A pregnant woman allegedly pushed to her death off Arthur's Seat by her husband plunged between 40-50ft, a court has heard.
Kashif Anwar, 29, is accused of murdering Fawziyah Javed, 31, in September 2021 by pushing her from the hill in Edinburgh's Holyrood Park.
The fall is said to have caused her multiple blunt-force injuries and ultimately her death, and her unborn child's.
Anwar, from Leeds, denies all the charges against him, including one of acting in a threatening and abusive way towards his wife at a hotel in Edinburgh the day before the alleged murder.
Sergeant Alastair Paisley, 41, a crime scene manager, told Anwar's trial at the High Court at Edinburgh on Tuesday he estimated Ms Javed had fallen "between 40 and 50ft".
Image:Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh
Drone footage showed a cone on the side of the hill, indicating where Ms Javed first landed, and images of a tent placed over her body on the hillside after she died.
Detective Sergeant Christopher Edmund told the jury that mountain rescue had been called to help recover the body as it was in an "extremely difficult location to get to".
Defending, Ian Duguid KC said that during his client's police interview shortly after the incident, Anwar said he and Ms Javed had left the summit of Arthur's Seat because it was busy and Anwar thought they should go home.
Sabeen Rashid, 43, a crime analyst, also gave evidence, going through a 97-page telecoms report with advocate depute Alex Prentice KC.
Pictures from Arthur's Seat were shown, timed between 8.06pm and 8.30pm taken on the phone attributed to Ms Javed, which included selfies of herself and her husband.
As part of the report, Ms Rashid told the court that a six-second call was made from the phone attributed to Ms Javed at 9.19pm to the device attributed to her father, and at 9.20pm there was a call to the number associated with Anwar's father's phone, which lasted one minute.
A 28-year-old woman has died and a four-year-old child has been left with serious injuries after a four-vehicle crash in north Wales. Emergency services were called to the A487 bypass between Felinheli and Caernarfon at around 7pm on Monday, April 3.
Three other people involved in the crash were taken to hospital with serious injuries. Police have confirmed that the crash involved a a dark grey Audi A3 saloon, BMW 1 series, Peugeot 208 and a Skoda Octavia.
Emergency services, including the Wales Air Ambulance, WAST and NWFRS attended, but sadly, the woman driving the Peugeot was pronounced dead at the scene. The woman’s family and the coroner have been informed. You can get more local news and other story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
A four-year-old child has been taken to Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool with life threatening injuries. A woman was also airlifted to Stoke Hospital with serious injuries and two further people were taken to Ysbyty Gwynedd, also with serious injuries.
Sergeant Emlyn Hughes from the roads policing unit said: “I offer my deepest condolences to the families of the people involved in this tragic incident, which is sadly being investigated as a fatal road traffic collision. I am appealing to anyone who was travelling on the A487 bypass between 6.30pm and 7pm who witnessed the collision, or may have dashcam footage leading up to it, particularly of the Audi, to get in touch with police.
“If you have any information, please contact police via webchat or by calling 101, quoting reference 23000283204.”
The road was re-opened around 12 hours later at around 7am on Tuesday, April 4. Police are reminding the public that there is a live investigation into the crash and any footage or photos in relation to this incident should only be shared with police for investigation purposes and not on social media. They asked that members of the public delete any footage not relevant to the investigation.
Thomas Cashman was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 42 years after shooting a nine-year-old girl dead in her home.
The 34-year-old from West Derby was unanimously found guilty of murdering Olivia Pratt-Korbel by a jury on Thursday March 30. He was also found guilty and sentenced for the attempted murder of drug dealer Joseph Nee, wounding Olivia's mum Cheryl Korbel and possession of two firearms.
Olivia was shot dead in her own home on Kingsheath Avenue in Dovecot in one of the most horrific crimes in Merseyside's history. Cashman, of Grenadier Drive, was sentenced to life with a minimum sentence of 42 years.
The highest sentence in recent years before Cashman was Anthony Saunderson 42, of Formby. He was jailed for 35 years after being convicted of conspiracy to produce and supply Class A and Class B amphetamine, conspiracy to supply other Class A drugs, conspiracy to supply other Class B drugs and conspiracy to transfer a prohibited weapon.
