Emmy-award winning Harington, a lifelong fan of the books, already has some familiarity with his new role: The actor voiced Lockhart in Audible’s star-studded Harry Potter: The Full-Cast Audio Editions last year.

The show could reunite him with director and producer Mark Mylod, who worked on Game of Thrones and is directing some Harry Potter episodes. Mylod is an executive producer on the new series along with author JK Rowling.

Lockhart was portrayed in the Warner Bros Harry Potter films by Kenneth Branagh, and is a key character in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second book in Rowling’s best-selling franchise.

The vain wizard who authored several books on his purported encounters with dark creatures serves as Hogwarts’ latest professor for the defence against the dark arts and fancies himself a mentor to Harry in his second year.

Hoult, known for his roles in X-Men, Superman and Mad Max: Fury Road, was announced for the role earlier this month. But HBO reportedly had to let the Superman actor out of his deal due to his commitments to projects that conflicted with a change in the series’ production schedule, according to Deadline, which first reported Harington’s casting. HBO confirmed the reporting to the BBC.

Representatives for Harington and Hoult did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The HBO series is expected to take 10 years to complete, as producers plan multiple seasons covering each of Rowling’s seven books, which the eight blockbuster films were originally based on.

A grandfather in his 70s, Al-Marimi has been accused of carrying out the attack along with two Libyans who faced a Scottish court in May 2000.

Three judges heard the case at Camp Zeist, a former US air force base in the Netherlands.

After eight months, they ruled the atrocity was an act of state sponsored terrorism carried out by members of the Libyan intelligence service.

The judges convicted one of the Libyans, Abdulbasset Al-Megrahi, of mass murder and jailed him for life.

He died from cancer in 2012, after being freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Conviction twice referred Megrahi’s case to the appeal court but the conviction was upheld.

The second Libyan, Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah was acquitted and returned home to a hero’s welcome in Tripoli.

The US government says Al-Marimi admitted bombing the plane along with Megrahi and Fhimah when he was questioned in a Libyan detention facility in 2012.

The alleged confession was handed to Scottish investigators in 2017 and is now central to the prosecution case.

Al-Marimi has claimed the confession is false and was made under duress, but judge Friedrich ruled it can be admitted as evidence at the trial.

By AMELIA WYNNE, SHOWBUSINESS REPORTER

Published: 22:42 BST, 24 August 2026 | Updated: 23:11 BST, 24 August 2026

She is never shy showing off her incredible figure. 

And Olivia Attwood put on a cheeky display in racy sheer lingerie as she posed for a new Instagram mirror selfie on Monday.

The TV star, 35, was displaying her assets in the see-through pink and blue number which highlighted her cleavage.

Blonde beauty Olivia penned in the caption of her post: ‘Forever an @agentprovocateur girl,’ as she tagged the fancy underwear brand. 

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Olivia wore her long blonde tresses in loose waves over her shoulders and opted for a bronzed makeup look. 

The sizzling social media comes just after she revealed that she is considering getting another boob job. She has already undergone two previous breast augmentations.

Olivia Attwood put on a cheeky display in racy sheer lingerie as she posed for a new Instagram mirror selfie on Monday

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Speaking in a TikTok video last week, the Price of Perfection host shared: ‘Guys, I have an exclusive for you. I’m getting cosmetic surgery… No, I am so joking. Or am I? I don’t know.

‘I think with you all watching Price of Perfection, it’s got me thinking about plastic surgery again.

‘I’m like do I want something? Do I feel left out?’

Olivia – who recently went public with her relationship with Pete Wicks – insists she’s not taking the decision lightly.

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She said: ‘I know it’s not a frivolous decision, it’s a very big decision. I was kind of getting to that point where I was like do I need to redo my boobs? Like have those implants been in too long now?

‘But then I was like, am I going to have a baby? Then I was like, wait, now it looks like I really might not have a baby.

‘So I might as well do it. But I don’t want to waste my money if I do have a baby.’

Meanwhile, Olivia recently admitted that she lived in a ‘grey area’ with Bradley Dack for years.

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The TV star split from husband Bradley earlier this year, and she admitted to always feeling insecure about their romance, even though she loved him deeply.

The sizzling social media comes just after she revealed that she is considering getting another boob job 

Meanwhile, Olivia recently admitted that she lived in a ‘grey area’ with Bradley Dack for years (seen in May 2025)

Speaking to Cosmopolitan magazine, Olivia explained: ‘When you love someone, you’re happy to live in the grey area.’

