London

    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...

    Tower Hamlets residents received more than £35,000 in compensation from companies they had long running complaints against last year, new figures reveal. Figures compiled by Ombudsman Services show that people living in Newham made 291 complaints against energy and communications companies from January-December 2016, In total, the complainants received financial rememdies to the value of £35,693, meaning each complaint earned the customer on average £122.66 All in all, customers in London were awarded more than £1.3 million in compensation last year by Ombudsman Services, which handles energy and communications complaints that have been on-going for at least eight weeks. The most active complainers were those in Barnet who recorded nearly a quarter more complaints than the...

    Police are hunting three men who dragged a motorist from a car in broad daylight in Bethnal Green and stabbed him. The man fled from the Audi and was chased along Old Bethnal Green Road by the traffic lights with Cambridge Heath Road as other motorists watched in horror. I saw the man being chased with blood on his back, an eye-witness. It looked like he had been slashed with a meat cleaver. It was a shock to see this in broad daylight on a busy road with so much traffic around. The gang didn’t care who saw them. Police arrived after several 999 calls following the attack at 7.30pm last Friday when witnesses said the car was attacked with a sledge hammer. The driver, in his 20s, was taken to hospital with stab wounds, but not thought to be life-threatening. Detectives from...

    Police are making sweeps on council estates in east London to stop gangs hanging around using ‘laughing gas’ to get their kicks. They are targeting youths gathering on Tower Hamlets Homes estates to use canisters of nitrous oxide bought illegally from shops. Schoolchildren are being told in a campaign about health risk and drivers being warned they face bans if caught using the canisters behind the wheel, while Tower Hamlets council is threatening to close any shops selling them for personal use. Discarded canisters were fund under bushes in one sweep at Bethnal Green’s Twig Folly Close development by the Grand Union Canal, witnessed by the East London Advertiser. We will be taking enforcement action with traders selling nitrous oxide, the Met’s borough commander Sue Willi...

    An object removed from the throat of a black man who died after a police chase consisted of a mixture of paracetamol and caffeine wrapped in plastic, according to forensic analysis. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which launched an investigation following Rashan Charles’ death on July 22, said it was taking the decision to release information given the inflammatory nature of some ongoing speculation. IPCC commissioner Cindy Butts said: At this stage we have not been provided with a confirmed cause of death for Rashan and our investigation is ongoing. 3 August: statement from Commissioner Cindy Butts, regarding the ongoing Rashan Charles investigation. Last week, the IPCC said the evidence it had seen so far suggested Mr Charles was detained by a Metrop...

    Parents fail in bid to block Tower Hamlets schools becoming free academies. The Campaigners have lost the battle to stop two Tower Hamlets state schools becoming independently-run academies in east London after the summer holiday. Former school governor Shahanur Khan leads delegation to Tower Hamlets council to block Stepney Green College turning academy. A delegation from the Anti Academies Alliance failed to persuade the local authority’s cabinet to block the handover of Stepney Green Maths and Computing College and Clara Grant Primary in Bromley-by-Bow, which have both applied to the government for academy status. The move by the schools takes them out of council control with direct Whitehall funding which begins next month. They formally applied for 125-year leases on ...

    An object removed from the throat of a black man who died after a police chase did not contain a controlled substance, according to forensic analysis. Police had said that Rashan Charles had become ill after he was seen trying to swallow an object when he entered a shop in Hackney. The 20-year-old died after being chased and restrained by police on Saturday 22 July, and the Independent Police Complaints Commission has launched an investigation. An unverified video, widely shared on social media, showed a police officer wrestling him to the ground, then restraining Mr Charles around his neck as he struggled on the floor. Mr Charles then stopped moving as he was handcuffed by the officer, and appeared unresponsive as a member of the public sat on him. He was pronounced dead ...