Nine other criminals have received sentences of more than 30 years in the last decade, the majority were involved in murders. Here's a list of ten of the longest prison sentences given in Merseyside.
Rueben Murphy
Rueben Murphy, 26, of Oak Avenue, St Helens, was convicted of murder at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday, May 9, 2022.
Rueben Murphy, 26, called a High Court judge a "fat paedophile" and screamed "f*** the system" as he was led to the cells at Liverpool Crown Court. Murphy, formerly of Barkbeth Road in Huyton, was convicted of murder after pumping two 9mm bullets into the chest of 26-year-old Patrick Boyle on July 1, 2021.
Mr Boyle, living in Kirkdale at the time, was the dad of a three-year-old boy and was expecting a second child with his pregnant partner, hospital ward manager Ashleigh Deans, at the time he was killed. He was standing outside an address in Newway, off Lordens Road in Huyton, at around 5.55pm when Murphy approached on an electric bike and opened fire.
Two rounds hit him on the left side of his chest and he was pronounced dead at Whiston Hospital less than 30 minutes later. Murphy denied he was in the street at the time, claiming he was "off me head" on ketamine and cannabis in a garden in another area of Huyton.
But he was faced with overwhelming evidence, including a pair of black gloves, bearing traces of gunshot residue and his DNA profile, found on top of a kitchen cupboard in his home. CCTV evidence also put him in the area of the killing at the time.
Murphy was convicted of murder after a trial at Liverpool Crown Court alongside his close friend Ben Doyle, now 25, who rode the electric bike, carrying Murphy on the back, to within minutes of the murder scene. Another friend, 21-year-old Thomas Walker, was cleared of murder but admitted handling one of the bullets used to kill Mr Boyle on a date prior to the day of the shooting.
Murphy was asked to stand and told he will serve life in prison with a minimum of 31 years before he will be eligible to apply for Parole. As the sentence was read, the wild-eyed murderer began shouting and ranting.
He said he had been expecting a longer sentence before telling Judge Morris: "Thanks very much you fat paedophile." Murphy also screamed "f*** the system" and said he was "always smiling" as he was escorted out of the dock.
Doyle, of Lyme Grove in Huyton, was jailed for life with a 27-year minimum term while Walker, of no fixed address but from Clubmoor, was handed two years behind bars.
Liam Watson
Liam Watson murdered young rapper Miguel Reynolds
A 21-year-old from Manchester was shot dead in a robbery after he was "lured" to Liverpool by a gang offering to sell a stolen Audi S1 for £2,000.
He grabbed a lock knife and chased after the gang, including gunman Liam Watson - ignoring a warning shot on June 7, 2018. When he caught Watson in a communal garden off Assissian Crescent, the heroin dealer shot him in the neck.
Watson, 32, and Kyle Sanders, 22, who set up the robbery, were jailed alongside two accomplices. Watson, of Litherland Park, Litherland, was convicted of murder, while Sanders, of Charles Best Green, Bootle, was found guilty of manslaughter in a retrial.
Watson was found guilty of murder and conspiracies to rob, possess a prohibited firearm and possess prohibited ammunition and was jailed for life with a minimum of 30 years. Sanders was convicted of manslaughter and the three conspiracies. He was jailed for 21 years.
Lee Knox
Lee Knox murdered Joseph McKeever then spent nearly three years on the run (Image: Liverpool Echo)
Lee Knox directed the torture and murder of dad-of-one Joseph McKeever over a £900,000 cannabis importation plot gone wrong.
The 54-year-old victim's battered body was found in the boot of a stolen Ford Focus, set ablaze on a field in Everton, late on June 15, 2017. He had suffered two "shattered" kneecaps, broken eye sockets and ribs, brain damage, a crushed voice box, had bone chopped away from his jaw and was strangled at least twice with a ligature.
Knox, 43, formerly of Canal View, Melling, escaped to Spain within hours of the killing and spent nearly three years on the run until his arrest in Belfast in April 2020. Crying in court, he claimed he was a "terrified" witness to the violence and fought to save Mr McKeever's life by giving him CPR.
But a jury unanimously convicted the dad-of-two of false imprisonment and murder after a 17-day trial. Knox had a criminal record including offering to supply crack cocaine and dealing ecstasy, possessing an offensive weapon, and battery.
