The final man still imprisoned over the fatal attack on Sophie Lancaster has been approved for release, despite continuing to deny that he personally assaulted her because she was dressed as a goth.

Sophie, 20, was cradling her boyfriend’s head in her lap when teenagers Ryan Herbert and Brendan Harris kicked and stamped on her, leaving her unconscious.

Witnesses said the attackers later celebrated, reportedly boasting: “There’s two moshers nearly dead up there – you wanna see them – they’re a right mess.”

The 2007 attack in a park in Bacup, Lancashire, prompted widespread outrage. Sophie’s mother, Sylvia, was later awarded an OBE after campaigning for attacks against members of alternative subcultures to be recognised as hate crimes.

Herbert was approved for release on licence in 2022 after the Parole Board concluded that he had made “significant changes to his life which reflected his remorse, his insight and increased maturity”.

Harris, now 35, also broke a nurse’s nose while in custody. Despite that incident, the Parole Board ruled in May that he no longer represented a danger to the public.

It has since emerged that David Lammy made a final attempt to stop Harris’s release before he was removed as Justice Secretary, arguing that Harris had never accepted responsibility for killing Sophie.

That challenge has now been dismissed. Harris, who denies “personal involvement in the violence” against Sophie, can therefore be released.

Harris now says he assaulted only Sophie’s 21-year-old boyfriend, Robert Maltby, according to the Mirror.

In rejecting Mr Lammy’s appeal, Parole Board officials said Harris had “accepted that he had attacked the male victim [Mr Maltby] but said that when the female victim [Sophie] came to comfort the male victim he had not struck her”.

However, the board said Harris accepted that he had been involved in a “group attack” and was “therefore responsible, as were others, for the death of the female victim”.

Stephen Dawson, dismissing the appeal, said Harris was not “denying the nature and seriousness of the offending”.

“His denial was of the issue of factual detail as to whether he physically assaulted the female victim,” Mr Dawson said. Harris had, he added, “accepted that his behaviour led to the death and serious injury of two victims”.

Herbert, who was 16 at the time, admitted murdering Sophie. Harris, then 15, was convicted of the same offence following a trial.

Harris told the court he had been drinking cider, Stella Artois lager and peach schnapps before launching the attack, describing himself as “drunk and showing off”.

During the trial, prosecutors said he delivered a series of kicks to Sophie’s face.

A judge imposed life sentences on both teenagers for what he branded their ‘feral thuggery’.

Both were also convicted of grievous bodily harm (GBH) against Mr Maltby along with three other teenagers.

When Herbert was cleared for release in 2022, Sophie’s mother said she was ‘very disappointed’, saying: ‘Once again we have a justice system that fails to deliver justice. 

‘However much progress people make in prison, they have been given their sentence in recognition of the extent of their crime,’ she added.

‘Her attackers may not have been given a life sentence, but I have.’

Tragically Dr Lancaster died suddenly in hospital just a month later.  

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After Harris was also cleared for release in May 2026, the Sophie Lancaster Foundation – which was set up in her name to tackle prejudice – responded by saying its focus was on ‘all victims of hate crime’ as well as ‘those whose lives have been irrevocably changed by hatred and violence’. 

While serving his sentence, Harris was transferred to a psychiatric hospital after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

But in 2013 he broke the nose of a male nurse with what a court heard was a single ‘substantial’ blow.

He was convicted of causing GBH and four months was added to his life sentence, returning to prison in 2014.

Harris reached the end of his minimum term in August 2025, meaning he became eligible for parole. 

In its original decision, a Parole Board panel recommended that he should be released on licence, subject to strict conditions, with a panel saying he had ‘not displayed any violence for over 13 years’.

Following the attack on the nurse he went on to complete a programme to address his use of violence, a public summary revealed.

His ‘behaviour in the prison had been good,’ it stated.

Proposed terms of his release included being of good behaviour, disclosing developing relationships with his probation officer, adhering to a curfew and submitting to alcohol monitoring and drug testing.

He must also abide by an exclusion zone to avoid contact with victims and continue work to address his risk factors.

The Parole Board was approached for comment. 

In 2021 Sophie’s mother worked with Coronation Street producers on a hard-hitting storyline about hate crime.

In the show, characters Nina Lucas and Seb Franklin were violently attacked because of the former’s appearance by a gang of drunken youths.

The storyline had many similarities to what happened to Sophie.

