Hundreds of thousands of air passengers face possible delays today as Border Force workers become the latest to go on strike.
More than 1,000 employees are walking out, affecting passport control desks at Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester and Glasgow airports, as well as the port of Newhaven in East Sussex.
The strike – by Mmembers of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union employed by the Home Office – will last until early on Boxing Day, before another round from 28 December until early on New Year’s Eve.
More than 10,000 flights are scheduled to land at those airports during those times and more than 250,000 passengers arriving on Friday have been warned to expect delays.
The airports said that most departing flights would not be affected, although some arriving passengers – particularly those who cannot use eGates – could face delays.
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PCS union boss on strikes
Royal Mail employees will also be on strike today, their fifth day of action this month, in what Royal Mail said was a “cynical attempt to hold Christmas to ransom”.
The company has estimated that the strike, which will continue on Christmas Eve, has already cost it £100m.
National Highways workers in London and the South East will continue their four-day walkout that started on Thursday.
The workers, who plan, design, build, operate and maintain the roads, are following action by colleagues in Yorkshire and the Humber, northwest and northeast England.
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Hundreds of thousands of workers are striking over winter as unions seek pay rises in line with the rate of inflation to help shield their members from the cost of living crisis.
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‘Government has refused to talk to us’
Rail workers to strike from Christmas Eve
Rail workers represented by the RMT union will strike from 6pm on Saturday until 6am on 27 December, while East Midlands Railway will be affected by a strike on 23 and 24 December by the Unite union.
Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency employees will strike today and tomorrow in northwest England, and Yorkshire and the Humber, with more strike action expected in other regions over coming weeks.
Hundreds of bus drivers in south and west London employed by Abellio will strike tomorrow, 27 and 31 December, before a further eight days in January in their pay dispute.
They have already taken 10 days of action in the past two months.
Further January strikes for NHS workers
Earlier this week, NHS staff were on strike, with nurses walking out on Tuesday and ambulance workers following them on Wednesday.
Pat Cullen, head of the Royal College of Nursing, said on Thursday that if she did not hear from Health Secretary Steve Barclay by the end of the day, she would announce further January strikes dates.
“The public is clear – as am I – that the way to avoid further strike action is for the government to stop prevaricating and repeating the same tired lines and step up to holding meaningful negotiations with me,” she said.
The government has refused to negotiate on pay, insisting it is accepting recommendations from independent pay review bodies.
Ambulance workers, represented by Unison, have already announced further strikes, with workers in London, Yorkshire, the North West, North East, and South West walking out on 11 January and 23 January.
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Dave Ward says there have been more ‘positive’ discussions with Royal Mail
Members of the GMB union at nine ambulance trusts are also preparing to strike on 28 December, while 1,000 union members in the Welsh Ambulance Service are set to announce strike dates in the new year.
Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “It’s only through talks that this dispute will end.”
NHS trust leaders have warned that Christmas could be one of the most difficult the health service has seen, with strikes threatening to worsen an “already deeply challenging situation”.
Last week, one in four ambulance patients in England waited more than an hour to be handed to A&E teams at hospitals, latest figures show.
Footage of the moment 10-year-old Sara Sharif’s alleged killers were detained after police boarded their plane back to the UK has been played in court.
As they are approached by officers, Sara‘sstepmother Beinash Batool is heard saying: “I think you’re looking for us.”
Batool, 30, Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, 42, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are accused of carrying out a campaign of abuse against her culminating in her death at her family home in Surreyon 8 August last year.
The defendants, along with five of Sara’s siblings, aged between one and 13, flew to Pakistanthe following day.
Sara’s body was found by police in a bunkbed on 10 August after Sharif called police from Pakistan to say he had beaten her “too much” for being “naughty”.
A murder investigation was launched involving agencies including Interpol and the National Crime Agency to locate the defendants.
More on Sara Sharif
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They returned to the UK on a flight from Dubai to Gatwick Airport on 13 September.
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‘I beat her up too much’
The clips of officers’ body-worn video shown to the jury on Friday captured the moment police boarded the plane and detained the defendants at 7.42pm, seven minutes after touchdown.
After Batool addresses the officers, Sharif, who had been sitting next to her, is asked to follow them.
The three were then taken off the plane and arrested.
A post-mortem examination established Sara had sustained extensive and significant injuries over a sustained period prior to her death.
The jury heard on Friday how concerns were raised by Sara’s school about bruising on her body in June 2022 and March 2023.
Several items seized from Sara’s home were also reviewed by the court, including a leather belt which had full DNA samples at both ends for Sara, Sharif, and Malik.
A cricket bat was also found to have Sara’s DNA profile on it, along with the DNA samples of Sharif and Malik.
Neither item had a DNA trace of Batool.
The court also reviewed the defendants’ bank accounts – both joint and separate.
