The grieving husband of a woman who was killed when a ‘remorseless’ courier rammed into her on an illegal bike has called for new laws to tackle “irresponsible and reckless” cycling as he paid a heartbreaking tribute to his late wife.
Charlie Alliston, then 18, was travelling at 18mph on a fixed-wheel track bike with no front brakes before he crashed into 44-year-old Kim Briggs as she crossed the street in London in February last year. He was cleared of manslaughter but convicted of “wanton and furious driving” on Wednesday following a ground-breaking trial.
Prosecutors took the unprecedented step of bringing a manslaughter charge due to the unusually grave circumstances of the case.
Speaking outside the Old Bailey, widower Matthew
Briggs made an impassioned plea for a change in the law, and the
attitude of some cyclists.
He said: “I am now determined to do what I can to
prevent others from going through the heartache we have had to bear
following Kim’s needless death.
“This is not a witch hunt against all cyclists (I, myself cycle in London), only the irresponsible and reckless”.
“We all have to share these imperfect streets, let’s do so with care and due regard for each other”.
Matt Briggs’ wife Kim died as a result of her injuries (Rex)
Jurors took more than 12 hours to find
Alliston not guilty of manslaughter but convicted him of a lesser
offence under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, which carries a
maximum sentence of two years in jail.
Judge Wendy Joseph QC said she was
considering a prison sentence, and added: “I have not seen one iota of
remorse from Mr Alliston at all, at any stage.”
The former bike courier, wearing a top with
“Anti Social” on it, had been on his way to buy food for his girlfriend
when he crashed into Mrs Briggs during her lunch break.
As she crossed the capital’s Old Street, he
twice shouted for her to get out of the way but failed to stop or avoid
the head-on collision.
He sprang up and continued to shout at his
victim as she lay in the road with catastrophic head injuries. Mrs
Briggs died in hospital a week later.
Following the conclusion of the trial on
Wednesday Matthew Briggs paid tribute to his late wife, vowing not to
live his life filled with anger. He said he would remember her “not
through the lens of how she died, or through this trial, but for being
the beautiful, fun loving woman who adored her children and who lived
her life to the full.”
Alliston criticised Mrs Briggs and claimed
she was responsible for the crash in a string of posts on social media
in the days that followed.
In a comment on an online news article, he
claimed he had shouted out to her but she “ignored me”, looked back at
her phone then “stopped dead” in his path.
He wrote: “I feel bad due to the seriousness of her injuries but I can put my hands up and say this is not my fault.”
Mr Briggs said it was important to him that
Alliston had conceded this was a lie. “We now know categorically that
Kim was not using her phone at the time”, he said.
“I am now determined to do what I can to
prevent others from going through the heartache we have had to bear
following Kim’s needless death”.
Sky News
Stray dogs in Mumbai turned bright blue by contaminated river
Neville Lazarus, India Reporter,Sky News6 hours ago
Residents living near India's financial capital
Mumbai were shocked to see a number of stray dogs had turned a bright
shade of blue.
It emerged the animals had been wading through water
as they searched for food in the Kasadi river where untreated industrial
waste from nearby factories had been dumped.
There are claims at least one of the dogs had gone
blind and other animals, including birds, had also been affected by the
pollution in Navi Mumbai.
Arati Chauhan, who runs the Navi Mumbai animal protection shelter, was the first to highlight the issue.
She told Sky News: "It's just not dogs. All other
animals are being affected by the environment pollution. I witnessed
five such dogs. In fact, one of the dogs has gone blind."
Ms Chauhan said she when she went to survey the area
her eyes started burning and she fell sick. She said: "I had to see a
doctor and am still recovering."
She added: "Workers in the factories and security men
guarding various factories tell me they have health issues, breathing
is a problem, but say 'We are helpless, we have to work here it's our
bread and butter'."
There are about 1,000 pharmaceutical, dye manufacturing and food factories in the Taloja district.
A quality check by the Navi Mumbai municipal corporation found the waste treatment of effluents was inadequate.
