Thousands of homes and businesses across England and Wales are braced for flooding as a deluge sweeps across the country this week.
Flood alerts were in place across the southeast of England and the western coast of Wales last night after downpours over the weekend ensured a drenched Bonfire Night for many.
Persistent, heavy rain could lead to flooding of homes and businesses and affect public transport in the south of England from West Sussex to Kent, the Met Office said.
While rainfall in some parts has already reached a third of the monthly average, hosepipe bans remain in place across much of the country as water companies, including Thames Water, struggle to make up for the summer heatwaves and several dry months.
Photos of a man living in Australia are a definite match for fugitive murderer Lord Lucan, says a facial recognition expert.
Leading computer scientist Professor Hassan Ugail used an artificial intelligence algorithm to run 4000 cross-checks of seven photos – four of Lucan and three of the mystery pensioner in Australia, according to an exclusive by The Mirror.
Prof Ugail, who ID-ed two of the Russians behind the Salisbury Skripal poisonings, said: “They produced a match. This isn’t an opinion, it’s science and mathematical fact.”
A facial recognition scientist claims this blurred image is of a man living in Australia whose face is an exact match to Lord Lucan (Image: Glen Campbell)
Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, who disappeared after the murder of his children's nanny and who has never been found
Monday, November 7, is the 48th anniversary of the day Lord Lucan murdered family nanny Sandra Rivett. Lucan disappeared the following day.
Friends claimed that he jumped off a cross-channel ferry but his body was never found. Lucan would now be 87 – the same age as the frail man living in a small town just outside Brisbane, capital of the state of Queensland.
Murdered Nanny Sandra Rivett (Image: LNS)
Four of the photos analysed were of Lucan – from a 14-year-old boy until his disappearance – and three of the mystery man in Australia tracked down by Rivett’s son Neil Berriman.
Berriman said: “I’ve spent nine years trying to prove this man is Lucan. Now, with this new scientific information, the police must act. This isn’t emotion. It’s fact.”
Prof Ugail’s startling findings will send shockwaves through the British establishment.
The analysis carried out by Ugail, Professor of Visual Computing at the University of Bradford, included micro-millimetre measurements of spaces between facial features.
Ugail has spent 20 years developing his artificial intelligence algorithm. A second company, a highly respected US firm, ran the same tests and came to the same conclusion.
Prof Ugail said: “In recent years there has been a massive improvement in artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology.
“We can now confirm things that would have been impossible just five years ago. We’ve compared thousands and thousands of people and there have been literally millions of photos that we’ve analysed using the algorithm.
“It has never been wrong. This algorithm has been trained on millions of photos.
“People of different ethnicities, different ages – the only time it will fail is if you put in identical twins. It only takes a few minutes to run it and it comes back with a percentage – a ‘similarity index’.
“Even if you put two exact images of the same person in, you are never going to get 100 per cent similarity because of the way images are taken – pixels and everything else.
George Bingham, son of Lord Lucan (Image: Nick Ansell/PA Wire)
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“Anything with a similarity index of 75 per cent or higher is conclusively the same individual.
“The lowest score I got was around 76. I think the highest was 88.” When Berriman initially contacted Prof Ugail, he did not tell him who he suspected was in the pictures.
Prof Ugail, who grew up in the Maldives, said: “Now that I know more about this Lord Lucan case I’m very pleased that I said ‘yes’.
“It wasn’t a story I was particularly interested in, or a more recent one like Madeleine McCann. I had heard of Lord Lucan but knew very little about the case.”
Lady Lucan – Veronica Bingham – fled from her house in Belgravia, London, covered in blood on November 7, 1974.
Safe in a nearby pub, the Plumbers Arms, she told how she had heard screams from the basement and found her husband there.
She said he attacked her. His car, its interior stained with blood, was later found abandoned in Newhaven, Sussex. A piece of bandaged lead pipe was found in the boot.
In 1975, an inquest jury found Lord Lucan – formerly John Bingham – to be responsible for Sandra Rivett’s death. Her body was found in his home. Lucan was declared legally dead in 2016.
Lady Lucan had three children, Frances, George and Camilla. She committed suicide in 2017, aged 80, after wrongly diagnosing herself with Parkinson’s disease.
