Kanan Patel still wears a golden wedding band. I can see it as she holds her mobile to read out a text message from her husband Jayesh.
“Things not improving on O2. Need to try something different.”
She texted back: “I’ve spoken to the Dr. Jayesh keep fighting, don’t let this virus defeat you. We all love you and need you.”
Image: The last messages between Kanan and Jayesh
This was the last time Kanan swapped messages with Jayesh. When he sent it he was lying in a hospital bed fighting to breathe. Days later he was intubated, but the doctors could not save him from COVID.
“He was the youngest on the ward,” Kanan tells me.
At just 52 Jayesh was not in the most at-risk groups. But as a community pharmacist working in spring 2020 as the pandemic was beginning to sweep across the world, Jayesh was left exposed and vulnerable without any protection.
I first came to see Kanan in July 2020, three months after her husband’s death. She and her two young daughters, Ria and Kira, were offering prayers during a solemn Hindu ceremony in their kitchen.
She described then, choking back tears, the last time she saw Jayesh: “He walked towards the ambulance in his slippers, I didn’t know he was never going to come back.”
And with those words Kanan broke down.
Image: The National COVID Memorial on the River Thames near Waterloo
Grief internalised as COVID-19 Inquiry resumes
There are no tears today. Kanan’s grief is internalised. She struggles, as do her daughters, on special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries.
Today, Valentine’s Day, is especially hard. It is also the day when the COVID-19 Inquiry resumes. Kanan is watching online but the stream is experiencing technical issues.
Kanan feels the public inquiry into the pandemic might be the only chance of the government being held to account. She blames it for failing to protect her husband, that and its “chaotic” messaging.
Image: Kanan Patel lost her husband Jayesh to COVID
“All the errors and, you know, all the mistakes which delayed providing the PPE and giving clear guidance to people. There’s a lot, there’s a long list. It all came in dribs and drabs, one guideline today and then tomorrow you hear that it’s something else,” she says.
Lobby believes his father would still be alive if guidance reflected all Britons, not just white ones
Kanan’s frustration is shared by Lobby Akinnola.
I arranged to meet him at the National COVID Memorial on the River Thames near Waterloo, just across the water from the Houses of Parliament.
As we walk along the wall looking at the fresh roses and cards left by bereaved family members he stops and points to a blank heart on the wall.
“This is my dad’s heart, it’s faded now,” he says.
The letters may be fading but Lobby’s pain is not.
Image: Lobby Akinnola lost his father Olufemi
His father Olufemi was found dead on the floor of the family’s home in April 2020. Lobby believes his father would still be alive if NHS 111 guidance had reflected all Britons, not just white ones.
‘Race played a part in the death of my father’
“I personally believe race played a part in the death of my father, there’s always the lingering question of ‘if he were white would he be here’ – and it’s things like when trying to diagnose the symptoms of COVID, asking questions like ‘are your lips blue,’ that’s a red flag, immediate, ambulance 999, blue light your way there, but that question doesn’t apply to people like me and my dad,” Lobby says describing his conversation with a 111 call handler.
“So could his life have been saved if we’d thought ahead, and had the forethought and preparedness to consider how these symptoms are going to show up on black skin.”
Image: A woman leaves flowers and a note at the National COVID Memorial on the River Thames near Waterloo
Lobby is clear about his demands from the inquiry: “I want justice and change. There are many decisions that were made in that building across from us now, that resulted in all of these hearts we see on this wall.”
Sky News has contacted NHS England for comment. In a previous statement regarding the 111 service, they said: “GPs, nurses, paramedics and other health service staff working in the 111 phone and online service have played a key role in helping millions of people get the right care and advice – whether for coronavirus or any other urgent medical needs.”
Bereaved families struggling to be heard
Today’s online preliminary hearings suffered some technical problems resulting in a loss of audio.
Bereaved families say they are struggling to be heard too, they can only share their stories via an online form leaving people like Lobby and Kanan feeling sidelined.
As we walk back along the wall, more flowers and Valentine’s cards are being left. It’s clear that the loss of a loved one to COVID was felt more acutely today.
This grief will only be made more bearable when so many important questions are finally answered.
Another 23 female potential victims have reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou – the Chinese PhD student detectives believe may be one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.
The Metropolitan Police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women following a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.
Detectives have not confirmed whether the 23 people who have come forward add to their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide may have been targeted by the University College London student.
Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth said: “We have victims reaching out to us from different parts of the globe.
“At the moment, the primary places where we believe offending may have occurred at this time appears to be both in England, here in London, and over in China.”
Image: Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth
Zou lived in a student flat in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in central London, and later in a flat in the Uncle building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, south London.
He had also been a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 until 2019. Police say they have not had any reports from Belfast but added they were “open-minded about that”.
“Given how active and prolific Zou appears to have been with his awful offending, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr Southworth said.
“We wouldn’t want anyone to write off the fact they may have been a victim of his behaviour simply by virtue of the fact that you are from a certain place.
