UK news
Fraudster jailed after scamming London renters out of £77,000
June 13, 2026A man has been jailed after defrauding more than 30 people out of more than £77,000 in a rental scam, police said. Frederic Priestley, 34, from Southwark, London, falsely advertised a property for rent on Facebook between April and September last year. He provided prospective renters with tenancy agreements and obtained deposits and rent payments, […]
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MPs call for end to real estate event over fear it pushes sale of Israeli settlements
June 13, 2026More than 100 UK lawmakers have called for the cancellation of an Israeli real estate event scheduled to take place in London on Sunday, which had appeared to advertise the sale of land in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. In a letter sent to the foreign secretary on Friday, 101 parliamentarians and members […]
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London council seizes social housing flat rented by Sierra Leone first lady
June 11, 2026A social housing flat rented by Sierra Leone’s first lady has been seized by a London council. Southwark council confirmed it had repossessed the two-bedroom home in Walworth previously occupied by Fatima Jabbe-Bio, whose tenancy was reported by the Times last year. Jabbe-Bio, who is married to Sierra Leone’s president, Julius Maada Bio, had been […]
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Met police chief calls for law to make stolen phones ‘unusable bricks’
June 11, 2026The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has asked the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, to force all phone companies to make stolen devices “unusable bricks” in order to make them harder to sell on and less desirable to steal. London is widely regarded as the phone-snatching capital of Europe, with between 200 and 300 devices […]
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Palantir to sue Sadiq Khan over blocked £50m Met police contract
June 9, 2026Palantir intends to sue the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, after he blocked a contract between the US spy-tech firm and the Metropolitan police. The Met had planned to use Palantir’s software to automate intelligence analysis in criminal investigations, until Khan intervened in late May, sparking a row between the UK’s largest police force and the […]
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Family pay tribute to ‘altruistic’ London woman as her killer is jailed
June 9, 2026A retired Old Bailey judge has paid tribute to his daughter after her killer was jailed for life. Clifton George, 45, was sentenced on Tuesday to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 23 years after being found guilty of the murder of Annabel Rook, 46, whom he stabbed in the living room of her […]
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‘I was crying and shaking’: vulnerable people face ‘inhumane’ ultimatums from London councils
June 7, 2026Having fled sex trafficking gangs in Belgium and Manchester, the woman from Albania thought she was finally safe when she arrived in west London with her two young children. A single mother, she had been granted asylum in the UK and was ready to start a new life in the capital. But first they needed […]
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Vulnerable families illegally ‘dumped’ hundreds of miles away by London councils
June 7, 2026Vulnerable families including women fleeing abuse are being illegally “dumped” hundreds of miles away by London councils in a practice “ripping at the social fabric” of deprived towns, a Guardian investigation has found. Against the backdrop of a deepening housing crisis, the number of homeless people forced out of London has doubled in the past […]
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Hampstead Heath ponds to remain trans-inclusive after public back existing rules
June 4, 2026The bathing ponds at Hampstead Heath in north-west London will remain trans-inclusive after a public consultation overwhelmingly favoured its existing rules. There are gender-segregated ponds for men and women, with trans people able to swim in whichever they feel most appropriate, or use the heath’s mixed-gender pond instead. The City of London Corporation (CLC), which […]
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Family of girl left brain-damaged at birth accept £28m NHS payout
June 4, 2026The family of a girl left brain-damaged at birth have agreed to accept £28m in damages after the NHS trust involved admitted that its mistakes led to the tragedy. Barking, Havering and Redbridge university hospitals NHS trust failed to monitor the baby’s heart rate while her mother was in labour or ask an obstetrician to […]
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