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Small groups were allowed to enter the Al Noor mosque on Saturday
Worshippers have returned to the Al-Noor mosque in Christchurch for the first time since a mass shooting there in which dozens of people were killed.
The building had closed so police could investigate the attack but on Saturday small groups were allowed to return.
Fifty people were killed in shootings at two mosques on 15 March.
As the Al Noor mosque reopened, some 3,000 people walked through Christchurch on Saturday for a ‘march for love’ intended to honour victims.
Many walked in silence and some carried placards calling for peace and opposing racism.
“We feel like hate has brought a lot of darkness at times,” said Manaia Butler, a 16-year-old student who helped to organise the march. “Love is the strongest cure to light the city out of that darkness,” she said.
Aden Diriye, who lost his 3-year-old son in the attack, returned to the Al-Noor mosque on Saturday. “I am very happy,” he said after praying. ” I was back as soon as we rebuilt, to pray.”
Australian Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old self-proclaimed white supremacist, has been charged with one murder in connection with the attacks and he is expected to face further charges.
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Media captionThe victims have been remembered at events throughout the week
Bullet holes gone, walls repainted
With the crime scene investigation completed, the Al-Noor mosque, where the majority of the victims were killed, was handed back to the city’s Muslim community.
At around midday local time (23:00 GMT Friday), small groups of worshippers were allowed back onto the grounds, while armed police patrolled the site.
“We are allowing 15 people at a time, just to get some normality,” Saiyad Hassen, a volunteer at the mosque, told AFP news agency. He did not say when the mosque would fully reopen.
The mosque had been repaired, with bullet holes filled in and walls freshly painted – though the lack of rugs on the floor served as a reminder of what had happened.
Worshippers knelt to pray on a grey padded carpet underlay taped to the floor.
“It is the place where we pray, where we meet, we’ll be back,” Ashif Shaikh, who was in the mosque at the time of the shooting, told Reuters news agency.
Police said the nearby Linwood mosque, which was the second to be attacked, had also reopened.
Victims of the Christchurch shootings
Gun law reform
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Thursday announced a ban on all types of semi-automatic weapons following the Christchurch attacks.
She said she expected new legislation to be in place by 11 April, saying: “Our history changed forever. Now, our laws will too.”
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Media captionNew Zealand’s PM said she hoped the ban would be in place by 11 April
“Six days after this attack, we are announcing a ban on all military style semi-automatics (MSSA) and assault rifles in New Zealand,” Ms Ardern said in a news conference.
“Related parts used to convert these guns into MSSAs are also being banned, along with all high-capacity magazines.”
An amnesty has been imposed so the owners of affected weapons can hand them in, and a buy-back scheme will follow.
The buy-back could cost up to NZ$200m ($138m; £104m), but Ms Ardern said “that is the price that we must pay to ensure the safety of our communities”.
Ms Ardern has also announced that a National Memorial Service for victims is being planned for next week.
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Mark Duggan was shot by police in Tottenham
The family of Mark Duggan, whose death sparked riots across England in August 2011, are suing the Metropolitan Police for damages, BBC News has learned.
Mr Duggan, 29, was shot dead by police who believed he was carrying a gun and posed a threat.
An inquest jury found Mr Duggan was not holding the weapon when he was shot, but concluded he had been lawfully killed.
The Met said it had received a civil claim and would not comment further.
However, it is understood the force is defending the claim.
The inquest heard how armed police had intercepted a minicab Mr Duggan was travelling in after intelligence indicated he was part of a gang and had arranged to collect a gun.
Image copyright PA
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The rioting erupted following a peaceful protest
After Mr Duggan got out of the cab, one of the firearms officers – referred to as V53 – shot him twice, once in the chest.
A pistol, wrapped in a sock, was later found on grassland behind railings 10-20ft (3-6m) from Mr Duggan’s body.
Jurors concluded in January 2014 that Mr Duggan had dropped the gun when the minicab came to a stop, but decided that V53 had “honestly believed” he still had the weapon and acted lawfully in self-defence.
The civil proceedings, which are being brought by Mr Duggan’s mother, Pamela, and at least some of his children, are in their early stages.
The relatives want the Met to be held liable for his death and to pay compensation.
Stafford Scott, a community activist who has supported the Duggan family, said the legal action was a “good thing”.