Judge Andrew Menary, QC, "rejected completely" the killer's claim he tried to give his victim CPR and said the missing load was his cannabis, which he wrongly blamed Mr McKeever for failing to arrive in Liverpool after it was seized by customs.
Knox - the sixth person convicted in connection with Mr McKeever's gruesome death - was jailed for life with a minimum of 30 years.
Connah Jenkinson
Connah Jenkinson, 25, of Kremlin Drive in Tuebrook (Image: Liverpool Echo)
Robert Beattie, 48, was squirted with petrol by a hooded gang who knocked on his door in Skelmersdale before setting him ablaze.
Five men travelled from Liverpool to West Lancashire to enforce their dominance of the local heroin and crack cocaine trade. Mr Beattie, who was a drug user, was targeted at his home in Waverley, at around 12.30am, on September 26, 2019.
He suffered terrible burns and fought to stay alive for the next two weeks, while sedated, but lost his battle. Ringleader Connah Jenkinson, of Kremlin Drive, Tuebrook, was found guilty of murder and arson with intent to endanger life, the latter charge in connection with a separate attack earlier that evening.
His accomplices, John O'Brien, of Ingrave Road, Walton, and Joseph McEwan, of Damsire Close, Fazakerley, were cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter and the same arson attack. Jenkinson and his recruits believed their "Ronnie and Reggie" mobile telephone line, used to peddle Class A drugs to addicts, was being usurped by a rival telephone line, nicknamed "Nathan".
The gang thought Mr Beattie was part of the competing dealing group and paid a visit to the town to "deter disloyalty," prosecutors said. Hours before targeting him, they also firebombed a separate home on Willow Hey, where they perceived rivals to live, but the occupants managed to escape.
Mr Beattie's family condemned the three men for "laughing and joking" during the trial, which they said "showed little respect". Jenkinson was jailed for life, with a minimum of 30 years behind bars.
O'Brien and McEwan were handed sentences of 15 years and 13 years respectively.
James Foy and Michael Foy
James Foy, 19 and of Rossini Street in Seaforth, was convicted of the murder of Michael Rainsford (Image: Merseyside Police)
The Foy brothers were jailed for life after being convicted of the murder of Michael Rainsford.
The 20-year-old was shot dead as he stood in the kitchen of his Litherland home on the night of April 7, 2020. The attack was an act of revenge after bricks had been thrown at their home in Seaforth while their mum was inside alone.
But the brothers' trial heard Mr Rainsford had in fact played no role in that incident. The pair were found guilty of murder, possession of a prohibited firearm and possession of ammunition without certificate.
At their sentence hearing, James Foy instructed his barrister to tell the court he was the gunman who pulled the trigger that night. The shocking admission came minutes before he was due to be sentenced.
Michael Foy, 22 and of Rossini Street in Seaforth, was convicted of the murder of Michael Rainsford. (Image: Merseyside Police)
James Foy, 19, and of Rossini Street, was also convicted of possession of a prohibited gun in relation to a pistol found in a Bootle home in 2019. He was sentenced to a minimum of 28 years.
Michael, 22 and also of Rossini Street. was handed a minimum term of 30 years.
Anthony Saunderson and Paul Mount
Darren Owens (left), Anthony Saunderson (centre) and Paul Mount (right) were the leaders of a gang jailed at Liverpool Crown Court today for a range of drug offences.
A Merseyside gang produced hundreds of kilograms of drugs and shipped large quantities of their injectable amphetamines across England, Scotland and Wales as part of a multi-million pound scheme. They were also involved in dealing cocaine, heroin, ketamine and other drugs, while two of the gang’s ringleaders made attempts to get hold of weapons in the months before they were brought to justice.
A judge at Liverpool Crown Court said that the gang’s leaders, who got 93 years in jail between them, were characterised by their rock solid commitment to producing huge quantities of illegal drugs and trading them across Britain. Nicola Daley, prosecuting, told the court earlier this week that the gang’s huge drug production operation was initially discovered after the Encrochat messaging service was breached by investigators in 2020.
Anthony Saunderson, 42, of Formby, was jailed for 35 years after being convicted of conspiracy to produce and supply Class A and Class B amphetamine, conspiracy to supply other Class A drugs, conspiracy to supply other Class B drugs and conspiracy to transfer a prohibited weapon.
