The families being unlawfully housed in single rooms by Croydon council
The mother of a homeless teenager who tried to take his own life has said he told her “mummy, I just can’t deal with it anymore”.
Mary (not her real name), 47, her son, 17, and her daughter, 12, have been living in one room of a bed and breakfast since they were evicted from a privately rented flat in November 2022 after the landlord decided to sell.
Under the Housing Act, it is unlawful for councils to keep households with children or pregnant women in temporary accommodation for more than six weeks.
The family have now been waiting for Croydon council to find them somewhere permanent to live for 15 months.
Mary showed Sky News her unanswered emails to the council notifying them of her son’s overdose and subsequent hospital stay.
Mary (not her real name) lives in one room with her teenager son and daughter
Sky News has also seen an NHS assessment of her son’s mental health following his suicide attempt in January, which states: “One of the stressors indicated in our assessment was poor living condition…[he] described the place as tiny, lack of privacy, smells, personal space.”
The report goes on to suggest that other residents also pose a hazard: “We observed there is risk from others rating as moderate – [he] describes being in a nerve-racking environment, men wearing tags, unhygienic and loud chaotic hostel.”
It ends with the advice: “Explained to mum to lock all digestible and sharps in a box under lock and key.”
Sitting in the cramped room where they live, in a building with dozens of other residents, Mary explained how heartbreaking those words were to read.
“I feel as a mother, it’s like I let down my two children,” she said.
She told Sky News how her children ask if they’re moving out every day. She gets up at 4am to ensure she can send her children to school on time and arrive at her job as a care assistant.
A filthy curtain in Mary’s room
Read more from Sky News:
Private renter in England given eviction notice every seven minutes
Gove under pressure to extend eviction notice period
The latest statistics from the government revealed 2,680 households with children had been in bed and breakfast accommodation for more than the statutory limit of six weeks. That’s up 121.5% from 30 September 2022 when the number was 1,210.
A short distance away in one room of a smaller converted terraced house, Rose, 21, is studying to become an air traffic controller. Her two daughters, four and one, are getting their toys out of plastic bags piled high in a corner.
This room is all Rose’s youngest daughter Liorra has known. They’ve been living here for a year and 10 months, waiting for the council to find them a permanent home. As a student, private rent in South London is out of the question for Rose.
But she worries constantly about the impact of being homeless on her children and the drug-taking of other residents right outside their room.
Rose’s youngest daughter has only ever known living in a single room with her family
She said: “If my window’s open, everything comes in here, or they will just be blasting music and doing whatever they’re doing. And my kids are trying to sleep, but they can’t sleep.”
Croydon Council did not comment on the cases of Mary and Rose after being approached by Sky News. Instead, a spokesperson said: “Like other London councils, we are facing increasing demand for affordable accommodation.
“Unfortunately, this means that there are not always permanent homes available for families as quickly as we would like.”
One reason families are losing homes is landlords being forced to sell. The government promised to ban so-called no fault evictions, yet they’re happening at a growing rate.
A no fault eviction is when a landlord uses Section 21 of the Housing Act to notify a tenant that they have to leave without having to provide an explicit reason.
The number of households at risk of losing their homes under Section 21 notices rose to 25,180 in the year ending September 2023, according to government figures released last Thursday.
Terri evicted a family after she began losing money on her property
Terri is a landlady who had to evict a young family from a house in West Sussex after she began losing money.
She blames the economy, explaining: “The mortgage payments were £154 a month. They’ve now gone to £700 a month. The result of this is, sadly, I had to make a young mother and two young children a no fault eviction and they’ve had to leave the property.
Terri has a family of her own, and sympathises with how difficult it is to find a property.
“It’s actually broken my heart to do it. But at the end of the day, I’ve also got bills to pay myself and children to support.”
Additional reporting by Nick Stylianou, Communities producer and Sarah O’Connell, specialist producer.
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
A former Chinese takeaway worker found guilty of money laundering after police seized more than £3bn worth of Bitcoin has been jailed for more than six years.
Jian Wen, 42, came to the attention of police when she tried to buy some of London’s most expensive properties, including a £23.5m seven-bedroom Hampstead mansion with a swimming pool and a nearby £12.5m home with a cinema and gym.
The investigation led to the UK’s biggest-ever cryptocurrency seizure when more than 61,000 Bitcoin were discovered in digital wallets.
The cryptocurrency was worth £1.4bn at the time but its value has now risen to more than £3bn, while 23,308 Bitcoin, now worth more than £1bn, linked to the probe remains in circulation.
The Bitcoin allegedly came from a £5bn investment scam carried out in China between 2014 and 2017.
Wen was not involved in the fraud but was said to have acted as a “front person” to help disguise the source of the money, some of which had been used to buy cryptocurrency and smuggled out of China on laptops.
Wen rented a £17,000-a-month house in Hampstead. Pic: CPS
She was found guilty of one count of money laundering, relating to 150 Bitcoin, now worth nearly £8m, between October 2017 and January 2022 last month following a retrial at Southwark Crown Court.
Wen was jailed for six years and eight months today by Judge Sally-Ann Hales KC, who told her: “I am in no doubt you came to enjoy the better things in life.
“The evidence showed you and, to some extent, members of your family were generously rewarded for your service.”
The court heard Wen, who has been in custody as a Category A prisoner since 3 March 2022, plans to appeal the conviction.
Read more from Sky News:
Boy, 14, arrested over terror offence
Orange cloud appears after ‘industrial incident’
Mark Harries KC, defending, said she “was a victim long before she became a criminal” and “was undoubtedly duped and used” by the alleged mastermind of the operation.
Mr Harries said she was “plucked from the most humble of backgrounds”, working and living in “shabby Chinese restaurants” into a “lifestyle of luxury” funded by the Bitcoin.
