PETITION STARTED BY LEAH’S PARENTS - please sign and share 🙏 Our daughter Leah Croucher went missing on 15 February 2019, walking to work. Her body was found three and a half years later, in the loft of a house half a mile from our family home. The man who killed her, Neil Maxwell, was a convicted sex offender with a history of serious offending going back to 1998. Months before Leah disappeared, he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman and was sentenced to a Community Order, not prison. The Probation Service wrongly classified him as medium risk instead of high risk. He then missed a number of Probation appointments, and a police officer raised concerns about his lack of communication just weeks before Leah went missing. He evaded arrest for six months. During that time, he murdered Leah and took his own life. The Coroner ruled that Leah was unlawfully killed, and that failures by the Police and Probation Service in monitoring Maxwell "may have played a part" in her death. That's why we, Leah's parents, are calling for Leah's Law: a mandatory minimum prison sentence for anyone convicted of a third sexual offence.  Mandatory minimums already exist for domestic burglary and Class A drug trafficking. There's no justifiable reason sexual offending should be treated more leniently. By a third conviction, it is self-evident that the offender has not been sufficiently deterred from further offending. Where a case falls below that threshold, we are calling for a District Judge to oversee sentencing in all repeat sexual offence cases, so a decision like the one that let Maxwell walk free can never be made again. This would have ensured he had no opportunity to kill Leah, and that the risk he presented on his release would have been vastly reduced. Sign for Leah, and for every family this could still protect. change.org/p/leah-s-law-mand…

A few of us outside Winchester Crown Court this morning to show support for Joanne Young. #ShameMustChangeSides #ADruggedWomanNeverConsents

“LGBTQ+ people are being targeted. Our rights, our identities and our existence are being debated and attacked.” These are the words of a senior legal counsel at Sky, who co-chairs its LGBTQ+ staff group. According to The Sunday Times, an internal video also attacked “extraordinarily well-funded bigots” campaigning to exclude trans people from sport and shared spaces. Presumably that includes women campaigning for single-sex spaces and fair sporting categories? Gender-critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act. So what message does this send to Sky employees who hold those beliefs? And what does it tell us about the culture inside one of Britain's biggest news broadcasters? Read below 👇

So this chap who wants to ‘give transphobes a fright’ at Halloween parkruns has been emailing parkrun event teams to promote his campaign. He opens by asserting that @sharrond62 and @wsusportsunion are ‘sueing parkrun because they want to make the event less inclusive.’ That is incorrect. What they want - as do many others - is for parkrun to stop allowing males to run in the female category. He also asks event teams to add his new club to their club affiliations and promote it on their socials! Meanwhile, he’s actively trying to drum up support in Facebook and Reddit groups - based on false information. And is now started to gain some traction. I like to think no event teams would be silly enough to get involved. But I’ve met event directors - and other volunteers - who have been totally ‘captured’ by gender ideology. Some think running Pride-themed events and flying the ‘Progress Pride’ flag is perfectly acceptable, seemingly unaware - or unconcerned - that it represents contested political and ideological positions that may make some participants deeply uncomfortable. This new group has apparently been set up in ‘opposition’ to @RRRunnersUK whose members peacefully protest parkrun’s policy by turning up in club T-shirts to run, walk or volunteer. Their rules explicitly state that they won’t approach anyone or discuss the club unless asked. Contrast this with a group putting out what I personally feel is a rather ‘menacing’ statement about giving ‘transphobes a fright’ at Halloween parkruns. And let’s be honest … they’re talking about women. Because it’s predominantly women campaigning for fairness in women’s sport. I’ve seen how hostile some trans activists can be towards women who challenge gender ideology. So I genuinely worry this could put women at risk - and cause disruption at events. I sincerely hope parkrun will intervene. For me, this crosses the line between peaceful protest and political campaigning. I love parkrun. I’ve been involved for 13 years and currently give up around 20 hours a month volunteering for an organisation which has a policy I believe discriminates against women. But if this isn’t dealt with appropriately, I’ll be seriously considering whether I can continue to volunteer my time as an event director.

The parliamentary committee on the draft Conversion Practices Bill has issued its call for evidence. Read our briefing on who is at risk from criminalisation by this legislation and start thinking about responding. sex-matters.org/posts/update…

The time for talk has long passed. This government is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to supporting women and girls. We'll back practical action to confine misogyny to the history books - in public services, workplaces, and online. theguardian.com/society/2026…