ENGLISH

    An accountant who stole £350,000 from her employers to feed her gambling addiction walked free after a judge said she was not the general stuff of which the prison population is made. Natalie Saul, 37, pilfered the money from technology firm Idio’s accounts over a year and blew more than £250,000 playing online poker. The mother-of-one submitted more than 400 fake invoices to get the cash from the software company, based in Fitzrovia, central London, between March 2015 and December 2016. But Saul was given a two-year suspended sentence and 250 hours unpaid work by Judge Catherine Newman, QC, who admitted her sentence was wholly exceptional and fell outside sentencing guidelines. The judge told Southwark Crown Court yesterday: I’m taking a considerable risk that the Crown w...

    Tower hamlets Deputy Mayor Rachael Saunders, former head of Children's Services quits which came under fire for not knowing if youngsters were being abandoned or trafficked is quitting. Rachael was condemned by Ofsted in April, put in her resignation last night to Mayor John Biggs and steps down at the end of the month. The issue retuirned last month when Cllr Khan, addressing the council, said: Our children were in the headlines because they were being abandoned and the council didn’t know if they were being trafficked by carers. We have left our children in neglected and dangerous situations. Too many children remained in situations of actual or potential harm because of insufficient scrutiny by the council’s chief executive, the children’s services director and politici...

Tower Hamlets Council hosted a community conversation as part of a London-wide initiative to improve mental health and well-being across the capital. Thrive London (Thrive LDN) is a citywide drive for mental health, which aims to raise awareness of mental health issues; challenge stigmas; facilitate improvements in care and encourage all Londoners to look after their mental wellbeing. Inspired by a similar movement in New York, Thrive LDN encourages better working between boroughs, health services, police, transport, voluntary sectors and the community when addressing mental health issues. At a Thrive LDN community conversation held in Bethnal Green, people learnt more about mental health; explored local issues, and shared experiences of collaborative working in areas such as improving men...