Manchester United’s squad are in Dublin, Ireland ahead of their penultimate pre-season fixture against Leeds at Croke Park

Manchester United centre-back Harry Maguire has praised academy defender Dan Armer for his performances during this summer’s pre-season. Due to the World Cup, United have relied upon a number of teenagers from the academy to fill gaps in the first-team squad – some of whom arrived as unknowns to supporters.

As pre-season has progressed, a number of academy players have dropped out of the travelling squads. The likes of Chido Obi, Jacob Devaney, Toby Collyer and Dan Gore have not featured since the win over Rosenborg while JJ Gabriel did not travel to Gothenburg to face Paris Saint-Germain on Saturday. However, one constant has been Armer.

He was an unused substitute against the Champions League holders but did have a brief cameo against Atletico Madrid, the week before. Speaking to United’s website, Maguire praised the teenager who has yet to make a senior, competitive appearance for the club. “I think Dan’s been brilliant,” the experienced centre-back said.

“18 years old, playing in tough games and playing for this club for the first time. He’s been magnificent at centre-back and, hopefully, he can continue to progress, keep enjoying working with us. There have been so many good performances from the younger boys.”

“The one thing in pre-season is that, if you’re a young lad, you get given opportunities,” Maguire added. “And I must say, the young boys came back really, really fit, all looking really sharp, every one of them.

“The running tests on the first day, they all blew everyone away. They were really in great condition, all of them, so great credit to them.”

Next up for United is a clash with Leeds at Croke Park. “We’ve got a great game on Wednesday against Leeds, which we always know is a big game, whether it’s a friendly or not,” he concluded. “So that’s one we’re looking forward to.

“Our Irish fans, they’re unbelievable, so it’s great to see them. We know that they’re going to be in full support in the stadium against Leeds.”

After Leeds, the Reds will play one final pre-season fixture against AC Milan in Wroclaw, Poland on Saturday. United then begin their Premier League campaign away at Hull City the following week on August 22.

By TOM LAWRENCE, NEWS REPORTER

Published: 07:42 BST, 11 August 2026 | Updated: 11:57 BST, 11 August 2026

A murder investigation has been launched after a 25-year-old man was shot dead in a suspected gang attack outside a London pub last night.

Emergency services raced to The Landor pub in Clapham at around 10pm, where a man was found outside suffering from gunshot wounds.

Despite paramedics arriving within three minutes, he was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Another man, 22, self-referred to hospital with a gunshot wound shortly after the attack. 

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He was subsequently arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and remains in hospital.

The victim’s family is being supported by specialist officers. 

Witnesses describe hearing three gunshots outside the pub while terrified residents said they heard loud ‘bangs’.

One resident told London Now: ‘It was shortly after 10pm and I heard lots of sirens, and I heard bangs – I think it was five or something.

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‘And then I said “do you think they were gunshots?”‘

Another resident said she now wants to move out of London, fearing for the safety of  her two-year-old grandson growing up in the city.

She said the sirens eventually quietened down but was ‘horrified’ by what she had heard. 

Willington Road has been closed and cordoned off while forensics teams investigate this morning. 

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Police and paramedics outside the Landor pub in Clapham on Monday night

An area outside the Landor pub in Clapham has been cordoned off while forensics teams investigate

Detective Chief Superintendent Emma Bond, Central South Borough Commander, said: ‘We understand that incident will cause concern within the local community and an increased police presence will remain in the area throughout the day as our enquiries continue. Our thoughts remain with the victim’s family for their tragic loss.

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‘Officers have arrested a man on suspicion of murder, and we are working tirelessly to establish what happened.

‘We are asking anyone with information or anyone who may have witnessed the shooting to please contact us as soon as possible and support the ongoing investigation.’

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: ‘We were called at 9.59pm on Monday 10 August to reports of a shooting on Landor Road.

‘We sent resources to the scene including an ambulance crew, an incident response officer and paramedics in fast response cars. We also dispatched a trauma team in a car from London’s Air Ambulance.

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‘Our first paramedics arrived in three minutes.

‘Sadly, despite the best efforts of our crews, a man was pronounced dead at the scene.’