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Media captionExclusive footage obtained by the BBC shows the aftermath of Mark Duggan’s shooting
He pointed out the inquest jury was told that to reach a conclusion that Mr Duggan’s death was “unlawful” they had to be “sure”, whereas the standard of proof in a civil case is based on the balance of probabilities.
He added: “Mark Duggan’s family and children have the right to have a second go at the police where the bar isn’t set as incredibly high as at the inquest.”
In a report after the inquest had ended, coroner Judge Keith Cutler said evidence gathered by investigators “did not resolve, the vexed and very important issue of what precisely happened immediately before the fatal shot was fired”.
Judge Cutler also expressed concern the Met and the Serious Organised Crime Agency could have reacted better to events before the shooting and used their joint intelligence resources more effectively.
Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents the officers involved, said he fully understood why the Duggan family felt the need to pursue a civil claim because they had “lost a loved one”.
But, he added the officers involved wanted to “move on”.
He said: “This has been through the justice system. The findings have been clearly laid out in the public domain.”
Mr Duggan’s family challenged the lawful killing conclusion, but the High Court and the Court of Appeal ruled against them.
The UK Supreme Court declined to hear the case and they have lodged an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights.
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Some golden eagles will be fitted with the new technology over the next 18 months
A new type of satellite tag for tracking birds of prey is being trialled in the Cairngorms National Park.
Over the next 18 months, some young golden eagles will be fitted with the Raptor Tracker.
Organisations involved in the project said the tag should provide better information on the birds’ movements.
It should also give an “instant fix” on any eagles that die, which would help in efforts to tackle wildlife crime.
Several organisations are involved in the project, including the Cairngorms National Park Authority, Scottish Natural Heritage and British Trust for Ornithology.
They said tags in current use were “limited” in what information they could provide on the exact location of any bird which dies.
The new device uses a satellite network that ensures that signal information is always available.
‘Exciting breakthrough’
The project team said that the new tag’s multiple sensors can send a “distress signal” with an exact location if unusual behaviour is detected.
This early warning system has the added benefit of helping to rapidly identify and recover birds which have died, said the team.
Image copyright Lorne Gill/SNH
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The new tag will provide more information on the movement and behaviour of golden eagles in the Cairngorms
Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said the trial should improve understanding of the behaviour of the Cairngorms’ golden eagles.
She said: “The tags should make a real difference in deterring would-be criminals, as well as playing a key role in establishing exactly what happened, should any of these magnificent birds of prey disappear or die in unusual circumstances.”
Grant Moir, of the national park authority, said: “Raptor conservation and tackling wildlife crime is one of the aims of the recently launched Cairngorms Nature Action Plan 2019-2023.
“This is an exciting breakthrough in the technology around raptor conservation, understanding the birds and combating wildlife crime.”
Robbie Kernahan, of Scottish Natural Heritage, described the tag as “exciting new technology”.
He said it should be a “significant deterrent” to anyone thinking of persecuting raptors.
EU leaders have agreed on a plan to delay the Article 50 process, offering to postpone Brexit for at least two weeks beyond the original 29 March exit day.
Theresa May says she still wants to leave the EU with a deal, but if she cannot win the support of MPs then the possibility of a no-deal Brexit remains.
So with the clock still ticking, what is the government doing to prepare for a no-deal Brexit?
Operation Yellowhammer
The code name for the government’s no-deal Brexit contingency plan is Operation Yellowhammer, named after a bird.
First launched in June 2018, it covers 12 areas including transport, healthcare, energy, food and water.
It is based on worst-case scenario assumptions – delays at the border over a six-month period, increased immigration checks at EU border posts, reduction in choice and availability of food, and potential price increases for utilities, food and fuel.
Operation Yellowhammer isn’t the government’s only Brexit contingency plan, but sits alongside broader preparations.
This is to “reflect the fact that it would not be possible for departments to plan for every eventuality”, according to a report by the National Audit Office (NAO), and that the government would need a way of taking control and quickly coordinating different agencies to handle any short-term disruption.
Through Operation Yellowhammer, the government has been looking at what existing powers it could use to prioritise fuel to essential services or to relax rules limiting the working hours of HGV drivers, for example.
As part the contingency plans, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has made 3,500 troops, including reserves, available to be deployed if necessary.
It has also set up an operations room in a bunker at its main Whitehall building to coordinate efforts in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
The MoD will not comment on exactly what role the troops could perform, only that they will “support government planning”.
