Justin Welby became Archbishop of Canterbury in February 2013
The Archbishop of Canterbury has announced he will step down from his role following a damning report into a prolific child abuser associated with the Church of England.
It emerged last week Justin Welby, 68, failed to act on reports of John Smyth's "abhorrent" abuse of boys and young men and "several opportunities were missed" to report the abuse to police.
In a statement Mr Welby said: "Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty The King, I have decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury."
He added that "it is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility" for his role in the response to the abuse.
"I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church," he said.
"As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse."
He said over in the days since the report into Smyth's abuse was published, he had felt a "profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England".
"I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church," he added.
The archbishop had faced mounting pressure to resign after it emerged that he had failed to act on reports of Smyth's abuse of more than 100 boys and young men.
The report by Keith Makin described Smyth's "clearly sexually motivated, sadistic regime" of beatings during the 1970s and 1980s.
He singled out boys attending Christian camps and in sessions at leading public schools, including Winchester College, before taking them to his home and beating them with a garden cane in his shed.
Some of the victims had to wear adult nappies because of the bleeding they had suffered.
Smyth was able to travel to Zimbabwe and South Africa, where he is alleged to have continued his abuse.
He was a prominent barrister as well as a lay preacher - a member of the congregation who delivers sermons but is not ordained - and he died in 2018.
Justin Welby has resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury after facing increasing pressure to stand down over his failure to report prolific child abuser John Smyth.
Here are the events that led up to Mr Welby's resignation after 11 years in the post.
Why did Welby resign now?
A damning independent review published last week found Mr Welby - the most senior bishop within the Church of England - and other church officers should have formally reported Smyth in 2013 to police in the UK and authorities in South Africa.
Smyth was accused of attacking dozens of boys, including those he met at Christian camps, in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s.
The barrister and senior member of a Christian charity then moved to Zimbabwe and later South Africa, where he abused up to 100 boys aged 13 to 17, the Makin review added.
By 2013, the Church of England "knew, at the highest level" about Smyth's abuse, including Mr Welby who took up the Church's top job that year.
If he and other Church officers had reported this to police in the UK and authorities in South Africa at that time, “John Smyth could have [been] brought to justice at a much earlier point”, the independent report said.
Mr Welby had previously resisted calls to step aside over his response to the case since 2013.
But amid mounting pressure, he said in a statement on Tuesday he must take "personal and institutional responsibility".
Smyth's abuse was first reported to the charity Iwerne Trust, where he had been chairman, in the early 1980s.
A report detailing his "horrific" beatings of teenaged boys was presented to some Church leaders in 1982. But the recipients of that report "participated in an active cover-up" to prevent its findings, including that crimes had been committed, coming to light, the Makin review said.
Smyth's abuse in the UK re-emerged in 2012, when a church officer in Cambridgeshire received a letter “out of the blue” from a fellow survivor.
The review stated that five police forces were told of the abuse between 2013 and 2016. Church leaders however did not lodge a formal report.
It was not until 2017, after a Channel 4 documentary revealed details about Smyth's abuse to the public, that police launched a full investigation.
Smyth is believed to have continued his abuse in South Africa until his death in 2018.
How much did Welby know about Smyth?
Mr Welby worked at summer camps in Dorset where Smyth met some of his victims, but the archbishop said he was unaware of the nature of the allegations until 2013.
A member of the clergy warned Mr Welby about Smyth in the 1980s, but the archbishop told the review this had been "vague" and "there was no indication given of the abuses which later came to light".
After the Channel 4 documentary was broadcast in 2017, Mr Welby apologised "unreservedly" to Smyth's victims but did not resign.
Following the Makin review this month, the archbishop said he had considered resigning over its findings and repeated his apology.
Mr Welby acknowledged that the review made clear he had "personally failed to ensure it was energetically investigated".
But on Tuesday, following a petition set up by members of the Church's parliament - the General Synod - and mounting pressure to go, Mr Welby resigned.
What did his critics say?
DIOCESE OF NEWCASTLE
Bishop Hartley said it was "hard to find the words" to respond to last week's report
Critics included Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley, who said Mr Welby's resignation would "be a very clear indication that a line has been drawn, and that we must move towards independence of safeguarding".
A survivor of Smyth's abuse also called for Mr Welby to go, saying that he felt the archbishop's admission that he had not done enough in response to the reports meant that both he and the Church of England had effectively been involved in a "cover-up".
The petition calling for his resignation, which accused the archbishop of "allowing abuse to continue" and said his position was "no longer tenable", was signed by more than 14,000 people.
Who will replace Welby and how are they chosen?
It is not known how long the archbishop will remain in post but the process of finding a replacement is likely to take at least six months.
A consultation, which is expected to last several months, will ask people in and outside the Church of England what they want from the next archbishop.
The information will help form the basis of a longlist of suitable candidates.
While candidates cannot apply for the role, those chosen to be interviewed do not have to be from the Church of England and they do not have to be bishops, although they are likely to be.
The candidates will then be interviewed by a committee, with a chair appointed by the prime minister.
Members will include representatives from around the global Anglican Communion, the General Synod, as well as at least one bishop.
At least two-thirds of the committee members must agree before a decision is made.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is also the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican community.
