Category: News

The parents, who have not been named to protect the identity of their children, were ordered to pay more than £1500 for reportedly taking their kids out of school for a total of 13 days over three years.

The father said he and the mother of their children separated four years ago, and had been taking turns taking the children on holiday.

However, after missing school attendance between June 3 and June 5, 2024, for a trip to Lanzarote, the father said ‘it tipped it over the edge’.

“We had previously been given fines which we had paid promptly but then we both received an email saying we were being prosecuted by court action,” he said.

“Nothing happened for seven months then we were told in two weeks we had a court date.”

Both parents were charged with failing to ensure their child attended school regularly, with the mother ordered to pay £511 and the father £1,026.

“It’s also how you’re made to feel in the interview and the court, as if you’re failing your child as a parent,” he said.

“I am a brilliant dad and I will do anything for my kids.”

He added: “If I thought in the slightest that taking my kids out of school would be detrimental, I wouldn’t have done it.”

The father said his child “overachieves in every single subject” and is still doing so now.

“The whole system is set up for high earning families.”

He added: “You cannot take your kids on holiday unless you’re earning big bucks and I think holidays are good for children.”

The father said he thinks the ‘whole system is wrong and disgusting’.

A spokesperson for TEACH Trust said the government had made school attendance a priority in the area and the policy is clear on its website, as well as regularly reminded to parents.

They said: “The direct relationship between school attendance and attainment from Early Years to year six cannot be underestimated.”

It was said the policy is implemented consistently across all the trust’s schools and warnings are given as appropriate.

“The process for applying for leave of absence is explained fully in our attendance policy and guidance is provided on what could be considered ‘exceptional circumstances’, or not. 

“Holidays (especially multiple ones) are not deemed to be exceptional circumstances.”

They added that every day of non-school attendance has an impact on pupil’s learning through educational achievement and disruption on the student and those around them.

Cllr Richard Burton, portfolio holder for children, young people, education and skills, said: “Good academic progress at school is proven to have a strong link with maintaining a high attendance.

“Fines for school term-time absence are set by the Government as part of their national framework and are issued by the council on behalf of a school which requests it.

“Our team meets with each school on a termly basis and works closely with them to identify cases of persistent non-attendance.”

Dorna was apparently scattering her father’s ashes at sea when a storm rolled in hard and fast, sending her to a watery grave.

But the facts weren’t adding up…

His mum had known about the hazardous weather conditions before setting sail after checking the forecast, and she had also applied for a permit to scatter her father’s ashes on Saint Marie itself – so why change her mind?

With the investigation into her death reopened for a second time, Mervin put posters up around the island asking anyone with information to come forward – and it seems there’s a new lead, although Mervin doesn’t know it yet.

A mystery man called Roy Palmer (Detectorists’ Gerard Horan) came across one of the posters, which prompted him to start keeping tabs on Mervin, who was totally unaware that he was being followed.

Details about Roy are scarce at this point, but it appears that he works at Dorna’s favourite restaurant, indicating that she probably knew him.

But who is he really? And how does he fit into all of this?

In the teaser for next week’s episode, Mervin questions Roy, but he refuses to play ball.

“Where were you when the storm hit?” asks the DI.

“Is that relevant?” responds Roy with a puzzled expression on his face.

Was Roy responsible for Dorna’s death? Or could he provide the key to catching her killer?

Read more:

Whoever Roy is, Mervin needs to move quickly because Selwyn’s replacement, the smug Sterling Fox, is set to order him to shut down the investigation once and for all.

“Mervin came to Saint Marie looking for answers,” says Catherine.

“If he has to leave without finding them, then this island has let him down.

“Is that really how you want this all to end?”

And will it also prove to be the end for the commissioner? He is just days away from being ousted from his post, despite Catherine and Sebastian’s petition, which was signed by thousands of residents.

The people of Saint Marie do not want him to go, and neither do his team. But will there be one last trick up the show’s sleeve that will Save Our Selwyn?

Death in Paradise continues on Friday 14th March at 9pm on BBC One.

Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.

A death row inmate who bludgeoned his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death with a baseball bat in 2001 has been executed after a final meal of KFC.

Brad Sigmon, 67, was put to death by firing squad at 6.05pm on Friday at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina.

He was declared dead at 6.08pm by on-site medical staff after three prison guards who volunteered for the grisly task fired at his heart with rifles from 15ft away.