Paul Mount, 38, of Halsall, was jailed for 34 years after being convicted of conspiracy to produce and supply Class A and Class B amphetamine, conspiracy to supply other Class A drugs, conspiracy to supply other Class B drugs and conspiracy to purchase a prohibited weapon.
Erland Spahiu
Erland Spahiu was convicted of the murder of Christopher Hughes (Image: Greater Manchester Police)
Christopher Hughes' mutilated body was discovered on a country road on the outskirts of Skelmersdale by a dogwalker after he was bundled into the back of an Audi and viciously attacked. The 37-year-old suffered nearly 100 separate injuries, having been hunted down by a vigilante gang who wrongly believed the dad had raped a teenager.
Erland Spahiu, of White Moss Road in Skelmersdale, was found guilty of murder and kidnapping. The 34-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum term of 35 years.
Curtis Balbas, of Matheson Drive in Wigan, pleaded guilty to murder and kidnapping. The 30-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum term of 34 years.
Martin Smith, of Greenwood Avenue in Wigan, was found guilty of murder and kidnapping. The 34-year-old shook his head, took a sip of water then threw his plastic cup to the floor after he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 33 years.
Five more people were also jailed in connection with the murder but were given sentenced of under 30 years.
Anthony McGivern
Anthony 'Leech' McGivern was jailed for life with a minimum of 30 years
Drug dealer Anthony McGivern who accidentally shot his best friend in the head during a drive-by attack on a rival gang was jailed for a minimum of 30 years.
Anthony “Leech” McGivern blasted front seat passenger Kevin Gott in the back of the head at point blank range while trying to shoot members of the Larkhill Crew on August 30, 2011. The pair had a falling out with the street gang over drugs and, Liverpool Crown Court heard, there was also resentment over the murder of Edward Pybis who was killed in a drive-by shooting in Walton a few months earlier.
Although it was McGivern, 25, who had most to fear from reprisals the pair got hold of a 9mm gun and a stolen Ford Fiesta with fake plates to carry out the attack. But when they entered Larkhill Lane, Clubmoor, and saw their intended victims it was Mr Gott, also 25, who was shot as McGivern tried to both drive and fire at the same time – hitting him in the back of his hoodie.
Despite that he made a second attempt to shoot the Larkhill targets even while his friend’s dead body lay slumped in the seat next to him. McGivern then dumped Mr Gott’s body in a gutter on Brayfield Road, Norris Green, and set fire to the car.
He denied murder, claiming it was an accident, and although this was accepted towards the end of his trial he was still convicted of murder because he intended to hurt or kill someone, if not his actual victim.
Judge Clement Goldstone QC jailed McGivern for life with a minimum term of 30 years.
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Former Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson has died at the age of 91. Lawson served in numerous cabinet positions in the government of Margaret Thatcher but was best known for his role as chancellor during the 1980s.
Father to six children – including TV cook Nigella Lawson and journalist Dominic – he represented the constituency of Blaby from 1974 to 1992, before sitting in the Lords until his retirement in December.
Mr Lawson was closely associated with the economic reforms and privatisation policies which marked Thatcher’s premiership and significantly reshaped Britain.
Prior to entering politics aged 42, he worked as editor of The Spectator. He had also worked as a journalist for the Financial Times and the Sunday Telegraph.
Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson and David Cameron were among prominent Tory figures to pay tribute to Lawson on Monday night after news broke of his death.
Mr Johnson described the Eurosceptic as “a fearless and original flame of free-market Conservatism” and a “prophet of Brexit”.
“He was a tax-cutter and simplifier who helped transform the economic landscape and helped millions of British people achieve their dreams,” said Mr Johnson. “He was a prophet of Brexit and a lover of continental Europe. He was a giant. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.”
Mr Sunak said that “one of the first things I did as chancellor was hang a picture of Nigel Lawson above my desk”, describing him as “a transformational chancellor and an inspiration to me and many others”.
Former Tory prime minister David Cameron said: “Nigel Lawson was a giant of British politics, right in the heart of the engine room of Margaret Thatcher’s great reforms – and providing so much of the intellectual backing for what needed to be done at the end of the 1970s.”
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said Mr Lawson was “a rarity amongst politicians – someone who transformed our thinking as well as transforming our economy”, adding that he had “inspired all his successors”.