Image copyright Getty Images
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The MoD says 3,500 troops will be available to be deployed in the event of a no-deal Brexit if necessary
In its report on Yellowhammer, earlier this month, the NAO said some no-deal preparations might not be ready in time.
For example, the report said the government did not have enough time to put in place all of the infrastructure, systems and people required for fully effective border operations on day one.
The cost of Yellowhammer is part of the £1.5bn allocated by the Treasury to government departments for Brexit preparations.
For Yellowhammer to be effective, the NAO says that the “command, control and coordination” structure needs to be in place ahead of the UK leaving the EU.
So the government could decide to activate Operation Yellowhammer a few days ahead of any potential no-deal Brexit date.
But what about the government’s broader no-deal Brexit plans?
Healthcare
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) says thousands of medicines have been analysed to work out what might be affected by supply disruption from the EU.
Suppliers are stockpiling an additional six weeks’ worth of these drugs over and above the usual “buffer” stock.
Image copyright Getty Images
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Plans are in place to ensure there is enough essential medicines like insulin
The same approach is being taken with vaccines as well as blood and transplant products.
The DHSC has also agreed contracts for extra warehouse space with refrigeration capacity to store these supplies.
A plane has been chartered to fly in medicines which have short shelf-lives and cannot be stockpiled, like medical radioisotopes used in cancer treatment.
Transport
The government has previously warned “there could be some freight traffic disruption in Kent in the event of a no-deal Brexit”.
That’s because under a no-deal scenario, lorries travelling between the UK and the EU will need to complete custom declarations. On top of this, certain goods from the UK, such as food and plant products, arriving into EU ports may also require physical checks, under EU single market rules.
The Port of Dover in Kent handles approximately 10,500 lorries a day and the worry is that extra checks could lead to bottlenecks, leading to many miles of tailbacks.
Independent modelling has estimated that two minutes of extra processing time for each lorry would lead to tailbacks of 17 miles.
To avoid significant disruption, Operation Brock is the name of the plan to hold up to 2,000 lorries heading for mainland Europe in a queue while keeping other traffic flowing around it.
A fallback option would be to divert lorries to the disused Manston airfield, near Ramsgate – and use it to hold up to 6,000 lorries on the runway at any one time.
If further capacity was still required, a “last resort” would be to turn the M26 into a temporary lorry park. The M26 is a 10-mile motorway connecting the M25 at Sevenoaks and the M20, near West Malling.
Under this scenario, the M26 would be closed to normal road users and lorries would park on the carriageway. Kent County Council believes this option could accommodate an additional 2,000 lorries.
Roadworks have been taking place to install a temporary steel barrier on the M20 that would be used for Operation Brock.
Kent County Council has also issued advice to local schools suggesting pupils and staff cold be moved inside school buildings if extra lorry traffic causes air pollution to increase.
The government has published a “tariff schedule” – a list of the taxes placed on different types of products when they are imported from other countries – which has removed most tariffs on imports in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
It will mean some goods from outside the EU that currently attract a tariff could be cheaper. And some goods from the EU that are currently imported with 0% tariffs, like beef and dairy, will now carry tariffs, and so could become more expensive.
The British Retail Consortium has warned that there could be gaps on supermarket shelves if there is disruption at the border.
The UK government published on 13 March its contingency plan to avoid a hard border (ie physical infrastructure) in Ireland in the event on a no-deal Brexit.
Under the plans, the UK will not bring in new checks or controls or require customs declarations for any goods moving from across from Ireland to Northern Ireland in the event of no deal.
Image copyright Getty Images
But this will only be a temporary measure while negotiations take place to find longer term solutions. The UK government says its contingency plan recognises “the unique social, political and economic circumstances of Northern Ireland”.
To protect people’s health, some plant and animal products that come into Northern Ireland from outside the EU, via Ireland, will still need to be checked. The UK government has said these checks will not happen at the border itself. But it has not specified exactly where they will take place.
It remains unclear what will happen to goods travelling from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. Under EU rules, checks would normally be required at the point certain goods enter the EU single market (such as at the Irish land border).
However, the Irish government says there are “no plans for Border Inspection Posts on the border with Northern Ireland.”
The term “indicative votes” has joined the crowded field of Brexit jargon recently. But what does it mean?