“The bottom line is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know may have been, please don’t hold back. Please make contact with us.”
Image: Pic: Met Police
Zou used hidden or handheld cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s belongings as souvenirs.
He targeted young, Chinese women, inviting them to his flat for drinks or to study, before drugging and assaulting them.
Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
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3:16
Moment police arrest rapist student
Mr Southworth said: “Of those 10 victims, several were not identified so as we could be sure exactly where in the world they were, but their cases, nevertheless, were sufficient to see convictions at court.
“There were also, at the time, 50 videos that were identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s awful crimes.
“We are still working to identify all of those women in those videos.
“We have now, thankfully, had 23 victim survivors come forward through the appeal that we’ve conducted, some of whom may be identical with some of the females that we saw in those videos, some of whom may even turn out to be from the original indicted cases.”
Mr Southworth added: “Ultimately, now it’s the investigation team’s job to professionally pick our way through those individual pieces of evidence, those individual victims’ stories, to see if we can identify who may have been a victim, when and where, so then we can bring Zou to justice for the full extent of his crimes.”
Mr Southworth said more resources will be put into the investigation, and that detectives are looking to understand “what may have happened without wishing to revisit the trauma, but in a way that enables [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best possible way.”
The Metropolitan Police is appealing to anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by Zou to contact the force either by emailing survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident public portal on the force’s website.
An 11-year-old girl who went missing after entering the River Thames has been named as Kaliyah Coa.
An “extensive search” has been carried out after the incident in east London at around 1.30pm on Monday.
Police said the child had been playing during a school inset day and entered the water near Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich.
A recovery mission is now said to be under way to find Kaliyah along the Thames, with the Metropolitan Police carrying out an extensive examination of the area.
Image: Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope in North Woolwich leading into the Thames
Chief Superintendent Dan Card thanked members of the public and emergency teams who responded to “carry out a large-scale search during a highly pressurised and distressing time”.
He also confirmed drone technology and boats were being used to “conduct a thorough search over a wide area”.
He added: “Our specialist officers are supporting Kaliyah’s family through this deeply upsetting time and our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.”
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“Equally we appreciate this has affected the wider community who have been extremely supportive. You will see extra officers in the area during the coming days.”
On Monday, Kerry Benadjaoud, a 62-year-old resident from the area, said she heard of the incident from her next-door neighbour, who “was outside doing her garden and there was two little kids running, and they said ‘my friend’s in the water'”.
When she arrived at the scene with a life ring, a man told her he had called the police, “but he said at the time he could see her hands going down”.
Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope that goes directly into the River Thames and is used to transport boats.
Residents pointed out that it appeared to be covered in moss and was slippery.
Major developers will only deal with one regulator under planning reforms which ministers say will “rewire the system” to get Britain building – all while protecting the environment.
A review by former Labour adviser Dan Corry into Britain’s sluggish system of green regulation has concluded that existing environmental regulators should remain in place, while rejecting a “bonfire of regulations”.
But Mr Corry suggested there might be circumstances in which the government look at changing the wildlife and habit rules inherited from the EU, which protect individual species.
The government has now explicitly ruled out any such change in this parliament.
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Campaigners have questioned whether the changes go far enough and will make a major difference to the rate and scale of building in the UK.
Speaking to Sky News, Environment Secretary Steve Reed insisted that accepting nine of the recommendations from the Corry review would amount to wholesale reform.
The minister said: “We can get a win-win for economic growth and for nature. And that is why we are moving ahead with proposals such as appointing a lead regulator for major developments so that the developers don’t have to navigate the architecture of multiple regulators.
“They just work for a single regulator who manages all the others on their behalf. Simplifying the online planning portal.
“These are huge changes that will save developers billions of pounds and speed up decisions doing damage to the environment.”
Mr Reed insisted that there would be “no more bat tunnels” built, even though the Corry review suggests that more work needs to be done to look again at the relevant guidance.
It says: “Rapidly reviewing the existing catalogue of compliance guidance, including on protecting bats, will identify opportunities to remove duplication, ambiguity or inconsistency.
“Natural England has already agreed to review and update their advice to Local Planning Authorities on bats to ensure there is clear, proportionate and accessible advice available.”
The review will mean:
• Appointing one lead regulator for every major infrastructure project, like Heathrow expansion
• A review on how nature rules are implemented – but not the rules themselves
• Insisting regulators focus more on government priorities, particularly growth
Economist and former charity leader Mr Corry, who led the review, said it shows that “simply scrapping regulations isn’t the answer”.
“Instead we need modern, streamlined regulation that is easier for everyone to use. While short-term trade-offs may be needed, these reforms will ultimately deliver a win-win for both nature and economic growth in the longer run.”
However, Sam Richards from Britain Remade, a thinktank trying to get Britain growing, said that while the steps are welcome, the number of regulators that report to the environment department would remain the same before and after the review. He questioned whether this would have the impact ministers claimed.