Watch: BBC China correspondent ordered to stop filming and pushed at car attack scene
The gates outside the Zhuhai sports complex in China were closed. Inside, the stadium was in darkness, as were the grounds around it.
It was here, hours before, where dozens of people were killed when a man drove an SUV into a crowd. Many more were injured.
Only security guards appeared to be moving around behind the fence when the BBC arrived, and they had been ordered to keep an eye out for reporters.
One approached us asking: "Are you journalists?" When I asked why he wanted to know, he replied: "Oh just to understand the situation."
He and a colleague took photos of us and started making calls, watching us as they did.
Outside the gates people passed by to catch sight of the aftermath. But among them was a group of around a dozen people more interested in us.
A women started calling to the others: "Look, foreigners, foreigners."
Soon a man who was with her was aggressively interrupting our reporting, grabbing me and shouting.
The BBC's China correspondent was grabbed and pushed by an unidentified man
Often, when sensitive stories like this unfold in China, local Communist Party officials organise groups of cadres to pretend to be outraged locals who have been given the role of targeting foreign reporters and preventing any coverage.
Invariably it doesn't stop the stories, it just makes China look bad.
After former Premier Li Keqiang died last year, crowds of these loyalists were sent to the street outside his old family home. Any journalist that arrived was surrounded and shouted at, pushed and abused.
Premier Li's death was sensitive to the party not only because it was sudden and unexpected - but also because he was the last of the old liberal wing. It signalled that the party was now completely stacked with loyalists of President Xi Jinping.
But even for much more minor incidents the same things happen.
Last month, we travelled to a shopping mall in Shanghai where a man had randomly stabbed strangers to death.
The entire location had been cleansed of any evidence within hours of this horrible event taking place. By the morning after, the mall was up and running again as normal: no police crime scene tape, no flowers for the dead.
On one level, you can understand this - many of these inexplicable assaults on the community are copycat in nature. Tuesday's attack is not an outlier, though it is shocking for its death toll.
But officials here sometimes want these bad things to simply go away as quickly as possible.
Hours after our confrontation outside the site of the Zhuhai attack, carloads of police had arrived to better manage the situation.
A crowd of residents had also gathered to light candles to remember the dead, and videos shared on social media showed lines of volunteers at hospitals offering to donate blood.
President Xi has called on officials to manage society's problems in order to prevent this type of thing happening again in the future.
But, again, China is left wondering what has driven someone to such inconceivable horror. It is impossibly difficult to find the answers to this one.
Reuters
Mourners paying tribute to the victims outside the Zhuhei Sports Centre on Tuesday night
More than 100 Post Office branches and hundreds of head office jobs are at risk as part of a radical shake-up of the business, the BBC understands.
Under the plan, 115 loss-making branches wholly owned by the Post Office could be closed.
The Post Office is looking at options including alternative franchise arrangements where another operator or third party could take on the branches instead.
These sites employ around 1,000 workers. In addition to this, hundreds of jobs are under threat at the group's headquarters.
The Post Office's new chairman Nigel Railton will brief staff on Wednesday on the outcome of a review launched earlier this year.
The former boss of Camelot was appointed interim chairman of the Post Office after his predecessor Henry Staunton was sacked in January.
The aim of the review is to put the Post Office on a firmer financial footing.
The troubled organisation is currently the subject of a long-running inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal, in which hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted after faulty software made it appear money was missing from their accounts.
Railton has already told the Post Office inquiry that a new deal was needed for sub-postmasters, to put them at the centre of the business.
The strategic review is designed to fundamentally change how the Post Office operates.
The business has 11,500 Post Offices across the UK, most of which are franchises.
Of this number, 115 are Crown Post Offices in city centres staffed by Post Office employees.
Earlier this month Post Office minister Gareth Thomas said the organisation was at a critical juncture and the government had already commissioned its own review into what the Post Office should look like in the future.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told the inquiry on Monday that he didn't feel sub-postmasters were getting appropriate pay for the amount of business they conduct.
He hinted that Post Office branches could step into filling the gap left by High Street bank branch closures.
Azerbaijan's president said countries should not be blamed for having oil, gas and other natural resources or bringing them to the market.
The president of COP29’s host country told the UN climate conference on Tuesday that oil and gas were a “gift of god”.
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev criticised “Western fake news” about the country's emissions and said nations “should not be blamed" for having fossil fuel reserves.
The country plans to expand gas production by up to a third over the next decade.
Shortly afterwards, UN chief António Guterres told the conference that doubling down on the use of fossil fuels was "absurd".
Its minister for ecology and natural resources - a former oil executive that spent 26 years at Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company Socar – is the conference's chairman.
But addressing the conference on its second day, President Aliyev said Azerbaijan had been subject to "slander and blackmail" ahead of COP29.
He said it had been as if “Western fake news media”, charities and politicians were “competing in spreading disinformation...about our country”.
Aliyev said the country’s share in global gas emissions was “only 0.1%”.
"Oil, gas, wind, sun, gold, silver, copper, all...are natural resources and countries should not be blamed for having them, and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market, because the market needs them."
Oil and gas are a major cause of climate change because they release planet-warming greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide when burned for energy.
EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decried “doubling down on fossil fuels”
The US is also under the spotlight at the conference, following the election victory of Donald Trump - a known climate sceptic.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden's envoy John Podesta called out president-elect Trump's view that climate change was a hoax and said the US team would continue to work on the deal passed at COP28 in 2023.
He added that Washington was also working on a deal passed last year in Dubai to triple renewable power by 2030.
Addressing the conference in Baku on Tuesday, UN Secretary General Guterres decried “doubling down on fossil fuels”.
"The sound you hear is the ticking clock," he said.
"We are in the final countdown to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and time is not on our side."
He called 2024 a “masterclass in climate destruction” with disasters being “supercharged by human-made climate change”.
Guterres said “a new finance goal” was needed, with wealthiest countries paying the most.
“They are the largest emitters, with the greatest capacities and responsibilities," he said. "Developing countries must not leave Baku empty-handed."
The Azerbaijani president's comments are unlikely to derail talks behind the scenes, which are largely about getting more cash for poorer countries to help implement their climate plans.
Developing nations are calling for richer countries to agree together on a fund that could add up to $1 trillion, using public and private money.
Leaders of most of the world's biggest polluterswere not present in Baku, including Biden, France’s leader Emmanuel Macron and India’s Narendra Modi.
The environment minister for Burkino Faso, a central African country among the poorest in the world, told the BBC that more cash was essential.
Roger Baro said it would help his nation deal with the current impacts of climate change in the country, which is experiencing widespread drought, flash floods and disease outbreaks.
The disasters occurred in the Sahel region, which saw temperatures of 45C this year in a heatwave that scientists said would have been impossible to reach without climate change.
Among other world leaders to take to the stage on Tuesday was Spain's prime minister, who called for "drastic measures" after floods killed more than 200 people in the country.
"We need to undergo decarbonisation, adapt our towns and infrastructure," said Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
COP29 is scheduled to last until 22 November, but there are already fears that the tricky issues on the table could make a final agreement very difficult.
Nik Ward, 53, suffers from MND and now uses a wheelchair and breathing apparatus
The question of whether terminally-ill people should have the right to end their lives is dividing MPs as they consider a proposed law to legalise assisted dying.
They would need to be satisfied that a patient's choice has been made without pressure or coercion.
But the debate has raised questions about how terminally-ill people could be safeguarded and coercion avoided - with criticism of the proposal coming from both Labour and Conservative politicians.
BBC News has spoken to two people who have terminal conditions, Elise Burns, who supports assisted dying, and Nik Ward, who hopes the bill does not pass.
Nik has motor neurone disease, and says he probably would have chosen assisted dying three years ago if it had been legal.
The 53-year-old has been told for the past five years that he is terminally ill and knows he could die tomorrow by choking on food or on his own saliva.
"I prided myself on my health and fitness," says Nik, who now uses a motorised wheelchair and breathing apparatus.
"Twenty years ago, if you were to say to me that I'd be in a wheelchair, I'd be like 'Nah mate, it's all right. I'd rather go.'"
Now Nik says his attitude to life - and death - has changed and he is grateful to have seen his children grow up. His eldest daughter is engaged to be married.
Under the proposed law, Nik is concerned that other people suffering terminal illnesses would choose an assisted death and miss out on the joys that more life could bring - even if they are less physically able.
The private members' bill was put forward by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater but the deeply sensitive nature of this issue has split politicians in all major parties.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has promised his party will be allowed to vote freely with their conscience.
Many people living with terminal illnesses have said the bill offers them hope that they may not have to experience a painful or prolonged death.
Elise Burns lives in constant pain due to terminal breast cancer that has spread to her bones, lungs and liver. She has been told she might have only two years to live.
Elise Burns, 50, lives in constant pain and wants the choice to end her life before it gets worse
The 50-year-old relies on two different forms of morphine and a high-strength co-codamol to manage the pain. Some days "they don’t touch the sides", leaving her barely able to move.
The pain is worst in her thigh, where she had a metal rod inserted after cancer rotted her femur.
Elise says the pain will only get worse as her body becomes more tolerant of painkillers – making them less effective.
"I'm not scared to die but I am scared of a bad death – a long, drawn-out, brutal, horrific death. That terrifies me."
There has been particular concern among critics of the bill about how people who have been left vulnerable by life-threatening illness will be safeguarded.
Some believe the existence of assisted dying legislation could create an implicit pressure on terminally-ill people - even if no-one is actively trying to coerce them.
Nik describes this possibility as a "very subtle but very insistent background noise".
He thinks people who may feel like a burden to their loved-ones might, for example, choose to "end their lives because they feel like they ought to for their children's sake".
"It's the people that are most thoughtful, most considerate – they're the very people that I'm worried about," he adds.
Nik worries other terminally ill people will feel driven to choose assisted dying if the bill passes
But Nik acknowledges that, though MND has robbed him of his active body, he is not enduring constant pain like Elise and some other terminally ill people.
"I fully respect their position," he says. "I'm living in a fairly privileged situation, in some senses."
Elise disagrees that the bill would coerce people into prematurely ending their lives, as this option would only be available to those with six months to live.
As a safeguard, the person's request to die would need to be approved by two doctors and a judge.