Thousands of people in Britain may be incorrectly told they have high blood pressure because of basic errors made during routine NHS checks, a GP has warned.

NHS advice states that patients should sit upright while having their blood pressure measured, with the arm comfortably supported on a table.

However, specialists say this procedure is not consistently followed in busy medical practices, potentially leading to misleading readings and incorrect diagnoses.

“Accurate blood pressure measurement is essential if we are to correctly identify and treat people at risk of damage from high blood pressure,” Dr Dean Eggitt, an NHS GP, told the Daily Mail.

“Over-treatment and side effects caused by medication can lead to genuine harm, especially among vulnerable patients.

“Using the wrong technique can ultimately lead to unsuitable treatment decisions and a poorer quality of life.”

His warning comes after a recent US study showed that the position of a person’s arm can make a “huge difference” to their blood pressure reading.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine found that allowing the arm to hang unsupported at the patient’s side raised systolic blood pressure—the top figure in a reading—by almost 7mmHg.

Resting the arm on the lap also caused systolic pressure to be overestimated by nearly 4mmHg.

The researchers said the results support NHS guidance recommending that the arm be placed on a desk or table at heart level during a blood pressure check.

When the arm is left unsupported at the side, the muscles may tense, causing blood pressure to rise temporarily.

Placing the arm across the lap can also leave it further below the heart, which may increase the pressure recorded in the arm.

High blood pressure affects roughly one in three adults in England and can increase the risk of stroke, heart attack, kidney disease and dementia.

Because the condition usually produces no noticeable symptoms, many people do not realise they have it until serious damage has occurred.

More than four million people across England are thought to have high blood pressure without knowing it.

The findings, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, were released as the American Heart Association issued updated advice highlighting the importance of taking accurate readings when monitoring blood pressure at home.

Patients are advised to sit quietly for at least five minutes before the measurement, keeping both feet flat on the floor and their back supported. The centre of the adjustable cuff should be level with the heart, while the arm rests on a desk or table.

For the 2024 study, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers recorded the blood pressure of 133 adults aged between 18 and 80.

Before their blood pressure was measured, participants walked for two minutes to replicate arriving at a doctor’s appointment, then sat down for five minutes.

Participants were fitted with an upper arm blood pressure cuff and underwent a series of measurements, 30 seconds apart. 

The results suggested patients could end up being diagnosed with high blood pressure – medically known as hypertension – simply based on the position of their arm, with leaving the arm hanging by the side returning the highest readings. 

Researchers found this arm position overestimated systolic pressure by 6.5mmHg and diastolic pressure by 4.4mmHg. 

The researchers said the differences were large enough to affect whether some patients met the threshold for a diagnosis of hypertension. 

According to the NHS, a normal blood pressure is between 90/60mmHg and 120/80mmHg. 

High blood pressure is considered anything over 135/85mmHg if the reading was taken at home and 140/90mmHg or higher if it was taken by a healthcare professional at a pharmacy, GP surgery or hospital. 

The warning comes after separate analysis by researchers at the University of Oxford suggested more than half of people living with high blood pressure are unaware they have it – leaving them at increased risk of early death. 

The researchers also estimated only half of those being treated for the condition by their GP have their blood pressure under control.

The authors said current guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) mean many with high blood pressure are never picked up, treated or go on to have good blood pressure control. 

They argued that current diagnostic pathways can create a ‘leaky cascade of care’, with some patients never receiving a diagnosis or effective treatment. 

A female teacher at a private school who blindfolded a pupil and tied him to her bed before sexually abusing him has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

Deborah Franklin committed the offences in the early 1990s while working at a Hertfordshire preparatory school, where annual fees now stand at £18,000.

The victim told the trial that he first met the ‘gregarious’ teacher after joining her class and becoming her private tutoring pupil.

Franklin then groomed him and drew him into what she presented as a ‘relationship’. The abuse continued, with the pair having sex ‘dozens of times’.

The victim, now in his 40s, became emotional while recounting one incident at Franklin’s home. He said: ‘She had a feather – some kind of feathery gloves and fur. She tickled me.

‘I remember being strapped down to the bed and blindfolded… I guess I had no clue as to what was happening. I went with it and trusted her.’

The prosecution case relied on the victim’s detailed and emotional evidence because the abuse was not reported at the time.

He told his father before turning 13, but no action was taken because he wanted to ‘avoid causing a scene’ at his son’s bar mitzvah.