His lawyer released a lengthy statement functioning as Sigmon’s last words, which were steeped in Biblical references and called for the end of capital punishment.

Sigmon was the first person to die by firing squad in the US since 2010 – and just the fourth since the death penalty resumed 49 years ago – after losing a last-minute appeal to spare his life on Friday afternoon.

Dozens of protesters gathered outside the prison on Friday evening to protest against capital punishment, arguing it is inhumane. 

Firing squad executions are exceedingly rare in the US. The last one was Ronnie Lee Gardner in Utah in 2010, which was the first time it was used in 14 years – and only the third ever. 

Sigmon, wearing a black jumpsuit, was tied to an armless chair with a white target pinned to his chest, his head held in place by straps across his chin and forehead.

He was already strapped in at 6.01pm when a curtain was raised to reveal the execution chamber to onlookers.

The condemned criminal looked at the witness room and mouthed something to his lawyer and spiritual advisor. He made to audible final remarks.

Staff put a black hood over his head at 6.03pm and the shade concealing the three executioners was raised a minute later.

Sigmon to two deep breaths in the seconds before the order was given to fire, and the shots rang out at 6.05pm. 

A doctor took about 90 seconds to declare him dead at 6.08pm.

His execution was even more gory than that of Gardener, who was shot from 25ft, and Sigmon’s executioners used a higher caliber bullet intended to cause maximum injury for a quicker death.

South Carolina spent $54,000 in 2022 to construct its firing squad apparatus, which will be in the same room as the electric chair and lethal injection gurney. 

This included installing bulletproof glass in the witness booth, putting a basin under the chair to catch blood, and a wall was built for the shooters to stand behind.

Sigmon’s lawyer Bo King said he chose to have three buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken as his final meal so he could share it with other inmates on death row.

‘Brad is someone who served as an informal chaplain to the guys on death row. He’s someone who models the kind of service and ministry that’s the central pillar of his faith,’ he added. 

King said Sigmon’s final days have been spent thinking of the men he has befriended while on death row, which he says is evidence of his rehabilitation. 

Sigmon was offered the choice of death by lethal injection, electric chair, or firing squad, but chose the latter over concerns about recent issues with injection executions and the condition of the state’s ‘ancient’ electric chair. 

His lawyer said last month after Sigmon chose the firing squad method that he wanted to avoid the electric chair because it would ‘burn and cook him alive’, but felt lethal injections have become just as painful. 

‘If he chose lethal injection, he risked the prolonged death suffered by all three of the men South Carolina has executed since September — three men Brad knew and cared for — who remained alive, strapped to a gurney, for more than twenty minutes,’ King wrote in a statement. 

King previously cited the nationwide issues prisons have had in securing lethal injection drugs, causing several painful, prolonged executions in recent years, which he described as ‘monstrous.’ 

His last remaining hope of survival rested in the hands of South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, who opted not to grant him clemency.

o South Carolina governor has ever granted clemency to a prisoner since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. There have been 46 executions in that time.

Killer ‘at peace’ before his death

Despite the brutal end that awaits him, Sigmon’s younger brother Mike Sigmon told DailyMail.com that his brother was calm and relaxed in his final hours and ready to relinquish his life.

‘Brad is at peace with everything,’ Mike, 66, said, speaking publicly for the first time. ‘I don’t understand it personally, but he’s at peace with it, and that’s all that matters.

‘He’s been in jail for more than 20 years, and what he’s been through in there ain’t no life, being locked up in a cage, treated like a dog, and eating slop for dinner.

‘He’s fixing to live on the other side now. He doesn’t want to live in jail no more.’

Mike will not be attending the execution but spoke to Sigmon on the phone yesterday so they could share their last goodbyes.

Unaware of Sigmon’s imminent end is his elderly mom, Virginia, who has been spared any details of her son’s impending death due to an ongoing battle with dementia.

The Sigmon brothers lost their father just six months ago, and Mike wants to shield his mom any further distress.

Mike added that Sigmon views his bleak situation as a ‘win-win’ scenario.

He explained: ‘Because either he gets to continue to live but he’s stuck in hell [jail], or they can execute him and he gets to be free in heaven.

‘I don’t see how that’s a win-win personally, but that’s what he’s been saying.’

But Mike blasted death by firing squad as a barbaric measure, charging: ‘We can’t claim to live in a humane society when we are still doing s**t from the 1800s.’