Prof Ugail said of his facial recognition system: “It’s actually the culmination of 15 to 20 years of work with a lot of people in our lab, not just me, my academic colleagues, 15 to 20 PhD students.
"There has been millions of pounds of research money that came into the visual computing-related research I do, part of which is this face recognition algorithm.
“It comes partly from the Government and its research grant-awarding bodies, like the Engineering Physical Sciences Research Council and the EU.
“My first research grant from the British government was back in 2002. Interestingly, that was to develop an efficient face-recognition algorithm.
"And every single year since then I’ve received another one to work on a research problem related to visual computing. I am more than happy to make my findings on this particular analysis available to anyone.”
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After the Salisbury poisonings, which targeted Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018, Prof Ugail determined that a suspect calling himself Alexander Petrov was, in fact, Russian agent Dr Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin.
Another, calling himself Sergej Fedotov, he showed to be Denis Sergeev, also in Russia’s GRU agency.
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The 17-year-old was found hurt in the garden of a house on Vickerman Street, off Parkinson Lane.
He was taken to hospital where he died from his injuries.
Police said they were called by the ambulance service shortly before 8.15pm yesterday to reports of an injured young man.
Police at a house on Vickerman Street in Halifax today after youths were hurling fireworks in Parkinson Lane last night
Crime scene investigators have been at Vickerman Street this morning to establish the full facts of what happened.
A spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police said: “The matter has been reported to the Independent Office of Police Conduct as police were called to the vicinity due to a report of fireworks being set off prior to the incident.”
As this dramatic video shows, there was disorder on Parkinson Lane last night, with fireworks being set off in the street towards buildings and cars.
One person reported up to 80 teens in the area, hurling fireworks.
Police at a house on Vickerman Street in Halifax this morning after youths were hurling fireworks in Parkinson Lane last night.
There will be a national bank holiday on May 8 next year to mark the Royal Coronation.
The coronation of King Charles III will take place two days before at Westminster Abbey on Saturday, May 6.
The bank holiday will take place across the UK.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that it will be an opportunity for families and and communities across the country to come together to celebrate.
There had been calls from MPs for the Government to either move the early May bank holiday from May 1 to coincide with the coronation weekend or to declare an extra day off.
The late Queen’s coronation took place on June 2, 1953, 16 months after she became monarch.
Charles acceded to the throne on September 8 following the death of his mother, the country’s longest-reigning monarch.
Sunak said he is looking forward to people across the country paying tribute to the King.
“The coronation of a new monarch is a unique moment for our country,” he said.
“In recognition of this historic occasion, I am pleased to announce an additional bank holiday for the whole United Kingdom next year.
“I look forward to seeing people come together to celebrate and pay tribute to King Charles III by taking part in local and national events across the country in his honour.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “The Coronation will be an historic moment for Scotland and the Scottish Government wants to give as many people as possible the opportunity to join the celebrations.
“Scotland will want to send its best wishes to His Majesty, King Charles III, and The Queen Consort.”
The biggest ever strike by nurses looks set to go ahead.
The Royal College of Nursing is due to unveil the results of its ballot, which ended last week, in the next few days.
The final results are being counted but RCN sources say a large majority of nurses have voted in favour of action in a dispute over pay.
The RCN had recommended to its 300,000 members that they walk out. If strikes take place, they would affect non-urgent but not emergency care.
The vote has involved a series of individual workplace-based ballots across the UK and if nurses do not back action at a local level it is possible some hospitals and services will not be involved.
The government had appealed to nurses to "carefully consider" the impact on patients.
But Pat Cullen, RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: "Huge numbers of staff - both experienced and newer recruits - are deciding they cannot see a future in a nursing profession that is not valued nor treated fairly.
She added: "Our strike action will be as much for patients as it is for nurses. We have their support in doing this."
Cabinet minister Oliver Dowden said the government had "well-oiled contingencies in place" for dealing with any strike action by nurses.
Speaking on Sky News, Mr Dowden said essential services would be prioritised, "but of course there would be an impact as a result of a strike like that".
"I would continue to urge nurses and others to resist to going out on strike even if they have voted to do so", he added.