Clapham, an affluent south-west London suburb which is home to wealthy residents and young professionals, has been rocked by violence in recent years. 

Last month, one man was killed and four more were injured in a stabbing in Clapham.

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Police were called to the nearby Tremadoc Road in the early hours of July 25. Six men were arrested on suspicion of murder.

Last year, a 27-year-old man was shot dead on New Park Road in Clapham.

Kyrone Moodie was one of two men shot in the attack on Monday, September 8, 2025.

A 20-year-old man was injured and taken to hospital.

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The Metropolitan Police and London Ambulance Service have been contacted for comment. 

Police have launched a murder investigation after a 25-year-old man was killed in a shooting outside a pub in London.

Emergency services were called to the scene following reports of gunshots being fired on Willington Road in Clapham just before 10pm on Monday evening, the Metropolitan Police said.

Paramedics arrived within three minutes, but the man was later pronounced dead at the scene, according to London Ambulance Service.

A 22-year-old man later presented at hospital with a gunshot wound and has been arrested on suspicion of murder, police said. He remains in hospital.

Pictures show a visible police presence outside the pub on Tuesday morning, with a white forensics tent in place.

The exact circumstances surrounding the incident are not yet clear.

Detective Chief Superintendent Emma Bond, central south borough commander said: “We understand that incident will cause concern within the local community and an increased police presence will remain in the area throughout the day as our enquiries continue. Our thoughts remain with the victim’s family for their tragic loss.

“Officers have arrested a man on suspicion of murder, and we are working tirelessly to establish what happened.

“We are asking anyone with information or anyone who may have witnessed the shooting to please contact us as soon as possible and support the ongoing investigation.”

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “We were called at 9:59pm on Monday 10 August to reports of a shooting on Landor Road, SW9.

“We sent resources to the scene including an ambulance crew, an incident response officer and paramedics in fast response cars. We also dispatched a trauma team in a car from London’s Air Ambulance.

“Our first paramedics arrived in three minutes. Sadly, despite the best efforts of our crews, a man was pronounced dead at the scene.”

BANGKOK (AP) — A Taiwanese court on Tuesday sentenced a woman who advocated for spouses born in mainland China to seven years in prison, after finding her guilty of conspiring with Chinese government officials and proxies to influence Taiwanese politics.

The court in New Taipei city ruled that Hsu Chun-ying, who was herself born in China, violated the Anti-Infiltration Act for contact with Chinese officials and the Banking Act by transferring 24.5 million New Taiwan Dollars ($760,000) outside of proper banking channels from China.

The case has garnered intense media attention, partly because of Hsu’s identity as a so-called mainland spouse — those born in China who immigrated to Taiwan after marriage. The community has been viewed with suspicion amid rising tensions between China and Taiwan.

Taiwan and China split after a civil war in 1949. China claims the self-governing island as part of its territory, and has sent fighter jets and navy ships to the island on a daily basis as part of military exercises. Taiwan, in response, has focused on strengthening its defense and ramping up its arms purchases.

Taiwan’s government said Hsu’s case involved gaining intelligence for mainland China and influencing Taiwanese politics.

Prosecutors had publicized exchanges between Hsu and a director from the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China, which showed discussions about which political party to support in order to get lawmaker positions for mainland spouses in both the Taipei mayoral election and later the 2024 presidential election.

Hsu moved to Taiwan after getting married and has Taiwanese citizenship. She was briefly considered to be a Taiwan People’s Party legislator candidate, but had backed out owing to questions about her loyalty and affiliation with China.

“I had just wanted to serve New Residents,” she said in 2024, referring to the Taiwanese government’s term for immigrants to the island.

Hsu most recently served as the head of the Cross Straits Marriage and Family Services alliance. The organization was disbanded by Taiwan’s Interior Ministry in May for not holding elections for their directors in time.

Hsu could not be reached for comment.

Taiwanese authorities in March investigated three men for trying to smuggle Super Micro computer servers containing advanced Nvidia chips to China. Last year, a Taiwanese court sentenced four soldiers, including three members of Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s security team, to seven years in prison for giving sensitive information to China.