Elise accepts that those opposed to the bill have questions about the effectiveness of these safety measures, and the ethics of assisted dying.
"It's such a complex issue and I don't have all the answers. What I would say is that everyone should have the choice to do what they wish with their bodies."
Elise says she will likely be dead before the bill becomes law, if it passes, but hopes it could help others
Elise knows she will die soon but says having a choice about when this happens would bring her comfort and reassurance.
She believes it is likely that, if the bill is approved, it will come too late to help her.
Instead, she plans to use the assisted dying service offered by the Swiss firm Dignitas.
She says their process requires a lot of paperwork beforehand and will cost her between £12,000-£15,000.
She says she is fortunate enough to be able to afford the sum but that the high prices involved are another reason why the law should be changed – so that assisted dying is possible for every terminally-ill person who chooses it, not just those who can afford it.
If the bill does pass, Elise wishes she could "be there to see it".
Michael Buerk chairs a live debate on Radio 4 examining the moral and ethical dilemmas behind one of the most profound issues in politics with guests Giles Fraser, Mona Siddiqui, Matthew Taylor and Inaya Folarin-Iman.
Footage online showed several people lying on the ground
A car ploughed into a crowd outside a stadium in the Chinese city of Zhuhai on Monday evening, injuring multiple people, police have said.
The 62-year-old male driver, surnamed Fan, has been arrested.
Local reports estimate that at least 20 people, many of whom were struck while exercising at Zhuhai Sports Centre, were injured and have been sent to hospital.
The incident took place despite heightened security in the city, which is also hosting a major civil and military airshow.
Most videos of the incident posted by eyewitnesses have since been scrubbed off Chinese social media, but some footage still circulating online show many people lying on the ground and being attended to by paramedics and bystanders.
Some of the victims appear to be unconscious.
An eyewitness, Mr Chen, told Chinese news magazine Caixin that at least six groups of people had gathered at the stadium for their regular walks when the incident happened.
The groups use a designated walking path that traces the stadium's perimeter.
Mr Chen said his group had just completed its third lap around the stadium when a car suddenly charged towards them at a high speed, "knocking down many people".
“It drove in a loop, and people were hurt in all areas of the running track - east, south, west, and north," another eyewitness told Caixin.
The outlet reported that many elderly people, as well as teenagers and children, were among those injured.
It is unclear whether the incident was linked to the high-profile Zhuhai Airshow, which started on Tuesday at a venue just 40km (24 miles) away from the stadium. China is showcasing its latest warplanes and attack drones at the show, and top Russian official Sergei Shoigu is expected to attend.
Several entrances and exits to the sports centre have been closed during the airshow to facilitate "control", the centre's management said on Tuesday.
China has seen a spate of violent attacks on members of the public in recent months.
A video showing the father of Sara Sharif slapping his daughter less than 13 months before she died of multiple injuries has been shown to jurors.
In the home video filmed in July 2022 Urfan Sharif is seen sitting on a bed playing with a new born baby and Sara, who already has a mark on her cheek.
He slaps her and she continues smiling, then he slaps her three more times until she says “Hey!”
Mr Sharif, 42, along with Sara's stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, have denied both murder and causing or allowing her death of the ten-year-old at their trial at the Old Bailey.
Sara’s body was discovered in a bunkbed at her home in Woking, Surrey, on 10 August 2023.
Jurors previously heard she had been hooded, burned, bitten and beaten during more than two years of abuse.
The jury was told that the video was filmed two days after the baby was born.
Sara was smiling and had an mark on her cheek with cream on it. Ms Batool’s barrister Caroline Carberry KC said it was Sudocrem.
Sara was saying to the baby “Come to me” when her father slaps on the cheek with the mark on it.
She continues smiling, and her father slaps her at least three more times. At the end Sara says “Hey!”, and then the video stops.
Surrey Police
Urfan Sharif, Beinash Batool and Faisal Malik are each facing two charges relating to the death of Sara Sharif
Mr Sharif smiled as the video was played in court.
Ms Carberry KC asked: “Did you find that funny?”
He said: “I have not seen my daughter for a long time.”
Asked why he slapped his daughter he said: “This is not slap ma’am.”
“Why did you slap her face at all?” Ms Carberry KC asked.
“This not slap. You can she how happy she was with me.
“I was saying coochie, coochie, coochie.”
Ms Carberry said: “She didn’t even flinch at all because she’s so used to it."
The court also heard how Sara shouted at her father to “go away” during supervised contact when she was a toddler.
She shouted at Mr Sharif in 2015 when she was not living with him, according to notes from a social worker who observed the contact.
Mr Sharif told Ms Carberry KC that the social worker's notes were not true.
“She was not even talking at that time," he said.
"She started talking at the age of three.”
Surrey Police
Urfan Sharif, seen here when he was arrested at Gatwick Airport, said claims he threatened to kill former partners were "false allegations"
Ms Carberry KC also went through a list of allegations made against Mr Sharif - that he falsely imprisoned an 18-year-old woman, that he hit his first wife in the mouth and made it bleed, that he kicked her and threatened to kill her and swore all the time.
He denied all the allegations, saying the social worker records were false.