The allegations came to light in 2024, when the former pupil discovered that Franklin, 65, was still teaching. He then ‘felt it was important to tell the police’ about the abuse.

The mother-of-one told police she did not remember him when officers first confronted her, despite photographs showing them together, including images of them arm-in-arm and holding hands on a school trip.

A jury unanimously convicted Franklin earlier this year on eight counts of gross indecency with a boy under 14, committed between 1991 and 1995.

At the time of the offences, the maximum sentence for each count was two years in prison.

The law was changed in 1997, raising the maximum sentence to ten years. However, Franklin was sentenced under the tariff that applied when the offences took place.

Sentencing her to seven years in prison today, Judge Kamran Choudhry said Franklin had committed a ‘profound abuse of trust’.

‘[The victim] was a child, you were his teacher, tutor, and trusted adult. Instead of guiding him, you abused that position for your own sexual gratification,’ he said.

‘He described your approach of introducing him to sexual activity as educational and teacher-like.’

The judge added: ‘The consequences of your abuse have been enduring for decades.’

Prosecutor Gavin Pottinger read an impact statement from the victim, who said the abuse had remained a ‘constant shadow’ throughout his life. He described experiencing anxiety, symptoms of OCD and thoughts that he would be ‘better off dead’.

The statement said: ‘I was a confident child, I was a cheeky child, I have a loving family.

‘I want to cry for the boy I was and the childhood I lost.’

Franklin had arrived in the dock with a book, wearing a black jacket and white top. She sat motionless while listening to the statement. 

She was represented by Aisling Byrnes, who asked the judge to consider her client’s ‘exemplary character’ outside of the offences, as well as the ‘undoubted good’ that she had done as a teacher and her role as a ‘wonderful mother’, in the words of her ‘distraught’ daughter. 

In a recorded video interview played to the jury during the trial at St Albans Crown Court, the victim described how ‘very gregarious, high energy’ Franklin developed a friendship with him.

‘[There was] a lot of whispering, inside jokes, a lot of learning from her as you would from an older friend. She spoke about drugs, cigarettes, sex,’ he said. 

‘Very adult things I could not get outside of that. I was the perfect candidate. I was interested to know those types of things.’

According to the victim, who comes from a wealthy family, Franklin became increasingly embedded in his family life.

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He described his abuser, who was in her 30s at the time of the offences, as ‘ever present’ in their large, detached suburban home and said she spent so much time there that he could still remember her telephone number decades later.

Mr Pottinger told the court that Franklin was ‘trusted’ by the family to be in the boy’s room during tutoring sessions. 

The turning point in their relationship came when he won a bet against Franklin at school and he suggested what he described as ‘something childish’ as his prize.

The defendant told him she was ‘very surprised’ at his request, adding: ‘I would have thought you wanted to see me without my clothes on.’

The first physical incident followed soon afterwards in a den created by his older brother in the family garage.

Franklin, who was wearing a summer dress, kissed her victim on the lips after asking: ‘Do you want to touch me?’

Describing the developing relationship, the former pupil said: ‘She was teaching me how to touch a woman…

‘I remember her just telling me what to do and I would just do it.’

He recalled one encounter where Franklin called out the name of her husband Angelo, a security firm boss.

‘It took me by surprise. I never saw their relationship. I thought I had the relationship. I remember thinking I had a competitor,’ he said.

Mr Pottinger told jurors sexual intercourse took place ‘dozens of times’, adding: ‘Whenever they were alone and they had an opportunity, they would carry out these acts.’

Franklin sometimes touched the boy in changing rooms when she took him swimming and occasionally engaged in sexual contact with him on school premises, although such incidents were rare and conducted ‘very, very cautious[ly,]’ according to the victim.

The complainant explained that he did not recognise the situation as abuse at the time, because he believed he was involved in a genuine relationship.

A key plank in the evidence against Franklin was that her victim had reported it to others long before he contacted police.

In addition to confessing to his father about what had happened, he revealed the abuse to a doctor and a girlfriend in the early 2000s.

Family members had also observed an unusually close relationship between teacher and pupil.

The victim’s brother remembered Franklin discussing sexual matters with him, while his sister recalled seeing the pair together in bed at the family home.

Photographs shown to the jury showed the defendant, of Radlett, Hertfordshire, with her hand over the complainant’s mouth, sitting on his bed, placing her arm around him and holding hands with him on a coach during a school trip.

