, said the development proposals could make a significant contribution to addressing local housing needs.

It said it would be a “high-quality and inherently sustainable neighbourhood of 117 dwellings, providing a variance of family homes”.

The site offered “excellent opportunities for the creation of a distinctive residential neighbourhood set within an attractive framework of open space and landscape”.

An excellent range of local facilities and services lay nearby in Guisborough, the statement said, as well as access to Middlesbrough and Nunthorpe via the A171.

It said a “key entrance” to be created on the northern boundary would comfortably accommodate cars, pedestrians and bicycles and be capable of servicing the site and providing a link to neighbouring communities.

Streets in the development  would be supplemented by a number of hard and soft public spaces, alongside a network of pedestrian and cycle routes and existing public rights of way.

The statement also said existing hedgerow and trees that run along the perimeter of, and through, the site will be retained where possible and enhanced. 

Redcar and Cleveland Council is having to navigate Government targets which last year determined more than 600 new homes should be built and completed in the borough each year, a 156 per cent increase on the previous 234.

Council chiefs have said the target is achievable if the right sites are allocated for development, but the authority will also have to demonstrate a five year supply in order that the target can be delivered, something that will not be possible until the adoption of a new Local Plan, expected some time in 2027.

This could lead to a “corridor of uncertainty” whereby would-be developers submit applications on unallocated land.

Last June the council issued a “call for sites” writing letters to landowners in the borough with about 100 submissions being received and subject to initial assessment.

Current housing completion targets, which extend over 15 years, mean the council could have to plan for as many as 10,000 new homes – the size of a small town – which would represent a 16% increase in the borough’s housing stock.

Lindsey Vonn’s Olympic comeback ended in heartbreak as she was airlifted to hospital after crashing in the early stages of her women’s downhill run

Lindsey Vonn is ‘stable’ in hospital after enduring a horror crash on her Olympic return in the women’s downhill. Vonn was airlifted to hospital after crashing in the early stages of her women’s downhill run in Cortina.

The American damaged her ACL when falling in a World Cup contest at Crans-Montana just over a week ago. However, she was determined to compete in Sunday’s event at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre.

Starting as the 13th skier, Vonn clipped a gate and somersaulted off the course just seconds into her run, silencing the Cortina crowd. Vonn was on the ground for around 15 minutes before being airlifted off the course, with spectators cheering her as the helicopter flew over.

And in an update released on Sunday evening, Team U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team confirmed: “Lindsey Vonn sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians.”

In a separate update, Vonn’s sister, Karin Kildow, told USA Today: “I mean, that definitely was the last thing we wanted to see and it happened quick and when that happens, you’re just immediately hoping she’s okay.

“And it was scary because when you start to see the stretchers being put out, it’s not a good sign. But she really … she just dared greatly and she put it all out there. So it’s really hard to see but we just really hope she’s okay.

“She does have all of her surgeons and her PT staff here and her doctors, so I’m sure they’ll give us a report and we’ll meet her at whatever hospital she’s at.”

After a lengthy delay while the course remained closed, Vonn’s fellow American Breezy Johnson secured Team USA’s first medal of the Winter Olympics, finishing in 1:36:10 to take gold – the first American to do so since Vonn herself.

And speaking afterwards, Johnson said: “My heart goes out to her (Vonn). I hope it’s not as bad as it looked.

“I know how difficult it is to ski this course and how sometimes, because you love this course so much, when you crash on it and hurts you like that, it hurts that much worse. My heart just goes out to her.”

Another team-mate, fourth-placed Jacqueline Wiles, said: “I’m still processing a lot, after what happened with Lindsey. She looks hurt quite a bit. So I’m really happy, proud of Breezy and my heart hurts for Lindsey.

“It sucks for her. We’re such a tight group. Lindsey has really been a huge mentor for all of us and seeing her go down like that, it really sucks.

“It doesn’t change anything about her legacy. She’s a fighter and that’s the way that she’s going to go out and ski every time.”

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Sky has slashed the price of its Essential TV and Sky Sports bundle for the 2025/26 season, saving members £336 and offering more than 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more.

Sky will show at least 215 live Premier League games this season, an increase of up to 100 more.

In moments of creeping authoritarianism, culture sometimes reacts faster than institutions. Bruce Springsteen’s rush-released song in the wake of killings of two Minneapolis residents by agents of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was not just an act of commentary, but a deliberate intervention in public discourse.

Streets of Minneapolis operates as an alarm signal, its directness placing it in the public square, where naming and narration carry political weight. What also distinguishes Streets of Minneapolis is not just its fidelity to the tradition of the protest song, but its mode of circulation as a rapid response in the digital age.

This is Springsteen at his most declarative, operating not in the interior emotional space of the confessional singer-songwriter but in the outward-facing register of public address. His specificity – naming people, streets, organisations and the “winter of ’26” – marks the song as political communication rather than personal reflection.

His framing of the killings involves a shift from individual tragedies towards a shared civic injury. The repeated invocation of “our Minneapolis” performs rhetorical work, translating private loss into a shared collective experience and situating it as a wider public concern that extends beyond the city itself.