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Olivia ultimately decided to walk away after being told that Bradley had been unfaithful.

She is now in a new relationship with TOWIE star Pete Wicks. 

The reality star recalled: ‘That day, everything suddenly lined up. There was nowhere left for him to hide. As soon as I knew it had happened to me, I couldn’t stay. The only person I would be cheating is myself.’

Despite this, Olivia struggled to walk away from their romance.

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She explained: ‘What happened didn’t break my heart – I broke my own heart by leaving, because the easiest thing to do would’ve been to stay.

‘Actually pulling the rug [from under our feet] and sticking to it is the hardest thing. It was f****** brutal. It’s very easy for people to sit on their high horse and go, ‘Oh my God, you stayed with someone that cheated.’ But it’s way more complex than that.’

Ukraine celebrated this year’s independence day on August 24 in the presence of key allies and amid the unfolding of another major corruption scandal.

It all started when Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s defence minister until his dismissal as part of a government reshuffle last month, posted a nine-minute video on August 19 that was widely seen as a direct challenge to the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. One part of the challenge was what amounted to a call for an election, despite the fact that the ballot would have to be held in wartime. This is something that both Zelensky and a majority of Ukrainians have repeatedly rejected.

The other part of Fedorov’s challenge was his diagnosis of a “systemic crisis of governance”. He is not wrong. Corruption in Ukraine is no longer simply about this scandal or that minister. It is a pattern of elite behaviour that has outlasted every Ukrainian government since independence. It survived revolutions in 2004 and 2014 fought explicitly in the name of ending it. And it’s now undermining a war for national survival.

The depth of this problem has become more obvious over the past year. In November 2025, a bribery scheme worth an estimated US$100 million (£73 million) in the energy sector reached into Zelensky’s inner circle, forcing out his justice and energy ministers. Both have denied any wrongdoing. As part of the fall-out from that scandal, Zelensky’s long-time chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, resigned the same month. Yermak’s legal counsel has denied any involvement in illegal activities.

In July 2026, Fedorov’s own removal from his post as defence minister came after a rift with the armed forces’ commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi. The rift was partly about strategy and partly about procurement reforms – allegedly threatening entrenched interests – that Fedorov had been keen to push through. Like a year earlier, large-scale public protests ensued.

On August 5, Olha Stefanishyna, the former deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, former justice minister and former Ukrainian ambassador to the US, was formally charged with illicit enrichment and filing false asset declarations. She denies the allegations.

Meanwhile a separate investigation into her time overseeing Ukraine’s asset recovery and management agency — where contracts allegedly went to companies linked to her ex-husband — remains open but hasn’t yet led to formal charges.

And as if Fedorov’s point about systemic corruption needed any further proof, Iryna Mudra, the deputy head of Zelensky’s presidential office, who oversaw judicial reform and the special tribunal on Russian aggression, was dismissed by the president on August 19. His decision came after Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies launched a new investigation into allegations of money-laundering.

These are not just five unrelated crises. They are symptomatic of exactly the accusation that Fedorov made: that corruption has led to a systemic crisis of governance.

What Fedorov didn’t specifically mention was that none of this is new, or peculiar to Ukraine in wartime. The new country emerged from the Soviet collapse with an economy substantially captured by a small circle of oligarchs who controlled industry, media and – at various points – the presidency itself.

The Orange Revolution of 2004 and the Euromaidan revolution a decade later were explicitly in response to widespread anger at public perceptions of official corruption. Zelensky himself was elected in 2019 on a platform built largely on fighting corruption.

What the war has changed is not the underlying motivation of corruption – human greed, pure and simple – but where the opportunities are to realise it. The privatisation auctions of the 1990s and the gas-trading schemes of the 2000s created a class of oligarchs that have come to dominate Ukrainian politics for the past three decades. The procurement contracts and reconstruction funds of the 2020s are simply the new assets up for grabs that the same oligarchic networks are fighting over now.

Arguably, though, the damage they do is compounded by the war. A 2023 sham contract for undelivered mortar munitions worth some US$40 million left a critical gap in an already stretched defence budget, straining frontline capabilities. A US$100 million scheme in 2025 which syphoned off funds intended to protect Ukraine’s energy grid damaged both the economy and made ordinary Ukrainians’ lives more miserable during the winter.

The crisis now reaches deep into the Ukrainian parliament. On the day that Mudra was charged, the Ukraine’s parliamentary law enforcement committee blocked five bills intended to strengthen the country’s fight against corruption. These bills are a non-negotiable EU requirement for releasing over €2 billion (£1.71 billion) of aid to Ukraine before the end of the year and a key item on Kyiv’s to-do list for the accession negotiations.

