Dr Ian Bownes obituary

When Irish republicans in the Maze prison began organising hunger strikes in 1980 to secure political status for inmates, one of the first experts called in by the Northern Ireland Prison Service was the psychiatrist Dr Ian Bownes.Though he was then only a trainee, it was his role to assess the mental state of those threatening to starve themselves to death – checking whether they had the capacity to understand that their lives could end and had effectively given their consent freely.That Bownes, who has died aged 69 after a short illness, should have been chosen for such a delicate mission at the very start of his career demonstrates how under-resourced psychiatry services were in Northern Ireland at the time, but also points to his determination and bravery.Prison officials were then regularly being murdered by the Provisional IRA and other paramilitary groups when off-duty and vulnerable, accused of being part of a repressive state or of having mistreated inmates.The hunger strikes ended in October 1981 after 10 republicans – including Bobby Sands, the IRA leader in the Maze prison – had died

Labour MPs want to delay assisted dying vote to focus on local elections

A group of Labour MPs are trying to push back a vote on the amended assisted dying bill later this month, over concerns it will clash with their final week of local election campaigning.The bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales will return to the Commons on 25 April for debate and a vote on its amendments, if time allows, before it is sent to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.The vote will come days before the local elections on 1 May, which are largely being held in rural battlegrounds where support for Labour is traditionally weaker.The MPs pushing for a delay are opposed to assisted dying and are worried many of their colleagues will not be able to focus on campaigning in their constituencies ahead of a crucial test for Labour, after the government made a number of controversial policy decisions.Andrew Pakes, the Labour MP for Peterborough, said the issue needed parliament’s full attention

NHS trust apologises as man’s tumour death investigated for manslaughter

A troubled NHS trust has apologised to the family of a man who died after a series of potentially fatal delays to treat a tumour, in a case that is being investigated by police as possible corporate manslaughter.Richard Harris, 71, died last July after a series of errors in the neurosurgery department at the Royal Sussex County hospital in Brighton, which is part of University Hospitals Sussex NHS foundation trust (UHSussex).The trust admitted that Harris was “lost to follow-up” when the hospital repeatedly failed to monitor a tumour in his nervous system, or operate on it, as doctors recommended.An internal review of Harris’s care found that doctors failed to arrange a routine MRI scan for him when he was first urgently referred to neurosurgery in 2017. Harris, who was fit and a regular swimmer, only received a scan when he contacted the department again in 2019

UK housebuilders ‘very bad’ at building houses, says wildlife charity CEO

Housebuilders in the UK are failing to supply much-needed new homes not because of restrictive planning laws, but because they are “very bad” at building houses, the head of one of the UK’s biggest nature charities has warned.“There’s planning permission today for a million new houses,” said Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts. “So why aren’t they being built? Why is it that volume housebuilders in this country are actually very bad at building houses, even when they’ve got planning permission?”Ministers have boasted of their swingeing reforms to the planning system – in a bill that passed its second reading last week – claiming they will clear the way for the 1.5m new homes promised in the Labour manifesto.But Bennett believes this hope will be in vain because the government is missing the point

UK academics accuse their union of discrimination over gender-critical film

Two academics behind a gender-critical film have taken legal action against their union, accusing it of discrimination and harassment after it campaigned on social media to stop the documentary being screened.Deirdre O’Neill, a senior lecturer in film studies at the University of Hertfordshire, and Michael Wayne, a professor of media and film studies at Brunel University, describe Adult Human Female as the first UK documentary to look at the “clash between women’s rights and gender ideology/trans rights”.When a screening was arranged at the University of Edinburgh in 2022, documents before the tribunal said the local branch of the University and College Union (UCU) wrote to the university calling on it to cancel the event, describing it as a “clear attack on trans people’s identities” and denouncing it as “transphobic” on Twitter.The campaign gathered support from students and a group of protesters managed to prevent the screening on two separate occasions – December 2022 and April 2023 – by blocking the entrance to the venue, preventing around 100-150 people from seeing the film on each occasion.The film is part of a continuing debate about gender politics and free speech in UK universities

Tenants win £260,000 of rent back in legal fight with London ‘rogue landlord’

Tenants of two buildings in east London have been awarded a six-figure sum in rent repayments by a tribunal after challenging a billionaire described by a judge as a “rogue landlord”.The group of current and former residents of Olympic House and Simpson House in Hackney took companies owned by John Christodoulou to tribunal for operating unlicensed houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), which meant the buildings were not subject to the safety and quality standards required by law.The London Renters Union, which represents the tenants’ group that brought the claim, said the lack of licensing left residents vulnerable to hazardous conditions, including fire risks due to inadequate safety measures.Cyprus-born Christodoulou, 59, is based in Monaco and, according to the Sunday Times rich list last year, has an estimated wealth of £2.5bn