Former victims’ commissioner Vera Baird says disciplinary action is essential to ensure people are held accountable

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Families in Southport cannot be sure that officials who made “catastrophic” errors before the murder of three girls are not still making the same mistakes, a former victims’ commissioner has said.

Vera Baird KC said all those who failed to properly monitor the killer, Axel Rudakubana, should be held “personally accountable” and that authorities must not “shrug it off” with an apology.

Despite high needs, the Merseyside borough has the most youth work ‘black holes’ of any local authority in England

• Youth work ‘black holes’ in half of all council areas in England, study finds

“I feel like I’m failing because I can’t reach everyone,” said Toni Dodd, the centre manager at Karma in the Community, a youth service in Knowsley on the outskirts of Liverpool.

“I’ll go over and get kids hanging outside the shops, bring them in, but it’s who am I not reaching? It just takes one thing and they’re on that track into crime, into drugs. There are kids going into school on ketamine. I do all I can but it’s so hard to keep it open and running, and you can’t meet the demand there is.”

Researchers say waste dumping and climate breakdown have contributed to rise in brick, concrete and glass on beaches

As much as half of some British beaches’ coarse sediments may consist of human-made materials such as brick, concrete, glass and industrial waste, a study has suggested.

Climate breakdown, which has caused more frequent and destructive coastal storms, has led to an increase in these substances on beaches. Six sites on the Firth of Forth, an estuary on Scotland’s east coast joining the River Forth to the North Sea, were surveyed to better understand the makeup of “urban beaches”.