Central Cambridgeshire

A restaurant boss is facing a lengthy prison term after being convicted of a string of grooming offences involving girls.

The Old Bailey heard father-of-five Mohammed Khubaib had a "persistent and almost predatory interest" in teenage girls.

The 43-year-old married businessman, originally from Pakistan, groomed the girls by giving them money, presents or cigarettes before plying them with vodka.

Following a trial, a jury found him guilty of forcing a 14-year-old girl to perform a sex act on him and nine counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation involving girls aged from 12 to 15 between November 2010 and January 2013.

Fellow defendant Manase Motaung, 32, was cleared of raping a 16-year-old and seven trafficking charges, involving six girls.

Remanding Khubaib, of Peterborough, in custody until May 15, Judge Peter Rook QC told him: "You must know the only sentence is a custodial sentence - and a long sentence."

Juliet Bremner, ITV News Correspondent, reports:

A1 Great North Road Northbound closed, queueing traffic due to serious accident, two cars and a lorry involved between A47 and A43 Kettering Road (Wothorpe / Easton On The Hill Turn Off), congestion to Old Great North Road (Sibson / Elton Turn Off).

A man arrested in November last year on suspicion of murdering Wisbech pensioner Una Crown has been released with no further action.

The 44 year old man, also from Wisbech, was arrested and then bailed.

He's now been released due to insufficient evidence.

Police have not yet charged anyone with the murder of the 86 year old, who was found dead at her home in the Cambridgeshire town in January 2013.

Firefighters have put out a fire started by a pile of spontaneously combusting tea towels.

The crew arrived to find a small fire in the utility room of a the Gordon Arms pub in Oundle Road, in Orton Longueville, Peterborough.

Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus used a hose reel and jet to put out the flames. They said the blaze is likely to have been started when hot tea towels were folded on top of one another and started to smoulder.

Wellingborough MP Peter Bone has called for an investigation of an "appalling" incident in which a man's body was dumped beside a rubbish bin by paramedics.

Crews from the East of England Ambulance Service were called out after James Harrison, 32, collapsed and died near his home in Cambridgeshire.

The trust has since admitted they left him lying on the floor of an ambulance station so that they could finish the shift on time.

Chief executive Anthony Marsh said the trust is "working with the family" to find out what happened.

"We are very sorry for what happened and have launched a thorough investigation," he added.

The allegations came to light after a whistle-blower contacted the press claiming Mr Harrison's body was left on the floor at Ely Ambulance Station, in Nutholt Lane, for an hour instead of being taken to a mortuary at Addenbrooke's Hospital, in Cambridge.

Mr Harrison was found dead at his home in of Hardwicke Close, Littleport, on September 24.

The inquest will take place at the South Fens Business Centre, Chatteris, today.

Four teenagers have been cleared of beating a man to death in an underpass.

Prosecutors at Cambridge Crown Court had claimed Michael Green, 23, was hit with a vodka bottle, punched, kicked and stamped on by the gang - three boys and a girl - in a late-night assault in Peterborough in May last year.

The youths, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had denied murder and today a jury found all of them not guilty, Cambridgeshire Police said.

The defendants are now all 17 apart from the youngest boy, who is 16.

A former mayor of Wisbech has been given a 21 month prison sentence - suspended for two years and ordered to do community service after a Second World War pistol was found at his home.

Jonathan Farmer was found guilty of illegally possessing a firearm after a two-day trial at Cambridge Crown Court.

The 56-year-old had argued the weapon was an antique and he did not know it was loaded.