Man charged over fatal stabbing near Harrods, London
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Marius Zarnescu
Mohammed Abdullah Al Araimi was stabbed in Knightsbridge near Harrods
A man has been charged with murder after a fatal stabbing near the luxury department store Harrods.
Mohammed Abdullah Al Araimi, 20, died at the scene near the Knightsbridge store on 5 December 2019.
Badir Rahim Alnazi, of no fixed address, was charged with murder, attempted robbery and possession of a bladed article.
The 23-year-old is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court later on Thursday.
London children living in poverty get Christmas joy
The Metropolitan Police and The Childhood Trust charity have teamed up to deliver Christmas presents to children living below the poverty line across London.
The presents are donated by communities to local police stations and dropped off to the children across the capital before Christmas.
Video by Gem O’Reilly
General Election 2019: Polls open across London
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PA
Voting is under way to decide who will represent London’s 73 parliamentary seats.
Londoners will decide the fate of hundreds of parliamentary candidates including the prime minister and leader of the Labour Party.
Registered voters will be able to cast their ballots from 07:00 to 22:00 GMT.
Labour represented 46 seats in the city going into the 2019 General Election. The Conservative had 20 London MPs while Liberal Democrats had four.
The BBC, like other broadcasters, is not allowed to report details of campaigning while the polls are open. More details around electoral law and our BBC code of practice is explained here.
Seventeen arrested in human trafficking raids in London
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Met Police
Scotland Yard raided 16 addresses across east London on Thursday morning
Seventeen people have been arrested in early morning raids across east London in an international human trafficking investigation.
Officers went to 16 addresses after working with Romanian police, who simultaneously raided four addresses in Romania and arrested one man.
In London, police took 29 potential victims – women aged between 20 and 40 – to a “place of safety”.
The suspects – 14 men and three women – remain in custody in central London.
The 17 arrested people, who are aged between 17 and 50, are being held on suspicion of modern slavery, controlling prostitution, Class A drug offences and firearm offences.
‘One fell swoop’
Det Ch Insp Richard McDonagh, from the Metropolitan Police, said: “The Met recognises the seriousness of modern slavery and the devastation it brings to people’s lives.
“Today’s synchronised operational activity [had] the aim of, in one fell swoop, dismantling an organised crime network and providing support to the victims.”
The London raids were carried out in Redbridge, Havering, Barking and Dagenham, Newham, Brentwood and Tower Hamlets.
A spokesman for Romanian police in the UK said: “Romanian police officers working shoulder to shoulder with our British partners is a great achievement, a proof of our mutual permanent support and a great professional reward.
“The Romanian police is committed to continue its efforts in combating all forms of criminality together with the Metropolitan Police.”
London Piccadilly Theatre ceiling collapses on audience
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Several people were injured when parts of a ceiling collapsed during a Piccadilly Theatre show in London’s West End.
The venue in Denman Street was packed on Wednesday for a performance of the Arthur Miller play Death of a Salesman, starring US actor Wendell Pierce.
Audience members “heard dripping sounds indicating water was coming through the ceiling,” according to the theatre production company.
More than 1,000 people were evacuated.
Four people were taken to hospital after three men and two women were treated at the scene by paramedics.
“We are ascertaining the extent of the situation, and will be providing an update on future performances as soon as possible,” the Ambassador Theatre Group said.
The group said Thursday’s showing would be cancelled.
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PA Media
Rescue units were sent to the theatre by London Fire Brigade after the collapse
Wendell Pierce, who plays Willy Loman in the show which opened on Monday, apologised for having to stop the performance and evacuate the theatre.
A video shared on social media shows the US actor outside the venue asking the crowd to come back and see the play another time.
“We’re so honoured that you came tonight. We are so sorry that this happened,” he said.
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Getty Images
Wendell Pierce with Dominic West, his co-star from acclaimed crime drama The Wire, at the play’s opening night on Monday
BBC journalist Iain Haddow, who was in the audience, said the collapse happened about 20 minutes into the show.
He said that before the ceiling caved in there had been a steady drop of water “which turned progressively into a stream” – although it was not raining at the time – and said there was some panic when the ceiling fell in.
He said that outside the theatre there was scaffolding and building work going on.
In December 2013, 76 people were injured, seven seriously, when part of a ceiling at London’s Apollo Theatre collapsed during a show, while 1,200 people had to leave the Queen’s Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, following a small fire during a matinee performance of Les Miserables.
Nine London Waterloo platforms closed by lineside fire
The fire has caused “significant damage” to cabling outside the station
Commuters have been told not to travel from London Waterloo during the rush hour after a fire closed nine platforms.
The lineside blaze damaged cabling outside the station, meaning trains cannot use platforms 16-24.