That movement from the individual to the collective places Streets of Minneapolis within a wider lineage of protest song, creating narratives out of real events so they can be remembered and acted upon. In this sense, the song does not simply respond to politics, but actively participates in political thought and action. “We’ll take a stand” is not a metaphorical flourish but a direct appeal.

Springsteen makes this lineage explicit through the early acoustic section, replete with insistent harmonica, and a vocal delivery and intonation that consciously signal Bob Dylan’s early protest music. Structurally, too, Springsteen’s call to action echoes Dylan works like The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll – moral force emerging through the accumulation of detail and reportage.

While Dylan’s later career moved away from direct protest toward the personal and allegorical, Springsteen here leans into that more direct mode of storytelling. It follows the protest song logic whereby narration becomes an engine of persuasion, reshaping contemporary events into historical record.

The reference carries added resonance given Dylan’s Minnesota roots, serving as a reminder that place, memory and music have long been intertwined in American protest culture.

Springsteen quotes himself, too, both musically and thematically, with a clear nod in the title to Streets of Philadelphia and a closing musical call-back to Born in the USA, its own tub-thumping aesthetic belying the portrait of a disillusioned Vietnam veteran in the lyrics.

These are not just nostalgic gestures but also markers of continuity. By folding earlier works into this new song, he situates the current moment within a longer trajectory of American struggle, via musical linkages between himself and Dylan – and Woody Guthrie before that.

Digital circulation and rapid response

Where protest songs once depended on live performance, radio play and physical distribution, they now travel through platforms. Within hours of release, Streets of Minneapolis was embedded in news coverage, shared across social media and dissected in comment threads and reaction videos.

Listeners encounter it not only as a song but as a reference point to be reposted, quoted, argued or aligned with. In that process, its energy comes less from a single, fixed message than from how it is used, repeated and spread through ongoing conversations.

This dynamic places protest music alongside other contemporary forms of political communication, particularly those shaped by meme culture and the logic of the online platforms through which much creative work is experienced. Short excerpts, lyrical fragments and recognisable musical cues circulate easily across feeds, videos and posts, where they are paired with captions, visuals and commentary.

In recent election cycles, for instance, music has functioned less as a background soundtrack or simple celebrity endorsement than as material that can be repurposed – looped in clips, used ironically, set against images, or mobilised to signal approval or dissent. In this environment, music functions as a part of the communicative infrastructure, enabling participation as much as persuasion.

This also comes amid growing political conflict around culture itself. While there is a longer history of public disputes between the Trump administrations and the artistic community, these tensions have recently escalated into direct interventions, including the cancellation of shows and the temporary closure of the Kennedy Center, pointing to an environment in which music and performance are increasingly politicised and directly entangled with power.

Seen in this context, Streets of Minneapolis is both traditional and distinctly contemporary. It draws on the narrative starkness and moral framing of folk protest, but gains traction through digital circulation. The killings in Minneapolis of Renée Good and Alex Pretti were the immediate catalyst, but the song’s significance lies in how it carries that moment forward.

As authoritarian power shifts gear, from creeping practice to open and violent assertion, the protest song adjusts its form and reach. Streets of Minneapolis reflects that transition, drawing on Springsteen’s longstanding role as a public narrator of American life. It can’t halt state action, but it can help to prevent it from going unnoticed and unrecorded.

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The Manchester Evening News looks back on cases before our region this week

An asylum seeker who sexually assaulted a woman is amongst those who have been jailed this week in Greater Manchester.

Tadi Alemeyeha grabbed the woman and tried to kiss her before making a ‘cut-throat’ gesture to stop her from reporting him.

Also locked up this week was a sneaky accountant who stole £130k from her company in the form of unauthorised overtime, unauthorised credit card use and petty cash.

And a cocky thug who got a dressing down from a judge after laughing his way through his sentencing hearing.

Prison terms are handed out to the worst offenders each week. And Manchester Evening News reporters are on hand to cover the most serious cases.

Here is a roundup of the cases heard before our courts this week:

Nicola Clarke

A head accountant for a top firm has been jailed after defrauding the company out of nearly £130,000. Nicola Clarke, 56, had been working for Business Computer Projects Ltd since 1987 and went on to be promoted to the head of accounts.

She held sole responsibility for all the financial aspects of the company, Minshull Street Crown Court heard. However, from 2008, she abused her to position to steal from them in three ‘discreet’ ways; by claiming unauthorised overtime payments, stealing petty cash and unauthorised use of the company’s credit card.

The total loss to the company was £128,352. Clarke, of Elm Tree Road, Bredbury, was jailed for 21 months.

Read the full story here: Sneaky bigwig accountant for top firm exposed as fraudster after stealing £130k

Tadi Alemeyeha

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A man living in a hotel housing asylum seekers sexually assaulted a woman before threatening her and ordering her to stay silent. Tadi Alemeyeha, 23, was living at the Britannia Country House Hotel in Didsbury at the time.

He arrived in the UK a few weeks earlier, a court heard. He initially denied the attack in August, but changed his plea to guilty as he was due to face trial at Minshull Street Crown Court.