Corrupt system ‘protects itself’

Fedorov’s video is both the statement of a deeply felt personal grievance and a diagnosis of a system that may be beyond the point of repair. Fedorov alleged that his own reforms of defence ministry procurement, worth billions of dollars a year, were what cost him his post.

“The old system,” he said, without naming Zelensky directly, “lives by its own rules too often. It protects itself. It is scared of change.” The asymmetry he is describing is stark: reformers get sacked while insiders with the kind of connections implicated in the November 2025 scandal seem able to avoid prosecution.

When Zelensky was elected in 2019, ending corrosive corruption looked mostly like a matter of political will But if Zelensky ever had this will, many of those around him clearly did not. More than four-and-a-half years of full-scale war later and corruption is now embedded in sectors – arms procurement, air-defence contracts, energy-grid protection – where failure costs soldiers’ lives and adds yet more misery to the plight of ordinary Ukrainians.

Ukraine’s survival as an independent state has always depended on not losing the war against Russia. But it depends just as much on winning the older, quieter war against a system that, in Federov’s words, is still “scared of change”. Fedorov’s solution of holding an election is unlikely to be a solution on its own – and western pressure has clear limitations.

But without a solution, the problem will continue to fester and lead to more alienation between state and society in Ukraine. Finding and implementing a workable solution will be impossible without a change of culture among Ukraine’s elite. This will determine how good a wartime leader Zelensky ultimately proves to be and how sincere his partners are in supporting not just him but the survival of a democratic Ukraine.

A man who was found injured on a street in the early hours of Sunday morning has been named and pictured.

A man who died after being found “unresponsive” on a South Ayrshire street and later died in hospital has been named and pictured for the first time.

Graham Milliken was found injured by police on Dundonald Main Street at around 4.05am on Sunday, August 23. The 57-year-old, from the village, was rushed to Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock where he died a short time later.

Graham’s family has been informed. Following a post mortem examination today, his death is being treated as murder and an investigation has been launched.

A 36-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with the death. He is due to appear at Ayr Sheriff Court on Tuesday, August 25.

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Officers remain in the area carrying out enquiries, trawling through CCTV footage and speaking to locals in a bid to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.

These used to be among the fundamental facts about going to college in America: College lasts four years. And though that timeline had been flexible when it comes to sports, there was never much debate over the notion that once a player moved on to the pros their days as a college athlete were over.

A recent rule passed by the NCAA has resulted in confusion, lawsuits and the once-unthinkable notion of players leaving college, signing with professional teams and now leaving those teams to head back to college.

Among this week’s headline grabbers are Dae’Quan Wright, an undrafted tight end out of Ole Miss who had tryouts with the Eagles and Browns over the summer, but now has a deal in place to play this season at Ole Miss’ rival in the Southeastern Conference, No. 11 LSU.

Wright is among a number of college athletes who have sued for the right to return to college to play as the start of both the college football and NFL seasons approach. A quick look at how we got here:

NCAA passes new rule allowing for five years eligibility

This part happened in June, and by the NCAA’s plodding standards, it happened quite fast.

The rule now allows athletes to play five seasons over the span of five years. Most college athletes now see the “clock” start on their eligibility either when they enroll full-time in college or at the start of the regular school year immediately following their 19th birthday, whichever comes first.

The rule itself isn’t all that outlandish. A lot of players were taking redshirt years (and getting extensions due to the pandemic) to prolong their eligibility to five, six, seven years and more, so putting some guardrails around it made some sense.

But the NCAA’s decision to start applying this new rule to athletes who graduated high school in 2023 is what caused the chaos. By not including those from the Class of ’22, many of whom saw their fourth and final year of eligibility end after last school year, they opened themselves up to trouble.

The members of the Class of ‘22 are arguing they’re being deprived of education and potential NIL financial benefits by being excluded from the rule.

Meanwhile, college athletes are suddenly looking at unexpected competition for roster spots and playing time coming from a class of players they thought would be gone this season. And teams, most of which have locked in their football rosters, are seeing a potential influx of talent they didn’t expect.

An appeals court last Friday temporarily halted that judge’s order, though that was hardly the end of the confusion.

State lawsuits pile up as a workaround the federal case

Despite the federal court ruling, players across the country have filed lawsuits in state courts and many judges granted orders allowing them to come back to school. This “find a local judge” approach has generally been successful for the athlete over the past couple of years.

