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A government source has confirmed to Sky News its new Illegal Migration Bill would “seal off all the loopholes” and that UK officials are “certainly working towards getting the flights off by summer”.

It comes as the home secretary signed an update to the government’s migrants agreement with Rwanda, expanding its scope to “all categories of people who pass through safe countries and make illegal and dangerous journeys to the UK”.

A Home Office statement said it would allow the government to deliver on its new legislation as it would mean those coming to the UK illegally, who “cannot be returned to their home country”, will be “in scope to be relocated to Rwanda”.

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Rwanda: Braverman visits facilities

The new bill would see those who come to the UK detained and returned to their home country – or a “safe third country such as Rwanda”.

Suella Braverman hailed the strengthening of the UK’s migration partnership with Rwanda as she paid a visit to Kigali in Rwanda for official engagements this weekend – including meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame and the country’s minister for foreign affairs and international cooperation, Dr Vincent Biruta.

The UK government plans to send tens of thousands of migrants more than 4,000 miles away to Rwanda as part of a £120m deal agreed with Rwanda last year.

No one has made the journey yet, after a flight was stopped at the eleventh hour in June last year following an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

On Saturday, Ms Braverman and Dr Biruta signed the update to the Memorandum of Understanding, expanding the partnership further.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman (centre) tours a building site on the outskirts of Kigali during her visit to Rwanda, to see houses that are being constructed that could eventually house deported migrants from the UK. Picture date: Saturday March 18, 2023.
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Suella Braverman (centre) tours a building site on the outskirts of Kigali during her visit to Rwanda

Rwanda has ‘plentiful resources’

Speaking to the media on Saturday, Ms Braverman said: “What the Bill does is dramatically and significantly reduces the legal routes available – the claims available to people to thwart their removal or relocation from the United Kingdom.

“To delay their detention. To undermine our rules. And what we are seeing at the moment is people using the modern slavery claims, using asylum claims, using human rights laws… just to thwart our duty to control our borders.”

She continued: “Our Bill fixes that, and we have struck the right balance between fairness, on the one hand, for delivering a robust system of legal duties and powers to detain and remove, and compassion – so that we are relocating people to a safe country.

“And as we have seen here in Rwanda, there are plentiful resources to properly support and accommodate people so that they can live safe and secure lives.”

The home secretary tours a new construction training academy in Kigali during her visit to Rwanda
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The home secretary tours a new construction training academy in Kigali during her visit to Rwanda

Braverman visits potential migrant housing

On her visit to Rwanda, the home secretary spent time meeting refugees, who had been supported by the country’s government to rebuild their lives.

She also took a tour of new housing developments, which will be used to relocate people, and visited new, modern, long-term accommodations that will support those who are relocated to Rwanda.

One refugee living in Rwanda, Fesseha Teame, told reporters on Saturday that he had “never felt I have been considered as a foreigner”, but said he did not see the African nation having the capacity to hold “many thousands” of migrants.

The 48-year-old, with a wife and four children, spoke to the media after the home secretary claimed: “Rwanda has the capacity to resettle many thousands of people, and can quickly stand up accommodation once flights begin.”

Ms Braverman also said the suggestion that Rwanda could only take 200 people is a “completely false narrative peddled by critics who want to scrap the deal”.

The 200 figure quoted was used by Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo when speaking to British journalists last year.

Suella Braverman visits a newly built house with Minister for Information, Communication and technology, Claudette Irere in Rwanda
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Suella Braverman visits a newly built house with Minister for Information, Communication and Technology, Claudette Irere, in Rwanda

Read more:
Asylum seekers are going ‘underground’ in fear of being deported to Rwanda
Is the government’s new Illegal Migration Bill legal?

Ms Braverman met with investment start-ups as well as entrepreneurs to discuss the range of business and employment opportunities available to people in Rwanda.

Earlier this month, the prime minister announced a package that will see a new detention centre established in France as well as the deployment of more French personnel and enhanced technology to patrol beaches in a shared effort to drive down illegal migration.

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Throughout 2022, some 45,728 people crossed to the UK via the Channel – up 60% on the previous year.

Ms Braverman said she was visiting Rwanda this weekend to “reinforce the government’s commitment to the partnership as part of our plan to stop the boats and discuss plans to operationalise our agreement shortly”.

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Babies born with DNA from three people in the UK – to prevent ‘devastating’ illness with no cure

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Babies born with DNA from three people in the UK - to prevent 'devastating' illness with no cure

Eight babies have been born in the UK with DNA from three people following a procedure to eliminate an incurable inherited disease.

It is a major advance for the technique, called mitochondrial donation therapy, designed to prevent a life-limiting, often fatal illness caused by genetic mutations in the structures that generate energy in all our cells.

