Evening briefing Monday 20th October

0:00This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwCWC. Staying competitive means getting ahead, not just keeping up. So how do business leaders cut through the noise and focus on what really matters. PwC takes you further with tech, from optimising the systems that put your data to work, to scaling AI from proof of concept to competitive edge. PwC helps you meet tomorrow's tech demands so you can compete at a speed that rewrites the rules. Discover more at pwc.co.uk. Welcome to the Times Evening Briefing on Monday, the 20th of October. The Metropolitan Police says it will stop investigating non-crime hate incidents.

0:42Scotland Yard said the commissioner does not believe officers should be policing toxic culture war debates. The Met's also dropped its investigation against gender-critical campaigner Graham Linehan. The co-creator of Father Ted was arrested at Heathrow by armed officers in September over some posts on X. Former Deputy Assistant Commissioner at The Met, Stephen Roberts, has told Times Radio the decision on non-crime hate incidents is correct. It's a very welcome outbreak of common sense. They were brought in with the best of intentions way back after the McPherson inquiry into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence as a means of trying to gauge the tension within communities.

1:24But I'm afraid as time has gone by, more and more layers have been added to the process and it's ended up as a bureaucratic nightmare. The Culture Secretary has told MPs that resources should not determine whether Maccabi Tel Aviv fans are able to travel to Villa Park in Birmingham next month. But Lisa Nandy says the responsibility lies with local agencies and it's not for governments to assess the risks. It's been decided that safety concerns mean the supporters should not attend a Europa League match. However, Ms Nandy says no one should be excluded from taking part in public events because of who they are.

1:59People are free in this country to protest peacefully. They are free to lobby government and event organisers about which countries can participate in tournaments. And they are free to choose not to attend events or purchase products that they find unacceptable. But they are not entitled to dictate who can participate in competitions, attend a football match or walk the streets for fear of threats or reprisals. The first person to be convicted under the Online Safety Act of encouraging a child to self-harm has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. 42-year-old Carl Davis from the Wirral targeted the teenager online before meeting and abusing her in person.

2:41He was arrested and charged with 17 offences after his wife called a number and a child picked up. Detective Sergeant Rob Griffiths from Greater Manchester Police led the investigation. He would pick her up from school, she'd be in a school uniform, they'd travel nearby, two minutes away to a secluded spot, I believe it was a car park, and he would engage in sexual activity with her there. He encouraged her to be a self-harming person as well. And blind people have been able to read again after having a tiny microchip inserted in the back of their eyeball. Patients who were previously living in darkness took part in a trial with a team at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.

3:18They can now recognise faces, do crosswords and read books. Eleanor Hayward is The Times' health editor. The operation itself is actually pretty straightforward. It takes about two hours and they just insert this microchip into the back of the retina. But then after that, it takes quite a few months for the brain to kind of connect the images that are coming in via the glasses to the microchip. And you can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. This episode of The Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC. AI is everywhere. In the news, in our hands, but return on investment, not so much.

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