Police are to dig again for the body of murdered Muriel McKay after her killer agreed to reveal where he buried her 54 years ago.
The move follows a tireless campaign by her family who flew to Trinidad to persuade her killer Nizam Hosein to pinpoint the burial site earlier this year.
Hosein was convicted of kidnapping and killing Muriel McKay, who he mistook for the then wife of newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch, in one of the first British murder trials without a body.
He spent 20 years in jail and many more after his release denying his involvement until he finally told her daughter Dianne McKay: “Behind the barn, two or three feet from the fence, that’s where the body is.”
Commander Steve Clayman said: “I’d like to thank Muriel’s family for their patience while we have taken time to really carefully consider all the information gathered in relation to this case. I know it has been a frustrating time for them.
“We have decided we will carry out a further search at the Hertfordshire farm where it is believed Muriel’s remains may be. We carried out an extensive search there in spring 2022 but unfortunately it was unsuccessful.”
The main area of potential interest “is where a manure heap once stood – we know now this was probably larger than we previously thought and therefore that area was not entirely searched in 2022,” the commander added.
A date for the start of the search is yet to be set but the victim’s grandson told Sky News police said they would be going back to the farm within six weeks.
Commander Clayman said the search would go ahead despite inconsistencies in the account provided by Hosein.
He added: “We all share a hope and desire to find Muriel’s remains and bring some closure to her family after all these years.
“We sincerely hope the search is successful. However, we have informed the family that if Muriel’s remains are sadly not found, it would not be proportionate to carry out any further searches or investigations.”
Mark Dyer, the grandson of Muriel McKay, told Sky News after news of the new search was confirmed: “I’m completely shocked and surprised.
“It’s incredibly encouraging news that finally the campaign that we launched to find my grandmother’s body has been successful.
“It’s an incredible moment in history for us that we’re going back now with compelling evidence with where she’s located and we are going back there with the police actually fully behind it and involving us.”
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2:36
Grandson’s mission to find Muriel McKay
The owners of the farm have said they will grant access to their property for the dig, even though police reportedly couldn’t apply for a search warrant due to insufficient evidence.
They said: “Our position has been consistent from the very first request of the family of the late Mrs McKay for a dig at our home. We have always said that this is a police matter – they are the experts in investigating evidence and determining its credibility. We have at all times provided the police with access to our land and granted permission to dig when requested by them, including when we have not been obliged to do so.
“We agreed to support the decision of the police, whatever it was. They have now made their decision, which we respect, although we understand from the police that this was a finely judged call considering the unreliability of the evidence provided by the murderer.
“It now means that once this dig is concluded there will be a close to the debate and that no further searches on our land will happen.”
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Mrs McKay, 55, was kidnapped from her south London home in late December 1969 by the Hosein brothers, who thought she was Anna, the wife of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch who had just bought The Sun newspaper.
In fact, she was the wife of Murdoch’s deputy, fellow Australian Alick McKay.
The kidnappers realised their mistake straightaway but carried on with their plot and demanded a £1m ransom for her safe return, playing a cat-and-mouse game with Scotland Yard before they were identified and arrested, by which time Muriel was already dead.
They were jailed for life, denying any part in the abduction and refusing to say what had happened to their victim – until Nizam Hosein’s confession this year.
Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.
Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.
After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.
Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.
The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.
Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.
“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.
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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.
“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”
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Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”
The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.
This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.
Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.
Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.
Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.
He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”
“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.
The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).
A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.
The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.
In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.
Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.
“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”
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He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”
Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.
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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.
Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”
Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.
NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.
EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’
Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.
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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?
Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.
At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.