The comedian and actor appeared at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday morning

Russell Brand appeared at court on Tuesday morning, where he pleaded not guilty to two further sexual offences.

The 50-year-old comedian and actor denied one count of rape and one count of sexual assault during an appearance at Southwark Crown Court today, February 24. Both offences were alleged to have taken place in 2009 in London.

Brand, of Oxfordshire, previously denied two counts of rape, one count of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault in relation to alleged offences between 1999 and 2005, involving four women.

Click here to prioritise Manchester news in Google from the MEN

Wearing a leopard print shirt with a number of buttons undone, and holding a white hat, Brand spoke to confirm his name and his not guilty pleas from the dock.

A trial is scheduled to begin at Southwark Crown Court later this year in relation to the five original charges.

Russian soldiers have exposed the brutality of conditions on the Russian side of the front lines in Ukraine, with two men telling the BBC they saw soldiers being executed on the spot for refusing orders.

The men, who are on the run, spoke about the horror they witnessed from an undisclosed location outside Russia in the documentary, “The Zero Line: Inside Russia’s War”.

Ilya, 35, taught children with special needs before he was drafted into the army for the war. He says he saw four people being shot at point-blank range by a commander – an act known as Zeroing in Russian military slang – because they had fled the front line and refused to return.

Zeroing is usually carried out as punishment for refusing orders, and acts as a means of intimidation for others who may be thinking of doing the same, the men told us.

Another man, Dima, who also witnessed the executions, said commanders killing their own men was “a normal thing”.

“I see it – just two metres, three metres. Just murders, just click, clack, bang. It’s not a drama, it’s not a movie, it’s a real life,” he says.

The Russian government says its armed forces “operate with utmost restraint, as far as possible under the conditions of a high-intensity conflict, treating their personnel with maximum care”. “Information regarding alleged violations and crimes is duly investigated,” it added.“We are unable to independently verify the accuracy or authenticity of the information you have provided,” it said.

Read more about this story here.

Amanda Smith spent 24 years in limbo, after her mother seemingly vanished into thin air back in 2001 – but now it’s been revealed that Michele Hundley Smith is, in fact, alive and well

When Amanda Smith and her siblings said goodbye to their mum who was popping out to do some Christmas shopping in 2001, they had no idea that they would never see her again.

For 24 agonising years, Amanda campaigned relentlessly to find Michele Hundley Smith, but all this time, her mother had been living a double life. She has now been left reeling after finding out her mother is “alive and well” but just did not want to be found.

Michele, now 62, has told authorities she does not want her family to be given her location – or for her whereabout to be released, and Amanda released a heartbreaking statement on the Facebook page she has run dedicated to finding her missing mum. She said that since finding out her mother was alive, but did not want to see her family, she has been going through a “whirlwind of emotions”.

She admitted that she was both “ecstatic” to find out her mother is well, but also furious at what she and her siblings, who were seven, 14 and 19 at the time Michele walked out of the door and never came home, have been put through in the years since – constantly questioning what might have happened to their mum.

READ MORE: American ex-soldier rearrested over ‘murder’ of farmer found dismemberedREAD MORE: Coventry ‘murder’ victim named after teenager stabbed to death outside library

Ensure our latest headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as your Preferred Source in your Google search settings.

Michele’s disappearance was thoroughly investigated by both the police and the FBI at the time she vanished from her home in North Carolina, but her family still have few answers about why she left, and why she has only just revealed she is all right.

In her candid statement, Amanda admitted that her family will likely all have different responses to this update, and that they are all individuals who are entitled to their feelings after being kept in the dark for so long. However, her pain at the conflict she feels herself was palpable. “I am heartbroken, I am all over the map,” she wrote. “Will I have a relationship once more with my mom? Honestly I can’t answer that because I don’t even know…

“My initial reaction would be yes absolutely but then I think of all the hurt.” However, Amanda writes with great empathy, “My mom is only human just as we all are.”

She adds that she can “absolutely understand taking off and leaving” but that doesn’t mean, in her view, Michele “gets off scot free without accountability or responsibility”. Amanda also pointed out that she shares some coping mechanisms with her mum. “I am a runner as well and while this isn’t something to be proud of at all, it’s a part of being human. Each one of us humans have our faults, we each have a shadow part and we each deserve the chance to better ourselves and to heal from our past.”

Amanda also fiercely defended her father in her statement, hitting back at speculation that had been levied at him that he might have been the reason that Michele chose to make herself disappear.

The Facebook page where Amanda posted the statement had provided details of the disappearance, including that she had been driving a forest-green 1995 Pontiac Trans Sport van, which was never found. It also showed how desperately some of the family believed that Michele had not gone of her own volition: Michele would have “never left her children by choice”.

However, in 2020, Amanda told Dateline that her father had a far more sinister theory. “He believes she just took off and left him, and us, that night,” she told the programme – now it seems he was correct in his prediciton.

Amanda admitted back in that interview that it was “possible” her mum had left of her own free will, and that it was “hard to rule out that she just left all of us and started a new life”. However, she said that “there’s also something that nags at me that something happened to her on her way back home”.

The Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that they had discovered Michele is “alive and well” but that she does not want her location to be shared with anyone.