Network Rail said “significant damage” had been caused to equipment, meaning trains will be delayed or cancelled.
Disruption is expected for the rest of the day while the Thursday morning rush hour may also be affected.
Network Rail said its engineers would be working through the night to fix the damage.
Waterloo is the busiest and largest railway station in the UK.
The platforms which are closed are normally used by trains serving Windsor, Reading, Hounslow, Richmond and Kingston.
However, services from other platforms are also being affected because trains have to be diverted or revised.
- Circular services via Hounslow, Richmond, Strawberry Hill and Kingston have been cancelled
- Trains between Waterloo and Windsor & Eton Riverside are diverted via Kingston
- Trains between Waterloo and Exeter/Salisbury are terminated and will restart from Basingstoke
Passengers were warned that services on other routes may also be subject to short-notice cancellations or delays.
In a joint statement, Network Rail and South Western Railway said commuters were “strongly advised to use alternative routes where possible and check their journeys before travelling at southwesternrailway.com for ticket acceptance and service details”.
Some passengers took to social media to express their frustration at the travel disruption.
One Twitter user described the situation as an “absolute shambles”, while others complained about being given the wrong or no information at all by train station staff.
London Victoria derailment hits Gatwick Express and Southern trains
No Gatwick Express trains are running while Southern has warned of a “severely reduced” service
An engineering train has derailed in south London causing the closure of the Gatwick Express service.
The train partly left the tracks at low speed outside Victoria station at about 03:00 BST.
No Gatwick Express trains are running, while Southern warned its services would be “severely reduced”.
The train has moved and the track will now be “assessed for damage” and repaired if necessary through the night, according to Southern.
Disruption is expected to last throughout Tuesday but Gatwick Express and Southern said a normal service was expected on Wednesday.
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Network Rail
The 50-tonne train has been cut from its two wagons and been lifted back on the track
The train was stuck across a number of tracks meaning platforms nine to 13 at Victoria were blocked, while services were not able to use the “slow/stopping” lines to and from Clapham Junction.
Some trains were also unable to leave the Battersea depot – further reducing the number of services that could run.
Recovery teams cut the 50-tonne train from its two wagons and lifted it back on to the track using hydraulic jacks.
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Network Rail
Engineers managed to remove the train from the tracks by 18:05
Trains running through Gatwick Airport were also disrupted by a separate signalling fault and a passenger who was injured as they left a carriage, which led to one platform becoming blocked.
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Dr Niall Goulding
Southern said the train was “obstructing a complex section of track on one of the busiest routes”
Some commuters took to social media as they found their trains had been cancelled.
Other stations, including London Bridge, also became congested as people tried to find alternative routes.
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A Network Rail spokesperson said passengers should travel “via London Bridge or London Blackfriars as trains will be delayed, diverted or cancelled”.
Train tickets for Southern and Gatwick Express services have been accepted for reasonable routes on other services.
Train services affected:
- Gatwick Express services are completely suspended
- Services to Sutton, Epsom Downs and Epsom to and from London Victoria are reduced
- Some mainline services will be diverted to London Bridge instead of London Victoria
- Southern services between London Victoria and Reigate are cancelled and passengers are advised to use Thameslink to and from Redhill and then Great Western Railway between Reigate and Redhill
- Services between London Victoria and East Grinstead will call additionally at Selhurst and Streatham Common
- Services between Milton Keynes and East Croydon will call additionally at Wandsworth Common when not already booked to do so
- Services between London Victoria and Horsham via Sutton will call additionally at Ewell East
- Southern trains from Sutton to London Bridge via Wimbledon will be cancelled. Thameslink will be running as normal
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London Bridge attack inquests: Medics ‘did not know where victims were’
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Metropolitan Police
No paramedics were sent to help Sebastien Belanger where he lay dying
Medics were not told that three victims of the London Bridge attack needed urgent attention, an inquest has heard.
Andrew Beasley co-ordinated the medical response to the attack on 3 June 2017.
He told the inquest he did not know Sebastien Belanger, James McMullan and Alexandre Pigeard lay mortally wounded in a courtyard near Borough Market.
Earlier, a police officer explained how she had repeatedly asked for paramedics to be sent to help one victim – Mr Belanger – but none came.
The inquest has heard that the scene of the attack was deemed a “hot zone” under London Ambulance Service (LAS) protocol, which prevents paramedics from entering for their own safety.
Mr Beasley said he had parked a short distance away as the safety of his crew on the scene was “paramount”.
After hearing gunfire in Borough Market, he said he wondered ‘am I going to be shot next?’.
“For our own safety we couldn’t go forward,” he told the Old Bailey, which is hearing the inquests into the deaths of the eight people killed in the attack at London Bridge and Borough Market.
