Government under pressure over ‘ghost children’ missing from class

Published

2 years ago

November 9, 2023

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The government “remains committed” to legislate to establish a register of pupils who are not in school, the education secretary said.

It comes after criticism that the King’s Speech on Tuesday, which set out the legislative agenda for the year, did not include anything about the plan to reduce the number of so-called “ghost children”.

As Sky News has reported, since the pandemic there has been a rise in the number youngsters who have stopped going to school.

Often this is pupils who have been excluded from the classroom and then fall out of the system – making them vulnerable to being targeted by gangs.

Making an intervention as Education Secretary Gillian Keegan opened a debate in the House of Commons, Lib Dem MP Munira Wilson said: “What was crystal clear from the King’s Speech yesterday is despite her [Ms Keegan’s] grandiose statements here, education is not a priority for this government.”

Ms Wilson asked why there was no announcement “about bringing forward legislation for a children-not-in-school register” – something ministers promised they would still do after scrapping the Schools Bill last year.

The education secretary said that remains the government’s position – though she did not say when the plans would be brought before parliament, only saying it would happen at a “suitable opportunity”.

“We do remain committed to legislating to take forward the children-not-in-school measures and we will progress these at a future suitable legislative opportunity,” Ms Keegan said.

“We are continuing to work with local authorities to improve the non-statutory registers. And we have also launched a consultation on revised elective home education guidance.

“So there is work going on, the consultation is open until January 18, 2024. So there is a lot of work going on and we do intend to bring forward that legislation.”

The law requires all children of school age to receive suitable full-time education, but last year 141,000 children spent more time out of class than in – up by 137% since the pandemic.

Local councils blame funding problems for not being able to keep track of missing pupils well enough.

Last May the government launched a piece of legislation known as the Schools Bill, which promised to raise standards through a series of measures including the creation of local authority-administered register for children not in school.

However, come December it was scrapped, with ministers insisting they were committed to its objectives despite not taking the legislation further.

Speaking in the Commons, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson paid tribute to Sky News “for being relentless in pursuing this issue”.

She said persistent absenteeism means we are now on track for two million children to be regularly missing school by 2025.

She said: “That’s one in four of our children. There is no greater failing by this government than standing by as more and more children are missing from school for days on end, term after term, a lost generation of children missing from England’s schools.”

A broad and complex crisis damaging the lives of thousands

Nick Martin

People and politics correspondent

@NickMartinSKY

For months now I’ve been speaking to children, parents, teachers and experts all struggling with one major issue – children not going to school.

It’s a quiet, hidden crisis; the child too anxious to get out of the car, the parent spending hours on the phone fighting for a special school place. And all that time, learning is lost.

The latest data paints a really worrying picture, too. It shows that 140,000 children are missing 50% or more of their education – called severe absence.

And a staggering 1.5 million children are what’s called persistently absent – missing the equivalent of a morning a week. These figures are double what they were before the pandemic.

Back in July, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan accepted this is “crisis”. She said wished she could drive children to school herself, and even said it was the job of headteachers to do the same, if necessary.

Her department has introduced attendance hubs and mentors to tackle the problem in the worst affected areas.

But campaigners – including the children’s commissioner for England – have been calling for legislation in the King’s Speech to focus efforts to get children back to the classroom, to enshrine a solution into law. But nothing materialised.

Labour now appears to be seizing the opportunity.

It’s always been thought that education won’t be a big issue in the next election. That could be about to change with the party choosing to take valuable parliamentary debate time to raise the issue in the House.

There are lots of issues at play here; the cost of living crisis, NHS waiting lists for mental health services, school places and council funding.

It is a broad and hugely complex crisis that’s damaging the lives of thousands of children.

Ms Phillipson earlier told Sky News that if she becomes education secretary after the next election, she will “take action to make sure our children are supported, that every day in school matters”.

She said that would mean: “More mental health support, with mental health hubs in every community, improved access to mental health support within our secondary schools, and alongside that for our younger children, universal free breakfast clubs to support children with a softer start to the school day, and also wider help for families during what’s a really difficult time with the cost of living crisis.”

Meanwhile, Andy Cook, chief executive of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a centre-right think tank, warned the crisis could have far-reaching consequences for society.

He told Sky News: “You go into any prison and you talk to the people there, 90% of them say they missed a lot of school on a regular basis. So we need to take this seriously.”

UK

How a cup of coffee led Sky News to a sex offender on the run

Published

15 hours ago

November 8, 2025

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How a cup of coffee led Sky News to a sex offender on the run

It started with a strong espresso in a simple cafe on a side street in north London.

Several Algerian men were inside, a few others were outside on the pavement, smoking.

I’d been told the wanted prisoner might be in Finsbury Park, so I ordered a coffee and asked if they’d seen him.

They were happy to tell me that some of them knew Brahim Kaddour-Cherif – the 24-year-old offender who was on the run.

One of the customers revealed to me that he’d actually seen him the night before.

“He wants to hand himself to police,” the friend said candidly.

This was the beginning of the end of a high-profile manhunt.

The Algerian convicted sex offender had been at large since 29 October, after he was mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth in south London.

Within an hour of meeting the friend in the cafe, he had followed myself and camera operator Josh Masters to a nearby street.

We weren’t yet filming – he didn’t want any attention or fuss surrounding him.

“Follow me, he’s in the park,” the man told me.

“Follow – but not too close.”

We did.

I was in the same park a few weeks ago after fugitive Hadush Kebatu, the Ethiopian sex offender – also wrongly released from prison – was arrested in Finsbury Park.

