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Tributes have been paid to “committed and passionate” victims’ commissioner Baroness Helen Newlove, who has died following a short illness. The dedicated campaigner, aged 63, fought against antisocial behaviour after her husband Garry was beaten to death in front of his daughters as he tried to confront teen vandals in 2007.She earned herself a peerage for her campaigning in 2010 and later the job of victims’ commissioner for two periods between 2013 to 2019 and from October 2023 until her death. The announcement was made at the start of proceedings on Wednesday, where she was described as a “committed and passionate advocate for victims”. In a statement, her office said: “We are deeply saddened to share that Baroness Helen Newlove, the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, has passed away following a short illness. Our thoughts are with her family at this difficult time.“Helen was a committed and passionate advocate for victims, drawing on her own experience of the criminal justice system. She was determined that all victims should be treated with compassion, decency and respect – and she consistently led by example.Baroness Helen Newlove’s office paid tribute to her as a ‘committed and passionate advocate for victims’ More

The government is set to re-examine its decision not to award compensation to up to 3.8 million women affected by changes to the state pension age, following the emergence of new evidence.Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden informed the Commons that ministers would reconsider the refusal of compensation for women born in the 1950s, whose state pension age was raised to align with men’s.He stated that “evidence” not presented to his predecessor, Liz Kendall, has come to light since the decision was made last December.Labour had previously faced criticism for rejecting compensation, despite a recommendation from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO).The PHSO had suggested that these women should receive up to £2,950 each, amounting to a potential total cost of £10.5bn, due to poor communication that hindered their ability to adequately plan for retirement.Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden that new evidence has come to light (Ben Birchall/PA) More

IT companies that provide services for the NHS, as well as the UK’s energy, water and transport infrastructure, will face tough new security standards in a new law introduced by ministers to mitigate the threat of cyber attacks.The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will be introduced on Wednesday in a move that ministers hope will strengthen national security by boosting cyber protections for the services that people and businesses rely on. The aim is to keep taps running, lights on and the UK’s transport services moving as businesses, transport hubs and government organisations continue to be targeted by cyber attacks. Liz Kendall, as technology secretary, will get new powers to instruct regulators and the organisations More

Online pornography depicting women being choked is to be banned, following a review that found such images are rife and have helped establish the act as a sexual norm.The government confirmed the possession and publication of images showing strangulation and suffocation will be criminalised, as part of a crackdown on violent pornography. While non-fatal strangulation is already an offence, its online depiction is not currently illegal.This legislative action follows Conservative peer Baroness Bertin’s warning earlier this year of a “total absence of government scrutiny” in the pornography industry. Her independent review, published in February, cited worrying anecdotal evidence from teachers about students asking how to choke girls during sex.Baroness Bertin cautioned that people acting out choking in their sex lives “may face devastating consequences”.Amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill, due before peers in the House of Lords next week for further scrutiny, were confirmed by the government on Monday.Justice minister Alex Davies-Jones said the Government was cracking down on violent pornography More

Lost and helpless in a foreign country, Abu Omar* was grateful to be given a place to stay in a hotel after arriving in the UK last year.After fleeing a refugee camp in Jordan, he and his young family were offered a room in a London hotel, which had been designated for asylum seekers by the goverment.Abu and his wife Sarah* live there with their two young children, packed together into a tired and bleak single room. Living day to day inside the four walls, they survive on a diet of bread, cheese and fruit. They said they decided to stop eating the hotel food after their children, a daughter aged 4 and a son aged 6, both contracted food poisoning from uncooked chicken served there. Abu had little with him when he arrived in Britain and, after his pair of trousers got torn, he was left with only one outfit – the tracksuit he had arrived in.Once a week, Sarah would hand-wash his tracksuit in the sink of their hotel room. With nothing else to wear, he would remain there for a day or two in his underwear until his clothes had dried.St George’s flag hung outside of a Home Office hotel More

Reform MP Lee Anderson has admitted to previously “gaming the system” to help people secure benefits. The Ashfield MP made the revelation during a press conference, explaining his past role at the Citizens Advice Bureau before entering politics.“Before I came into politics, I worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau,” he said. “We used to fill the form out for clients … I can tell you now, we were gaming the system.” Mr Anderson described the process as “a competition” between the adviser and the Department for Work and Pensions.He said he knew advisers at the organisation who had “a 100 per cent hit rate” on benefits forms and could get “the fittest man in Ashfield” onto the personal independence payment (PIP).The Ashfield MP told a press conference that he worked at the Citizens Advice Bureau before entering politics More

Another prisoner could be mistakenly freed from jail again if the government does not undertake a “systematic” inquiry into how a migrant sex offender was wrongly released, criminal justice experts have warned. Hadush Kebatu, who was jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford on Friday in an error that has sparked widespread condemnation. A prison officer has been suspended while a probe takes place, with the government set to announce an independent inquiry.Experts have now claimed that mistakes in the release of inmates happens “all the time” and is symptomatic of the chaos within the prison system, which has suffered from overcrowding, lack of investment, poor staff retention and delayed government decision-making. Richard Gareside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, told The Independent: “People need to be held accountable for mistakes, but the underlying context is that this is a prison system in crisis.“If they [the government] don’t do a systematic look at what’s gone wrong, then I suspect it won’t be long before we have another of these kinds of incidents.”Kebatu was arrested on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park after a two-day manhunt More

The accidental release of a migrant sex offender from prison is a sign that the UK justice system is “broken”, a minister has said.Steve Reed called for the criminal justice system to be “rebuilt from the bottom up” after the mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu, who was imprisoned for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.The Ethiopian national was jailed for 12 months in September for the offence, and was wrongly freed from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre, in an incident that sparked widespread condemnation.Speaking to Sky News on Monday, the housing secretary said: “This individual had no right to be in the country in the first place, let alone committing the kind of offences that he committed.“I’m sure everybody else watching was just as shocked when they saw this individual had been released accidentally. It wasn’t that he made an escape bid: he was released in a way that should not have happened. Now, that is a sign, isn’t it, of a broken criminal justice system.”Hadush Kebatu was arrested on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park after a two-day manhunt More