Friday brief: Offensive incident at village Ramadan event
Plenty of Northants news to end the week, plus we reveal some interesting family links within West Northamptonshire Council.
A man was seen throwing bacon at cars during a Ramadan community event in a Northants village last Saturday.
Northants Police say they are appealing for witnesses after the incident which happened at about 8.35pm outside Hardingstone Village Hall, where many people had gathered after sunset for an Itfar meal (breaking fast) as part of Ramadan. Muslims do not eat pork as part of their religion.
A spokeswoman told NN Journal said:
“Police officers are appealing for witnesses or anyone with information following an incident in Hardingstone, Northampton.
“The incident happened in High Street at about 8.35pm on Saturday, February 28, when a man was seen throwing bacon at cars parked outside the community centre in which a Ramadan event was being held.
“Neighbourhood policing colleagues have been engaging with our Muslim communities throughout the Ramadan period and anyone with any concerns is welcome to speak to an officer who will be happy to help.
“We do believe that this was an isolated incident and have had no reports of this nature since or elsewhere in the county.
“During Ramadan we do engage with our Muslim communities and include areas of worship in our patrol plans. Anyone with any concerns is always welcome to speak to us.
“Anyone with any information about the incident in Hardingstone should contact us on 101 quoting incident number 26000120083.”
Eyusuf Chaudhury from the Corby Mosque told NN Journal that he always asks for extra police support during Ramadan. The mosque has been open for 14 years and he says the number of worshippers is growing year on year. He said this Ramadan - which started on February 17 and ends on March 19 - he has had one minor abusive incident.
Other news from the week
Two teenage boys from Northampton have been charged this week with the murder of Mason Miller, who was killed last month.
The two 16-year-olds who cannot be named due to their age, have been charged with murder and attempted murder, appeared at Northampton Magistrates’ Court today.
Mason Miller, 20, died on February 18 shortly after he was attacked at the skatepark in Briars Hill. Another teenager, 27, received life changing injuries.
A 40-year-old woman who was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender on Wednesday, March 4, has been released on bail pending further enquiries.
Detectives investigating Mason Miller’s death say they would still like to hear from anyone with information about the incident.
North Northants Council (NNC) has become the first public authority to refuse to back a proposed law to clean up contaminated land.
The motion, which proposes support for new legislation to ensure greater transparency over contaminated land, was presented in the Corby Cube by Green Party councillor Ben Williams last night but was voted down by the chamber when put to the vote.
The proposed Zane’s Law; The Clean Land (Human Rights) Bill, is named after seven-year-old Zane Gbangbola, who died from ‘suspected hydrogen cyanide exposure’ when his home was flooded with water that had passed through a historic landfill site in 2014.
His father, Kye Gbangbola, who attended the meeting, said supporting the bill was “a real opportunity to move forward and protect future generations” and that his “heart breaks for the people of Corby”.
NNC was asked to formally support the principles of Zane’s Law, which proposes that every local authority maintains a full and regularly updated register of land that may be contaminated, that the Environment Agency maintains a national public register of contaminated land, that land posing harm to public safety is fully remediated, and that former landfill sites are properly assessed and remediated. It also clarifies that Government must fully fund these duties, demanding the polluter pays wherever possible.
The motion also highlighted the legacy of the Corby toxic waste scandal locally, and the history of birth defects in children in Corby linked to contaminated land from the closure of the steelworks. Recent reporting has raised concerns that contaminated material may also have been deposited in parts of the county due to historic waste movements in the 1980s and 1990s.
Alison Gaffney, a Corby mum heading the local childhood cancer investigation, spoke in support of the “long-overdue” law at the start of the meeting.
“This law is not just about reacting to the past, it is about preventing future devastation,” she said, “It is about restoring trust in our communities and in the institutions meant to protect us. Most importantly, it is about saving lives.”
Introducing the motion, Cllr Williams said:
“As members of North Northamptonshire Council, we of course can’t pass legislation ourselves, but we can say clearly that the communities with lived experience of industrial contamination deserve stronger safeguards.
“If North Northamptonshire, of all places, does not speak up for stronger contaminated land protections, then who will? We have an opportunity to show our residents and the government we are leaders in turning a toxic past into a clean and healthy future.”
Cllr Brian Benneyworth, the portfolio holder for health and leisure on the Reform UK executive, said he could not support the motion in its current form and encouraged other members to do the same.
He told the meeting:
“What’s proposed here simply doesn’t represent a practical or deliverable way forward for North Northamptonshire.