Histon, just north of Cambridge, has been named the driest location in the UK this year, with residents saying the prolonged dry spell is causing dust-related breathing difficulties and leaving gardens scorched

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Life in Britain’s driest village has been turned upside down by weeks of scorching temperatures and barely any rain, with residents describing the growing impact of the extreme conditions.

Histon, just north of Cambridge, has seen gardens turn brown, ponds shrink and sports grounds become increasingly difficult to maintain as the dry spell continues.

The village recorded 203.6mm of rainfall between January 1 and July 19, according to the Cambridgeshire weather station. That was less than the totals recorded in Shoeburyness, Essex, at 216.2mm, and Weybourne, Norfolk, at 219.2mm.

Cambridgeshire was among seven regions declared to be in drought by the Environment Agency last week, while a hosepipe ban has been in place across the Cambridge Water region since July 9.

And it is not just plants and playing fields feeling the effects.

Residents have described how the heat is affecting older people in particular, with some community activities having to be cancelled and others choosing to stay indoors.

Sally Smith, who manages the Older People’s Team for local charity HI Friends, told The i that the people they support include residents in their eighties and nineties, as well as some who are 100.

“We have people who are mostly in their eighties and nineties and a few who are 100, and they are very at risk from extreme heat. But the knock-on effect of us cancelling activities like lunch club is that their isolation increases and they really miss their activities and their friends.”

The charity runs activities including fitness classes, lunch clubs and shopping trips, but the unpredictable temperatures have made organising them more difficult.

Neil Davies, a parish councillor and charity manager for HI Friends, said: “It’s affected all aspects of the community,” adding that there had been “a real reluctance and a concern from our older residents not to go out of the comfort of their homes.”

The village’s recreation ground has also been forced to adapt to the conditions, with cracks appearing around the cricket wicket strip and tennis courts.

A staff representative from Histon and Impington Parish Council said: “The recreation ground has had to adapt for its sporting fixtures – we are only watering the areas that would cause a health and safety issue.”

There are now fears about whether the football pitch will be fit for the new season without substantial rainfall.

“We are concerned about the football season, unless we get some persistent rain soon, as the ground as it is would not be safe to play on.”

However, residents are also reporting a more personal consequence of the parched conditions.

Julie, a hairdresser in her fifties, told The i that the increase in dust has left people coughing more.

“All the mud has turned to dust and the lawns to straw. All of us are noticing that we’re coughing quite a lot. A lot of people who have got asthma are struggling more.”

The UK Health Security Agency has warned that drought can increase the amount of dust in the environment, which can potentially affect people with existing respiratory conditions. It advises people who use inhalers to carry them during hot and dry periods.

Julie has also been forced to rethink how she looks after her own garden.

“It’s been quite difficult having a large garden and trying to keep it alive.

“Obviously all the lawns are just straw and I’d never water them, but the pots and expensive plants have got to be kept alive, which we’re having to do with water butts.”

She has even been organising “watering parties”, with friends visiting to drink wine and help water her plants.

The extreme heat has also had a knock-on effect on her work. When temperatures reached 35C, seven clients cancelled their hair appointments in a single day.

Elsewhere in Histon, Julie Dunn, 62, said the dry conditions had dramatically changed the appearance of the village.

She said its duck pond was at the “lowest level” she had ever seen.

“It’s a very beautiful area, and it’s very pretty, but it doesn’t look at it’s best – it’s just brown and burnt,” she said.

Julie has been saving water from around her home so she can use it in the garden.

“The dry weather means I’m having to water and be very careful – we have a bucket in the shower, and we save all our grey water, and we use that for the garden. We always put a bucket in when we have a shower to get the excess – washing up water, we always put in the water butt to try and avoid filling our watering cans from the hose.”

The lack of rain is also producing unusual scenes elsewhere in the country.

Footage captured in Greenwich Park showed a dust devil swirling across the grass, picking up dust and hay as it travelled through the park.

Jimmy O’Keeffe, who filmed the phenomenon, said he was “shocked and in total disbelief” when it disturbed his picnic.

He said it lasted several minutes, with some people moving away as it passed and others heard screaming.

Another dust devil was spotted near Leeds Castle in Kent.