Indicative votes are where MPs vote on a series of options designed to test the will of Parliament to see what, if anything, commands a majority.
In the case of Brexit, supporters of indicative votes believe it could provide a way out of the current political deadlock.
How would it work?
Before any indicative votes can take place, MPs must secure the parliamentary time for debate. Usually the government has control over what happens day-to-day.
MPs have tried – and narrowly failed – to take control away from the government in recent weeks, but a fresh attempt by a cross-party group of MPs, including Labour’s Hilary Benn and Conservative Sir Oliver Letwin, may prove successful on Monday evening.
However, to avoid being forced, the government could voluntarily set aside time for MPs to debate – something ministers have previously suggested.
Though the precise format is unknown, one possible process would see a series of motions being presented setting out each Brexit option. MPs would then vote on each option in turn with the results announced after each vote.
But this would mean that the order in which the choices are presented would be very important. That is because once each Brexit option is rejected, it would not be voted on again.
That means each group of MPs would be fighting for their preference to be voted on last, in the hope all other options are rejected and theirs is the last one standing.
Ken Clarke – the longest-serving MP in Parliament – has suggested MPs ranking their preferences to avoid this issue.
Alternatively, MPs could vote on all options at the same time with every result announced at the end – this would lessen the likelihood of tactical voting.
The exact details are still to be confirmed.
Would MPs be forced to vote a particular way?
Usually, MPs are instructed to vote with their party line (a process known as “whipping”) and they can face repercussions if they don’t.
But with indicative votes, MPs might be allowed “free votes” – where they can choose to vote as they wish – meaning the final outcome could be substantially different.
Government ministers have indicated free votes are likely.
Image copyright UK Parliament
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Ken Clarke has suggested MPs should be able to vote in order of their Brexit preferences
Does it tie the government’s hands?
Any decision taken by indicative votes would not compel the government into pursuing that course of action, but would show what Parliament wants and where the most votes lie.
However, there is always a risk that either no single Brexit option secures a majority, or more than one does. If this happens then Parliament would still find itself deadlocked over Brexit.
If certain options such as Norway plus or another referendum are chosen and enacted by the government, it would require a longer extension to Article 50.
When have they happened before?
The last time indicative votes were used was in 2003 when MPs were presented with seven different options on how to reform the House of Lords.
It produced exactly the deadlock some fear would be the case over Brexit as nothing was able to secure a majority.
This meant reforms were not passed and the status quo prevailed.
Image copyright Getty Images
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Indicative votes were last used in 2003 over House of Lords reform, but it did not end the deadlock
But haven’t MPs already voted on all the options?
MPs have had a number of opportunities to vote on different ways forward over the last year, including holding another referendum, leaving without a deal and forming a customs union.
It’s a point that Theresa May has previously made:
“There have been votes in this House on some of the other proposals that have been brought forward, and those have equally been rejected”, she told the Commons.
But these have all been part of whipped votes attached to different pieces of legislation or debates, so the different proposals have not yet been considered side by side in the same context with MPs being allowed to vote freely.
There are a couple of proposals that have not been tested by votes in the House of Commons yet, including revoking Article 50 – effectively cancelling Brexit – and opting for a harder form of Brexit than Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, along the lines of the EU’s relationship with Canada.
Raheem Sterling has now scored seven goals in 48 appearances for England
Raheem Sterling finished England’s last European Championship campaign as the self-proclaimed “hated one”.
Booed by his own fans and with his place under threat as England endured a dismal Euro 2016, the Manchester City forward was the focus of much criticism and plenty of abuse.
But fast-forward three years to England’s first qualifying match for Euro 2020 and Sterling was the hero, scoring a hat-trick and winning a penalty as the Three Lions thrashed the Czech Republic 5-0 at Wembley.
For Sterling, who grew up down the road from the national stadium in Brent, it was the stuff of childhood fantasy.
“I’m excited,” he said. “I’m in my hometown and this is what dreams are made of, so I’m really happy to see it come true.”
‘He has had difficult moments – but he’s turned full circle’
Sterling had a hand in England’s first four goals against the Czechs – the opening match for both teams in Group A on the road to the finals, which will take place across 12 different countries.
He opened the scoring with a back-post finish from Jadon Sancho’s cross and was fouled for a Harry Kane penalty as England led 2-0 at half-time.
