United Kingdom

    Sinead Connett admitted to concealing her baby in a towel and three Marks and Spencer's plastic bags before putting him into a drainage pit at the bottom of her parents' garden. Connett, 29, told officers she had been shocked to discover she was pregnant and was terrified her partner would leave her. The newborn baby boy was hidden away for almost three years without her family's knowledge before a plumber made the devastating discovery. Sentencing Connett to 12 months in prison for concealing the birth of a child, Judge Jeremy Richardson described the act as so dreadful that it almost defies description. The discovery was made after her father called in a plumber after having problems with the drains at his home. Judge Richardson said: I have made the decision that you wi...

    Richard Branson has revealed details of his long-running feud with Donald Trump, publishing a scathing letter he received from the then New York property mogul in 2004. Mr Trump wrote to the Virgin brand founder after he launched a short-lived programme, The Rebel Billionaire: Branson’s Quest for the Best, with a similar format to The Apprentice. Excerpts from the letter are reproduced in Mr Branson’s new book, Finding My Virginity. At least your dismal ratings can now allow you to concentrate on your airline which, I am sure, needs every ounce of your energy,” Mr Trump wrote. It is obviously a terrible business and I can’t imagine, with fuel prices etc, that you can be doing any better in it than anyone else. Like television, you should try to get out the airline business...

    Buckingham Palace was infuriated with Theresa May after she misled the Queen about the progress of negotiations as she sought to form a government, it has been reported. Tensions are said to have arisen between senior courtiers and Downing Street after the Prime Minister said she had secured the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), only for it to take another 17 days before a deal was finalised. The palace was further irritated by Ms May breaching protocol as she announced her intention to form a government on the steps of Downing Street, the Sunday Times reported. A Tory peer told the newspaper: She said, I've formed a government, not The Queen has asked me to form a government. The palace was alarmed by her formulation of words. The affair did not prompt a for...

    Apologising for a June election when she lost her Conservative Party's majority, Prime Minister Theresa May responded to her critics on Sunday by saying she had the right strategy to lead Britain and win a Brexit deal. May, who has faced calls from within her party to step down, wants to use the Conservatives annual conference in the northern English city of Manchester this week to try to reset her agenda, offering money to students and those people she once described as "just about managing in Britain. In an interview with BBC television, she played down the rifts among top ministers, saying they were united on their programme and more importantly Brexit. That came a day after foreign minister Boris Johnson, perhaps May's biggest rival, set out four personal red lines in ...

    A kebab shop supplier who used a cement mixer to manufacture chicken doner meat has been jailed and ordered to pay more than £50,000. Sukru Ahmet, 60, who sold meat to takeaways and other food businesses across London and the South-East, was found to be storing six tonnes of frozen poultry which had expired or did not have a use-by date. His company, UK Chicken Doner and Poultry Ltd, also sold German-made doner kebabs falsely labelled as British. When hygiene inspectors raided Ahmet’s processing plant in Swanley, Kent, they found a converted cement mixer being used to process meat. At Maidstone crown court yesterday Ahmet, of Sidcup, was jailed for four months and ordered to pay, with his company, £53,760 in fines and costs. Hygiene inspectors found a converted cement mixe...

    Brits who voted Leave in the EU referendum are more likely to describe themselves as racially prejudiced than those who voted Remain, according to new research. A survey of 2,220 people found that 34% of Leave voters admitted holding racist attitudes compared to 18% of Remain voters. The study, conducted by the National Centre for Social Research, found 26% of Britons still described themselves as very or a little prejudiced towards people of other races. The study has been conducted annually since 1983 and the number of people saying they are racially prejudiced has never fallen below a quarter. The figure peaked at 39% in 1987 and hit a second peak of 37% in 2011, the report Racial Prejudice In Britain Today said. Also published in the report was new data from the Europe...

    The Foreign Secretary is accused of breaching the Ministerial Code by arranging a launch event on government property for the Institute for Free Trade a new Eurosceptic think tank being led by Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan. Mr Hannan was a prominent figure in the Vote Leave campaign. He has previously called the NHS a mistake and said the minimum wage should be scrapped. The event was held in the Map Room of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which, as state property, is supposed to be used only for ministers’ official duties. Mr Johnson and Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, both spoke at the launch. The Institute for Free Trade wants to roll back EU regulations, including on safety standards and workers’ rights, and unilaterally scrap all import tariffs, eve...

    Tensions between the United States and North Korea are now so high that war is a real possibility that Britain must prepare for, a respected defence think tank has warned. Such a conflict would result in hundreds of thousands of casualties, severely disrupt the global economy, and have profound implications for the political and diplomatic landscape of East Asia, the report for the Royal United Services Institute said. US bombers accompanied by fighter jets flew off the east coast of North Korea on September 23, in a show of force This report is not saying that war is likely. But the probability of war is an uncomfortably real prospect, said Professor Malcolm Chalmers, who authored the report. Tensions between North Korea and the US have escalated over the past year as Pyo...

    Labour has been threatened with a ban on holding future conferences in Brighton unless it tackles anti-Semitism. Brighton and Hove's Labour council leader Warren Morgan said he was very concerned at the anti-Semitism being aired publicly in fringe meetings and on the floor of conference. In a letter to Labour Party general secretary Iain McNicol, Mr Morgan said: As the Labour leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, I will undoubtedly face questions as to why we allow any event where anti-Semitic views are freely expressed to happen in the city, particularly on council premises. Could Labour be banned from Brighton a party conference favourite As a Labour Party member, I expect the inquiry announced today to take firm action; as leader I will need reassurances that there ...

    After over a year of dating, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sent fans speculating that an engagement could be on the horizon when they were spotted holding hands at their first public outing as a couple. So is this a sign that there’s an engagement announcement coming? Myka Meier, the founder and director of Beaumont Etiquette and the expert on all things proper in the royal family, thinks so. I believe an engagement is imminent, she tells PEOPLE. I think to show PDA at such a highly publicized public event would be a very conscious decision by Prince Harry, and shows the seriousness of the relationship. Meghan would very much have taken his lead under the circumstances. And while Meier admits that there is no formal protocol against showing PDA at events, it is rare to se...