The small whirlwinds can form on hot, sunny days when rising air begins rotating and picks up loose material from the ground.

Meanwhile, the Environment Agency has warned that prolonged dry weather is putting pressure on water resources across England, with Cambridgeshire among the areas affected by drought.

NEW YORK (AP) — It happened out of necessity. Academy Award-winner Morgan Freeman was in Clarksdale, Mississippi, 25 years ago when some out-of-towners asked where they could hear blues music. Musicians were abundant; venues were not.

“There was no place where we could guarantee that you could go in and hear it,” he told The Associated Press. “So, we had to establish that.”

Freeman and his business partners, then-Mayor Bill Luckett and Howard Stovall, were inspired to open a juke joint in Clarksdale called Ground Zero Blues Club. Then, much more recently, they created “Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience,” a touring ensemble of blues musicians who marry the beloved Southern genre with classical, symphonic compositions. On Friday, they’ll release an album under the same name.

The legendary actor is a producer and narrator on the release, not a performer. That’s left up to the professionals: all-star acts like Taj Mahal, Keb’ Mo’, Shemekia Copeland, Tiernii Jackson, the Stax Music Academy Choir, the Chineke! Orchestra out of London, and many more.

“I like the blues. I like music. I cannot claim to be an aficionado. That’s not my place,” says Freeman. “I’m an enthusiast, but that’s a necessity.”

From live performances to a full-length record

Before the album, the “Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience” traveling performances were born out of a simple idea: How could Freeman and his team bring this music to the world?

“Blues is an important American story birthed in the Mississippi Delta out of hardship but obviously resonates with people and cultures on a global basis, both for how good it sounds, but also the message underneath it,” said Eric Meier, Freeman’s partner and co-producer on the project who joined the actor’s blues club in 2018. “We conceived of this concept to really take this music to new geographies and new audiences.”

Turning the live performance into an album meant cutting down a nearly two-hour show to around 45 minutes across 12 tracks, while still honoring the format. It includes video vignettes as well as “cinematic narration,” courtesy of Freeman, recorded at the club in Clarksdale.

“We offer a musical story, a 100-year arc from the 1930s to modern day, so the evolution of blues music,” says Meier.

Freeman’s idiosyncratic voice opens the record, describing the genre with a real poetry, delivered atop a haunting rendition of Blind Willie Johnson’s 1927 gospel blues classic, “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground.”

“This is music that gave voice to a people, to their pain, their hope and their resilience,” Freeman recites. “Music isn’t just melody, you know. It’s memory, it’s history wrapped in ribbon, the echoes of lives lived and lost, heartache and hope all tangled together. And nowhere is that truer than in the blues.”

Freeman wants to keep the blues alive

The last song on “Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience” sees singer-songwriter Muddy Waters’ great-nephew Keith Johnson covering Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Göransson’s “I Lied to You” from the Oscar-winning 2025 film “Sinners.” It brings the 100-year story of blues to its coda, but it also serves as a reminder of the film’s ability to bring the genre into mainstream conversation.

That’s something Freeman hopes to accomplish, too. He wants to make sure blues is not forgotten.

“It is a responsibility that we’ve taken on. And the hope is that it, like everything else that catches on, takes root, as it were. You know, the blues is actually America’s music,” he says. “So, it’s incumbent upon us to water it, nurture it, keep it alive, keep it going.”

Meier adds that their album project predates “Sinners” — he says director Ryan Coogler told him the film’s juke joint was partially inspired by Ground Zero Blues Club; the film is set in Clarksdale after all — but it has been “a wonderful coincidence” that both works have the power to bring the blues to the masses.

And maybe one day, “Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience” will receive the same kind of critical praise given to “Sinners.” The album is eligible for the 2027 Grammy Awards.

“We will be submitting in multiple categories,” says Meier. “You got room on your trophy shelf, Morgan?”

“Yeah, yeah. I want it,” Freeman smiles.

Adding Grammy Award-winner to his Academy Award-winner title? “Sounds pretty good to me.”

A family captured video of the moment they fled their home during an earthquake in Colombia.

Liliana Pérez Ocampo and her family escaped moments before their home was rocked by a 7.4 magnitude quake on Monday.