He then turned and finished superbly for his second, before completing his hat-trick when his 20-yard shot deflected in off Ondrej Celustka.
It was the first hat-trick by an England player at Wembley since Jermain Defoe achieved the feat against Bulgaria in 2010 and was a landmark moment for Sterling, who had managed only four goals in his previous 47 international caps.
Before his double in the Nations League victory over Spain in October, Sterling had endured a 27-game, three-year barren spell for his country. But these latest goals – meaning he has now scored with four of his past six shots for his country – suggest those struggles are well and truly behind him.
England manager Gareth Southgate acknowledged Sterling’s performance – and the standing ovation which greeted his 70th-minute substitution – showed the 24-year-old has “turned full circle” as an England player.
“I’m delighted for him to get the reaction that he did from the crowd here,” said Southgate. “We can’t hide from the fact that he’s had difficult moments with England and he’s turned that full circle.
“I also think the goals in Spain were an important moment for him. You could see the release that brought.
“At times, you could almost see the thought process in the past, but he’s hungry for goals.
“I know he’s spoken about that before, of how he’s added that incentive to his game and I thought he was devastating tonight.”
Sterling’s first goal ended a sequence of 25 passes, with 10 of England’s 11 players touching the ball in the build-up to the goal
‘Appreciated and adored’ – analysis
Former England midfielder Chris Waddle on BBC Radio 5 live: “He had that dry spell but now he is getting the chances and he’s tucking them away. England have a lot of players who are comfortable with the ball. We were relying on Raheem Sterling to do that but now we have three or four and it frees space up for Sterling.
“He pops up in gaps. He is in a team where the movement is good and there is confidence. We don’t have to just rely on him and he is getting the benefits of it. Expectations have always been high on Sterling. He is now getting better and is playing in a team full of confidence – whether it is Manchester City or England.”
Ex-England midfielder Joe Cole on ITV: “His development is going through the roof and his decision-making is getting better and better. He’s turning himself into a midfielder with a striker’s mindset. It’s a great achievement to score a hat-trick for England.”
BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Darren Fletcher: “Sterling has turned things full circle from being a player who was booed by his own supporters to being appreciated and adored.”
Ex-England defender Lee Dixon on ITV: “Pep Guardiola has given Raheem that belief in his own ability. We’ve all criticised his finishing at times but now he has so much confidence.”
Raheem Sterling’s performance against the Czech Republic
Minutes played
Goals
Attempts on target
Total passes
Pass completion
Successful passes in opposition half
Possession recovery
70
3
3
27
96.3%
90.5%
5
Sterling’s tribute to young player
Sterling paid a touching tribute to a Crystal Palace youth-team player after scoring England’s third goal.
He lifted his jersey to reveal a T-shirt with a picture of 13-year-old Damary Dawkins, who died on Sunday after suffering from leukaemia.
“Damary was a kid that I was trying to help and we thought that we found a donor,” Sterling told ITV. “Sadly it didn’t match and he sadly passed away.
“I thought I had to do something to try to give his family something to smile about.”
He later added on Twitter: “Special night in so many ways. RIP Damary, gone but you will never be forgotten.”
‘Doing what he does best’ – how you reacted on social media
James Stevenson: Well, I’m pleased for Raheem Sterling. He’s had some unfair and some justified criticism for England in the past.
Richard Cumiskey: And people say Sterling doesn’t perform in an England shirt. What a season he is having.
Ed O’Toole: Wow. England showing that getting to the World Cup semis was no fluke. Playing well and Sterling deserving his hat-trick. With such a young squad as well…
Baka Omubo: The raw potential of Sterling was always there but Guardiola moulded him into a better, more complete footballer.
Josh Earl: Raheem Sterling doing what he does best. Silencing the critics and being an all-round class act.
Lewis Hardy was struggling in prison, feeling isolated from his young family and increasingly “cold”. Then he was shown a way of doing something that many parents take for granted – reading to his children – and everything began to change.
Lewis Hardy had just been released from prison and was getting a taxi home to see his two sons for the first time in nine months, when he got the call he dreaded.
“What are you up to?” a familiar voice enquired.
“I’m just in a taxi to see my boys.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said his old friend. “See them tomorrow. Come to the pub with us lot.”
But Lewis knew exactly what to say.
“I ain’t ever going to the pub with ‘you lot’ ever again. My kids are more important.”