It was odd to be back in the same spot in such similar circumstances.

Read more on Tom’s story:
Wrongly released prisoner’s angry reaction
‘I’m glad he’s been arrested‘

As he led us through the park past joggers, young families and people playing tennis, the man headed for the gates near Finsbury Park station.

All of a sudden, two police officers ran past us.

The Met had received a tip-off from a member of the public.

It was frantic. Undercover officers, uniformed cops, screeching tyres and blaring sirens. We were in the middle of the manhunt.

As they scoured the streets at speed, we walked by some of the Algerian men I’d seen in the cafe.

One man near the group was wearing green tracksuit bottoms, a beanie hat and had glasses on.

“It’s him, it’s him,” one of the other men said to me, gesturing towards him.

The man in the beanie then quickly turned on his heel and walked off.

“It’s him, it’s him,” another guy agreed.

The suspect was walking off while the police were still searching the nearby streets.

Josh and I caught up with him and I asked directly: “Are you Brahim?”

You may have watched the exchange in the Sky News video – he was in denial, evasive and pretended the suspect had pedalled off on a Lime bike.

I can only guess he knew the game was up, but for whatever reason, he was keeping up the lie.

Moments later, one of the bystanders told me “it is him” – with added urgency.

Only the prisoner knows why he then walked up to the nearby police van – officers quickly moved to handcuff him and tell him why he was being arrested.

Over the next 10 minutes, he became agitated. His story changed as I repeatedly asked if he had been the man inside HMP Wandsworth.

Officers needed confirmation too – one quickly pulled out a smartphone and checked an image of the wanted man from one of Sky News’ online platforms.

“It’s not my f****** fault, they release me!” he yelled at me.

The search was over, the prisoner cage in the back of the van was opened and he was guided in.

I then spoke to another Algerian man who had tipped off the police – he told me he hated sex offenders and the shame he felt over the whole episode.

The community had done the right thing – there were two tip-offs – one to me, one to the police.

The farce of this manhunt had gone on long enough.

UK

Nadjib, who tipped off police over released prisoner Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, tells Sky News he’s ‘happy to see him arrested’

Published

15 hours ago

November 8, 2025

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Nadjib, who tipped off police over released prisoner Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, tells Sky News he's 'happy to see him arrested'

“It’s him, it’s him, it’s him”, the man told me urgently.

While police were frantically searching in Finsbury Park for wanted sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, locals were telling me where he was.

Immediately after the dramatic arrest, filmed exclusively by Sky News we spoke to the North African man who tipped off the police.

Nadjib had been on the lookout for the convicted sex offender, who had been spending time in different parts of north London since his release from HMP Wandsworth.

He even had a folded-up newspaper clipping in his pocket so that he could check the picture himself.

He told Sky News he was “very happy when he got arrested”.

“I don’t like the sex offenders,” he said.

“I know him from the community. He has been around here every night since he was released from prison.”

Not only did he tip the police off about the prisoner’s whereabouts, but he also witnessed the other high-profile manhunt that ended in the same park last month.

Ethiopian asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu was also arrested in Finsbury Park after a 48-hour manhunt in the capital. He was then deported to Ethiopia.

“When he [Kebatu] got arrested in the park I was there,” Nadjib said.

I asked him why both men ended up in the same park in north London.

“Because the community, he came here for the community of Algerians,” he said.

Several Algerian people that I spoke to on Friday told me how shameful they thought it was that this sex offender was still on the run.

“Job done,” Nadjib said, before walking off.

UK

Alice Figueiredo: NHS trust and ward manager to be sentenced – over a decade after young patient’s death

Published

15 hours ago

November 8, 2025

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Alice Figueiredo: NHS trust and ward manager to be sentenced - over a decade after young patient's death

An NHS trust and a ward manager will be sentenced next week for health and safety failings – more than a decade after a young woman died in a secure mental health hospital.

Warning: This article contains references to suicide.

Earlier this year, a jury found the North East London NHS Foundation Trust and ward manager Benjamin Aninakwa did not do enough to prevent Alice Figueiredo from killing herself.

The decisions were reached after the joint-longest jury deliberation in English legal history.

Alice was 22 years old when she took her own life at London’s Goodmayes Hospital in July 2015.

Her parents sat through seven months of difficult and graphic evidence – and told Sky News the experience retraumatised them.

Jane Figueiredo said: “It’s very distressing, because you know that she’s been failed at every point all the way along, and you’re also reliving the suffering that she went through.

“It’s adding trauma on top of the wound that you’ve already got, the worst wound you can imagine, of losing your child.”

Alice’s stepfather Max said he remains “appalled” that she died in a place they thought would care for her.

“The fact we have these repeated deaths of very young people in secure mental health units shocks me to the core. How can society look at that event and portray it as something that happens as a matter of course?”

Ms Figueiredo said Alice had predicted her own death.

“She said to us – out of fear really: ‘The only way I’m going to leave this ward is in a body bag.’

“It’s because she did not feel safe.”

In a statement, the North East London NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are deeply sorry for Alice’s death, and we extend our heartfelt condolences to her family and loved ones.

“We have taken significant steps to continually improve the physical and social environment, deliberately designed to support recovery, safety, wellbeing, and assist our workforce in delivering compassionate care.”

For Alice’s family, the convictions have brought some justice, but they will never have complete closure.

“As a mum your bereavement doesn’t ever end, it changes over years as you go on, but it’s unending. The thought I won’t even hear her voice is unbearable and I still miss it. I still miss her voice,” Ms Figueiredo said.

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.