HERE we continue our review of 2019, looking at what went on between July and September.

JULY

HATE CRIME ON THE RISE

Oxford Mail:

Reports of hate crime in the Thames Valley dramatically increased in the past year, according to ‘devastating’ new data published by South Oxfordshire District Council in July.

Racist, homophobic and disability-related offences rose by between 46 and 77 per cent, with transphobic crime also rocketing between April 2018 and March 2019.

SHOPLIFTERS ARE GETTING AWAY WITH IT

Police are now attending less than half of all shoplifting reports in Oxford as petty crime increasingly goes under the radar.

But the lack of officer attention has not resulted in a dramatic rise in offences, according to new figures obtained via Freedom of Information requests.

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The number of instances of shoplifting in Oxford over the past few years has in fact gone down, with experts saying thieves no longer see it as worth the risk.

LEARNING ENGLISH

Oxford Mail:

English lessons for refugees in Oxford are so patchy that a woman was forced to give birth in a bathroom after being unable to call 999.

Nuha Abdo, of the Syrian Sisters Community Group, made her warning to Oxford City Council, saying ‘the consequences of not receiving enough English language lessons are real and serious.’

Government guidelines state that refugees should receive eight hours of English lessons a week, but Mrs Abdo told councillors she knew no one who was getting that.

AUGUST

BARBARITY ON OUR DOORSTEP

Reported cases of female genital mutilation could be the ‘tip of the iceberg’.

Data released by NHS Digital shows there were up to seven newly reported cases in the county between April 2018 and March this year, roughly the same as in the previous 12 months.

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FGM has been a criminal offence in the UK for 34 years, and in 2003 it also became a criminal offence for UK nationals or permanent UK residents to take their child abroad to have female genital mutilation.

PATIENTS SLEEP IN HOSPITAL CORRIDOR

Oxford Mail:

‘Disturbing’ figures revealed Oxford’s hospitals are at breaking point, with corridors having to be turned into temporary wards to keep up with increasing demand.

The latest internal performance report for Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust shows the John Radcliffe, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and Churchill Hospital, as well as Banbury’s Horton General, were all operating at or near 100 per cent bed occupancy throughout April and May.

One Faringdon man, who asked not to be named, said his 71-year-old father was left in a corridor in the emergency assessment unit at the JR for several hours one night in March.

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COCAINE DEMAND

Oxford Mail:

An Oxfordshire drug dealer has said that demand for Class-A substances in the county soared to ‘unbelievable’ levels.

The cocaine seller said students in Oxford are ‘ready to sniff anything’, but he was also increasingly selling to people from every walk of life, from waiters to businessmen.

He also warned that with demand booming and police cracking down on networks, drugs are increasingly being bulked out with building plaster, cement powder and even finely crushed lightbulb class.

SEPTEMBER

BLENHEIM TOILET HEIST

Oxford Mail:

Blenheim Palace has no regrets about staging an international art show despite the theft of its most famous piece – an 18-carat gold toilet worth almost £5m.

Thames Valley Police were called to the stately home in Woodstock on Saturday after reports of an early morning burglary.

CLIMATE STRIKES

Oxford Mail:

Five thousand people, including children and teenagers, took to the streets of Oxford to protest for action on climate change.

The young demonstrators skipped school and gathered at Broad Street with their parents, bringing banners demanding action for the future of the planet.