Welsh history

  • He is one of Wales’ greatest explorers – but few remember his name and there is no national monument in his honour. There is a story behind why Wales may have tried to forget Edgar Evans – but it concerns a sense of misplaced shame. ITV Wales’ Wales This Week has turned the clock back…

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  • The man who advises both the Crown and the UK Cabinet on the law has expressed his “huge regret” at the collapse of the Lynette White police corruption trial. The UK Solicitor-General Edward Garnier QC was answering questions from MPs about the collapse of a trial of eight police officers accused of perverting the course of justice during the…

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  • Important documents, whose disappearance led to the collapse of Britain’s biggest ever corruption trial, have been found in boxes held by South Wales Police. Yesterday, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, ordered a full inquiry into the collapse of a trial of eight police officers accused of perverting the course of justice during the 1988…

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  • A major review has been ordered into the way the prosecution in a police corruption trial was handled. Eight officers were cleared of perverting the course of justice after a judge at Swansea Crown Court ruled they could not get a fair trial. It had been alleged that the former South Wales Police officers had…

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  • Welsh serial killer Peter Moore will be kept in jail for the rest of his life, judges at the European Court of Human Rights have ruled. Moore and two other convicted killers – Jeremy Bamber and Douglas Vinter – had asked the court to rule on whole life sentences. The murderers said condemning them to…

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  • It was meant to be the case in which South Wales Police drew a line under some of the difficult times from the past. Instead, the force and the Crown Prosecution Service in Wales are waking up to difficult headlines about the collapse of the largest alleged police corruption trial ever seen in the UK.…

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  • The 77th HAA (Heavy Anti Aircraft) Regiment was created to provide air protection for Cardiff, Newport and Barry, and surrounding districts. Many of its members were local sportsmen who joined up together, such as Les Spence, who been Cardiff Rugby Club captain during the 1936-37 season, and his team-mate Wilf Wooller. Other sports stars in…

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  • There will be no action taken against witnesses in one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice from the 1980s. The Crown Prosecution Service has been considering action against a number of civilian witnesses who gave evidence in the hunt to find the killer of Cardiff newsagent Philip Saunders in 1987. Three men, Michael O’Brien,…

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  • Further links are now being made between Welsh serial John Cooper and the murder of an elderly brother and sister from Pembrokeshire. Forensic psychologist Dr Clive Sims said there are enough similarities between Cooper’s crimes and the deaths of Griff and Patti Thomas at their farmhouse in Llangolman in 1976 to suggest “he may at…

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  • Welsh miner Tom Jones survived a death sentence to be repatriated from Franco’s Spain after the UK government paid a massive ransom. Jones, from Rhosllanerchrugog, Denbighshire, travelled to Spain in 1937 to fight for the International Brigades. He was wounded during the fierce battle on the River Ebro, in July 1938, and captured by Franco’s troops.…

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