At the Metropolitan police misconduct hearings officers face charges of drunkenness, racism and improper sexual relations. Can the force ever clean up its act?

On an August evening in 2019, two police officers responded to a 999 call from a distressed woman whose partner was violently attempting to push her out of the flat they shared. On the call recording, the woman, Miss A, can be heard crying while her boyfriend shouts in the background. When the officers, PC Paul Onslow and a colleague, arrived at the flat, Miss A’s clothes were ripped and she had a cut on her thumb.

Onslow arrested the boyfriend, drove him to a police station and returned to Miss A’s flat where he began to conduct a domestic violence risk assessment, a tick-box process designed to help police officers make sure that victims are protected from harm. Officers must run through a list of 27 questions, including: “Are you very frightened?”, “Do you feel isolated?”, “Are you having suicidal thoughts?”, “Has your partner ever threatened to kill you?”. In a breach of regulations, Onslow turned off his body-worn camera before embarking on the questionnaire. Halfway through the list, he went off-piste to ask Miss A: “Do you fancy me?”

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Self-professed ‘misogynist influencer’ is charged with human trafficking, rape, and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women

The controversial social media influencer Andrew Tate will be allowed to leave Romania while awaiting trial on charges of human trafficking, a court has ruled.

Tate, 37, had been banned from leaving the country but will now be permitted to travel within the EU without restrictions while awaiting the trial.

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Union for civil servants claimed Home Office staff could be open to prosecution if Strasbourg rulings on Rwanda ignored

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Guidance drawn up by Conservative ministers which told civil servants to ignore Strasbourg rulings and remove asylum seekers to Rwanda is lawful, the high court has ruled.

The FDA trade union, which represents senior civil servants, brought legal action claiming senior Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement the government’s Rwanda deportation bill.

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The appetite for drama based on real events seems insatiable, but a preliminary ruling that a British film defamed the original of one of its characters – along with legal action against Baby Reindeer – may give producers pause for thought

It’s enough to chill the blood of screenwriters, directors and producers everywhere – or at least provoke a wince of recognition, whether they are in UK legal jurisdiction or not. In a preliminary ruling, a British judge has ruled that the The Lost King, the film about the discovery in 2012 of Richard III’s remains in a Leicester car park, has a case to answer that it is defamatory of Richard Taylor, a former university official.

The Lost King covers the efforts spearheaded by Philippa Langley (played by Sally Hawkins) to uncover Richard III’s skeleton, and Lee Ingleby plays Taylor, the then deputy registrar of Leicester university. Taylor claims the film shows him “behaving abominably” and shows him taking credit for the discovery for himself and the university.

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The actor argues that the law has changed elsewhere; now it’s time for the UK to show compassion

I’ve been campaigning and raising money for assisted dying for decades, but now we have an icon like Esther Rantzen talking about it, suddenly the game has changed. My mother died in 1964 and some time after that I decided to join the Euthanasia Society, which is now called Dignity in Dying. When I looked after my mother-in-law, she was begging to get off the planet but nobody would help her. After that there was my husband Eddie [Kulukundis, theatre and sports philanthropist] who had dementia. He was such a gentle man, a pleasure to look after for 14 years. But 18 months before he met his maker, he said in an aggressive way, which was quite unusual for Eddie, “I just want to die.”

I cared for my two sisters, both of whom lived well until they were 94. But the last five weeks of my sister Anne’s life was horrendous because of how much agony she was in. Every few minutes she was saying, “Please help me. Why can’t they help me to go now? I’m not going to get any better. I have no future. I will never move again. Please.”

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PM says ‘I’m not against it in principle’ with issue expected to be subject of Commons vote in next parliament

Rishi Sunak has said he is not opposed to assisted dying in principle ahead of an expected vote on the issue in the next parliament.

Speaking to journalists in Puglia, the prime minister said he was not against changing the law on euthanasia.

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Challenge accuses Alex Chalk of failure to raise rates, reducing access in immigration and asylum cases

The lord chancellor is being taken to the high court over claims that legal aid fees are so low they are preventing lawyers from providing representation for thousands of people who are eligible for it.

The challenge focuses on access to legal aid for immigration and asylum lawyers. It is being brought by Duncan Lewis solicitors, one of the largest providers of civil legal aid in this area.

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Her mother was furious at having no control over the end of her life. Now the actor is channelling that anger into getting the law changed

It was during the process of my mother [actor Diana Rigg] dying of terminal lung cancer that her frustrations of having no agency became clear. My husband, Guy [Garvey], had recorded tapes of his father speaking before he died and it felt like the natural thing to do with Mama. She and Guy talked about life, love and her career. Then there were recordings about the right to die. At this stage she was in the hospital, when it was the end. By this point she was an angry woman.

When the grief of her death had subsided enough that I was able to listen to the recordings, I realised I had an urgent mission. I owed her this. To share her statements on assisted dying. Ma had seen buddies go slowly and had nursed my dad’s mum and had always said, “Will you pull the plug if it gets too bad? Put the pillow over my face?” When it came down to it, I had to say to her, “I’ll do everything in my power but I’ve got a three-year-old son. I can’t go to the clink because I’m suffocating my mother. I’ll do anything and everything. But not that.” Dignitas would have been an option but was not possible as it was Covid and a bureaucratic nightmare.

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With missing defendants, dodgy video links and crumbling walls, a typical day at Snaresbrook show why 68,125 cases are waiting to be heard in England and Wales

In one of Britain’s busiest courts, a judge is taking the rare step of apologising to a defendant. “I’m so sorry, people should not be waiting over two years to be tried,” he says, addressing the man directly from the bench. “You have my personal apology, please stay in contact with your lawyers.”

The court has just been told that October 2026 is the earliest possible date the case can be heard. “It’s awful,” the judge remarks after confirming the situation with officials. “Who says our system isn’t broken?”

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