Her cousin, Barbara Byrd told local news station WFMYNews2 that this had not been totally easy to hear. “I kind of want to go outside and scream ‘she’s alive, she’s alive’. For years, we didn’t know if we were grieving or waiting… My biggest question is to her ‘What happened all those years ago in December? What made you leave? What happened?”

She continued: “I understand and respect that she doesn’t want any of us to contact her. I’m not angry. The biggest answer I had today was she was alive. Nothing else matters right at this moment.”

For me, it was relying on the goodwill of friends’ parents, sleeping in cars and wandering around town centres until the early hours in a bid to stay awake.

Not long after my sixteenth birthday, I left home involuntarily after my family relationship broke down.

For the first few months, I crashed on friends’ bedroom floors and on a camp bed in my boyfriend’s conservatory after his mum reluctantly agreed to help.

The nights when I had nowhere to go would be spent walking around town centres and jumping on and off the Metrolink, hoping that the ticket inspectors weren’t on shift.

I secured a dubious ‘commission only’ sales job and found a room in a house share.

This didn’t last long due to the sporadic low payments, and I found myself once again facing homelessness.

I went back to ‘sofa surfing’ and slept in friends’ cars (I wasn’t even old enough to drive myself) before presenting to the council, who found me accommodation.

The Greater Manchester council estate I’d grown up on was notoriously ‘rough’, but I made plenty of friends there – until my parents separated when I was around 11 and years of instability followed.  

We bounced from one private rented house to another, even ending up in a domestic abuse refuge for a while.

This meant sharing a bedroom with my parent and two siblings, and a living room, bathroom and kitchen with complete strangers.

In the background, I struggled my way through high school, leaving with three GCSEs and no career path ahead of me.

Instead, I worked night shifts in a care home and various retail jobs to make ends meet.

By the time I was in my mid-20s, I found myself back in the same situation when my own marriage ended, and I had nowhere to go, once again relying on the kindness of others to try and find my feet with nothing but a cheap used car and a few bags of personal possessions to my name.

Even now, more than two decades later, the insecurity and fear of not having a place to call home all those years ago have stayed with me.

It’s almost impossible to think about the future, about building a career and ‘improving’ your situation while living in survival mode and fighting daily to retain any shred of dignity.  

Those who don’t know my past are often surprised to learn of it, given that I’m now a middle-aged homeowner with a full-time job and secure family life.

But that’s the point – it really can happen to anyone.

Newsquest Media Group, which owns titles across the UK, including this one, has chosen Centrepoint as its charity of the year.

Centrepoint is the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity, supporting more than 16,000 people aged 16 to 25 into housing and employment each year.

My own experience took place in a time prior to mobile phones or accessible internet.

I only wish I had known about fantastic support services like this that are making a real difference to the lives of young people. 

Richard Duggan, Regional Editor North West, will join our colleagues across the region in supporting Centrepoint’s campaign to end youth homelessness by 2037.

Richard, who oversees titles including The Bolton News, Lancashire Telegraph, The Oldham Times, Bury Times and The Messenger, will swap his warm bed for a night outdoors at the end of February.

You can donate to the fundraising link here.

While the event does not aim to replicate homelessness, it does help to raise awareness and vital funds for those without a safe place to sleep.

Stories like mine are sadly not uncommon, and there must be support in place for those who need it.

Find out how you can help on the Centrepoint website and social media channels.

The man was sentenced to over 20 years in prison

A man who carried out “horrific” sexual crimes against vulnerable people with dementia has been jailed for over 20 years. Joshua Springer was handed a 21-year sentence after appearing at Lincoln Crown Court on Friday (February 20).

The 36-year-old was also given a sexual harm prevention order for the rest of his life. Springer, formerly of Cornstall Buildings in Stamford near the Cambridgeshire border, previously pleaded guilty to nine charges of rape at the same court on December 2, 2025.

His offences were against three victims suffering from dementia at a residential care home for elderly people in the Stamford area. A fourth victim was in the North Yorkshire area. Of Springer’s nine charges, six were evenly split between three women at the Stamford care home, while the remaining three charges were connected to a fourth woman in North Yorkshire.

The care home and area in Yorkshire are not being named to protect the anonymity of the victims. Springer was also sentenced for making indecent images of children, to which he also pleaded guilty.

Detective chief inspector Jennifer Lovatt, of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit, said: “While Springer has been sentenced for his horrific crimes, that does not mean that our investigations have stopped. [The] result shows that offenders will be brought to justice, so if you think you have been affected, please get in touch.”

DCI Lovatt is appealing for anyone else that may have been a victim of Springer, who is also known as Joshua Kearney and Joshua Kearney Springer, to contact police. The DCI added: “Our team has worked tirelessly for some time in bringing Springer to justice, and there may be other potential victims who perhaps have not yet come forward.

“I’d encourage them to contact us – you can call 101 (ask for Lincolnshire Police) and quote Incident 272 of November 28. If you want to remain anonymous, then you can call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.”

Do you want more of the latest Cambridgeshire news as it comes in from across the county? Sign up to our dedicated newsletter to make sure you never miss a big story from Cambridge or anywhere else in the county. You can also sign up to our dedicated Peterborough, Traffic and Crime newsletters for the latest updates on the topics you are most interested in .