In some cases — incluidng the case involving Wright in Louisiana — a judge not only said the players could come back, but also ordered a week-long reopening of the transfer portal, which gave the players a chance to shop around. Side note about Wright’s potential move from Ole Miss to LSU: The SEC forbids moves within the conference such as that one, unless they come when the transfer portal is open, which in football is January. There is no clarity on how the ruling impacts the SEC rule.

Sam Ehrlich, a former lawyer who follows college sports litigation at Boise State, said the state lawsuits were filed “just in case” the federal order got overturned. It did, and that federal case had no bearing on the various state lawsuits.

According to Ehrlich’s College Sports Litigation Tracker, at least 26 eligibility cases have been filed in state and county courts across the U.S. In at least 10 of those, judges have granted a restraining order or injunction favoring the players. In only one — involving basketball player Filip Borovicanin — has an appeals court overturned the initial decision, leading to a favorable outcome for the NCAA.

When will this all be decided?

Court cases move slowly, and in the Wisne case, odds are nothing will be final until long after football (and maybe basketball and baseball) season is over and there’s no relief left to give to the impacted players.

While football teams are madly scrambling, trying to make sense of it all, basketball teams are also feeling some pressure. Teams are allowed to start practice on Sept. 25. A notable instance of where confusion might set in is Gonzaga, which recruited two players from that Class of ’22 who (presumably) had their eligibility restored.

One, however, is Javon Bennett, who was part of the Borovicanin lawsuit that an Ohio court overturned. The other is Chauncey Wiggins, who comes from Florida State and was part of a case in Georgia, where the ruling favorable to the players remains in force.

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The Trump administration is reportedly planning to rescind up to 200,000 business and tourism visas, the Associated Press reports.

The alleged plan could amount to the largest mass cancelation of visas in U.S. history.

“We are coordinating with [the Department of Homeland Security] to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told The Independent in a statement. “These types of visas are issued with the clear understanding that they are for those who intend to return home. Obtaining a visa in order to seek asylum is fraud — which is grounds for visa revocation.”

The mass cancelation would apply to individuals who were issued B1 and B2 visas between 2016 and 2026 then sought asylum, according to the AP.

The visas, respectively, cover business trips and voyages for other common reasons such as tourism, family visits and medical care.

“It’s shocking from an historical perspective,” Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at the humanitarian group Refugees International, wrote on Bluesky, arguing the “crazy” policy was part of the “delegalization of people who applied and were given permission to enter” the country.

The visa plan would likely face strong challenges in court, as have many of the Trump administration’s immigration efforts.

Last week, a federal judge struck down a Trump administration policy that suspended visa processing for nationals from 75 countries whose citizens were deemed likely to need public assistance upon coming to the U.S.

The Trump administration has moved aggressively to tighten immigration requirements, halt refugee resettlement and cancel scores of existing visas.

Since Trump took office, his administration has revoked more than 175,000 visas from foreign nationals, according to the State Department.

That’s quadruple the pace of the final year of the Biden administration, an analysis by The Guardian found.

The president has also sought to revoke the legal status of hundreds of thousands of people who came into the U.S. legally under a Biden-era immigration parole program.

The White House is pushing to permanently impose a $100,000 fee on businesses seeking H-1B visas for high-skill workers, despite a federal judge previously striking down a similar plan.

A throng of balaclava-clad youths set off flares and fireworks on Monday afternoon to remember the five A66 ‘joyriders’ who died when they smashed into a police car.

The chaos came in stark contrast to a silent prayer vigil hosted in a nearby church to honour PC Tom Clough and PC Matthew Blades, who were also tragically killed in the crash.

Friends and family of Jakub Matusiak, 23, decided to gather at a field in South Bank, Middlesborough, just yards from the scene of Saturday’s catastrophic collision, caused by the gang hurtling the wrong way down the dual carriageway.

What began as a balloon release descended into a confusion of smoke and noise when attendees lit up the sky with flares and rockets.

A gang of around 20 masked youths on motorbikes and quad bikes roared around the field in honour of Matusiak, who himself had convictions for motoring offences.

Footage showed dozens of flares being held aloft, filling the field with dense orange fog, as bikes revved their engines and blared their horns.

Meanwhile, just down the road, locals mourning the lives of the two constables quietly filed into St John The Evangelist Church.

Among them was Redcar’s Labour MP Anna Turley, who said: ‘I thought it was really important to come together. I was really pleased that the church has opened themselves up for the community to come together, because it’s such a devastating incident.