Prisoners get a lot of time to think, Lewis says, and he’d figured out what was the right decision for him.
When he got home his sons, aged six and five, jumped up on him so fast he nearly fell over, he recalls.
He couldn’t wait to do so many things with them after such a long time apart.
But top of the list was reading to them.
Image copyright Lewis Hardy
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Lewis reading in 2019 with his eldest son and his third son, born last year
It took a period in prison to remind Lewis of the joys of reading.
Born and bred in Plymouth, he’d got into a fight while drunk in 2013, and been sentenced to two years in Dartmoor for grievous bodily harm.
It was not out of character for him at the time, he admits – from an early age he had struggled to deal with his aggression.
But from the moment he was sent to a remand centre, he realised just how tough his new environment would be.
Fights broke out the first time prisoners were let out into the yard, he says, and “someone was slashed”.
Prisoners made knives by combining toothbrushes with razors and you might be slashed for something as petty as an argument over a cigarette paper.
“It was like masculinity to the maximum and so you were always on edge,” he says.
Image copyright Getty Images
In Dartmoor itself he says you could “cut the atmosphere with a knife”.
“Every time the doors are unlocked it’s only a matter of time before something happens, whether it’s to you or to someone else.”
Violent criminals and their friends were constantly trying to figure out if someone had a weakness to exploit, either physical or mental.
Lewis managed to avoid trouble, but it was stressful.
“You had to stand your ground and you were always trying to figure out how to distance yourself from those sorts of things.”
So while going to prison is “never lucky”, he says, he considers himself fortunate to have been signed up for a programme called Storybook Dads.
Image copyright Getty Images
This gives prisoners with young children a chance to spend time in a studio recording bedtime stories, which are then sent to their families at home on CD or DVD.
“As soon as you walked in through the doors, it was just complete relaxation, you felt safe,” remembers Lewis.
For his own family he was producing one per week. He would read stories like the Gruffalo series by Julia Donaldson. He would also sometimes read Marvel comics from the prison library, holding up the images in front of the video camera.
He even drew his own comics, and sent these to his children.
The first thing Lewis realised was that the stories were helpful at home, for his partner and two sons.
“My missus was having a bit of time settling them at night,” says Lewis.
But she could play his recorded stories and this would help to soothe them.
They told him that after listening to his voice “it felt like I was in the room with them when they closed their eyes.”
He was also pleased to hear that his sons would sometimes sit down together to listen to the stories, when they were missing their father.
Image copyright Trevor Burrows
Lewis had neglected to read much to his sons before he went to prison – they were six and four when he was sent down. But Storybook Dads was reconnecting him to something from his own childhood.
“It’s funny, but reading had been a big part of my childhood,” he says.
“My mum used to read to me a lot. And from the age of about nine, when I found out I was dyslexic, I got really into reading, until my misbehaving started in my teens. I loved a series called Animorphs and read the lot of them.”
Learning about the impact of his stories at home spurred Lewis on to do more. And not only did the stories delight his children – they did something for the story-teller too.
“It’s hard to explain the feelings you get in prison,” says Lewis.
“You don’t ever get a cuddle off anyone, you don’t even get a shake of the hands, you miss that love from your kids in their eyes, you start to feel quite cold every day.
“If you have a visit and someone cuddles you, it’s the warmest feeling you can ever imagine, it’s like an electric blanket around you.”
Reading stories for his children brought some of that warmth back into his life.
“It’s massively important for someone who wants to be rehabilitated,” Lewis says.
Sharon Berry, the founder of Storybook Dads, soon noticed inmates’ need for these warm feelings when she started visiting prisons.
She had studied radio production as a mature student and dreamed of writing radio plays. As she worked towards that ambition, she took some work volunteering one day per week at Channing Wood prison, helping it to set up a radio station. She was surprised by what male prisoners would talk to her about when given the chance.
They opened up about the pain of missing their children, the guilt of missing milestones like birthdays, toddlers’ first steps or first days at school.
She saw phone calls home that ended in tears as prisoners found out about the family life that was passing them by.
This was how the idea of Storybook Dads came to her: it would be a way for prisoners to maintain family ties, while gaining media production skills that might help them rebuild their lives once outside prison, reducing the risk that they would offend again.
Image copyright Storybook Dads
Image caption
Sharon Berry records a story with a prisoner
She set up her charity in 2003 in Dartmoor prison. The first room they were allocated as a recording studio was an empty prison cell.