KILLER’S REMORSE

Sigmon received two death sentences for brutally murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents, David Larke, 62, and Gladys Larke, 59, on April 27, 2001.

Having hatched a plan while high on crack cocaine the night prior, Sigmon showed up at the Larkes’ home with the intention of tying the couple up and kidnapping his ex Rebecca Armstrong at gunpoint.

Instead, Sigmon beat the Larkes to death with a baseball bat, hitting each of them nine times.

Sigmon then kidnapped Armstrong, but she managed to escape by jumping out of his moving car.

Sigmon confessed to the crime immediately.

He told jurors during his trial that he had no excuses for his behavior, but when Armstrong fell out of love with him something within him snapped.

‘Do I deserve to die? I probably do,’ he told jurors. ‘I don’t want to die. It would kill my mom, my brothers, and my sisters […] I just want to live for my family’s sake.’

Today, Sigmon is still racked with regret and regularly expresses his remorse, Mike said.

During his appeal hearing on Friday, Sigmon’s attorney told the court that his client has spent his final days thinking of the men he’s befriended on death row, which he says is evidence of his rehabilitation.

Mike also told the Daily Mail about his brother’s reform, insisting he’s found salvation behind bars with a renewed sense of faith.

‘He’s read the bible so many times he can recite it. He’s preached to people there.

‘He’s been remorseful a long time, and you should speak to some of the people who’ve been around him over the last 10 and 20 years, they’ll all tell you what a good Christian man he’s become.

‘He’s not asking for nothing. He’s not asking to be set free. He’s too institutionalized now. He told me, ‘I’m ready for whatever they want to do.’

‘He’s not denying what he did. He’s never denied what he did. He apologized right away when he was arrested, and he’s still as sorry now as he was then.’

Sigmon is hopeful that the rediscovery of his faith will grant him admittance to heaven in the afterlife.

Mike shares the same hope, declaring: ‘Brad will be there waiting in heaven.’

Asked how he will remember Sigmon, an emotional Mike shared: ‘As my best friend. My Big brother. My best friend.

‘But what’s going on in my mind doesn’t matter. I’m still working and trying to do right by people. I don’t want nobody to give me nothing.

‘I’ll do for you before you’ll do for me – and Brad was the same way.

‘That’s how I’ll remember him.’

‘INHUMANE PUNISHMENT’

During his final-hour hearing on Friday, Sigmon’s attorneys said he faced an ‘impossible’ choice between ‘barbaric’ methods used by the state for execution.

‘Unless he elected lethal injection or the firing squad, he would die in South Carolina’s ancient electric chair, which would burn and cook him alive. But the alternative is just as monstrous,’ King shared in a news release.

‘If he chose lethal injection, he risked the prolonged death suffered by all three of the men South Carolina has executed since September.

‘The only choice that remained is the firing squad. Brad has no illusions about what being shot will do to his body. He does not wish to inflict that pain on his family, the witnesses, or the execution team. But, given South Carolina’s unnecessary and unconscionable secrecy, Brad is choosing as best he can,’ King added.

Should his execution go ahead as expected, Sigmon will be the oldest person ever executed by the state.

King argued that Sigmon should’ve never been issued the death penalty because he was suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness at the time of the murders.

Sigmon’s attorneys have filed a petition for executive clemency with Gov. McMaster, asking for his death sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment without parole.

McMaster has not yet responded to the petition.

If no intervention is made, Sigmon will be strapped into a chair in Broad River Prison’s death chamber this evening, a hood placed over his head, and a target placed over his heart before three volunteers open fire at him from 15 feet away.

The uncertainty surrounding lethal injections – which have been plagued by issues for years amid a shortage of the drugs used – led Sigmon to pick a method that he knows will be a violent death, King said.

‘He does not wish to inflict that pain on his family, the witnesses, or the execution team. But, given South Carolina’s unnecessary and unconscionable secrecy, Brad is choosing as best he can,’ he said.

Randy Gardner – the older brother of Ronnie Lee Gardner, who was the last person to die by firing squad in the U.S. in 2010 – spoke out in support of staying Sigmon’s execution on Friday morning.

‘My little brother was the last person in the United States executed by firing squad… I think it’s very vicious and cruel and unusual punishment,’ he said.

‘I don’t think you should be executing anybody in any way.’