A group of masked bikers tore around the field  and joined in with the pyrotechnics

The memorial began as a balloon release but descended into noise and confusion

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The vigil to remember the two constables who lost their lives was a much more sober affair

‘The whole community here is reeling, and we’ve lost lives, particularly those lives of brave police officers who are out in action to keep us safe. It’s a tragic incident.’

Back at the joyriders’ vigil, one female attendee in her 20s was indignant at the tone of the coverage of the deaths of the youths. 

She said: ‘Jakub was a lovely, caring lad and he’s somebody’s son and somebody’s brother, he’s not some scumbag who should just be written off and forgotten.

‘It was an accident that those police officers died, they weren’t trying to kill anyone and they lost their own lives but they’ve just been written off as if they don’t matter. 

‘The number of people who have come out for Jakub today should show you that they do matter, they were loved and they will be missed.’

The gathering took place on South Bank back field, only a few hundred yards from where the collision took place on the A66, ending seven lives.

Cleveland Police attended but kept a low-key presence, a patrol car from the Matrix team – which the two constables worked in – was parked 500 yards away alongside a police van.

Plenty of the residents of the surrounding streets chose not to attend.

Family and friends of Matusiak, 23, decided to gather on the South Bank Back Field for a balloon release today 

PC Matthew Blades, a father of two, was killed when his police vehicle was struck head-on by a Volkswagen Passat travelling the wrong way down the A66 near Middlesbrough 

PC Tom Clough also died in the crash, which occurred around 10 seconds after a police pursuit of the Volkswagen had been called off. 

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Looking at the police officers standing beside their vehicles, a 58-year-old grandmother said: ‘What must they be thinking right now? This is nothing but a mockery of the lives of those two policemen.

‘I’ve watched them walking down there drinking and smoking weed and razzing about on their motorbikes. There’s nothing here to celebrate.’

Another balloon release was scheduled at the same time in Middlesbrough for Cole Worthy, 17, another of those killed.

Matusiak, Worthy and their friends Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and Michael Robert Cahill, 23, died in a catastrophic head-on collision in Teesside early on Saturday morning.

The youngsters were driving the wrong way down the A66 when they struck PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, who were travelling in an unmarked response vehicle.

Another police car had been pursuing them before calling off the chase. Just ten seconds later, the VW struck PCs Blades and Clough, who had not been involved in the pursuit.

In the months leading up to the crash, Saddington had posted a string of TikTok clips that appeared to show him taking part in police chases. He had also been awaiting trial for racially abusing and assaulting police officers. 

At the same time, another balloon release will be held in Middlesbrough for Cole Worthy, 17, another of those killed

Makai Saddington, one of the five killed in the Volkswagen, posted videos on TikTok of him being chased by police and was awaiting trial for racially abusing and assaulting officers

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Twelve people have now been arrested by police probing the crash. 

Four of the youngsters killed in the VW had extensive criminal records, including convictions for drug offences, assault and robbery.

Friends and family have paid tribute to Matusiak, with his sister describing him on social media as ‘my best friend, always and forever’.

A family friend, Jodie Stephenson, also paid tribute, writing: ‘I’ll miss the ADHD and the headaches you caused us, the late-night phone calls to pick you up quickly and walking into Jimmy’s to find you flat out on the bed.

‘You always came here when the s*** had hit the fan and that was quite often.’

In May this year, Matusiak posted a video on social media which appeared to show him driving a Volvo recklessly through a Middlesbrough housing estate. At one point in the video, he was seen leaving the road and driving across a grassy area. 

Meanwhile, the families of the two officers have paid moving tributes to the heroes, and a GoFundMe appeal launched by Cleveland Police Federation to support them had raised more than £500,000 by this morning.

Close friends Theo Rae (left) and Cole Robert Worthy both died in the crash on Saturday

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Michael Robert Cahill was one of the five in the VW

The federation said its officers had ‘paid the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty’ and left behind ‘heartbroken loved ones’. It added that the funds raised would be split equally between the families. 

PC Blades’ wife described him as ‘our superhero’ and said: ‘He gave his life in the line of duty, protecting and serving others with courage, dedication and selflessness.’

Former soldier PC Clough, 38, was described by his family as ‘our hero’ who was ‘always driven by a sense of public service’.

Cleveland Police said today that nine men and three women, aged between 19 and 61, have now been arrested on suspicion of offences ranging from possession of a firearm to participating in the activities of an organised crime group.

