u/Weak-Fly-6540

Jamie Clements, 32, of Linford Drive, Basildon, brandished the weapon in front of a group of kids in a park while screaming racist abuse.

But he was spared prison at Basildon Crown Court on Tuesday (May 19) after claiming he was caring for his grandmother as she underwent chemotherapy after his grandfather's sudden death.

"It was an unwarranted, disgusting piece of behaviour," said Judge Siew Loke.

"The effect of these offences was significant. One of the children continues to suffer panic attacks and anxiety attacks two years later."

On October 13 2023, Clements approached a group of children, aged between 11 and 13, in a park on Luncies Road.

"I'm going to stab all of you!" he screamed. "I'm not scared to go to prison again!"

He singled out one child, of Asian heritage, and shouted racist slurs at him, telling him: "I will stamp on your head! I will stamp you out! I'm not afraid to go back to prison!"

He then produced a yellow-handled knife from either his waistband or his pocket and waved it at the children, thrusting it at the Asian child and another boy in particular.

Clements left the scene when a member of the public intervened. Then one of the children flagged down a police car and reported the incident.

Essex Police found Clements at a Nisa shop on Timberlog Lane. When searched, he was still carrying the knife, as well as two wraps of cocaine.

He denied the offences, forcing the children to wait for and then endure a magistrates' court trial, at which he was convicted of possessing a bladed article in a public place, possessing Class A drugs, using threatening words or behaviour with intent to cause fear or provocation of violence, and a racially aggravated public order offence.

Prosecutor Hannah Wilson said one of the children had produced a "powerful" impact statement, explaining how he had been diagnosed with PTSD, had begun bedwetting and felt scared even in his own home, sleeping with scissors and hammers at his side to feel safe.

He was scared to walk to school of a morning and wouldn't even visit one of his grandparents after hearing Clements lived in the same area.

A mum of a 'one punch' victim is calling for harsher sentences after her son was killed by a 'disrespected' Royal Marine - when he asked 'are you a Brummie?'

Ann-Marie Yilmaz said she will never get over the death of her eldest son Cemal John Yilmaz, who was punched by stranger Joseph Jones during a night out. The killer hit the popular chef with a 'thunderous' blow and knocked him unconscious before hit his head on the concrete and sustained fatal injuries.

Cemal, 39, was rushed to hospital but succumbed to his injuries four days later. The court heard Jones, 23, of Wolverhampton, then walked off leaving his victim dying on the ground while telling pals he punched Cemal as he felt 'disrespected' when asked if he was from Birmingham.

He admitted manslaughter but Ann-Marie described his sentence as an 'insult' after being told he has been ear-marked for release in August next year - after serving just 17 months. The Marine had recently passed out at the Lympstone Commando Training Centre near Exmouth, Devon, and had been filmed earlier that night drinking and dancing in a pub hours before the fatal punch was thrown.

Racist abuse of NHS nurses has jumped by 86% in the last few years, which their union’s boss has blamed on the normalisation of extreme views in politics and the media.

One nurse was called a monkey by a colleague, a patient threw a hot drink at a nurse and followed up with racial abuse, and in several cases others were called the N-word, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) disclosed.

In other examples, a patient’s family told a nurse they did not want black people looking after their daughter, and a fellow NHS worker shouted at a nurse: “We don’t have people of your colour here.”

Nurses across the UK reported 6,812 incidents last year in which they suffered racist abuse, NHS figures show, a big rise on the 3,652 incidents recorded in 2022. However, it is unclear how many were reported to the police or led to any action being taken, such as a perpetrator being told to seek treatment from a different care provider.

The RCN warned that poor recording of such abuse by the health service, and reluctance among many nurses to report it, meant the figures – which it obtained from NHS trusts and health boards under freedom of information (FOI) – were only “the tip of the iceberg”.

“These figures show a catastrophic rise in the racist abuse faced by nursing staff,” said Prof Nicola Ranger, the RCN’s general secretary and chief executive.

While racism had always existed, “those who hold these views have become more emboldened in recent times”, she said. “It reflects a further breakdown in societal norms, in part fed by more extreme views being normalised in the mainstream and across media.”

Unite the Kingdom march - 20 arrests

• 10 x public order offences
• 3 x drunk and disorderly
• 2 x assault on an emergency worker
• 2 x wanted for previous offence (GBH + telecommunications offence)
• 1x ABH
• 1x Criminal damage
• 1x Possession of an offensive weapon

Nakba Day march - 12 arrests

• 3 x breach of Section 14 Public Order Act conditions
• 3 x public order offences
• 3 x failing to remove a face covering
• 1x Assault on an emergency worker
• 1x Support for a proscribed organisation
• 1x Wanted for previous offence (common assault)

Not linked to either group - 11 arrests

• A range of offences, including theft, drunk and disorderly, and possession of drugs

A neo-Nazi teenager who attempted to behead a Kurdish barber with an axe in a terrorism-motivated attack has been jailed for 19 years and six months.

Alina Burns, 19, of Lynton Road in Bristol, admitted attempting to murder Mohammed Mahmoodi, 27, outside a barber's shop in Bedminster, Bristol, on 2 August 2025.