The level of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) was 80 milligrams a litre.
According to official guidelines, fish die when the
BOD level is above 6mg/l, and a level above 3mg/l makes the water unfit
for human consumption.
For years, activists have complained to authorities
of indiscriminate dumping of untreated effluents into the river, but to
no avail.
Ms Chauhan and her group have now filed a complaint with the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB).
Anil Mohekar, regional officer of the board, told
reporters they were aware of the complaint, adding: "Discharge of dye
into any water body is illegal. We will take action against the
polluters as they are destroying the environment."
One of the industrial units producing chemical dyes has been sealed by authorities.
Ms Chauhan claimed only part of the factory was sealed and not the manufacturing unit.
She said: "It's all hogwash. How can only one factory
pollute the entire area. Hundreds of factories are saving money by
dumping toxins in the river instead of sending it to the mandatory
common effluent treatment plant."
The Taloja industrial zone, located outside Mumbai,
employs almost 76,000 people and generates billions of pounds a year for
the economy.
Evening Standard
Leading Finnish historian threatened with detention and deportation in 'absurd' Brexit ruling by Home Office officials
BENEDICT MOORE-BRIDGER,Evening Standard11 hours ago
A Finnish historian at London’s Queen Mary University
has been plunged into a “Kafkaesque nightmare” after being threatened
with detention and deportation by the Home Office, despite being an EU
national.
Already legally allowed to live and work in the UK,
Dr Eva Johanna Holmberg was told she was “liable for detention” after
her application for an EU registration certificate was bizarrely
rejected.
Dr Holmberg applied for the Qualified Person certificate for “peace of mind” in June following the Brexit referendum.
It was rejected, apparently due to a technicality -
and rather than spend money reapplying, Dr Holmberg decided that as the
document would make no difference to her current status, she would not
appeal.
The Home Office also informed her there was “no requirement to leave the UK”.
However last Thursday, the academic was told by Home
Office officials that “a decision has now been taken to remove you from
the United Kingdom in accordance with section 10 of the Immigration and
Asylum Act 1999”.
The letter said she was considered “a person liable
to administrative removal...as you have failed to evidence that you are
exercising Treaty rights in the United Kingdom”, and that she was “a
person who is liable to be detained”.
It gave her a month to leave. The Home Office said
the letter was a mistake and one of around 100 sent to different people
“in error”.
Dr Holmberg, an expert in early British History,
moved to the UK last August with her British husband James Chester, an
optician, after being seconded to Queen Mary from the University of
Helsinki.
She told the Standard the Home Office’s “absurd” decision was “unlawful, arbitrary and disproportionate”.
She said: “It makes you feel like you are being treated like a common criminal.
“Even if I were a criminal there are certain requirements that should be met before you are deported.
““How can an EU National be deported from the UK? There is free movement of people.
“I am a historian - I believe in the strength
of paperwork and I like security and thought this of paper would be a
way to show that.
“It turns out it has spiralled into some Kafkaesque nightmare.
“It is just unbelievable. All for a piece of
paper I don’t even need. It would be funny if it were not so draining
and stressful.”
Dr Holmberg, who pays UK taxes, said the
situation could have been even worse if she had been on holiday and not
seen the letter in time to lodge an urgent appeal through her lawyers.
She added: “This absurd nonsense has aged me
at least five years and made me even less likely to trust anything Amber
Rudd, Theresa May, or David Davis says to calm us EU nationals down.
“It shows the home office currently cannot
function. It does not know how to obey the law or even its own rules. It
is probably not able to deal with all the paperwork.”
The Qualified Person certificate confirms an
individual’s right to live and work in the UK if they have resided in
Britain for less than five years.
There is no requirement to apply, but many EU nationals worried about the impact of Brexit have done so.
It is even less important after the
government said EU citizens in Britain for less than five years at the
time of Brexit will be able to apply for special temporary status in
order to stay in the UK, applying for “settled status” - effectively
indefinite leave to remain - once they have reached five years in the
country.