Nigel Lawson in 2013
Liz Truss said: “Incredibly sad to hear of the death of Nigel Lawson. A true giant of 20th century politics who as chancellor famously sought to abolish at least one tax at every Budget. His time at the helm of the Treasury was transformational.”
Foreign secretary James Cleverly described Lawson as “a true statesman”, adding: “His contributions to this nation will not be forgotten.”
Sajid Javid, another former Tory chancellor, described Lawson as “one of Britain’s greatest public servants, especially as chancellor”.
Lawson was active in Conservative politics “until very recently”, said Tory party chairman Greg Hands, adding that he would “be remembered for his clarity of thinking, commitment to free market economics and willingness to challenge orthodoxies”.
He served as financial and then energy secretary before Thatcher appointed him chancellor in 1983, a role he held until 1989, when his relationship with the prime minister soured and he resigned over a row with Thatcher and her economic aide Sir Alan Walters over the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
While he enjoyed a period of economic growth during his tenure dubbed the “Lawson Boom”, his policies were eventually blamed for pushing the UK into the inflationary spiral which ultimately led to a recession and the Black Wednesday crisis of 1992 – the same year Lawson moved to the Lords.
Former ministers and prime ministers have paid tribute to Nigel Lawson
(Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
He later told the BBC that he believed the 2008 financial crash had been an “unintended consequence” of his “Big Bang” deregulation of the City of London’s financial markets.
In 2016 he became chairman of Vote Leave, which saw the successful campaign for the UK’s exit from the EU at that year’s referendum. Mr Lawson described Brexit as a “historic opportunity” to finish what Thatcher had started.
Lawson had remained vocal after stepping back from frontline politics, continuing to campaign for Brexit as president of the Conservatives for Britain pressure group.
A sceptic of man-made climate change, he also acted as founding chair of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which has lobbied against policies to avert climate breakdown such as net zero.
He finally retired from the Lords in December, ending a parliamentary career spanning nearly 50 years.
Funding promised to develop the social care workforce in England has been halved, the government has confirmed.
In 2021 the government pledged "at least" £500 million for reforms, to be spent on training places and technology over three years.
But that figure is now £250 million, according to the Department of Health.
A coalition of charities said this cut is "just the latest in a long series of disappointments" over social care.
The government said its reforms would give care "the status it deserves" but some organisations in the sector say they fall short of what is needed.
Measures outlined in the government's white paper on social care, published in December 2021, include the creation of a new Care Certificate qualification and funding for hundreds of thousands of training places.
The document also outlines plans to speed up digitising social care records and make better use of technology such as smart speakers and sensors.
The government has said its refreshed plan will bolster the workforce and help free up hospital beds.
But the money allocated to the reforms is now just half of what was put forward in 2021.
The white paper also promised to invest at least £150 million in digitisation across the sector, but the Department of Health and Social Care said the figure is now £100 million as £50 million has already been spent.
There has also been no mention of the previously announced £25 million to support unpaid carers or the £300 million mentioned in the white paper to integrate housing into local health and care strategies.
Social care minister Helen Whately said the package announced on Tuesday "focuses on recognising care with the status it deserves".
She said the reforms focused on the "better use of technology, the power of data and digital care records, and extra funding for councils - aiming to make a care system we can be proud of".
The Department for Health and Social Care insists that all the promised money will stay within social care and that it has yet to allocate the full budget.
But the King's Fund health think tank said the measures were "a dim shadow of the widescale reform to adult social care that this government came into office promising".
Caroline Abrahams, co-chair of the Care and Support Alliance - which represents more than 70 charities - and charity director of Age UK, said the measures "aren't remotely enough to transform social care".
Millions of older and disabled people and their carers "needed something far bigger, bolder and more genuinely strategic to give them hope for the future", she said.
She continued: "With quite a chunk of the money originally promised for care now no longer available, our CSA members are telling us this is just the latest in a long series of disappointments so far as recent government performance on social care is concerned."
A report from Care England and the HfT care provider in March warned that adult social care was "on the precipice" when it came to costs.
The low level of pay for care staff was considered the biggest barrier to recruitment and retention, the report said.
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Victims of grooming gangs have been ignored because of political correctness, Rishi Sunak said as he set out plans for a police taskforce.