Mr Belanger, Mr McMullan and Mr Pigeard were eventually brought to ambulances at a safe meeting point, but were already dead.
‘A lot of pressure’
Mr Belanger, a 36-year-old chef, originally from Angers, western France, had been drinking at the Boro Bistro when he was stabbed in the stomach.
He was one of eight people killed in the attack.
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Press Association
The victims of the attack clockwise from top left – Chrissy Archibald, James McMullan, Alexandre Pigeard, Sébastien Bélanger, Ignacio Echeverria, Xavier Thomas, Sara Zelenak, Kirsty Boden
PC Kerr said she had been a police officer for about a year at the time of the attacks.
She said she came across members of the public giving first aid to Mr Belanger at 22:12 BST.
He had collapsed in Green Dragon Court, below where the attackers’ van had crashed into railings on London Bridge.
After deciding that the group “looked like they knew what they were doing”, PC Kerr drew her baton in case the attackers returned to the area.
“I was the only officer down there for a little while which felt like forever,” she said.
“I’d only had about a year of service so it was a lot of pressure.”
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PA
PC Kerr was recognised for her bravery during the London Bridge attack
Another police officer and a police medic arrived over the next few minutes, the court heard.
The court heard that no members of the LAS came to the scene to help Mr Belanger, despite PC Kerr calling the Metropolitan Police control room to request paramedics.
Two members of the public and the officers spent more than half an hour performing CPR on Mr Belanger before he was eventually moved up steps to a waiting ambulance at about 22:45 BST, the inquest heard.
‘I just wanted some help’
BBC correspondent Richard Lister, at the inquest
PC Kerr was composed as she told the inquest about how she, another officer and two members of the public fought to revive Sebastien Belanger.
She talked of initially being the only police officer there.
“Time just stood still. I just wanted some help,” she said.
The Belanger family listened intently to their interpreter as PC Kerr described standing guard while Lisa Deacon and Craig Smith did what they could for Mr Belanger.
None of them knew whether the attackers would come back and PC Kerr, who only had a baton for protection said: “I was very aware that where I was standing, I was trying to cover three potential entrances and exits.”
Ambulance service incident response officer Nicholas Lesslar told the court he was unaware there were seriously injured casualties in the courtyard.
Questioning PC Kerr on behalf of the victim’s family, Gareth Patterson QC said: “If you had been told there were LAS [London Ambulance Service] resources available before then, up on the High Street, presumably you would have discussed getting Sebastien up to those ambulances as quickly as possible?”
PC Kerr said: “We would have discussed it, yes.”
Mr Belanger’s mother told the inquest on its opening day that she was “so proud” of him.
‘I nearly stepped on him’
The Old Bailey also heard from a reveller who described how he jumped over a flowerbed and almost trampled on 32-year-old entrepreneur James McMullan.
Andrius Vorobjovas had been celebrating a friend’s birthday at the Boro Bistro on the night of the attack.
When a man emerged wielding a bloody knife, people ran for their lives.
“You could hear the tables moving, glasses smashing, people running,” he told the inquest.
Mr Vorobjovas headed towards some flowerbeds, where he nearly stepped on Mr McMullan, who had been stabbed after coming to the aid of au pair Sara Zelenak.
Mr Vorobjovas said: “I nearly stepped on a person on his belly. I was very shocked and amazed to see someone there because I could not figure out how they got there.”
He added that he hid in the dark passage for some seconds before he ventured out and “decided to make a run for it”.
Mr Vorobjovas said he later directed armed officers back to the courtyard of the Boro Bistro.
The other five people killed in the attack were: Xavier Thomas, 45; Chrissy Archibald, 30; Ignacio Echeverria, 39: Sara Zelenak, 21; and Kirsty Boden, 28.
The inquests into their deaths continues.
Abraham Kiptum: Kenya’s half marathon record holder suspended two days before London marathon
Kenya’s half marathon world record holder Abraham Kiptum has been suspended from competition following an athlete biological passport violation.
The 29-year-old had been due to compete in Sunday’s London Marathon.
Kiptum completed the Valencia half marathon in 58 minutes 18 seconds in October, five seconds quicker than the record set by Zersenay Tadese in 2010.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy on doping,” said London Marathon event director Hugh Brasher.
“We recently announced a groundbreaking extensive intelligence-driven testing programme. This shows the programme is working. Cheats will be caught and there is no place for them in marathon running.”
London Marathon organisers say Kiptum has left the city following the suspension issued by the Athlete Integrity Unit.
The athlete biological passport programme collects and compares biological data to spot discrepancies over time that suggest possible doping.
The build-up to this year’s marathon has already been overshadowed by a dispute between distance running greats Sir Mo Farah and Haile Gebrselassie, following an altercation surrounding an alleged theft at Gebrselassie’s hotel in Ethiopia.