Wen lived in a £5m six-bedroom house rented for £17,000 a month near Hampstead Heath and travelled the world, spending tens of thousands of pounds on designer clothes and shoes in Harrods.
She drove a £25,000 E-Class Mercedes and sent her son to the £6,000-a-term Heathside preparatory school, the court heard.
Wen visits the Lindt chocolate factory in Switzerland. Pic: Met Police
Wen tried to buy a Hampstead property. Pic: Met Police
She bought two apartments in Dubai for more than £500,000 and looked into buying a £10m 18th century Tuscan villa with a sea view.
But efforts to buy multimillion-pound properties in London triggered anti-money laundering checks and none of the purchases went ahead because the source of the Bitcoin could not be explained.
Wen, who had declared an income of just £5,979 in the 2016/17 financial year, could not explain the source of the funds and police first raided her home on 31 October 2018.
She accepted she was involved in an arrangement dealing with some of the cryptocurrency but said she did not know or suspect it was from the proceeds of crime.
The court heard that once the Bitcoin had been converted into fiat currency loaded on to black prepaid cards which could be used anywhere in the world.
Wen, who has a diploma in law and a business degree, was acquitted of a string of other money laundering charges and Mr Harries said she had wanted to make her and her son’s lives better, initially by legitimate means.
She was the “conduit”, with “her simple task the pressing of buttons for transactions of Bitcoin” and she had a “limited awareness of the extent of the criminal activity to which she had leant herself,” he said.
But prosecutor Gillian Jones KC said Wen was motivated by “greed” and her own “financial gain” not subjected to “coercion, intimidation or exploitation”.
A mother who murdered her three-year-old son after a “campaign of violence” has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years.
Warning: This story contains details some may find upsetting
Christina Robinson, 30, violently shook her son Dwelaniyah Robinson at the family home in Bracken Court, Ushaw Moor, Durham, causing a fatal brain injury in November 2022.
During a three-week trial at Newcastle Crown Court, the prosecution said Robinson slapped and beat her son with a bamboo cane and hit him with spoons in the weeks leading up to his death.
Christina Robinson. Pic: Durham Police/PA
After his death, investigators found a broken cane in her house which had traces of his skin and blood on it.
The court heard Robinson, a member of the Black Hebrew Israelite religion, claimed the Bible advised the use of the rod for the “correction” of children weeks before she murdered him.
She also neglected him by leaving him alone at home and deliberately scalded him as punishment, causing severe burns that left him in agony.
Robinson, who is originally from Tamworth, Staffordshire, told the court her son’s burns occurred accidentally while she washed him in the shower and she did not seek medical attention for him because she was ashamed.
Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, previously said as much as 20% of Dwelaniyah’s body was covered in burns that would have caused excruciating pain for several weeks.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Moment mother is arrested for murdering her son
Robinson was the only adult in the house when her son suffered the brain injury that killed him, jurors were told.
She waited 20 minutes before calling 999, first calling her husband, who was 240 miles away serving with the RAF at the time, and then using Google to look for ways to resuscitate a child.
A post-mortem examination revealed he had been the victim of a series of assaults and had sustained a number of non-accidental injuries.
Mr Wright said: “In other words, somebody had been deliberately hurting this little boy and had been doing so over a period of time.
“That person was his mother, the defendant Christina Robinson.”
In his closing speech, Mr Wright told the court the boy was “subjected to a campaign of violence and cruelty by his mother for petty wrongs”.
Robinson was also convicted of child neglect by leaving Dwelaniyah at home while she had an affair behind her husband’s back.
Robinson was found guilty of murder and four child cruelty offences, said to have taken place in the weeks leading up to Dwelaniyah’s death, when she was convicted on Thursday 21 March.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow @SkyNews on X or subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
A judicial review has been rejected after a legal challenge against the UK government over a river’s chicken poo pollution.
Environmental charity River Action UK took the government’s Environment Agency (EA) to court over its alleged failure to enforce regulations to protect the River Wye from pollution.
The river is around 150 miles long and mainly flows along the border between England and Wales.
Lawyers for the EA rejected claims it had not taken action and said warning letters had been sent out to those who may have been in breach of the regulations.
In a judgment handed down remotely on Friday, Mr Justice Dove found the EA had improved its enforcement of the Farming Rules for Water.
He consequently dismissed the claim for a judicial review.
River Action UK are considering appealing the judgment but said they have “a number of reasons to be pleased”.
Appeal under consideration
“We remain concerned that there is widespread evidence that agricultural regulations are still being broken across the Wye Catchment and that the EA is still not being held accountable for its failure to enforce the law,” the charity’s chair and founder Charles Watson said.
“River Action is simply not prepared to sit back and continue to watch these injustices to our rivers continue. Accordingly, we are taking immediate advice with regards to appealing the judgment.”
High Court hearing
A hearing was held at the High Court in Cardiff in February over two days.
The judge said the evidence provided by the National Farmers Union (NFU) demonstrated “current agricultural working practices would have to change” to comply with both the claimant and defendant’s interpretation of the regulations.
This would lead to changes in the way farms operate “together with associated costs”, the judge added.
He said he was “unable to accept that the evidence demonstrates the kind of impracticality or absurdity which justifies the rejection of the claimant’s and defendant’s case on this point”.
Read more from Sky News:
British-born baby ordered to ‘immediately leave’ UK
London-born teen becomes first millennial saint
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
An Environment Agency spokesperson said it “remained committed to protecting watercourses and working with farmers to meet their regulatory requirements”.
“We are working to implement a more preventative, advice-led approach to monitoring and enforcement,” they added.
“Anyone caught breaching environmental laws faces enforcement action, up to and including prosecution.”
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports7 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment1 year agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Environment1 year agoTesla advances Powerwall pilot project with German electric company