“Every one of us wants our residents to be safe. We all want strong safeguards, accurate information and transparency when it comes to contaminated sites.
“Wanting better protections doesn’t mean that we should uncritically sign up to a motion that would place huge new duties on local authorities, without any certainty that the government would fund them.
“We in North Northamptonshire already take this issue very seriously. Our regulatory teams are working under existing statutory frameworks, the Environment Agency retains clear responsibilities, and where concerns arise, they are investigated. Nothing in this motion changes that today.
“My objection is not to the sentiment, it’s to the lack of realism. Let’s not endorse this legislation whose scale, costs and implications are unclear and potentially not manageable.”
Zane’s father, Mr Gbangbola, said after the meeting:
“The area of the country whose communities have suffered most from the ongoing harm of cancers and birth defects from contaminated land, featured in the hit Netflix drama ‘Toxic Town’, ironically became the only public authority to reject the opportunity to endorse the principle of a new law.
“[The] Bill, protects people and children from death, harm, and suffering, from living in proximity to contaminated land, at no cost to the public purse, keeping communities safe, now, and in the future.”
Cllr Williams added:
“This is the first council in the country to not unanimously back [Zane’s Law] and not only that, we are the first to reject it.
“Corby specifically has a huge issue with toxic waste and had an international audience on Toxic Town. What Reform councillors have just done is dismissed all of that and it’s just a complete loss really.”
Report by Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
Former West Northamptonshire Council cabinet member Phil Larratt has appeared at Northampton Crown Court this morning on historic sex offence charges. Larratt, 68, who was once leader of Northampton Borough Council, previously pleaded not guilty to indecent assaulting a person aged over 16. He appeared alongside three other men in relation to offences that occurred several decades ago. The men will have their next court appearance in October.
Read the Chronicle and Echo’s full report here.
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The Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire said he was surprised to have been chosen for the role as he thought a woman or ‘someone of colour’ would have been selected.
Owner of Rockingham Castle James Saunders Watson took on the role in 2020 after former Lord Lieutenant David Laing retired and speaking at North Northamptonshire Council in a 30 plus minute monologue last night, Mr Saunders Watson, said:
“I felt that looking at the trend elsewhere, I thought we would probably have a change of gender and probably a change of colour as well, because the diversity issue was out there, so I was surprised to be asked.”
The Lord Lieutenant acts as the monarch’s representative in the county and organises royal visits. He is supported by 36 deputy lieutenants.
Mr Saunders Watson said ‘as the Royal family shrinks there is more falling on to the lieutenancy.’
North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) has received another disclaimed opinion on its accounts for 2024/25. This comes as external auditors warned they were unable to undertake sufficient work to get full assurance and form an opinion on NNC’s financial statements.
The report was discussed at a meeting of the council’s audit and governance committee last week.
Mark Stocks, from external auditor Grant Thornton, acknowledged the authority’s “difficult starting position” with local government reorganisation and the merger of the seven legacy councils. He said that the complexity of these issues, together with some staff absences, had shown in their findings report and resulted in several areas where more progress could have been made.
He added that, while the position was “no worse than it was last year”, there needs to be demonstrable progress for next year’s 2025/26 audits, with the pressure only getting greater.
Auditors reported that there were still outstanding enquiries and evidence requests affecting NNC’s accounts by the backstop deadline in February 2026. They also said they “encountered significant difficulties in obtaining appropriate audit trails and evidence for balances” and had not seen the progress expected in the provision of evidence.
According to NNC, external auditors made over 1,200 requests for sample testing, but only around 90 per cent of samples were able to be responded to within the timeframe.
The report refers to a number of areas carrying ‘significant risks’ for the council, many of which relate to legacy issues with the former councils still cropping up.
One of the risks relates to the valuation of land, buildings and investment properties that could be misstated, after a sample of 20 assets weren’t able to be tested due to capacity issues within the finance team.
Grant Thornton said there were risks that some assets had been valued using the incorrect methodology. In response, NNC officers are currently undertaking a review of all investment properties to ensure that they are correctly classified.
Further risks were identified in relation to the cash balance reported in the council’s financial statements, including a £6.64m difference between the bank reconciliations (which is the process of matching a company’s internal accounting records with its bank statements) and the amount reported in the general ledger.
External testing found that NNC’s cash balance for schools had not been updated since March 2021, as the transactions were incorrectly mapped in the ledger, as well as two maintained schools where no reconciliation had been undertaken.
Auditors were also unable to test the legacy Corby bank account reconciliation, worth £4.3m, after the bank account was closed during the year and officers were not able to provide evidence of the reconciling items.