Ms Carberry KC said he also only attended four out of 10 sessions of a “parenting puzzle” course.
Mr Sharif agreed that when he met Ms Batool he was 32 or 33 and she was 20, and that it was a casual relationship at first.
Ms Carberry KC said Ms Batool was a “vulnerable young woman”, isolated from her family and struggling.
Mr Sharif said: “She is anything but vulnerable."
Ms Carberry KC asked him: “Do you remember cutting her clothes with scissors?”
"No ma’am," Mr Sharif said. “She’s a psycho. That is her thing.”
“She’s a psycho and is obsessed with cutting clothes.”
'As her own'
The court heard that he had told social services that they were “a perfect couple".
Guildford Family Court later ordered Mr Sharif to attend a Domestic Violence Perpetrator Programme.
He attended 10 out of the 16 sessions, the court heard.
The jury heard that in 2019 Sara was living with her mother Olga Sharif, but then made allegations of neglect and violence against her.
She said her mother was smoking cannabis, not feeding her, leaving her alone with another child and burning her with a lighter.
Mr Sharif recorded the allegations in a video.
This led to a court order that Sara should live with her father and his new wife, Ms Batool.
Caroline Carberry KC said: “She treated [her] as her own."
“That’s what I thought,” Mr Sharif replied.
“[She] seemed to love Beinash more than [she] loved you?” he was asked.
“That’s right ma’am,” he said.
The trial continues.
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The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has resigned.
Mr Welby faced mounting pressure to step down after it emerged last week that he did not follow up rigorously enough on reports of prolific child abuse associated with the Church.
Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty The King, I have decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Makin Review has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smyth.
When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow.
It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.
It is my duty to honour my constitutional and church responsibilities, so exact timings will be decided once a review of necessary obligations has been completed, including those in England and in the Anglican Communion.
I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church. As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse.
The last few days have renewed my long felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England. For nearly 12 years I have struggled to introduce improvements. It is for others to judge what has been done.
In the meantime, I will follow through on my commitment to meet victims. I will delegate all my other current responsibilities for safeguarding until the necessary risk assessment process is complete.
I ask everyone to keep my wife Caroline and my children in their prayers. They have been my most important support throughout my ministry, and I am eternally grateful for their sacrifice. Caroline led the spouses’ programme during the Lambeth Conference and has travelled tirelessly in areas of conflict supporting the most vulnerable, the women, and those who care for them locally.
I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honoured to serve. I pray that this decision points us back towards the love that Jesus Christ has for every one of us.
For above all else, my deepest commitment is to the person of Jesus Christ, my saviour and my God; the bearer of the sins and burdens of the world, and the hope of every person.
NatWest Group has blocked messaging services WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Skype on company devices to stop staff using them to communicate with each other.
The bank had already told employees to stick to "approved channels" for conversations about business matters.
But now it has gone further and made the platforms inaccessible on work phones and computers.
So-called off-channel communications are a persistent problem in both business and politics, with concerns that services such as WhatsApp are used to reduce the scrutiny some conversations can be subject to.
Messages can be difficult to retrieve or even set to disappear - whereas those sent via approved channels are fully retrievable, meaning they can be looked into if there is any suspected wrongdoing.
"Like many organisations, we only permit the use of approved channels for communicating about business matters, whether internally or externally," NatWest said in a statement.
It said the change came into effect earlier this month.
Banks in the US have been handed fines worth more than $2.8bn (£2.18bn) over the past few years over record-keeping rules - with workers unable to retrieve old messages from some messaging services.
JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup are among those to be issued with penalties.
It was reported in August that the UK banking regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), is considering a probe into how bank workers use messaging services.
It follows a fine issued by energy regulator Ofgem to Morgan Stanley over calls made on private phones over WhatsApp - breaching rules on record-keeping.
Outside of banking, there have been issues with staff using apps in the public sector, with questions surrounding how ministers have used WhatsApp for government business in recent years.
That included then-prime minister Boris Johnson, with then cabinet member Penny Mordaunt telling the inquiry that two years of messages with him had disappeared. Johnson told the inquiry he had lost around 5,000 messages.
Valencia is still recovering from the first "Dana" weather system at the end of October
Two weeks after flash floods caused devastation in eastern Spain, several areas of the country are on alert, with a new weather front expected to bring torrential rain and low temperatures.
Eastern and southern Mediterranean areas are again the most vulnerable, with Spain's meteorological agency Aemet placing parts of the Valencia, Catalonia and Andalusia regions, as well as the Balearic Islands, on orange alert from now until Thursday.
Aemet warns of rainfall and storms that could be “very strong to torrential”.
That orange alert is the second highest and it signals a significant meteorological event “with a degree of danger for normal activities”.
A military vehicle has been driving through towns using a megaphone to warn of the expected storms.
Precautions are being taken in many areas of Valencia, with school classes and sports activities suspended in some towns and sandbags piled up to protect the centre of the town of Aldaia.
However this second “Dana” weather system is not expected to be as dramatic as the red alert on 29 October, when the Valencia region in particular suffered an unprecedented loss of lives and material damage.
There were 222 confirmed deaths from the flooding in Spain last month, and 23 people are still missing.