It is also a test of the UK’s permissive but highly regulated stance on human embryo research that allowed a technique once criticised for creating “three-parent babies” to proceed.

Screen grab taken from handout video of a diagram showing the embryo replacement procedure.
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This image shows the embryo replacement procedure. Pic: PA

The babies, four girls and four boys – two of them identical twins – were all born in the last five years and are healthy, according to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“It’s a great success for these families,” said Sir Doug Turnbull, emeritus professor at the University of Newcastle who helped pioneer the treatment.

“This is a devastating disease with no cure and without this technique, they would not feel that their families were free of mitochondrial disease. This gives them that opportunity.”

Mitochondrial disease affects around one in 5,000 babies born in the UK.

Depending on the number and type of mutations in their mitochondria, the severity and type of disease can vary, but includes neurological, metabolic and developmental disorders.

Only women at high risk of passing on severe disease qualify for the procedure, provided though a specialist facility at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The identities of the seven families and their babies are being withheld, but a mother of one of the baby boys speaking anonymously said: “The emotional burden of mitochondrial disease has been lifted, and in its place is hope, joy, and deep gratitude.”

A diagram showing an embryo o created by mitochondrial donation. Pic: PA
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Pic: PA

How does the technique work?

The procedure involves removing the genetic information from an affected mother’s fertilised embryo before inserting it into one from a healthy female donor, from which the genetic information has been removed.

Crucially, the hundreds of thousands of diseased mitochondria are left behind, leaving the new embryo with healthy ones present in the donor embryo.

Mitochondria contain a tiny amount of their own unique genetic code, so the resulting babies carry DNA from three different people.

But because it represents just 0.02% of our total DNA and has no bearing on genetic traits we inherit from our parents, researchers behind the technique, have never liked the “three-parent” moniker.

However, the technique – whatever you choose to call it – isn’t perfect.

A total of 22 women underwent the procedure but only seven became pregnant, resulting in eight births – a 36% success rate.

Five of the eight babies were born with no trace of disease.

But tests on the other three revealed a small percentage of mutated mitochondria had been carried over during the procedure.

Read more from Sky News:
‘My voice box was removed after NHS missed my throat cancer’
World’s biggest human imaging project reaches milestone

While they are at levels too low to cause mitochondrial disease, the babies will require careful follow-ups to ensure they continue to develop normally.

“We have designed a study specifically for that purpose,” said Professor Bobby McFarland, who leads the service in Newcastle.

“That’s what is unique about us offering this in Newcastle because there isn’t anywhere else in the world that’s doing this in a regulated way.”

While there’s good reason to expect the children will develop normally, the procedure does take medicine into new territory.

Because mitochondria contain their own genetic code, girls born via the technique – carrying those from the healthy donor – will pass that on to any children they may have in future.

Changing the “germ-line” in such a way has raised ethical concerns.

But for seven new families, and more to follow, the procedure promises to cure a disease that has affected their families for generations.

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Acid attacks rise in UK – with 25% of them in an area that’s home to just 2% of the population

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Acid attacks rise in UK - with 25% of them in an area that's home to just 2% of the population

The number of acid attacks has risen 10% in a year, according to a Freedom of Information request to UK police forces.

Acid Survivors Trust International (ASTI) said its analysis shows 498 physical attacks involving corrosive substances were recorded in 2024 – compared with 454 in the previous year.

According to the charity, the real figure is likely to be even higher because of under-reporting by victims.

In 2023, both Northumbria Police and the Metropolitan Police recorded the highest number of physical attacks – 18% and 16% respectively.

But figures in 2024 showed a significant fall in attacks in London, dropping by 78%, while cases in Northumbria rose substantially.

ASTI executive director Jaf Shah told Sky News that attacks in Northumbria account for almost 25% of the nationwide total – despite making up just 2% of the population.

He explained: “Historically, London has always seen the highest number attacks, which is unsurprising because of the population. But what we’ve seen in the 2024 data is a massive drop in the number of attacks in London to just 16.

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“Whereas in Northumbria we’ve seen a 49% increase to 121 attacks, so there’s a massive disparity in terms of numbers, especially relative to population figures for each of those corresponding areas. So this is obviously a very worrying trend.”

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In July 2024, four men were handed life sentences for ammonia murders

Mr Shah added there was supporting evidence about the type of attacks taking place in the Northumbria force area.

“Professor Francisco Figueiredo, who is head of ophthalmology at Newcastle University … certainly picked up on an increase of young men receiving treatment with corrosive injuries in the eye.

“A lot of the injuries he’s treated are related to the use of ammonia … that’s quite different to some of the attacks we’ve seen in other parts of the UK where sulphuric acid is commonly used.”