Another concern raised related to £74m of Section 106 funding, which is money committed from developers off the back of planning applications. According to the report, officers were unable to provide a breakdown of these balances both this year and last year.
In the auditor’s annual report, three significant weaknesses across the council’s financial stability, governance and efficiency and effectiveness were identified.
The first discusses the council’s track record for delivering savings plans and how it will tackle gaps in the medium term financial plan going forward. It says NNC must progress its Transformation Plan and develop business cases for projects in the future to avoid using large amounts of reserves to bridge budget gaps.
Another weakness in the remit of financial sustainability is the council’s Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) deficit, which will surpass a £40 million cumulative deficit by the year end. Despite the statutory override and the government’s commitment to fund 90 per cent of the national deficit, Grant Thornton has still encouraged NNC to monitor its governance and oversight on this area and reduce the need for specialist school places.
Lastly, auditors warned of the “significant difficulties in obtaining appropriate audit trails and evidence for balances”, in particular, the issues with the S106 agreements and property valuations that were previously mentioned. It asked the council to review its capacity and resilience within the finance team to counteract this and support the audit process.
Chief finance officer, Claire Edwards, said the council would start the audit process earlier this year to avoid running into the same issues with the backstop date. She also said that the finance team would be fully recruited from this month, in comparison to “severe gaps” in staff over the last year which meant resources had to be focused on the council’s ‘biggest risk’ areas.
“The team is really now in a place where we can start to focus 100 per cent just on North Northants transactions and we’ve not got all of those legacy items that are just cluttering the conversation,” she added.
Grant Thornton also issued a disclaimer of opinion for 2023/24 due to the government backstop legislation. As a result, there is no assurance on the opening balances of North Northamptonshire’s financial statements or on the closing reserves balance due to this uncertainty.
The audit papers added that a lack of improvement in 2026 is likely to result in the external auditor issuing statutory recommendations to the council, which would be mandatory.
By Nadia Lincoln
An extraordinary meeting about devolution is being held at West Northamptonshire Council next Friday. The county’s two unitary councils have currently been left out in the cold in devolution conversations, which could have a big impact on the money that comes into the county for economic regeneration.
Family connections have long been a feature of politics in Northants and there appears to be a new family dynamic with influence in the West of the county.
NN Journal has learned of a connection between Reform UK’s Berrill, Rainbird and Humphries families on West Northamptonshire Council.
Nigel Berrill, represents the Kingsthorpe North ward along with his nephew Daniel Rainbird, and Daniel’s sister Jasmine (who is the youngest councillor on the authority) represents Duston. Nigel Berril’s brother in law Nicholas Humphries (who is also uncle to Daniel and Jasmine) represents Kingsley and Semilong.
With just a majority of one after the departures of Cllr Shaw and Cllr Blythe, WNC leader Mark Arnull may need to keep the Berill, Rainbird, Humphries foursome close.
And over at Corby Town Council, its leader Simon Rielly (who had a bullying complaint upheld against him last year) could be joined by another brother on the council if he wins the upcoming by-election. Neil Rielly, who formerly stood for election to the authority last May in the Labour colours of his brother, is now standing as an independent.
If he wins he will be the third Rielly brother on the council - as Jason Robertson is a brother of the pair. Cllr Robertson’s attendance at the council has been poor, having only attended the annual council meeting in May and then a finance committee meeting at the end of November, meaning he was spared of being kicked off the council under the six month rule.
The by-elections have been called after Conservative Susan Watt stood down in the Corby West ward and independent Gary Campbell quit the Kingswood ward.
But the Conservatives are not even fielding a candidate in either of the wards.
The candidates for Corby West are: Heather Anderson (Labour); Alex Bailey (Liberal Democrat); Lee Forster (Green Party); Patrick McMillan (Reform UK); Neil Rielly (Independent).
Kingswood candidates: Tracey Bruce (Liberal Democrat); Helen Campbell (Reform UK); Sophie Campbell (Green Party) and Mohammed Rahman (Labour Party).
A socialist campaign group protested outside a private bank in Wellingborough this week. Independent Socialists in Wellingborough sat outside the Weatherby’s, which looks after wealthy people. ISW wants to see the government introduce a wealth tax.
Good to see all the Larratt case getting the media coverage it deserves, especially since Northants Police never bothered to inform WNC of impending court action while he stood for election last May.
I don't know which is worse, Reform refusing to support Zane's Law, or Reform unable to account for millions of pounds!