Dana weather systems are formed when an area of low pressure gets "cut off" from the main flow of the jet stream. This means that instead of moving through a region relatively quickly, they get blocked over the same area leading to persistent rainfall for several days.
Colder air high in the atmosphere meets warmer air flowing in from the Mediterranean which intensifies the storm.
Spain to get more intense rain this week
Heavy rainfall has already hit some areas this week.
Parts of Almería province in Andalusia were flooded on Monday night, causing part of the A7 motorway to be closed temporarily.
Emergency services rescued three people after their cars were dragged by the flood waters to a bridge in the town of Vícar.
The Spanish weather agency has advised people in areas on orange alert to stay away from ravines and waterways, even though they may be dry, because of the risk that they become flooded.
The national traffic office (DGT) advised people in those areas to check the state of roads before using vehicles.
King Felipe VI was due to visit a military base at Bétera in Valencia on Tuesday where members of the armed forces are taking part in the ongoing search for missing people and the clean-up operation.
Mazón, in particular, has come under mounting pressure for his administration’s response on the day the flash floods struck.
Dana weather systems are not uncommon in Spain – they typically happen around 10 to 20 times a years in the western Mediterranean.
This second Dana in a matter of weeks is not considered either as extreme or slow-moving as the one that hit Valencia at the end of October.
However, the wettest places - especially around Malaga and Granada - could see around 180mm of rain falling this week – about two months’ worth of rainfall in a matter of days. Large hail and squally winds will also be a hazard.
The first significant snowfall of the season is expected to affect the Cantabrian mountains as well as the Sierra Morena mountains and the Central and Betic chains as colder air moves across the Peninsula.
Strong gusty winds will accompany the mountain snow too.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater says the UK's current law is not fit for purpose
Terminally ill adults who are expected to die within six months would be able to request assistance to end their own life under proposed legislation for England and Wales.
Under a bill published on Monday, two independent doctors would have to be satisfied someone is eligible and has made their decision voluntarily. Requests would also have to be approved by a High Court judge.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who has put forward the bill, said it includes "the strictest safeguards anywhere in the world".
However opponents of assisted dying have raised concerns that people could feel pressured into ending their lives.
MPs will take part in an initial debate and vote on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on 29 November.
It will be the first time since 2015 that the House of Commons has voted on the issue of assisted dying. Back then, MPs rejected proposals to allow some terminally ill adults to end their lives with medical supervision.
If the bill passes the first vote, it will receive further scrutiny from MPs and peers, who could choose to amend it.
A final version would require approval by both the House of Commons and Lords to become law.
The government has taken a neutral stance, allowing MPs to have a free vote on the matter - meaning they can make their own choice and do not have to follow the party line.
Current laws in the UK prevent people from asking for medical help to die.
The bill requires those who apply for assisted dying to:
Be over the age of 18, a resident in England and Wales and registered with a GP for at least 12 months
Have the mental capacity to make a choice about ending their life
Express a "clear, settled and informed" wish, free from coercion or pressure, at every stage of the process
There would have to be a period of at least seven days between two doctors making their assessments and another 14 days after the judge has made a ruling, unless the person's death is expected imminently.
The individual would be allowed to change their mind at any time and no doctors would be obliged to take part in the process.
If all the criteria and safeguards are met, the medication to end someone's life must be self-administered.
It would remain illegal for a doctor or anybody else to end a person's life.
Under the proposed legislation, it would also be illegal to pressure or coerce someone into making a declaration that they wish to end their life.
The offence would carry a sentence of up to 14 years in jail.
PA Media
Dame Esther Rantzen, who is terminally ill, has called for a change in the law
Campaigners supporting the bill, including broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen, argue terminally ill people should get a choice over how they die to avoid unnecessary suffering.
Leadbeater said the current law in the UK was "not fit for purpose" and was "leading to people having horrible deaths, taking their own lives, having to go to other countries if they can afford it".
She told the BBC she hoped MPs would be reassured by the bill's safeguards, adding: "What I would say to colleagues is, if you vote against the bill, or even if you abstain, you’re saying that the status quo is okay and it's not okay."
Groups who oppose changing the law say vulnerable people could feel under pressure to end their lives for fear of being a burden on others and that the focus should be on improving palliative care.
Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, said: "The safest law is the one we currently have."
"This bill is being rushed with indecent haste and ignores the deep-seated problems in the UK’s broken and patchy palliative care system," he added.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has said he will vote against the bill, is among those who has raised concerns, saying end-of-life care is currently not good enough to give people a real choice.
In response to such fears, Leadbeater said: "This is not about either improving palliative care or giving people the choice at the end of life that I believe they deserve.
"We have to do both, and they have to run in parallel."
The MP for Spen Valley said there would be "checks against coercion or pressure" at every stage, as well as a code of practice and "robust training" for doctors involved.
She added that if the bill did become law, there would also be a "period of implementation", which would most likely be up to two years.
MPs can now see the details and debate the contents of the bill before voting in a few weeks time about whether they agree with the proposals.
If enough of them vote yes, the bill will move to the committee stage for further scrutiny.
Further debates and votes in both the Commons and the Lords would be needed before it could become law, which would take years.
What would be allowed under the law?
