Constance Kampfner

England fans have brought the weather as well as the vibes to Basel today

Lots are telling me soggy conditions are no bad thing against our Mediterranean rivals!

Let’s hope they’re right 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🤞 #cominghome

Briton sued over £330m ‘crypto Ponzi scheme’ A former pub landlord who bragged of Banksy and supercar collections told investors he had a heart attack days before a deadline to repay their cash

Investigation: A British property developer is being sued over a £330m ‘crypto Ponzi scheme’

Peter McInnes, who bragged of Banksy and supercar collections, told investors he had a heart attack days before a deadline to repay their cash

www.thetimes.com/article/27b5...

Utterly delightful line in this story by @constancekampfner.bsky.social

www.thetimes.com/uk/history/a...

"HORROR AT LIVERPOOL PARADE"
Full Story: t.ly/IByUA

@constancekampfner.bsky.social / @stevenswinford.bsky.social / @willisbennett11.bsky.social / #PaulJoyce / #DuncanGardham for @thetimes.com.

Car drives through #LiverpoolFC's victory parade celebration.

#TheTimes
#IBPAPERS
#TomorrowsPapersToday

How the Sycamore Gap killers were caught

🗣️ 'A moronic mission to cause mindless vandalism'

Everything you need to know about the Sycamore Gap trial, on The Story podcast ⬇️

🎧 @constancekampfner.bsky.social | @jonesluke.bsky.social

Magic Circle welcomes back woman expelled for the ultimate deception Sophie Lloyd was ejected from the society of illusionists for duping them into believing she was a man — its first female chair convinced her to come back

NEW: The woman thrown out of the Magic Circle for pulling off the ultimate illusion, disguising herself as a boy, has been found after The Times sparked a campaign to track her down

Sophie Lloyd was readmitted to the club

“A wrong was made right," she said

www.thetimes.com/article/456c...

One twin votes for Reform, the other is vegan, gay and a Green voter How did two brothers end up with completely different views — and stay close? Constance Kampfner finds out

Spending the day with Sam and Archie - who couldn't see eye to eye on what to have for lunch, let alone anything else - was an interesting lesson on the art of disagreement

For today's T2:

www.thetimes.com/life-style/s...

Southport survivors’ parents: We don’t feel lucky Seven months after their daughters were injured in the attack, a family speaks for the first time about the day that shattered their world

I have no words for the bravery of the parents who spoke to me about the pain and trauma their family has faced since their two little girls were stabbed in the Southport attacks

This is their story: www.thetimes.com/article/eaff...

This has been the toughest day of reporting I've ever done, with so many grim details of these poor little girls' murders read out in court and the myriad ways their killer should have been stopped. The composure of the families in the face of it all was awe-inspiring.

Thugs target victim of Axel Rudakubana for ‘sending him off the rails’ The family has been forced to call police after people turned up at their home and wrongly claimed that the pupil had bullied the Southport attacker at school

Exc: A boy who was assaulted by Axel Rudakubana is being wrongly accused of bullying him and his home targeted by people blaming him for the horrific attacks in Southport

Another instance of how misinformation is channelling anger onto the wrong people

www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/art...

Axel Rudakubana: from class clown to killer As the 18-year-old pleads guilty to the Southport attacks, The Times can reveal he was expelled from school — then returned with a hockey stick to target children

My profile of Axel Rudakubana reveals:

- His years as a troublemaker at school who made female students uncomfortable
- Details of a previous attack
- His family's traumatic experience of the Rwandan genocide

Thank you to everyone who spoke to me for this piece

www.thetimes.com/article/7738...

Mike Amesbury wanted to be a minister. Now he’s a criminal Labour insiders say the MP, who has pleaded guilty to punching a constituent, was in a ‘dark place’ after missing out on a government job

Labour insiders said Mike Amesbury, who has pleaded guilty to punching a constituent, was in a ‘dark place’ after missing out on a government job

Story with @geraldinescott.co.uk

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

‘Ryan Wellings killed me,’ she wrote. But the jury disagreed Kiena Dawes died by suicide after a long campaign of domestic violence at the hands of her fiancé. Now he has been cleared of manslaughter in a historic case

Was the horrific abuse Kiena Dawes suffered at the hands of her fiancé before she killed herself enough to convict him of manslaughter?

Not according to a jury

Yet experts told me the case highlights the often overlooked link between domestic abuse and suicide

👇

www.thetimes.com/article/6e53...

