Month: January 2025

UK News: Exclusive: About 89% of such crimes closed without a suspect being caught or charged in the year to June 2024

* Tory police cuts are only part of the crisis affecting victims of crime

Victims are being “let down time and time again” by police, a minister has said, as almost every violent or sexual offence went unsolved in hundreds of Britain’s crime hotspots last year.

Nearly 1.9m violent or sexual crimes in England and Wales were closed without a suspect being caught or charged in the year to June 2024 – about 89% of all offences given an outcome, official figures show. Continue reading…
http://dlvr.it/THLTdp

Chief inspector of prisons issues warning after surge in weapons and drugs flown into high-security facilities

Drones have become a “threat to national security”, the prisons watchdog has said, after a surge in the amount of weapons and drugs flown into high-security jails.

Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, called for urgent action from Whitehall and the police after inquiries found that terrorism suspects and criminal gangs could escape or attack guards because safety had been “seriously compromised”. Continue reading…
http://dlvr.it/THLTVX

The Olivier-winning star ‘excited and honoured’ to take the lead in the UK premiere of Marie and Rosetta, a 1940s-set two-hander from George Brant

Beverley Knight is to play Sister Rosetta Tharpe in a drama about the gospel singer and guitarist who became known as “the godmother of rock’n’roll”.

Written by US playwright George Brant (best known for the drone-pilot drama Grounded), Marie and Rosetta explores the personal and professional partnership between Tharpe and Marie Knight, with whom she toured and recorded. First staged off-Broadway in 2016, the play will have its UK premiere as a new co-production between the Rose theatre in Kingston, south-west London, and Chichester Festival theatre this summer. Continue reading…
http://dlvr.it/THLTVH