Evening briefing on Wednesday 24th June

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

0:34This is your Times Evening Briefing on Wednesday 24th June. The Ockenden Review into Maternity Care has found systemic failures at Nottingham University Hospital's NHS Trust contributed to serious harm or death to more than 500 babies and mothers. Jack and Sarah Hawkins gave evidence to the inquiry. When their baby Harriet died, Sarah was told by the doctor, I'm sorry, your baby is dead. He then walked out of the room and left her. She says going public helped other people come forward. I do always struggle with the word campaigners because I'm just Harriet's mummy and if she was alive I would protect her and even though she's dead I still protect her.

1:14And I want all the families of Noddingham to not have this self-blame that NIH put onto them and give our children the voices that were so wrongly stolen from them. Health Secretary James Murray says immediate change is needed but Theo Clarke, former chair of the UK's Birth Trauma Inquiry, feels this is bigger than any one party. Maternity is far too important to not be a cross-party issue. I think it should be above party politics. As we've seen with the chaos in the government this week, I've been making the case for these recommendations to be implemented now to my eighth or ninth health secretary.

1:49And I think there's a very big difference between having an independent expert whose job it is every day to be overseeing and implementing these recommendations. And I think the current chaos in the government reiterates why it's so important that we have that person in Whitehall fighting the corner for families. Operation Perth was launched by Nottinghamshire police in September 2023 into failings that led to hundreds of babies dying or being injured. In June 2025, it opened a corporate manslaughter investigation. Deputy Chief Constable Rob Griffin said today's findings will be considered closely as part of the wider ongoing investigation.

2:24In other news, investigators examining a fatal train crash in Bedfordshire on Friday say the driver passed a red signal moments before the collision. Sean Burton died when the train he was driving hit the back of another. Ollie Cole has more from the Times newsroom. The train was travelling at almost 50 miles an hour when it hit the back of a stationary Nottingham to St Pancras service. Data from the train's black box showed Burton managed to apply the brakes about nine seconds before the crash which left around 100 passengers injured. The report added it was too early to say what indication the driver received from the advanced warning system equipment fitted to the train or how they responded.

3:00Today is now the hottest June day on record. A provisional high of 38.8 Celsius in Wiggenholt in West Sussex has surpassed the earlier high recorded in Chalwood in Surrey. The heat wave is predicted to last until at least Saturday. Meanwhile, Sadiq Khan says the capital and the country hadn't adapted to deal with climate change and asked the public to be patient with delays on public transport. Elsewhere, a water park in Watfordshire has closed its doors to prevent visitors getting burned on the slides. And the London School of Economics cancelled the conference on extreme heat. The event would have seen academics discuss government's responses to rising temperatures.

3:37The inquiry into grooming gangs is going to begin its investigation by focusing on London, Oldham, Bradford and Keighley. They'll be the focus of so-called local investigations. Under the inquiry's three-part hearing system, government bodies, local councils, the NHS and police will be asked about their role in the scandal. And police officers who handcuffed and arrested Henry Novak took eight minutes to discover the stab wound that eventually killed him. Vikram Digwa stabbed Novak repeatedly with a Sikh ceremonial knife during an altercation in Southampton in December. The transcript of the student's arrest shows he told officers four times within 71 seconds of their arrival that he had been stabbed.

4:17You can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. That's your Times Evening Briefing on Wednesday the 24th of June. 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. So how do you get beyond the hype and deliver AI that powers reinvention and growth across your business? Strong foundations unlock AI's potential. That's why PwC takes you further with tech, strengthening the data quality, processes and workflows that shape how well AI performs. PwC turns innovation into implementation so you can accelerate from experiment to scale.

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