Cleveland Police received several reports of the Volkswagen Passat being driven dangerously on Saturday. Separate reports involved a second car, a Volvo XC60, which was seen ramming properties in the Middlesbrough area.

Both vehicles were operating with cloned number plates to avoid detection, but were identified through the force’s automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system.

Police said there is no evidence to indicate that filming of the activities that took place on Friday night and Saturday morning was carried out for the purposes of TikTok.

The Middlesbrough crash came less than a week after an incident in Co Kildare, Ireland, when five teenagers died in a head-on crash while driving the wrong way down the M9.

A family in the other car, comprising three women and a seven-year-old boy, were left seriously injured in the crash while travelling to the airport to begin a holiday, according to reports.

At least three of the teenagers had boasted online about driving the wrong way down motorways to evade police.

Speaking in Kyiv on Monday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the Government had urged TikTok and other platforms to remove videos which glorify dangerous driving.

Mr Burnham said those who share such videos are ‘doing something that’s truly reprehensible’.

A Downing Street spokesman said: ‘The glorification of dangerous driving for clips and entertainment is utterly disgraceful and that is why we have raised the issue of this appalling content with social media companies since the tragedy.’

Pawel Kulpa is facing multiple charges, following a deadly house fire in west London

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A 34-year-old man has been charged with murder after a deadly house fire claimed one life, and endangered eight others.

Pawel Kulpa has been charged with one count of murder, eight counts of attempted murder and one count of arson with intent to endanger life.

Officers were called to reports of a fire at a property on Berkeley Avenue, Hounslow, at about 1.14am on August 19.

A 48-year-old woman died in hospital and another woman, 40, remains in a life-threatening condition.

A murder investigation was launched soon afterwards and the Crown Prosecution Service said on Monday that Kulpa had been charged.

He will appear at Willesden Magistrates’ Court on August 25.

The Metropolitan Police have said the other six men and one woman who were taken to hospital have since been discharged with minor injuries.

Images from the scene show a light-coloured terraced house that has been blackened on the outside, with the window panes peeling.

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Lisa Ramsarran, chief crown prosecutor in London North said: “The Crown Prosecution Service has decided to prosecute Pawel Kulpa for murder, attempted murder and arson following a fatal fire in Hounslow, west London which resulted in the murder of a 48-year-old woman and the injury of eight others at approximately 1am on Wednesday 19 August.

“Our prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to pursue criminal proceedings.

“We have worked closely with the Metropolitan Police to bring this case to court, and we will continue working with them as their investigation progresses.

READ MORE: Scotland’s youth football club shame as rogue dads and violent officials clash

READ MORE: ‘Murdered’ girl, 9, makes final journey through Arbroath as mourners line streets

“Mr Kulpa will appear at Willesden Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday 25 August.

“We remind all concerned that proceedings against the defendant are active and he has the right to a fair trial.

“It is vital that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”

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The man has been banned from drinking alcohol for two months

A man “frightened” a police officer after threatening him with a glass bottle. Benjamin Arksey, 50, was the passenger in a car stopped by Cambridgeshire Police officers on May 16 in Sutton Road, Mepal.

At Peterborough Magistrates Court on Monday (August 24), prosecutor James Quelch told the court that Arksey “threatened a police officer as he was asked to leave the car”.

Mr Quelch told the court that Arksey, who was carrying two bottles of alcohol, threatened to “knock them out”. Arksey threatened one officer with a glass bottle and also assaulted the same officer.

The defence lawyer Mr Willett told the court that Arksey was “genuinely remorseful”, and he was “genuinely motivated” to get back into work.

Before passing sentence, District Judge Richard Jepson told Arksey that there were “various features” of the incident that were “disappointing”. The judge said: “The reality is this was a straightforward traffic stop for someone else and not you. It may have been that you were not happy.

“The reality is you responded with not only words but actions. I understand why the two officers were frightened by this. Officers don’t go to work to have people shout at them. This could have ended up worse.”

The judge added that he was again “disappointed” that Arksey committed the offences, with him “being of a certain age”. He added: “Where this came from is a mystery. There is a lesson to be learnt from this, the drinking needs to be stopped.”

Arksey, of Victoria Street, Littleport, was handed a 26-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, for threatening a person with an offensive weapon in a public place. He was also given a 16-week concurrent prison sentence, also suspended for 12 months, for assaulting a constable in the execution of his duty.

Arksey was also ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work, given a 60-day alcohol tag which bans him from drinking alcohol, and ordered to pay £200 in compensation.