The bill - called the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill - would make it legal for over-18s who are terminally ill to be given assistance to end their own life.
But there are requirements:
They must be resident of England and Wales and be registered with a GP for at least 12 months
They must have the mental capacity to make the choice and be deemed to have expressed a clear, settled and informed wish, free from coercion or pressure
They must be expected to die within six months
They must make two separate declarations, witnessed and signed, about their wish to die
Two independent doctors must be satisfied the person is eligible - and there must be at least seven days between the doctors’ assessments
A High Court judge must hear from at least one of the doctors and can also question the dying person, or anyone else they consider appropriate. There must be a further 14 days after the judge has made the ruling
As well as the list of requirements, the bill is also proposing safeguards.
It would make it illegal for someone to pressure, coerce or use dishonesty to get someone to make a declaration that they wish to end their life or to induce someone to self-administer an approved substance.
And if someone is found guilty of either of these actions, they could face a jail sentence of up to 14 years.
How would people end their life?
Under the bill, a doctor could prepare the substance, but the person themselves would take it themselves.
This is called physician-assisted suicide.
No doctor or anyone else would be allowed to administer the medication to the terminally ill person. Doctors would also not be under any obligation to take part in the assisted dying process.
Voluntary euthanasia is where a health professional administers the drugs to the patient.
Meanwhile, politicians in Jersey and the Isle of Man have already backed plans to introduce assisted dying and the process to bring in legislation is under way.
What about the rest of the world?
The US state Oregon, legalised assisted dying in 1997, for terminally ill adults with six months or less to live.
It is also legal in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, New Jersey, Vermont, Washington and Washington D.C. And some other states are considering legalising it.
Switzerland has allowed assisted suicide for adults since 1942 and its Dignitas facility began operating in 1998.
Assisted dying is legal in Canada for terminally ill adults, but the country has delayed an expansion to its medical assistance in dying programme for people who have a mental illness.
Some countries have made it legal for teenagers to take their own lives, in certain circumstances.
The Netherlands, for example, has legalised assisted suicide and euthanasia. Minors can request it starting at the age of 12, but need parental consent until they are 16.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater says the UK's current law is not fit for purpose
Terminally ill adults who are expected to die within six months would be able to request assistance to end their own life under proposed legislation for England and Wales.
Under a bill published on Monday, two independent doctors would have to be satisfied someone is eligible and has made their decision voluntarily. Requests would also have to be approved by a High Court judge.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who has put forward the bill, said it includes "the strictest safeguards anywhere in the world".
However opponents of assisted dying have raised concerns that people could feel pressured into ending their lives.
MPs will take part in an initial debate and vote on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on 29 November.
It will be the first time since 2015 that the House of Commons has voted on the issue of assisted dying. Back then, MPs rejected proposals to allow some terminally ill adults to end their lives with medical supervision.
If the bill passes the first vote, it will receive further scrutiny from MPs and peers, who could choose to amend it.
A final version would require approval by both the House of Commons and Lords to become law.
The government has taken a neutral stance, allowing MPs to have a free vote on the matter - meaning they can make their own choice and do not have to follow the party line.
Current laws in the UK prevent people from asking for medical help to die.
The bill requires those who apply for assisted dying to:
Be over the age of 18, a resident in England and Wales and registered with a GP for at least 12 months
Have the mental capacity to make a choice about ending their life
Express a "clear, settled and informed" wish, free from coercion or pressure, at every stage of the process
There would have to be a period of at least seven days between two doctors making their assessments and another 14 days after the judge has made a ruling, unless the person's death is expected imminently.
The individual would be allowed to change their mind at any time and no doctors would be obliged to take part in the process.
If all the criteria and safeguards are met, the medication to end someone's life must be self-administered.
It would remain illegal for a doctor or anybody else to end a person's life.
Under the proposed legislation, it would also be illegal to pressure or coerce someone into making a declaration that they wish to end their life.
The offence would carry a sentence of up to 14 years in jail.
PA Media
Dame Esther Rantzen, who is terminally ill, has called for a change in the law
Campaigners supporting the bill, including broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen, argue terminally ill people should get a choice over how they die to avoid unnecessary suffering.
Leadbeater said the current law in the UK was "not fit for purpose" and was "leading to people having horrible deaths, taking their own lives, having to go to other countries if they can afford it".
She told the BBC she hoped MPs would be reassured by the bill's safeguards, adding: "What I would say to colleagues is, if you vote against the bill, or even if you abstain, you’re saying that the status quo is okay and it's not okay."
Groups who oppose changing the law say vulnerable people could feel under pressure to end their lives for fear of being a burden on others and that the focus should be on improving palliative care.
Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, said: "The safest law is the one we currently have."
"This bill is being rushed with indecent haste and ignores the deep-seated problems in the UK’s broken and patchy palliative care system," he added.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has said he will vote against the bill, is among those who has raised concerns, saying end-of-life care is currently not good enough to give people a real choice.
In response to such fears, Leadbeater said: "This is not about either improving palliative care or giving people the choice at the end of life that I believe they deserve.
"We have to do both, and they have to run in parallel."
The MP for Spen Valley said there would be "checks against coercion or pressure" at every stage, as well as a code of practice and "robust training" for doctors involved.