Burns approached Mahmoodi from behind and swung the axe at his neck. He was able to wrestle the weapon away from her before she could strike him again.

During sentencing at Bristol Crown Court earlier, Mahmoodi said a scar on his neck is a "daily reminder that I was nearly killed".

Serena Gates KC, prosecuting, said: "The defendant had an extreme right-wing mindset and wanted Jews and Muslims to be killed, and non-whites to flee or be expelled from the UK."

Burns was told she must serve a minimum of 15 years and six months in prison.

Signs warning people not to swim are in place at almost all of England's official inland river bathing sites due to concerns the water could be unsafe.

It comes as the government announces six new river bathing sites will be monitored for the first time this summer, including a first location on the River Thames in London.

In the last week the BBC has visited all the 14 existing inland river locations which were tested by the Environment Agency last year for contamination from bacteria linked to human and animal faeces.

Only the River Stour in Suffolk and the River Thames in Oxfordshire had acceptable levels, while water quality at the 12 others was rated "poor" and people advised not to swim.

There has been a significant rise in reports of NHS staff being racially abused by patients, the BBC has found. Workers say they are being physically and verbally attacked because of their ethnicity more often than ever.

Nurse Tito Vicario says, in the two years he has worked at Sunderland Royal Hospital, he has been racially abused by patients multiple times.

"Whenever I feel like it's going to happen again I feel my heart racing," he says.

The abuse is often verbal but, in extreme cases, he says he has been physically attacked.

"There are times where some patients will try to punch you or slap you," he says.

"It affects you not just physically but mentally as well."

In one incident Vicario, who is originally from the Philippines, was on the receiving end of a highly offensive racial slur. The patient's mortified family immediately apologised but the damage had been done, Vicario says, and such experiences leave him feeling powerless, anxious and nervous.

On another occasion, he says he was racially abused by a female patient who refused to take medication from him.

"They try to say these things to release their anger and anxiety but we're not punching bags, we're still people," he says.

"You can't hit back, just smile.

"You just take it."

This publication's attempts to engage with Ipswich Reform began long before polling day.

On Monday, 20 April, we wrote to Ipswich Reform chair Shayne Pooley and Tony Gould, who would later be reelected as the Reform councillor for Whitton, inviting every Reform candidate to answer the same five questions we had put to candidates from every other party. Labour, Conservative, Green and Liberal Democrat candidates had been contacted on the same terms.

The questions were straightforward — about candidates' backgrounds, the issues facing their wards, local government reorganisation, their personal achievements, and how they would make themselves accessible to residents if elected.

"We'll publish all responses in full, without editing, alongside those of your fellow candidates," the email said. "As an apolitical publication, no candidate will receive more or less prominence than any other."

The email also offered Reform candidates the chance to visit our newsroom on Upper Brook Street and meet the team — an invitation extended on identical terms to every other party.

Where Reform candidates had no public contact details — which was the case for nearly all of them — we approached the party's local leadership directly and through mutual contacts well known within Reform. The invitation was repeated. It was rebuffed repeatedly.

In the end, only one Reform candidate engaged at all. Tony Gould answered the five questions, but indirectly through a Reform PR representative rather than in his own voice.

The reason became clear during the campaign. Reform candidates and councillors had been instructed by Ipswich Reform's chairman, Shayne Pooley, not to speak to Ipswich.co.uk, or any other media for that matter.

The instruction held throughout the campaign. On election day itself, only one Reform candidate, Stuart Allen, spoke briefly to the BBC. The party's other candidates, including newly elected councillors, declined to be interviewed or photographed on Pooley's orders.

A Reform candidate exposed for spreading racist bile has swept to a double victory in Nigel Farage’s backyard.

Stuart Prior, who apparently celebrated Punjabi and Sikh women being raped, has won county and district council seats in Essex. His sickening comments only months ago were revealed in a joint investigation by the Mirror with anti-racism group Hope Not Hate (HnH). Reform has ended the Tory party’s quarter of a century control of Essex County Council, with Prior among those elected. The 54-year-old property director also won in a seat on Rochford District Council.

Reform said last week it was “looking into” Prior’s posts – with the party also facing pressure to take action. And today a Labour MP asked Reform’s leader Farage, who represents Clacton in Essex: “Will you immediately suspend him from your party”? Meanwhile, HnH’s Director of Campaigns Georgie Laming said: “Among all the Reform UK candidates we have exposed, Stuart Prior’s language was some of the most horrifically racist. He should have been swiftly expelled from the party.”

When we last week confronted Prior, who also declared white people “the master race”, he denied being racist. On his “master race” tweet, Prior claimed: “I don’t recall that at all, blimey.”

Read back his tweet saying “good” and “reap it” in reference to women being raped, Prior said: “No, this isn’t me.” Prior’s X account is thought to have been deleted earlier this year. He has been elected as a Rochford District councillor, winning 911 votes to take Sweyne Park and Grange ward. Prior separately stood in Rayleigh West in a bid to get a county council seat, winning with 2,404 backers.