Mr Pottinger told jurors that the relationship eventually ended when the complainant moved to another school.

Giving evidence, Franklin told the court it was common for teachers, parents and children to socialise. Her defence said the relationship was not ‘unusually close and inappropriate’. 

But the prosecution argued that the growing familiarity was part of a deliberate grooming process through which boundaries between teacher and pupil were eroded.

Franklin – who took a job with the RSPB after leaving teaching – widened her eyes as the guilty verdicts were read out by the jury forewoman in July but showed little other emotion.

An application for bail to ‘put her affairs in order’ was refused, with the judge pointing out there was a ‘high possibility of a custodial sentence’.

After the verdict, Hertfordshire Police Detective Constable Liz McGrath, who led the investigation, said: ‘I wish to commend the bravery shown by the victim in reporting the allegations to the police and for the strength shown during the trial.

‘This case demonstrates that however long ago a crime happened, we are committed to getting justice for victims.’

The force added in a statement: ‘Becoming a victim of sexual assault is never your fault. If you’ve been a victim, no matter how long ago the offence occurred, please report it.’

Franklin was also made the subject of a public protection order for ten years after release, requiring her to notify Public Protection about any paid or voluntary work.

A separate order also barred her from working with children.

A woman in her twenties has died after falling from a luxury high-rise in south London, just months after a family of three died in a fall from the same building.

Metropolitan Police officers sealed off part of the area around the 45-storey UNCLE tower in Elephant and Castle after receiving a call shortly before 9.30am.

The woman was discovered unconscious in Churchyard Row and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The latest death follows the deaths of a couple and their terminally ill nine-year-old son, who fell around 400ft from their apartment in the luxury London block, also known as Highpoint, on May 27.

Rakesh Pai, 47, his wife Aditi Paralkar, 46, and their son Sid fell from the balcony of their 36th-floor home that morning.

An inquest at London Inner South Coroner’s Court heard on July 8 that air ambulance medics pronounced the three family members dead within 20 minutes of one another.

In a statement following the death of the woman, who has not been publicly identified, the Met said officers were called at around 9.35am after reports of a person falling from a height in Churchyard Row, Southwark.

Scotland Yard said: ‘Police attended with the London Ambulance Service. A woman, believed to be aged in her 20s, was found unconscious. She was sadly pronounced dead at the scene.

‘Police are working to inform the woman’s next of kin.

‘The incident is not currently being treated as suspicious. A scene remains in place while officers conduct their enquiries.’

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: ‘We were called at 9:32am today (1 October) to reports of a person falling from height on Churchyard Row, SE11.

‘We sent ambulance crews, paramedics in fast response cars and an incident response officer. Sadly, a woman died at the scene.’

Police erected a forensic tent near the scene, while a cordon was placed around part of St Mary’s Churchyard beside the high-rise.

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The May 27 deaths of Mr Pai, Ms Paralkar and their son Sid remain under investigation following the opening of an inquest.

The couple, originally from India and without relatives in the UK, were both employed as consultants.

Rakesh, who was also known as Robin, worked in finance, while Aditi had held a number of senior positions in the construction sector.

Friends revealed that Aditi had been suffering with depression and other mental health issues because of Sid’s condition.

The youngster, who was born in the UK, was unable to speak, partially handicapped and also suffered from learning difficulties and a kidney disease.

He had to be homeschooled with Aditi, who was affectionately known as Adi by her friends, taking on most of the responsibility for his education.

Reports have suggested Sid, the couple’s only child, was denied medical treatment and discharged from hospital, leaving Rakesh and Aditi devastated.

Friends revealed that the couple left the UK to live in India around six years ago to get Sid specialist medical help and to provide Aditi with more support from friends and family in Mumbai, where she was born and raised.

They are said to have returned to Britain last year after doctors in India were unable to improve his condition.

Rakesh worked as a project manager for major banks including Barclays, Santander and Deutsche Bank, while Aditi delivered construction projects, including cladding work at Heathrow.

The couple had previously lived in nearby Clapham, south-west London, and were planning to convert two flats there into a family home.

They were staying temporarily at the block in Elephant and Castle, where two-bedroom apartments can cost up to £3,800 a month. 

For confidential support, call Samaritans on 116 123, visit samaritans.org or visit www.thecalmzone.net/get-support