“At first, we thought it was just a mild tremor like the ones that usually happen in Colombia, but when more than 30 seconds passed and everything was shaking harder, we realised it was an earthquake,” the mother-of-four told the BBC World Service.

Her family, including two young children at school, are safe.

“In the end, material things can be replaced,” she said. “The most important thing is life, and we have that.”

With at least 132 people killed, this has been the strongest earthquake to hit Colombia in the 21st Century, according to the country’s Geological Service.

More on this story.

Michigan’s primary is over, but another pair of tests loom for the progressive left.

On Tuesday, voters in two midwestern states will decide a pair of races that have become the latest battlegrounds of the Democratic Party’s ongoing civil war. In Wisconsin, progressive candidate Francesca Hong is leading in all available polling in the Democratic primary for governor.

In Minnesota, a much tighter race is depicted in polling between Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Rep. Angie Craig in another highly-watched Senate race, which comes just a week after the victory of progressive populist Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

Craig, like El-Sayed’s opponent Haley Stevens, is backed by centrist Democratic Party leadership figures such as Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi and Elissa Slotkin. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hasn’t publicly put a thumb on the scale, and Democratic senators are urging him and the party’s campaign arm to stay out of it — largely due to their toxic brand. Flanagan, backed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as well as the retiring incumbent, Tina Smith, narrowly trailed Craig in a recent SurveyUSA poll that showed nearly one in five voters still undecided.

Hong, a true political outsider, lacks the kind of national support as Flanagan but is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, the far-left group which continues to grow bolder with the successive primary victories of left-leaning candidates this cycle. Members of the group formed part of the volunteer army that helped El-Sayed push past a mountain of outside PAC spending to victory in the Michigan primary, though El-Sayed himself is not a member. As a former chef, Hong has leaned on her working class background as she runs an insurgent campaign defying the party’s elites.

A victory in one or both races tomorrow will be another rallying cry for the left.

Hong’s momentum is due in large part to her early, energetic campaign style and breakout messaging that established her as a frontrunner early and fractured her opposition.

Her opponents and the party’s centrist wing remained divided, unwilling to fully coalesce behind her closest rival, Mandela Barnes, for months. Barnes then withdrew, leaving Milwaukee County executive David Crowley on deck to jump in and try to stop Hong’s momentum.

Should she win a commanding victory Tuesday, many on the left will quickly wipe the bad taste from their mouth that lingered after El-Sayed’s margin of victory in Michigan was far, far closer than expected.

If Craig also loses, it will be a sign of not just the organization of the far left, which remains a powerful theme of the 2026 cycle. It will also signal a deep anger that seems to exist among the Democratic Party’s electorate nationwide, not just in far-left neighborhoods of New York City where party leaders initially hoped to contain the DSA and the anti-establishment fury.

The 2024 defeat of Kamala Harris left many Democrats nationwide feeling angry and hopeless, and furious at a party elite that denied voters a primary, then selected a nominee after it was clear that the president, Joe Biden, could no longer run.

Percieved inaction in 2025 only poured gasoline on that fire as repeated calls for Democrats to withhold votes on key legislation and prevent the Trump administration from operating in a business-as-usual atmosphere seemed to fall on deaf ears at times, even as Elon Musk’s DOGE staffers began taking a hammer to the federal government.

On the other hand, a victory by Craig would be a significant message to party leadership, too. The congresswoman is one of her party’s true moderates, having voted for the Laken Riley Act last year and being known for working across the aisle with Republicans on other issues. She, like Stevens in Michigan, has also been supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in the past — though the race differs significantly from Michigan in that the pro-Israel lobby has not spent tens of millions of dollars to protect one candidate.

Flanagan, while not aligned with DSA, is much closer in attitude to the far-left group: “Whatever word you want to use, [ICE] can’t exist like this anymore,” she told the New York Times of her own views of immigration enforcement. “We have to rip ICE apart and start over.”

Should Craig manage to pull it off a win on Tuesday, her victory would symbolize the enduring appetite of Democratic voters for a stricter law enforcement attitude, even as most find the mass deportation strategy deplorable and opposed the “surge” of enforcement in Minneapolis that ended with federal agents withdrawing partially after the deaths of two protesters in confrontations with ICE and immigration enforcement authorities.

