A son is hit and killed by car

 
Pic: Aaron Matharu
Staff reporter(wp/es):
A father watched helplessly from his bedroom window as his “angelic” son was hit and killed by a car as he crossed the road outside his home.
Aaron Matharu, 11, was thrown several metres into the air on a pedestrian crossing in Hounslow after he was struck by a black Volkswagen Polo as he walked home.
His father Kuli Matharu, 41, said he rushed outside after seeing the crash from an upstairs window overlooking the busy junction.
He said: “I ran out screaming, ‘That’s my son’. When I got there two people were trying to resuscitate him. My son was just going on an innocent trip to the shops and he was killed.”
Aaron, who had started at Cranford Community College three weeks ago, had just stepped off a traffic island in Bath Road, Cranford, when he was struck at 5.45pm on Friday.
 Passers-by fought to save his life using CPR before an ambulance crew arrived but he died later in hospital.

Mr Matharu, a delivery driver, said: “The whole community knows he was a lovely boy, he’s going to be missed. Every day when I wake up in my bedroom and open the curtains I’m going to see where my son died. Every time I go to work I have to drive past the spot where my son was killed.
“He had just started big school three weeks ago, he was so excited. Aaron was everyone’s friend, all the shopkeepers knew him, he was a popular kid. He was never naughty, he never did silly things, he was so sensible.”
Mr Matharu said he had complained to police several times about the junction, where there are two or three accidents a month, and had been told its layout was being reviewed.
He said: “It’s too late for me, my son has gone. I have a younger son who is staying at my sister-in-law’s. I’m trying to work out a way to tell him his brother is dead. How am I going to tell him? He’s not even five years old.”
Navjoyt Sehmi, Aaron’s aunt, said her nephew was “loved by everyone”, as she laid flowers at the spot where he was killed.
She said: “Aaron gave so much love and in such a short space of time he has given us the best memories ever.
"He was a kind and gentle soul. He was never naughty, we never had to tell him off ever. He was so loving and warm he was an absolute angel. He was too pure and too innocent for this world.”
In a Facebook tribute, Hina Malike, Aaron’s teacher, said: “My thoughts and prayers are with his mum and the family at this difficult times and pray for them to have the strength to cope with this irreplaceable loss.
“As a teacher I will always remember you as a caring, loving student who was keen to help others. Aaron, you will be missed by all of us. May your angelic soul RIP.”
After the accident, the driver was taken to hospital suffering from trauma. He has not been arrested.

Tories hope to free the City from EU

Political reporter(wp/es):
Ministers are moving towards a clear break from EU rules for the City, to protect it from damaging diktats from Brussels, the Standard reveals today.
They are increasingly wary of the dangers of the impact on the Square Mile of Britain being “law takers rather than law makers”.
This situation could leave the UK’s dominant financial sector at the mercy of backroom deals struck in Brussels — without Britain having a say — and secretly aimed at forcing banks to shift more of their business from London to Paris and Frankfurt.
Immediately after the June 23 vote, many City figures stressed how vital it was to achieve a “soft Brexit”.

They believed that preserving single market “passporting” rights was key to ensuring that financial firms would continue to be able to trade in the EU without barriers after Britain leaves the union.
However, a growing number in the Square Mile have more recently spoken out in favour of a “hard Brexit”, with a more drastic severing of ties with the European Union in order to ensure that Britain can decide its own financial rules and regulations.
Ministers believe it is too simplistic to boil down the decision to a “hard” or “soft” Brexit.
A senior source said that for different industrial sectors in Britain there was likely to be a different optimal outcome in the negotiations which will start after Theresa May triggers Article 50 next spring.

However, there is a growing belief in the Government that the risks for the City in giving up “control” over regulations outweigh the benefits of the “access” that would be guaranteed from doing so.
Instead of making concessions to cling on to single market “passporting”, a system based on a type of “equivalence” is gaining traction in senior government circles as a way of putting Britain in charge of laws governing the Square Mile while maintaining good access to EU markets.

“Unless exemptions can be agreed, the problem with single market passporting is that the UK would not have sovereign power over its financial regulation law, and part of a single market deal involves accepting the free movement of people,” said Lord Flight, a City veteran and former shadow Treasury minister.
He argued that a deal could see the UK ensuring “adequate equivalence”, which could mean abiding by overall agreed high standards rather than implementing every EU regulation.
Remaining in the EU customs union is also seen as difficult, given how it would hamper Britain’s bid to strike new trade deals around the globe after Brexit.
Mayor Sadiq Khan will meet Theresa May this week to urge her to press on with her plans for Brexit.

He also demanded today that she reconsider her decision to rule out London having a seat at the negotiating table. “Failure to have London round the table would put our world-leading financial service, tech and creative sectors at serious risk,” he said.
Different approaches during the Brexit talks could be taken for other sectors of the economy. Seeking to maintain very close ties to the EU could be in the best interests of car manufacturers, such as Nissan, which has a giant plant in Sunderland.
However, France and other EU car manufacturing nations will inevitably seek to lure more production across the Channel.
EU leaders may be reluctant to agree to a “pick-and-mix” Brexit pact. If one is not achieved, Britain could fall back on World Trade Organisation rules, but this is not being seen as a positive outcome in many corners of Whitehall.

Elephant and Castle Tube passengers stuck in a lift for 90 minutes

Staff reporter(wp/es):
More than 20 people were trapped in a packed Tube station lift for an hour and a half on Sunday night after the emergency door failed to open.
Marusca Cirulli, who was one of the passengers locked in, has described her terror and called the lift “a mortal trap and tragedy waiting to happen”.
One of the passengers, a little girl, had to urinate in a plastic bag while another woman suffered a panic attack, she said.
The lift, at Elephant and Castle Tube station, cut out just before it reached the ground on the Tube level on Sunday evening.

“There was some kind of bump,” Ms Cirulli, from Eltham, told the Standard as she described the moment the lift broke at around 6pm.
Staff arrived and tried to open the emergency door on the side of the lift – but it was completely jammed.
“Their emergency door did not open as it was faulty and stuck,” she said.

“The lift was about two metres by two metres, it was quite packed in there and everybody was standing.
“It was stressful, one girl started to cry and had a panic attack. There was a doctor in the lift with us and they tried to calm her down. The rest of us, we got agitated.”
London Fire Brigade were called and at around 7.30pm the lift was fixed, freeing the anxious Tube passengers and allowing them to continue their journey.
But 41-year-old Ms Cirulli said she is worried about the condition of the lifts because of the emergency exit’s failure to open.

“It is obvious that they do not regularly care of maintaining the emergency exit,” she said.
“That lift is a mortal trap and a tragedy waiting to happen.
“If there would have been a fire or any other issue on the outside, we would have died like rats as nobody was able to free us.”
Another woman who was one of the 21 trapped, Emma Parker, said on Twitter: “It took an hour and 20 minutes and the ‘emergency door’ wouldn’t open. Bloody useless.” 

The London Ambulance Service’s HART team said: “Tonight we attended a faulty lift full of people at Elephant and Castle.”
 They said all passengers were safe and well.