Nigeria's fertility scam: ‘Pregnant’ for 15 months Women in Nigeria desperate to conceive are drawn into a disturbing scam involving trafficked babies.

This is an incredible - and disturbing - piece of reporting by the Africa Eye team: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Revealed: the post-court lunches and jokes shared by Pelicot accused Dozens of men accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot have descended upon the medieval French city for the trial. Residents find their presence deeply unsettling

There is nothing special about the group of men who can often be found sipping pints outside a brasserie in Avignon.

Yet they are actually co-defendants in France’s largest ever rape trial.

My dispatch from the Pelicot case:

www.thetimes.com/article/1f03...

Reform MP James McMurdock was jailed for repeatedly kicking girlfriend The MP had told the media he had been jailed for ‘pushing’ former partner in 2006, when the court records say he repeatedly kicked her on a night out

Reform MP James McMurdock was jailed for repeatedly kicking his girlfriend.

He had told the media he was jailed for "pushing" his former partner in 2006.

Court records obtained by The Times say the sentence was given because of "the serious nature of the offence”.

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Shocking detail this PM

Even after he'd been caught upskirting women in 2020 and knew police were onto him, D Pelicot continued to invite men to rape his wife because he felt he had to "honour" the rendez-vous

"I knew I was a dead man walking anyway so I went ahead"

Gasps and sounds of disgust

This morning Gisele Pelicot was asked why she hasn't dropped her last name

She replied that she didn't want her family to be "ashamed" of who they were

"I don't want my grandchildren to feel shame," she said.

"We will remember Madame Pelicot and not Monsieur Pelicot."

“A rape is a rape” draped on the walls of Avignon

I’m here covering the Pelicot trial as it enters its final weeks

Today Gisele Pelicot accused the dozens of men who are accused of raping her while she was unconscious of “cowardice”

Many claim they were tricked by her ex-husband

It's a work in progress but here's a starter pack of regional journalists in the UK, including national reporters working outside of London...
go.bsky.app/9BotfQs

Constance Kampfner - Constance is one of our most talented young journalists who now works as our northern correspondent. She did heroic work covering this summer’s riots. bsky.app/profile/cons...

And @willhumphries.bsky.social 🙏

Follow some of my excellent colleagues at @thetimes.com go.bsky.app/NqDPCtV

Among the reasons for quitting X says the Centre for Countering Hate is that from 15 November X is changing its terms of service to require all legal disputes to be settled according to the laws of Texas. That's tomorrow.

That's it for now! A bit of a random selection but hopefully gives a sense of the sorts of things I'm interested in covering

Always on the lookout for new, quirky stories so drop me an email or a DM if you'd like to chat

Teenagers, drunks and men who saw red — the rioters in court From a 13-year-old boy to a 69-year-old man, the courts have heard the stories of those who took part in the riots

After a grim few days covering the Southport stabbings and riots, I spent a week in court watching as lost men and boys as young as 12 got sent down for their part in the violence

What led them there?

www.thetimes.com/uk/law/artic...

How Nigel Farage became an MP for the first time — on his eighth attempt Reform aides celebrate ‘revolt against establishment’ after winning Clacton and three other seats

I spent a lot of time in windswept Clacton during the general election

This was my profile of its new MP, on the night he finally got lucky

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Older victims ‘overlooked’ as domestic abuse cases increase Older women are being failed as domestic abuse crimes against the over-60s increase sharply but society refuses to consider them victims, campaigners say

An investigation into the often overlooked domestic abuse of older women, which wasn't even counted in official statistics until 2020

Dame Esther Rantzen told us it was one of the “big forgotten crimes”

www.thetimes.com/article/olde...

Crucifixes rise across France in message that ‘this is a Christian country’ Balanced on a tractor fork, the crucified Christ rises. Those gathered to watch sing hymns, gazing up at a five-metre cross towering above them as it is lowered

Another one from France where I tracked the rise of a group of young Catholics restoring crucifixes across the country and asked what they could tell us about the religious hard-right

www.thetimes.com/article/cruc...

Contraceptive underpants are a codpiece de resistance In a bar in the south of France, a group of young men drink beer and frown occasionally as they battle tangled thread and jammed sewing machines. From time to time they compare progress on the underwe...

Reporting from a workshop in Toulouse where men were learning how to make DIY contraceptive underwear that would make them, temporarily, infertile

Also found out that thanks to Napoleon vasectomies were banned in France until 2001!

www.thetimes.com/article/cont...