News

The UK is to supply a further package of non-lethal military equipment worth £850,000 as a gift to the Ukrainian government, it has been announced.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said the package will include first aid kits, night vision goggles,helmets, GPS (global positioning system) units and "ruggedised" - shock resistant - laptops.

The announcement comes a day after Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond flew to the eastern European country's capital Kiev for talks with Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin.

The stepbrother of 16-year-old Becky Watts has appeared before a Crown Court charged with her murder.

Nathan Matthews, 28, did not enter a plea to the single charge he faces during a short hearing at Bristol Crown Court.

Matthews, who was unshaven and wearing a grey sweatshirt, appeared via video link from HMP Bristol.

No details of the case were given and Matthews spoke only to confirm his name and that he could hear proceedings.

Judge Neil Ford QC, Recorder of Bristol, remanded Matthews in custody and set another hearing for March 26.

Matthews' girlfriend, Shauna Hoare, 21, will also appear before the court charged with perverting the course of justice on that date.

Five people arrested on Monday on suspicion of assisting an offender remain in police custody.

Drug gang members Devonte Campbell, Casey Jones, Alex Bernard and Omar Hassan have been found guilty at the Old Bailey of ambushing rival drug dealers Aaron Carriere and Josiah Manful and stabbing them to death to steal their client list.

Eight-year-old Ayesha Ali was tortured and killed on the orders of her mother's lesbian lover, who saw the child as a threat, the Old Bailey heard.

Judge Christopher Moss QC branded Kiki Muddar a "manipulative, wicked woman".

The court heard how her and Ayesha's mother Polly Chowdhury would hit the little girl and terrorise her at night wearing scary masks.

Muddar, who convinced Chowdhury her daughter was possessed by the devil, would also give the child cold baths as punishment for wetting herself.

Ayesha died from a head injury on 28 August 2013 and was found to have suffered more than 50 injuries including a bite mark and carpet burns.

Judge Moss told Ayesha's mother she had "disgracefully failed" in her fundamental position of trust to keep her daughter from harm.

The Director General of Unesco has called the Islamic State destruction of the ancient city of Nimrud in Iraq "a war crime."

• Read more: IS militants destroy ruins of ancient Iraqi city

David Cameron has been "engaged throughout" the discussions on televised leaders' debates, his spokesperson has said.

ITV News Political Correspondent Libby Wiener reports:

A mother who tortured and killed her eight-year-old daughter while under the spell of a "controlling" lesbian lover was today jailed for 13 years.

Polly Chowdhury was found guilty of the manslaughter of Ayesha Ali, who died at home in 2013 with more than 50 injuries on her body.

Her lesbian lover Kiki Muddar, who turned Chowdhury against the little girl because she saw her as a threat, was jailed for 18 years over the killing.

According to the National Crime Agency, a total of 56 arrests have been made in connection with cyber crime during their week-long intensive probe into the problem.

The arrests were made over 20 separate operations throughout the UK by officers from ten different Regional Organised Crime Units, the Met Police, and industry and Government partners.