A Home Office spokesman said Dr Holmberg’s letter should not have been sent, and was one of “around 100” wrongly issued.
He said: “A limited number of letters were issued in error and we have been urgently looking into why this happened.
"We are contacting everyone who received this letter to clarify that they can disregard it.
“We are absolutely clear that the rights of EU nationals living in the UK remain unchanged.”
‘Back up, you creep!’: Clinton muses about tense Trump debate moment
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump listens as Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton answers a question at their presidential town
hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Oct. 9, 2016. (Photo:
Rick Wilking/Reuters)
In her new book, Hillary Clinton fantasizes about
telling Donald Trump, “Back up you creep!” as he lurked behind her
during a presidential debate.
The Oct. 9, 2016, debate in St. Louis occurred two days after the release of the bombshell 2005 “Access Hollywood”
tape, in which Trump describes forcibly kissing and groping women. As
Clinton moved around the stage to address the audience at the town
hall-style debate, Trump loomed behind her, resulting in ominous optics.
MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday aired an excerpt of the audiobook of “What Happened,” Clinton’s upcoming tome. In it, Clinton describes Trump “literally breathing down my neck” during the debate.
“‘This is not OK,’ I thought,” she recalled in the
excerpt. “It was the second presidential debate, and Donald Trump was
looming behind me. Two days before, the world heard him brag about
groping women. Now we were on a small stage, and no matter where I
walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces. It was
incredibly uncomfortable.”
She continued: “He was literally breathing down my
neck. My skin crawled. It was one of those moments where you wish you
could hit pause and ask everyone watching, ‘Well, what would you do?’ Do
you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly
invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say loudly
and clearly, ‘Back up, you creep! Get away from me. I know you love to
intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me, so back up!’
Ultimately, Clinton writes, “I chose Option
A. I kept my cool, aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men
trying to throw me off. I did, however, grip the microphone extra hard. I
wonder, though, whether I should have chosen Option B. It certainly
would have been better TV. Maybe I have overlearned the lesson of
staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched
fist, smiling all the while, determined to present a composed face to
the world.”
In a separate clip from the audiobook,
Clinton says the book is an attempt to “pull back the curtain on an
experience that was exhilarating, joyful, humbling, infuriating and just
plain baffling.”
“Every day that I was a candidate for
president, I knew that millions of people were counting on me, and I
couldn’t bear the idea of letting them down,” Clinton writes. “But I
did. I couldn’t get the job done.”
_____ Read more from Yahoo News:
Since entering the Celebrity Big Brother house and falling for housemate Chad Johnson, former Girls Aloud star, Sarah Harding, has been incredibly open about having a boyfriend on the outside world.
In fact, after kissing Chad once in front of the cameras, Sarah had a meltdown over a game of Spin The Bottle, refusing to kiss Made In Chelsea star Sam Thompson out of loyalty to her boyfriend.
Chad and Sarah are officially ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ inside the house. Copyright: [Channel 5]
However, things have moved quickly since then, with Sarah and
Chad officially naming themselves “boyfriend and girlfriend” within the
house and Sarah shocking viewers when she seemingly performed a sex act on the US star in full view of the cameras.
Now a friend of Sarah’s boyfriend has admitted that
he is “devastated” by Sarah’s betrayal, with 33-year-old Aaron Lacey
even moving in with Sarah ahead of her stint on CBB.
Speaking to The Sun,
Aaron’s friend shared: “He’s heartbroken. He fell for her. They were
inseparable. He supported her going on Celebrity Big Brother and watched
nightly. He’s devastated she went behind his back.
Aaron is said to be ‘gutted’. Copyright: [Unknown]
“He is a great guy and fell for Sarah for who she is, not the celebrity. He wasn’t bothered she was famous. He really liked her.
“He’s absolutely gutted.”
Another source added: “They met in a bar and things blossomed very quickly.
“They were starting to get close. He lived at home before but then moved in with her.”