Gardner spoke inside the South Carolina legislature and held an envelope containing his brother’s autopsy pictures, which he said he hoped to show McMaster to demonstrate the horrific aftermath of the method.

‘I’d be more than willing to show him the photos of my brother,’ he said. ‘It’s a gory sight […] It’s very barbaric.’

Randy Gardner said he fears that Sigmon’s execution will be even more gory than his brother’s because higher-caliber bullets are being used to cause maximum injury and a quicker death.

‘This is even gonna be worse,’ he said. ‘It’s at a closer range and a bigger caliber of bullet, so he’s probably going to have three big holes blown out of him.’

‘I saw what the bullets did to my brother,’ said Gardner. ‘I was there when it happened, and I have the autopsy photos.

‘It makes me sick to think that in today’s world, Mr. Sigmon had to choose between lethal injection, electric chair, or the firing squad as the method […] The death penalty only creates more victims. There is no humane way to execute anyone.’

South Carolina reportedly spent $54,000 in 2022 to construct its firing squad range, which will be in the same room as the electric chair and lethal injection gurney.

This included installing bulletproof glass in the witness booth, a basin under the chair to catch blood, and building a wall for the shooters to stand behind.

Randy said his brother supported the death penalty and chose the firing squad because he had killed two people by gunfire.

‘But he didn’t know what I know about the death penalty, otherwise he would’ve been against it,’ he added.

‘HE’S GOING TO PAY’

Ronnie Gardner was sentenced to death for a 1985 capital murder conviction stemming from the fatal courthouse shooting of attorney Michael Burdell during a failed escape attempt.

The deadly incident unfolded at the Salt Lake City court where Gardner was facing a 1984 murder charge in the shooting death of a bartender, Melvyn Otterstrom.

Randy said he became an anti-death penalty advocate after his brother’s execution and said his activism is in the hopes of sparing other families from seeing their loved ones executed in the same way.

Also declining to attend Friday’s execution is Sigmon’s ex, Rebecca Armstrong.

Armstrong told USA Today that though she is still devastated over her parents’ deaths, she was able to forgive Sigmon through God’s love and with the help of a Christian counselor.

‘The Bible tells you, I know it says ‘an eye for an eye’ and ‘a tooth for a tooth’ but if you read on down in there it says, ‘Revenge is not mine, says the Lord, revenge is God’s,’ she said.

‘I don’t think somebody being put to death is gonna bring me closure […] It bothers me and gives me anxiety about him being put to death, and especially him picking the firing squad.’

But she said once Sigmon is dead, she thinks she will feel a sense of relief.

‘It’s like I’m reliving that morning,’ she said, casting her mind back to April 2001. ‘It’s brought a lot of that up, a lot of anxiety.’

Armstrong’s son, Ricky Sims, told the Greenville News that he will be attending in his mom’s place.

‘He’s going to pay for what he’s done,’ said Sims.

‘He took away two people who would have done anything for their family. They were the rock of our family […] They didn’t deserve it.’

Hollywood legend Robert De Niro has sparked a family row over his plans to leave a larger share of his $500million fortune to his youngest child.

The 81-year-old actor welcomed daughter Gia with partner Tiffany Chen, 45, in 2023.

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De Niro also shares Elliot, 26, and Helen, 13, with 69-year-old Grace Hightower.

Gia, who turns two in April, is his youngest child with current partner Tiffany Chen.

De Niro reportedly believes Gia deserves special consideration in his will due to his advanced age.

“Bob knows it’s not likely he’ll still be around when Gia graduates from high school, so the best he feels he can do for her is make sure she never wants for anything in her life,” a source told The Mirror.

The star has upset his other six children when it comes to his fortune

PA

The insider added that De Niro feels “Gia didn’t ask to be born to an elderly father”.

The actor’s adult children are reportedly upset by his inheritance plans.

A source claimed: “Bob’s comments that he wants to make Gia a rich little girl has stirred up a hornet’s nest with the rest of the family.”

De Niro’s older children reportedly feel they are “all equally important to him” and want this reflected in his will.

The family tension has emerged as De Niro considers how to divide his substantial fortune.

De Niro reportedly believes his adult children have had more time to establish themselves financially.

The feud is set around his fortune

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According to sources, he plans to provide for his older children as he “sees fit” for them.

The actor also intends to leave larger portions of his fortune to his teenage daughter Helen and his autistic son Elliot.