West Midlands Police also recorded a significant increase in attacks – rising 82% between 2023 and 2024 – and making up 12% of the UK total.

ASTI states the FOI data reveals acid attacks in the UK are historically associated with male-on-male violence and often linked to gang activity.

Of the 224 physical attacks where gender data was recorded, a third of victims were female, reflecting the increasing use of acid as a weapon of violence against women and girls.

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How Clapham chemical attack in January 2024 unfolded

ASTI also commissioned research, conducted by Frontier Economics, which concluded that the financial impact of all acid attacks in 2024 was more than £31m.

The study estimated that a single attack costs £63,000, consisting of the medical and psychological support victims require and paying for the criminal justice system to deal with perpetrators.

ASTI also told Sky News it was recommending reforms to tackle the “lack of robust checks on sales of corrosives”, especially via online retailers.

Read more from Sky News:
Katie Piper reveals artificial eye decision
Victim’s eye saved after acid attack
Girl injured in ‘devastating acid attack’

Acid attack ‘devastates lives’

Commander Stephen Clayman, National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for corrosive substances, said an attack “devastates lives and causes physical and psychological damage to victims that can last a lifetime” and officers were committed “to tackle this appalling crime”.

In a statement, he added: “Many corrosive substances are available over the counter at supermarkets and DIY stores.

“It is important that law enforcement and government work closely with retailers themselves, to enhance our intelligence picture, and determine the best ways to keep these products from falling into the hands of people who intend to use them to cause harm.

“Serious crimes such as this should not go unreported and we want victims to feel able to come forward and report these matters to us.”

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Red House: 62 people now say they experienced abuse at children’s home run by a ‘cult’

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Red House: 62 people now say they experienced abuse at children's home run by a 'cult'

“It was like hell on Earth.”

Warning: This article includes references to sexual abuse and suicide that some readers may find distressing.

Colin (not his real name) is one of 19 alleged abuse victims who has come forward following a Sky News investigation into a closed children’s home in Norfolk.

The total number is now 62.

Red House

Numerous people have told us that they experienced physical, emotional and sexual abuse at The Small School at Red House run by a Danish organisation called Tvind, which has been described as a cult.

Colin was taken into care after being a victim of sexual exploitation, but when he arrived at The Red House at 15, his personal, painful history was used against him.

“A couple of the lads grabbed hold of me,” he said. “They’d been told that I was a rent boy before I got there, they wanted to knock me into shape. I contemplated killing myself. I’d never experienced that humiliation.”

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Children were sent to The Red House from all over the country. Some have told Sky News that violent staff broke their fingers, threw them down the stairs and even locked them in rooms with Alsatians.

Red House

Sadly for Colin, his experience of sexual exploitation continued at the home.

“They put these three lads in my room, they squeezed me round my neck and I passed out,” he said. “When I came round they were sexually abusing me. I was screaming and screaming. The next day I ran and I never went back there.”

The home was run by the Tvind School Cooperative of Denmark. A controversial group founded in the late 1960s, they opened around 30 radical schools in Denmark, mostly for disadvantaged children, and two in England. Many have since closed.

Tvind

Inspections by regulatory bodies reveal growing concerns about The Red House. In 1990, the Social Services Inspectorate wrote to directors of local authorities warning them against sending children to the home.

An inspection report made by Norfolk County Council in 1994 shows they were aware of alleged “sexual abuse” and “physical abuse” involving 20 children.

Yet the home continued to operate and three years after that inspection report, Norfolk County Council sent a teenage boy to the Red House.

Red House

“Red House was this black hole where they could just dump people and not worry about them,” he says.

“Whilst I was there I can’t even think of one instance when my social worker turned up to come and check on me.”

He is one of the many alleged victims in the process of suing Norfolk County Council and the local authorities which sent children to the home.

Read more:
The Red House: The children’s home run like a cult
The Danish group behind a children’s home run like a cult

Sky's Alice Porter with Colin

Daniel Lemberger Cooper is representing victims on behalf of Imran Khan and Partners.

“[We] urge Norfolk Council, who are the centre of this and whose geographic area Red House was based, to tell the truth. They were aware very early on … about abuse and allegations of abuse and they failed to act.”

Victims are also being supported by the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association who are urging any more people to come forward.

The home was shut down in 1998. Norfolk Police have done two investigations into allegations of abuse but no one has been charged.

The Red House in Norfolk

Those still working for Tvind in Denmark say they are not associated with the former cooperative.

Norfolk County Council says: “We continue to investigate and respond to those private claims through the appropriate legal channels.

“Our thoughts are with all survivors of abuse but, as there is an ongoing legal claim relating to Red House, we cannot comment further at this time.”

People can contact the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association by visiting: www.smallschoolredhouse.co.uk.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.

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