He followed the woman before grabbing her as she tried to move away, it was said. Alemeyeha tried to kiss her. When the woman ran off, he put his finger to his lips before making a cut-throat gesture.

Alemeyeha – listed in court documents as living at the Britannia Country House Hotel, Palatine Road – pleaded guilty to sexually assault and was jailed for 18 months. He was ordered to sign the sex offender register for 10 years and slapped with a restraining order.

Read the full story here: Man living in hotel housing asylum seekers sexually assaulted woman before making ‘cut-throat’ gesture

Kai Pritchard

A smirking thug who terrorised his ex-girlfriend was slammed by a judge over his antics in court before he was jailed.

Kai Pritchard, 26, smirked and shook his head as details of the shocking abuse he committed against his former partner was detailed. “I don’t know why you are smiling while in the dock,” Judge Suzanne Goddard KC told Pritchard.

“There’s always two sides to every story though, isn’t there?,” Pritchard replied during an outburst. “Your attitude in court was not impressive,” Judge Goddard told Pritchard, before jailing him for four years and ten months.

Read the full story here: ‘I don’t know why you’re smiling’: Smirking thug’s pathetic courtroom antics

Graham Tardif

A judge blasted a paedophile who continuously shook his head as she jailed him for historic sex offences. Graham Tardif, 78, had been convicted after trial of rape of a girl under 16; three offences of indecent assault of a girl under 14; indecent assault of a girl under 16, sexual assault of a girl by touching and four offences of sexual assault of a girl under 13 by penetration.

Manchester Crown Court that Tardif, of Oldham, had abused the three girls over a 20 year period dating back to the late 1990s. The victims cannot be identified for legal reasons.

Tardif, of Stephenson Street, Failsworth, was jailed for 14 years.

Read the full story here: Judge’s eight word blast as monster who abused three schoolgirls pleads: ‘It’s not right’

Alan Fawcett

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A greedy loan shark who ran an illegal ‘payday loan scheme’ targeted vulnerable people and left them ‘living in fear’ when they were unable to pay back the high-interest funds.

Alan Fawcett claimed he ran a business on an online marketplace, buying and selling games consoles and TVs. He was actually handing out around £100,000 in loans to people in Greater Manchester, receiving an estimated £130,000 back in repayments over a two-year period.

When borrowers struggled to repay what they had borrowed – often charged with at least 50 per cent interest – the crook went on to threaten them, leaving some ‘living in fear’ for themselves and their families, Bolton Crown Court heard on Wednesday (February 4). One of the borrowers said they isolated themselves, ‘still close the blinds and don’t leave the house’.

Fawcett, 54 of Warrington Road, Ince, Wigan, was sentenced to four years in jail for money laundering and 18 months for illegal money lending.

Read the full story here: He said he ran an online business selling TVs, Xboxes and PlayStations – he left people ‘frightened for their children’s safety’

Jason Cunliffe

A serial robber lay in wait before pouncing on vulnerable women across Manchester. Ten separate incidents were recorded between August 17 and September 3 last year in Salford, Manchester and Bury.

It was reported to offers that a man had approached lone women in public spaces before forcibly stealing their handbags and belongings. He would often drag the victims to the ground and wrestle them during the robberies before fleeing on foot.

A search of a suspect’s home later revealed the man behind the crimes was Jason Cunliffe.

Cunliffe, of Wilton Road in Crumpsall, was jailed for 14 years.

Read the full story here: He preyed on women and pounced time and again

Adam Wood

A drug addict robbed a vulnerable disabled man and stole hundreds of pounds from him after exploiting his kindness.

Adam Wood, 35, ordered his victim to transfer £1,400 after turning up at his home in Eccles, Salford. Even after the man had allowed Wood to stay at his flat, Wood became physically aggressive and attacked him with the crutch he uses to get around.

At one point Wood picked up a knife and threatened to ‘slice him up’, Manchester Crown Court heard. Wood was sentenced to five years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to robbery; threatening a person with a bladed article; and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Read the full story here: ‘If I have to come back, I’ll kill you’: Drug addicted thug’s chilling words to disabled man as he threatened to slit his throat

Michael Harvey

A detective used police systems to track a woman he met in ASDA and convince her to go on a date with him before he began manipulating and controlling her, a court has heard.

Michael Harvey met the victim by chance at the supermarket in Rawtenstall back in 2012 before going on to use the police computer systems illegitimately, inputting her car registration plate to find out personal details about her, including her landline number.

The victim reported the offences to the police in July 2022 and the 64-year-old was arrested at his home in Eskdale, Skelmersdale, on October 9, 2023. He later pleaded guilty to engaging in controlling and coercive behaviour between December 2015 and July 2016. He also previously pleaded guilty to unauthorised access to computer material. He was cleared of three counts of rape after a separate trial in 2025.

The former officer worked as a detective in Lancashire Police’s Sexual Offenders Management Unit at the time of the offending before retiring from the Force in 2018. Appearing at Preston Session’s House on Thursday (February 5), he was jailed for 30 months and given a ten-year restraining order.

Read the full story here: Downfall of vile detective after meeting woman at ASDA

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