Specialist officers supported by the National Crime Agency will be sent to help forces with their investigations, the government said.
And better ethnicity data will help ensure abusers do not evade justice due to "cultural sensitivities", it added.
Labour said the proposals were "far too inadequate".
Under the new plans, more data on the make-up of grooming gangs, including ethnicity, would help ensure suspects "cannot hide behind cultural sensitivities as a way to evade justice", the government said.
Mr Sunak said it wasn't right that cases of victims and whistleblowers had been "often ignored" by social workers, local politicians and the police in areas such as Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford - because of "cultural sensitivity and political correctness".
Earlier Sabah Kaiser, ethnic minority ambassador to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), said it was "very, very dangerous" to turn child sexual abuse "into a matter of colour".
She told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: "Child sexual abuse does not have a skin colour, it doesn't have a religion, it doesn't have a culture. Child sexual abuse does not discriminate."
Professor Alexis Jay OBE, who chairs the IICSA and investigated child abuse in Rotherham, welcomed the announcement but indicated she wanted the government to adopt the 20 recommendations she set out last year in full "to better protect children from sexual abuse in the future".
The taskforce announcement did not include any mention of new funding, or give any indication of how many officers would be involved.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told LBC political correctness should not "get in the way" of prosecuting grooming gangs but added the "vast majority of sexual abuse cases" do not involve ethnic minorities.
Last year a report by the IICSA inquiry found the police and councils still did not understand the risk of organised gangs grooming children in their areas and were not collecting data which would help identify paedophiles and their ethnic background.
It found that, in some cases, authorities might be potentially downplaying the scale of abuse, and that local authorities "don't want to be labelled another Rochdale or Rotherham" - referring to the high-profile grooming gangs cases.
Signs of abuse were found in six areas studied by the inquiry, but police forces generally could not provide evidence about the extent of the problem.
The IICSA has previously called for better data collection across the country, and the Home Office acknowledged in 2020 that a "paucity of data... limits what can be known about the characteristics of offenders, victims and offending behaviour".
Over years of hearings and research, IICSA also found child abuse existed in a wide range of contexts, ranging from religious institutions, schools, the care system, and online, which are not covered by Monday's announcement.
There is also a huge backlog in cases going through the courts, which particularly affects victims of child abuse who sometimes have to wait years, while dealing with the trauma their experience has created.
NSPCC chief executive Sir Peter Wanless said the announcement "must be backed up with funding for services to help child victims recover and support for a justice system that is struggling to cope".
He added that "predators... are from a range of cultural backgrounds" and warned it was "really important that by raising an issue such as race we don't create other blind spots".
PA Media
Other plans announced on Monday include making membership of a grooming gang an aggravating factor during sentencing, Downing Street said.
The government has already said it will introduce a legal requirement for people who work with children to report abuse, or face prosecution.
Mr Sunak met with local police and victims in Leeds and Greater Manchester on Monday to launch the taskforce.
On Sunday Home Secretary Suella Braverman told the BBC there was "a wilful turning of the blind eye" among authorities, and that "cultural sensitivities" and concerns about "being called bigoted" had played a role in high-profile abuse scandals.
She said "vulnerable white girls living in troubled circumstances have been abused, drugged, raped, and exploited" by networks of gangs of rapists, which she claimed were "overwhelmingly" made up of British-Pakistani males.
An independent inquiry found at least 1,400 children had been subjected to sexual abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, with the perpetrators predominantly men of Pakistani heritage.
The racial profile of these cases resulted in the issue becoming a cause-celebre within far-right politics.
Home Office-commissioned research in 2020 found "a number" of high-profile cases had "mainly involved men of Pakistani ethnicity", but also highlighted "significant limitations to what can be said about links between ethnicity and this form of offending".
It said there was limited research on offender identity and poor quality data, which made it difficult to draw conclusions, however "it is likely that no one community or culture is uniquely predisposed to offending".
Dr Ella Cockbain, associate professor at University College London's Department of Security and Crime Science, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the government was "disregarding and contradicting" its own research to "push discredited stereotypes".
Tracy Brabin, Labour Mayor of West Yorkshire, called Ms Braverman's comments a "dog whistle", while shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the plans were "far too inadequate for the scale of the problem".
Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesperson, said they supported steps to crack down on abusers, but said: "Unless the government tackles the backlog in our courts and restores community policing, too many criminals will continue to evade justice."
ishi Sunak said the new wave of teachers’ strikes would be “enormously damaging” to children, insisting the pay offer rejected by the NEU on Monday was “very reasonable”.
Teachers are set to walk out on April 27 and May 2 after 98 per cent of National Education Union members rejected the offer it described as “insulting”.
But the Prime Minister told broadcasters he was “extremely disappointed with the actions of the NEU teaching union”, adding that the union had been offered a new pay deal “worth about 8 per cent on average”.
He said: “In spite of all of that…the NEU has rejected that and announced new strike dates which will be enormously damaging to our children, whose education has already suffered in the face of Covid.”
But Mr Sunak refused to say if a £1000 one off payment for teachers would now be withdrawn following the NEU rejection, saying only: “We have made a very reasonable pay offer.”
More than 191,000 teachers in England had voted against Education Secretary Gillian Keegan’s offer, the NEU announced at its annual conference in Harrogate today. Delegates broke into chants of “come on Gill, pay the bill”.
Most teachers in England have had a five per cent pay rise this year.
The Government had proposed an additional one-off £1,000 payment and an average 4.5 per cent rise for most staff in the next school year.
It had also pledged to create a taskforce to help reduce teacher workload. Dr Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, joint general secretaries of the NEU, said: “We have today written to the Education Secretary informing her of the next two days of strike action on April 27 and May 2 that NEU teacher members in England will now be taking.”
The action will be a blow for children who have already had their education disrupted by a total of seven days of strikes by NEU members this year, including four days in London schools.
Dr Bousted and Mr Courtney said the union would work to ensure pupils in Years 11 and 13 — crucial exam years — have a “full programme of education” on strike days.
Downing Street said it was “extremely disappointed” with the NEU’s decision to back more strikes, saying it would add to the disruption children have faced in school over the past few years.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “With a week of classroom time already lost and exams fast approaching it is extremely disappointing the NEU have called for more strike action. That decision will also result in less money for teachers this year with the independent pay review body looking at pay for next year only whereas with the government’s deal they could have had an extra £1000 in their pay packet.
“We continue to call on the NEU given the level of disruption children have already seen in recent years to their education to not take strike action. We have put forward a funded pay offer which we think is fair and proportionate. The NEU membership have voted against it …now it falls to the pay review body process in setting pay for next year.”
Asked if the Government would return with a revised offer, the spokesman added that there were “no plans to do that”. He said: “We remain open to further discussions but we felt this was a fair and reasonable offer.”
Ms Keegan described the ballot result as “extremely disappointing” and said the Government had negotiated “in good faith”.
Dr Bousted and Mr Courtney told conference delegates that the offer showed an “astounding lack of judgment and understanding of the desperate situation in the education system”.
They said: “No teacher wants to be on strike. Nor can they accept this offer that does nothing to address the decades of below inflation pay increases making them the worst paid teachers in the UK.
“The offer will do nothing to stem the teacher recruitment and retention crisis which is so damaging to our children and young people’s education. The Education Secretary has united the profession in its outrage at this insulting pay offer.”
In a message to parents, they also said the union did not want to disrupt education, adding: “Our action is aimed at getting the Government to invest in the education of this generation of children and the people who teach them.”
Responding to the announcement, the Education Secretary said: “After costing children almost a week of time in the classroom and with exams fast approaching, it is extremely disappointing that the NEU have called more strike action.
“Following a week negotiating in good faith, the Government offered teachers a £1,000 payment on top of this year’s pay rise, a commitment to significantly cut workload, and a headline pay increase of 4.5 per cent for next year — above both inflation and average earnings growth.
The offer was funded, including major new investment of over half a billion pounds, in addition to the record funding already planned for school budgets.
“Pay will now be decided by the independent pay review body which will recommend pay rises for next year.”
It comes as Louise Atkinson, the president of the NEU, today told members that she had organised her first strike at the age of nine. She said: “I encouraged the girls in my class to refuse to go back in after lunch, instead sitting on the goal line in protest at the fact that we were not allowed to play football.”
Ms Atkinson also attacked Ofsted, saying that the schools watchdog was the “driver for so much that is wrong in our schools and colleges”.
