Nursery worker pleads guilty after baby dies, demand for Bhim Kohli sentence review & other stories from Black, Asian & Arab communities you shouldn't have missed this week - curated by Melissa Sigodo

8 years since Grenfell, the painful wait for justice

Good morning, evening or afternoon,

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Today marks eight years since the devastating Grenfell Tower fire which killed 72 people.

In the last eight years, no arrests have been made and the survivors and bereaved must wait till the end of 2026 for charges to be announced.

As of the end of July 2024, there were 4,630 residential buildings where people continue to live with unsafe cladding.

Demolishing the tower is planned to begin this year, but as time goes by and the building no longer stands, we can never forget.

Justice for Grenfell.

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What happened this week.

Racist rioting unfolded in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, after mobs set fire to the homes of ethnic minorities. I spoke to BBC Radio Foyle about the emboldening of racists by politicians, social media and the media, which you can have a listen here.

Without further ado, here are the stories you shouldn’t have missed this week which include updates on the government’s involvement in Gaza and some uplifting world news.

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News

A man who set up a fashion line where ex-offenders design clothes says he’s kept 29 out of 30 people from going back to prison, saving the taxpayer over £1million in the process. Inside Out founder Greg McKenzie says that ‘all people really need is opportunity.’ Read the full story by me for The Source.

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London’s first Black headteacher Dr Beryl Gilroy has been honoured with a Blue Plaque. Born in Guyana she moved to London and despite facing racism, she went on to become the head of Beckford Primary School in Camden. Read the full story by Sinai Fleary at The Voice Online.

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Scotland’s first Black professor Sir Geoff Palmer OBE has died aged 85. After moving to the UK from Jamaica, he became a respected academic and human rights advocate helping Scotland address its colonial past, as well as being a pioneer in brewery research and inventing a process which is now used by some of UK’s biggest breweries. Read the full story by Vic Motune at The Voice Online.

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Legal

MPs have written to the Attorney General's Office demanding for the ‘unduly lenient’ sentences of two teenagers convicted of killing 80-year-old Bhim Kohli to be reviewed. A 15-year-old boy who racially abused the man before subjecting him to a "seven-and-a-half-minute period of continuing aggression" was sentenced to seven years in custody, while a 13-year-old girl received a three-year rehabilitation order and a six-month curfew. Read the full story by Dan Hunt at the BBC.

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A nursery worker has pleaded guilty to manslaughter following the death of a 14-month-old boy Noah Sibanda. It is alleged that Noah was unlawfully killed and the nursery failed to take reasonable care by “failing to ensure that children in the baby room would be put down to sleep in a safe way” and also failed to ensure staff doing so were adequately trained and supervised. Read the full story by Olivia Warburton at Dudley News.

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British teenager Marcus Fakana who is jailed in Dubai for having consensual sex with a then-17-year-old girl has written to the ruler of Dubai asking to be released. The teenager handed himself in to authorities in December to serve one year in jail but hopes to be released early. Read the full story by Greg McKenzie at BBC.

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Marcus Monzo, 37, who is accused of murdering 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin on his way to school, is a conspiracy theorist who praised Elon Musk for “allowing the truth to come out” on social media platform X, the Old Bailey has heard. Read the full story by Tristan Kirk at The Standard.

The Old Bailey also heard that the accused tried to cook his pet cat and eat it before the attack, but claimed he had no memory of killing the schoolboy. Read the full story by Ted Hennessey at The Independent.

Policing

An officer who strip-searched a 15-year-old Black schoolgirl known as a Child Q while she was on her period has admitted a series of failing including that there was no appropriate adult present and that she did not record the search, a misconduct panel has heard. The officer denied she would have treated the girl differently if she was white. Read the full story by Rosie Shead at The Independent.

Health

An NHS leader says that his 92-year-old mother was made to suffer by the NHS before dying because she was Black. Lord Victor Adebowale says doctors failed to spot her lung cancer and the sub-standard care she received reflected wider problems within the health service. Read the full story by Nick Triggle at BBC.