In last night’s episode, 35-year-old Sarah
opened up about her dreams of having children to 30-year-old Chad,
telling him: “I’m at that age now where I want to settle down and have a
family too.
Viewers were ‘horrified’ by explicit scenes between the stars. Copyright: [Channel 5]
“It would be nice to have a family and share that with a family, as well.”
Despite their intimate chats and behaviour,
not everybody is buying the authenticity of Sarah and Chad’s romance,
with evicted housemates Helen Lederer and Sandi Bogle claiming that the
pair were only doing it for the cameras during last night’s interview.
Celebrity Big Brother continues tonight at 9pm on Channel 5.
Follow Yahoo Celeb UK on Twitter and Instagram for all of the latest celebrity news!
There’s no denying that Lily-Rose Depp‘s on track to become one of the fashion industry’s most promising young models. The 18-year-old daughter of actor Johnny Depp and model Vanessa Paradis is already the face of the iconic Chanel No. 5 fragrance and she even stars in the brand’s Fall/Winter 2017 campaign. And though her famous father admits seeing
his only daughter become a grown-up young woman “freaks [him] out,”
Depp isn’t shying away from showing off her body in revealing fashion
photo shoots.
Lily-Rose Depp, the actress and model daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, shows some skin for
CR Fashion Book‘s 11th edition issue. (Photo: Steven Klein/CR Fashion Book)
The model and actress graces one of four covers for CR Fashion Book‘s 11th edition issue, joining top-tier models Alek Wek, Lara Stone and Cara Taylor who also posed for the fashion publication.
Looking for more style content? Click here to subscribe to the PeopleStyle Newsletter for amazing shopping discounts, can’t-live-without beauty products and more.
On the cover, Depp wears only a unbuttoned
plaid shirt revealing her cleavage, and she even poses topless inside
the 1999-themed issue of magazine, which hits newsstands September 7th. RELATED PHOTOS: The Top Five Beauty Trends To Try This Fall Natalie Portman, Depp’s costar in her upcoming film Planetarium, interviewed
the star for the issue, and she told the Academy Award-winning actress
what it felt like showing off her sultrier side on camera for this
shoot.
Lily-Rose Depp posing in
CR Fashion Book. (Photo: Steven Klein/CR Fashion Book)
“Carine [Roitfeld] actually styled the first shoot that I did for Chanel when I was 15,” Depp told Portman for CR Fashion Book. “This time I got to show a little more skin and be a little more sexy. I had just turned 18, so I was ready to up the ante.”
Famed photographer Steven Klein shot Depp for CR Fashion Book,
and they looked to her mom Vanessa Paradis for inspiration. “He had
shot these amazing photographs of my mom when she was my age,” Depp
shared. “We shot in front of a mirror with the pictures taped to it. We
have a similar grungy look.”
Vanessa Paradis with Lily-Rose Depp at the Chanel fashion show during
the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Fall/Winter 2017/2018 on March 7.
(Photo: Jacopo Raule/GC Images)
Despite being lucky enough to have her
parents teach her the ins and outs of acting and modeling, the
18-year-old wants the world to know she didn’t get to where she is today
just because of her last name.
“A lot of people think I’m only acting
because of my dad, that I have not had to work as hard to be seen or
recognized in the industry, so I think that it makes me want to work
twice as hard to prove to everyone that I’m not just doing this because
it’s easy to do,” Depp said. “I’m not just doing it because it runs in
the family.”
Neville Lazarus, India Reporter,Sky News
6 hours ago
BENEDICT MOORE-BRIDGER,Evening Standard
11 hours ago
A Finnish historian at London’s Queen Mary University
has been plunged into a “Kafkaesque nightmare” after being threatened
with detention and deportation by the Home Office, despite being an EU
national.
Gabby Kaufman
9 hours ago
Stephanie Soteriou,Yahoo Celebrity UK
12 hours ago
People
Tue, 22 Aug 08:32 GMT-7
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