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    UK Laws Are Not ‘Fit for Social Media Age,’ Says Report Into Summer Riots

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    Outdated legislation prevented the police from rapidly correcting misinformation after a stabbing attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last summer, lawmakers said.British laws restricting what the police can say about criminal cases are “not fit for the social media age,” a government committee said in a report released Monday in Britain that highlighted how unchecked misinformation stoked riots last summer.Violent disorder, fueled by the far right, affected several towns and cities for days after a teenager killed three girls on July 29 at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, England. In the hours after the stabbings, false claims that the attacker was an undocumented Muslim immigrant spread rapidly online.In a report looking into the riots, a parliamentary committee said a lack of information from the authorities after the attack “created a vacuum where misinformation was able to grow.” The report blamed decades-old British laws, aimed at preventing jury bias, that stopped the police from correcting false claims.By the time the police announced the suspect was British-born, those false claims had reached millions.The Home Affairs Committee, which brings together lawmakers from across the political spectrum, published its report after questioning police chiefs, government officials and emergency workers over four months of hearings.Axel Rudakubana, who was sentenced to life in prison for the attack, was born and raised in Britain by a Christian family from Rwanda. A judge later found there was no evidence he was driven by a single political or religious ideology, but was obsessed with violence.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russell Brand Is Charged With Rape and Sexual Assault in U.K.

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      British prosecutors said that they had charged the comedian and actor with offenses between 1999 and 2005, involving four women.Prosecutors in Britain have charged Russell Brand, the comedian and actor, with multiple counts of sexual assault, including two counts of rape.The country’s Crown Prosecution Service announced the charges on Friday.Jaswant Narwal, a prosecutor, said in the statement that Mr. Brand, 50, would appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London for a first hearing on May 2.Ms. Narwal added that the charges “relate to reported non-recent offenses between 1999 and 2005, involving four women.”The British police began investigating Mr. Brand’s past behavior in September 2023, after The Sunday Times, The Times of London and the TV network Channel 4 published a joint investigation into allegations against him.Representatives for Mr. Brand did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday, but he has repeatedly denied ever having committed sexual assault.After the 2023 news investigation was published, Mr. Brand released a video on social media in which he said the British media was subjecting him to “a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks.” Mr. Brand said that he had once been sexually promiscuous but that his sexual encounters were “always consensual.”The Metropolitan Police in London outlined further details of the charges in a news release on Friday. Mr. Brand is accused of raping a woman in the Bournemouth area, in southern England, in 1999; of indecently assaulting a woman in London in 2001; of orally raping and sexually assaulting a woman in London in 2004; and, between 2004 and 2005, of sexually assaulting a fourth woman in London.The police statement added: “The Met’s investigation remains open and detectives ask anyone who has been affected by this case, or anyone who has any information, to come forward and speak with police.”Under British law, it is an offense for news outlets to identify people who make sexual assault allegations unless they choose to waive their right to anonymity.Mr. Brand became a star in Britain in the 2000s thanks to acclaimed stand-up shows that often focused on drugs and sex, and that saw him selling out arena dates. He also became known as a TV and radio host for broadcasters including MTV and the BBC. He achieved fame in the United States after starring in movies such as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek,” and through a brief marriage to the singer Katy Perry.More recently, Mr. Brand has become well known as a politically charged YouTuber. Over six million users subscribe to his channel where he posts videos that regularly include discussion of conspiracy theories and feature conservative figures like Tucker Carlson.On Thursday, Mr. Brand posted a clip about Donald Trump and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.In Britain, strict rules prevent the reporting of anything that could prejudice a jury at trial after charges have been filed. More

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      Harvey Weinstein Indecent Assault Case Dropped by U.K. Prosecutors

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      The Crown Prosecution Service said that it had “decided that there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.”British prosecutors have dropped a case against Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul, just two years after authorizing indecent assault charges against him.In a statement on Thursday, the Crown Prosecution Service said that, “following a review of the evidence,” it had decided to halt the proceedings against Mr. Weinstein.Frank Ferguson, head of the service’s special crime and counterterrorism division, said in the statement that there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.”“We have explained our decision to all parties,” he added.On Thursday, a spokeswoman for the Crown Prosecution Service said in an email that the service would not be giving any further details of the reasoning behind the decision.The case dates to 2022, when British prosecutors authorized two charges against Mr. Weinstein of indecent assault of a woman in London in 1996. Under British law, it is illegal to identify potential victims of sexual assault, even after prosecutors drop a case.At the height of his powers, Mr. Weinstein, now 72, was one of the world’s most important movie producers, widely seen as able to make or break an actor’s career.In 2017, his career went into free fall after The New York Times reported that he had, over the course of nearly three decades, paid off women who had accused him of sexual assault. In the story’s aftermath, prosecutors mounted cases against him in both Britain and the United States.Last year, Mr. Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison after being convicted of rape and sexual assault in California.In April, New York’s highest court overturned Mr. Weinstein’s 2020 felony sex crimes conviction, ruling that the original judge had deprived him of a fair trial. The court said that the original judge should not have let prosecutors call witnesses who said that Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them when their accusations did not form part of the case.In May, Manhattan prosecutors announced they would retry Mr. Weinstein on sex crimes charges and he is currently in the Rikers Island jail complex awaiting that case. More

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      U.K. Nurse Lucy Letby Convicted of Attempted Murder in Retrial

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      Ms. Letby, who was previously found guilty in a string of murders and attempted murders, was retried and found guilty of another attempted murder.Lucy Letby, a neonatal nurse who was convicted last year of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six others at the English hospital where she worked, was found guilty on Tuesday of the attempted murder of another premature baby.A jury had initially failed to reach a verdict in the case of the child, known as Baby K to protect her identity, and Ms. Letby was retried over the last four weeks in a court in Manchester in the north of England. She will be sentenced on Friday and is already serving a life term for the earlier convictions.Ms. Letby, 34, was working at the Countess of Chester Hospital in the city of Chester, in northwestern England, between June 2015 and June 2016 when an unexpectedly high number of babies in the neonatal unit where she worked died or became seriously unwell.Nicola Wyn Williams, a senior crown prosecutor, said that while Ms. Letby had “continually denied that she tried to kill this baby or any of the babies that she has been convicted of murdering or attempting to murder,” the jury had “formed its own view.”“The grief that the family of Baby K have felt is unimaginable,” she said. “Our thoughts remain with them and all those affected by this case at this time.” More