Democrats could wake up Wednesday morning to the creation of a powerful midwestern bloc of progressive candidates having sprung up before their eyes. Counting El-Sayed and Will Lawrence in Michigan (who won his primary despite AIPAC-related groups highlighting his old criticism of Black political leaders), four victories by progressives in high-profile races within two weeks will leave many in the Beltway feeling anxious about the scope of the transformation the party is currently undergoing.

Ch Supt Emma Croft, the divisional commander for Glasgow, is overseeing the police investigation into the recent disorder.

“Members of the public might consider that it’s one arrest following something that happened two weeks ago,” she said.

“But please be assured that the methodical nature of the inquiry takes time and we’d rather have a clear case for prosecution.”

She told BBC Scotland News that officers had trawled through a “significant amount of footage” which identified people they wanted to speak to.

She said the nature of the other alleged offences was “similar” to the traffic-cone attack, adding: “Unfortunately a lot of it had a racial tendency to it which is obviously of great concern to us.”

Ch Supt Croft said that since June, police had arrested 56 people across Scotland for being involved in “incidents in and around protest that have amounted to criminality”.

She warned that more arrests were expected.

“I think we’re all feeling pretty disgruntled with the levels of division within our communities,” she said.

“So it’s absolutely key the public see the level of priority and commitment we’re putting to these types of inquiries.

“Only when we can get these individuals rooted out and identified to the court will our public feel like they are at rest with all of this.”

In the footage, Abdul Nabizada can be seen returning to the secluded area in Joppa, Edinburgh, in his taxi.

Chilling CCTV footage caught a rapist taxi driver returning to the secluded spot where he brutally attacked a teenage girl.

Abdul Nabizada, 36, raped his 19-year-old victim in Edinburgh on November 13, 2021. Instead of taking the girl home after a night out, Nabizada seized her phone and drove her to a remote area in Joppa where he raped her.

He was caged for seven years following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh on Tuesday, August 11.

CCTV footage, released by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, showed Nabizada returning to the site multiple times after he carried out the depraved attack.

In the footage, his taxi is seen returning to the area five times. At one point, he parked the vehicle stationary while he checked out the car park on Queens Bay Crescent.

The trial heard how the teenage victim entered his taxi after it appeared to be the vehicle she had booked. The girl managed to escape the vehicle and Nabizada’s clutches before she contacted friends, who found her distressed and frightened a short time later.

The conviction followed an extensive Police Scotland investigation. Officers had to identify the offender despite there being no legitimate booking record linking the victim to Nabizada. Investigators gathered and analysed evidence from multiple sources, including CCTV footage, mobile phone data and witness testimony. This helped establish the movements of both the victim and the offender, helping to build the case presented at trial.

Forensic analysis also found Nabizada’s DNA on the victim’s clothing, providing further evidence to support the Crown case. Nabizada tried to deny his guilt and defence lawyer David Taylor told the court how he came to Scotland after working for the US, Danish and UK militaries – primarily as an interpreter – in his homeland of Afghanistan.

The court was told he currently has indefinite leave to remain in the UK, and had applied for British citizenship. Mr Taylor said Nabizada is now concerned about the possibility of deportation in light of his conviction.

As well as the jail term, Nabizada’s name was added to the sex offenders register indefinitely. A non-harassment order was also granted.

Faye Cook, Procurator Fiscal for High Court Sexual Offences, said: “This conviction is the result of the victim’s courage in coming forward and the determined work of police officers to uncover what happened that night. Officers had to piece together evidence from a range of sources to identify the offender and build the case that was presented in court.

“The victim should have been able to trust that her journey home would be safe. Instead, she was seriously sexually assaulted by a taxi driver who took advantage of her vulnerability and abused his position resulting in a deeply traumatic experience.

“While stranger offending is rare, Scotland’s prosecutors treat every report of sexual abuse with the utmost seriousness, recognising the profound and lasting impact these crimes have on victims and communities. I hope this conviction provides reassurance that reports will be thoroughly investigated and that COPFS will work with policing partners to ensure offenders are held accountable.”