Sixteen years later, about 100 prisons work with the charity, generating between 5,000 and 6,000 stories a year. (The charity also works with some female prisons, under the name Storybook Mums.)
Behind their tough facades, many prisoners struggled to make their recordings, Sharon noticed.
“It’s a macho environment on the wing, you can’t show any weakness. By contrast, our studio space is nurturing and supportive – they get in touch with that dad side of themselves. Shedding that macho image for a brief period of time made them feel vulnerable.”
She saw many prisoners break down as they tried to record short personal messages to introduce their stories.
Find out more
Listen to Lewis Hardy talking about his experience of reading children’s books in prison in this report from Outlook on the BBC World Service
But there was something else the prisoners seemed to struggle with.
Some prisoners would be sweating by the time they finished reading Hansel and Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood, and Sharon thinks she knows why.
“It’s daunting for these young men,” she says. “Very often they weren’t read to as children themselves, so this was new to them. They come in to the little studio to read Goldilocks and they’re embarrassed, they don’t know how to do it, and a big part of it is helping them to relax.”
Lewis, who learned to edit the recordings made by other prisoners as well as recording his own, agrees that some prisoners struggle with the act of reading. Some may also have had very little contact with their children, he adds.
The only time he personally felt stressed came when he was filming DVDs, using children’s puppets as props.
“You had the other prisoners watching you perform the story. You see, prison pulls you back to that old mentality from school. ‘Will these people take the mickey out of me afterwards?’ Men can be immature.”
Image copyright Storybook Dads
Image caption
A prisoner records a DVD while reading a story for his family
However, many prisoners find that the positive impact of their stories gives them the confidence to do more, Sharon says.
Prisoners would hear that their children were so proud of the stories that they took the recordings to school to show their friends. They couldn’t wait for the sequel.
“It showed the children that they are loved and not abandoned,” says Sharon.
More than five years after leaving prison, Lewis has not re-offended.
He has returned to his job as a fencer and branched out into property care services. Occasional periods of work with Storybook Dads have helped him through periods when work has been scarce.
He has given up drinking and welcomed a third son into the world last year.
Image copyright Trevor Burrows
Image caption
Lewis Hardy coaching at a local gym
He also took up boxing at an amateur gym to channel his aggression, though problems with his hip have pushed him into coaching instead.
Reading with his children remains one of his favourite activities.
With his elder son he is working his way through the Harry Potter collection. They haven’t reached the sections about the prison of Azkaban yet, he says. But when they do, he plans to use it as a “shock tactic”, a way to start conversations that will steer his son away from the life he was tempted to go down.
“I will tell him the truth about prison, how horrible it is,” says Lewis.
And he will also tell him how it was the joy of reading that helped him to re-write the plot of his life.
Gaby Eirew suffered two big bereavements in the space of a month. The experience impelled her to find a way of prompting parents to record video messages for their children. It also helped her to heal a deep wound in her personal family history.
More than £140m worth of Asian gold jewellery has been stolen in the UK over the past five years, a BBC investigation has found.
Gold jewellery is often bought as a wedding gift in British Asian families and passed down through generations.
Out of 23 police forces that provided figures, Greater London had the highest value stolen – £115.6m, followed by £9.6m in Greater Manchester.
Nearly 28,000 thefts of Asian gold have been recorded in the UK since 2013.
A BBC Freedom of Information request to the 45 police forces in the UK revealed that £141.3m worth of so-called Asian gold had been recorded as stolen since 2013 in England – the forces in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland didn’t provide data.
But Aaron Duggan, head of crime at Cheshire Police, said one of the challenges they face is that gold can be disposed of easily.
He added: “At second-hand outlets, certainly around Asian jewellery, questions should be asked – ‘who is this person in front of me selling this gold?’
“The irony is it’s often harder in this country to sell scrap metal than it is second-hand jewellery.”
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Jeweller Sanjay Kumar says people need to think carefully about storage
Sanjay Kumar, who specialises in selling Asian gold in Southall, west London, said the jewellery has cultural significance.
“People are told by their parents and grandparents ‘you must buy gold – it’s an investment, it’s lucky'”, he said. “It’s something that we as Asians do, so people are following the tradition and the culture.”
He added that he advises his customers to think carefully about how they store it and to make sure that it is insured.
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