The RCN had called for a rise of 5% above the RPI inflation rate which currently stands at above 12%, but no UK nation has offered close to that.
In England and Wales, NHS staff, including nurses, have been given an average of 4.75% more, with extra for the lowest paid.
In Scotland, 5% was initially offered to NHS staff, but that has been changed to a flat rate of just over £2,200, which works out at just over 8% for a newly-qualified nurse. In Northern Ireland, nurses are yet to receive a pay award.
During the ballot, the RCN had argued this year's below-inflation pay award came after years of squeezes on nurse's salaries.
Research commissioned by the union has found average pay fell by 6% between 2011 and 2021 - once inflation was taken into account - compared with a 4.6% drop for the whole economy.
Starting salaries for nurses in England are currently just above £27,000, rising to nearly £55,000 for the most senior nurses.
The RCN said the average pay for a full-time established nurse was just above £32,000 last year - similar to average pay across the economy.
But the government has argued it has met the recommendations of the independent NHS Pay Review Body in giving its award.
And it followed a 3% pay rise last year, in recognition of work during the pandemic, despite a public-sector pay freeze.
This is the first time the RCN has balloted all its members for strike action in its 106-year history.
In 2019, RCN members went on strike in Northern Ireland over pay, while nurses who are members of Unison in England walked out in 2014 over pay.
A host of other major health unions, including Unison, the Royal College of Midwives, GMB and Unite, have all started to, or are planning to, ballot members.
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Nurses across the UK are set to strike in the first ever national action over a pay dispute.
The strike ballot among more than 300,000 members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) was the biggest ever in the union's 106-year history.
Although counting is still under way, it is understood that RCN officials believe enough members have voted for winter industrial action which is set to take place within a few weeks, possibly before Christmas.
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said: "Our strike action will be as much for patients as it is for nurses - we have their support in doing this."
The exact nature of the strike action is yet to be determined, but it will likely see patients face disruption to operations and appointments while already facing record NHS waiting lists.
A union source told the Observer newspaper: "This will see the majority of services taken out, and picket lines across the country."
The RCN said there are record nursing vacancies and in the last year 25,000 nursing staff around the UK left the Nursing and Midwifery Council register.
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Recent analysis showed an experienced nurse's salary has fallen by 20% in real terms since 2010, the union said, adding that the goodwill and expertise of nursing staff is being "exploited" by governments across the UK.
The RCN is campaigning for a pay rise of 5% above inflation.
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RCN chief Pat Cullen accuses the government of 'not engaging' with nurses
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt already face the huge challenge of tackling a £50bn hole in public finances.
Mrs Cullen said: "Patients are at great risk when there aren't enough nurses.
"Huge numbers of staff - both experienced and newer recruits - are deciding they cannot see a future in a nursing profession that is not valued nor treated fairly."
She added: "As we begin action, politicians in every part of the UK will be challenged to back their nursing staff and understand the strength of public support."
An extra bank holiday will take place across the UK to mark the coronation of King Charles III next year.
It will fall on Monday, 8 May 2023, two days after the ceremony at Westminster Abbey, the government said.
That holiday is in addition to the bank holiday already scheduled for Monday, 1 May.
Confirming the move, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the time off would give people the chance to "come together and celebrate".
He said that the holiday would mark "a unique moment for our country".
"I look forward to seeing people come together to celebrate and pay tribute to King Charles III by taking part in local and national events across the country in his honour."
Election officials warned that if Friday, 5 May, became a bank holiday, it would disrupt the vote count as it would affect staffing.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who approved the bank holiday in Scotland, said: "Scotland will want to send its best wishes to His Majesty, King Charles III, and The Queen Consort."
King Charles III will make history as the oldest monarch to assume the throne at 73 years old.
Royal sources suggest that his coronation ceremony will be markedly different to that of Elizabeth II - it will be shorter, more diverse and with a much smaller number of guests.
The Queen Consort will also be crowned on the same date, in a similar but simpler ceremony.
Bank holidays have taken place to mark royal occasions in the past, including the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales on 29 April, 2011.
An extra bank holiday was created on 3 June, and the last bank holiday in May was moved to 2 June to extend the celebration of the Queen's 70th year as a monarch.
