29 September 201621 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Birmingham pub bombings: Setback for victims’ families as Government turns down funding bid

Birmingham pub bombings - credit www.wikipedia.org — Birmingham pub bombings – credit http://www.wikipedia.org

source: Express & Star
published: 26 September 2016

Relatives bereaved by the 1974 terror attacks had asked Home Secretary Amber Rudd to establish a fund similar to that created for the families represented at the Hillsborough stadium disaster inquests.

Ms Rudd has turned down the request, made by nine of the families, but said she supports their application for legal aid funding through the conventional route of the independent Legal Aid Agency (LAA). The families’ lawyers have been working pro bono to date.

4 September 201621 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Aboriginal woman dragged like ‘dead Kangaroo’ and killed in police custody

source: Atlanta Black Star
published: 29 August 2016

Black Lives Matter in Australia. As attention has been paid to Black women who have lost their lives while in police custody and in encounters with law enforcement in the United States — women such as Sandra Bland, Miriam Carey, Rekia Boyd and Korryn Gaines — there is another name to add to the list, halfway around the world.

This month marked the second anniversary of the death of Julieka Dhu, 22, an Indigenous Yamatji woman who was arrested on Aug. 2, 2014 for failure to pay A$3,600 (US$2,742) in fines. She is referred to as Ms. Dhu, out of cultural respect for Aboriginal people’s avoidance of referring to the name of a dead person.

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22 August 201621 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Execution halted for Jeff Wood, who never killed anyone

source: Texas Tribune
published: 19 August 2016

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has halted the execution of Jeff Wood — a man who never killed anyone — six days before he was set to die by lethal injection. The order was issued on his 43rd birthday.

The court issued a brief, two-page order Friday afternoon sending the case back to the original trial court so it can examine Wood’s claim that a jury was improperly persuaded to sentence him to death by testimony from a highly criticized psychiatrist nicknamed “Dr. Death.” The order creates the possibility that Wood’s death sentence could be thrown out, though not his conviction.