All three defendants have pleaded not guilty to murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.
Six teenagers have been arrested after a 13-year-old girl was found with multiple stab wounds on a roadside near Hull.
Police said she was found around 6.50am on the A63 in Hessle with “life-threatening injuries” including “lacerations to her neck, abdomen, chest and back”.
Four boys and two girls – aged between 14 and 17 – were quickly arrested in a nearby wooded area and are being questioned on suspicion of attempted murder.
Members of the public came to the girl’s aid before emergency services arrived, Humberside Police said.
Detective Superintendent Simon Vickers said they “believe the attackers knew the victim” and the circumstances are still being investigated.
“The girl remains in hospital in critical condition and her family are being supported by officers at this difficult time,” he added.
The boys arrested are aged 14, 15, 16 and 17, and the girls 14 and 15.
Cordons are in place around a wooded area off Ferriby High Road while investigations continue.
Police said they would have an increased presence in the area over the weekend and have asked anyone with information or video to get in touch, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously.
A former soldier has told a jury his escape from Wandsworth prison to avoid being held with sex offenders and terrorists showed his “skillset”.
Daniel Khalife, 23, who was being held accused of passing secrets to Iran said he was “never a real spy” but planned a fake defection to the state following his arrest after watching American television show Homeland.
He said he wanted to be moved to a high-security unit because he was getting unwanted attention from the sex offenders on the vulnerable prisoners wing and feared a move to Belmarsh prison because, as a British soldier, terrorists wanted to kill him.
Khalife said he first wanted to “make a show” of escaping, acting suspiciously and covering himself in soot from a food delivery lorry on 21 August last year, while he was working in the prison kitchen.
He was spotted and reported to security but was “pretty shocked” when nothing happened so decided to take the “full measure,” he told the jury.
Talking about his escape for the first time at his Woolwich Crown Court trial, Khalife told how he fashioned a makeshift sling from kitchen trousers and carabiners used by inmates to keep their possessions safe from rats.
He attached it to the Bidfood lorry on 1 September last year, to see if it would be spotted by officers at Wandsworth or other prisons on the delivery route.
“I put the two carabiners and the makeshift rope underneath the lorry,” he said.
“When I had made the decision to actually leave the prison I was going to do it properly so I tested the security not just in Wandsworth
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“Strangely, over the coming days, I could see it but it wasn’t spotted in Wandsworth or any other prison.”
Then on the morning of 6 September, Khalife said he concealed himself underneath the lorry, resting his back on the sling as the lorry was searched.
“They did normal checks around with torches but they didn’t find me. After that, a governor came to the tunnel and said, ‘Have you searched the vehicle?’
“I was facing upwards. There was action around the lorry.”
He said that when the vehicle stopped he “came out underneath the lorry and stayed in the prone position” until the lorry moved off.
Khalife, who joined the Army aged 16 and took up a post with the Royal Signals, based in Beacons barracks, Staffordshire, said he made no attempt to leave the country and had no intention to “run away” from the charges he was facing.
He was arrested three days later on the footpath of the Grand Union Canal in Northolt, west London, after a nationwide manhunt.
Asked why he had not handed himself in after his escape, Khalife said: “I was finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was to have someone of my skillset in prison. What use was that to anyone?”
“I accept that I left the prison and didn’t have any permission to do so,” he said. “I accept absolutely that I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
Inspired by Homeland
The court has heard Khalife initiated contact with Iranian intelligence officers after he was told he could not pass developed vetting because his mother was born in Iran.
Khalife told MI5 he wanted to be a “double agent” and he said in court he thought he would be “congratulated” but described his arrest as like a “punch in the face”.
Wearing a blue checked shirt and chinos, he said police were “blinded at the prospect of a successful prosecution” but he did not think being in prison would be in “the public interest”.
“I didn’t do anything that harmed our national security. I wanted to put myself in a position where I could help my country,” he said.
“I believed I could continue my work actually located in the state – the state being Iran.”
Khalife said he took inspiration from watching Homeland, starring Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, in which Americans and terrorists go undercover, on Netflix.
“I had seen one of the characters in the programme had actually falsely defected to a particular country and utilised that position to further the national security interests of that character’s country,” he said.
“The country in question, Iran, thought it was real. She did it to further the interests of her own country.”
Khalife told jurors he is a “patriot”, adding: “I do love my country. All I wanted to do was help. I never wanted to do any harm, I never did do any harm.”
He added: “It is tragic it has come to this and I would do anything to go back to my career.”
Khalife, from Kingston, southwest London, denies a charge of committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state under the Official Secrets Act between 1 May 2019 and 6 January 2022.
He has also pleaded not guilty to a charge under the Terrorism Act of eliciting information about Armed Forces personnel on 2 August 2021, perpetrating a bomb hoax on or before 2 January 2023 and escaping from prison on 6 September last year.