She added that if the bill did become law, there would also be a "period of implementation", which would most likely be up to two years.
The incident, involving a pedestrian and a car, happened between junctions 24 for Bridgwater and 25 for Taunton at around 23:00 GMT on Monday
The M5 in Somerset is closed in both directions after a 17-year-old girl died in a collision.
Avon and Somerset Police said the incident, involving a pedestrian and a car, had happened between junctions 24 for Bridgwater and 25 for Taunton at around 23:00 GMT on Monday.
The force said the girl had died at the scene and her next of kin had been informed. No one else was injured in the collision.
National Highways said the road was expected to remain closed throughout Tuesday morning, while enquiries ware carried out.
Police said a mandatory referral had been made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct due to recent prior police contact.
Anyone who witnessed the collision or may have dashcam footage which could help the investigation, is urged to contact police.
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Rep Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican, to serve as national security adviser, two sources familiar with the matter told CBS News, the BBC's US partner.
A veteran of the war in Afghanistan and a long-time Trump supporter, Waltz was re-elected to Congress last week - though he will have to vacate his office to serve in the White House.
In this role, Waltz would serve as a key White House adviser on national security and foreign policy matters. It is a prominent role that does not require confirmation.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is in talks to be Trump's nominee for secretary of state, though the pick is not a done deal, two sources told CBS.
Waltz and Rubio's offices did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.
Waltz: a soldier and congressman
A decorated Green Beret and Army veteran, Waltz served multiple tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa.
He drew on his experiences serving in the Pentagon during the George W Bush administration and in combat in his book Warrior Diplomat: A Green Beret's Battles from Washington to Afghanistan.
Waltz's military experience led to key national security committee assignments when he was elected to Congress in 2018, serving on the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees.
The Florida congressman's expressed views in Congress have hewed closely to Republicans' political views on national security and foreign policy since Trump's election in 2016 - but they also acknowledge the US's key role in global affairs.
Waltz has suggested NATO allies increase their defence spending, though he has not gone as far as Trump and said the US should leave the alliance altogether.
"Look we can be allies and friends and have tough conversations," Waltz said last month.
He has said the US should maintain its support for Ukraine, but in recent weeks he's advocated for a reassessment of the US funds sent to aid the country.
Waltz has also taken a tough line on China while in Congress, and - as chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness - argued that the US needs to do more to prepare for conflict in the Pacific.
Since the US's 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, Waltz has frequently criticised President Joe Biden and the White House for its decision to leave the country.
Waltz would be the second member of Congress to be tapped to serve in the next Trump administration, which will require him to resign his office in the House of Representatives and potentially slim Republicans' controlling majority.
He would be the fifth national security adviser to serve under Trump, who appointed four different men to serve in the position during his first term. He fired three of them.
Michael Flynn, a retired general and Trump loyalist lasted for only 24 days before he was fired.
Trump then appointed and later dismissed HR McMaster, another retired general who would later criticise the president-elect and his allies in a memoir that he published earlier this year.
John Bolton, who served in the post for 17 months and was Trump's longest-serving national security adviser before also being fired, became highly critical of his former boss and has advocated against the president-elect's efforts to return to the White House.
Robert O'Brien, a lawyer who served in the Bush administration, finished out Trump's first term as national security adviser.
Rubio: the foreign policy hawk
It is not yet certain that Rubio will be nominated to serve as secretary of state, but the Florida Republican's career has set him up to be America's next top diplomat.
Several US media outlets have reported that Rubio is in talks with the Trump transition team over the senior position, but it has not been finalised. It appears the president-elect could still change his mind.
Rubio has built out his resume in the Senate, however.
He serves as the vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and sits on the Foreign Relations Committee.
Rubio is considered a foreign policy hawk, particularly toward China and Iran. While supportive of Ukraine, he previously said the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine needs to "be brought to a conclusion”.
Trump and Rubio now have a cordial relationship, but it hasn't always been that way.
Both men ran for president in 2016, and the two developed a bitter rivalry. They clashed on a variety of issues - particularly immigration - and the conflict led to various insults: Trump referred to the senator as “Little Marco” and Rubio mocked Trump's "small hands".
The Florida senator, 53, went on to back his rival and the two patched up their relationship during Trump's first term.
Rubio was an early supporter of Trump in this election’s primary.
The son of working-class Cuban immigrants, Rubio was first elected to the Senate in 2010.
He has since become a stalwart of Republican politics, and was once floated as a potential running mate to 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney and to Trump in 2024.
Gary Lineker: “I’m delighted to continue my long association with BBC Sport"
The BBC has confirmed that Match of the Day host Gary Lineker is to step down from the flagship football show at the end of this season, but will host BBC Sport’s coverage of the 2026 World Cup.
He will also front the BBC's coverage of the FA Cup 2025/2026.
"The BBC and Gary Lineker have agreed in principle a contract extension through to the 2026 World Cup," the BBC said, while confirming his Match of the Day tenure was ending.
Lineker said: “I’m delighted to continue my long association with BBC Sport and would like to thank all those who made this happen.”
He will continue with the MOTD Top Ten podcast and the BBC will also host the popular The Rest is Football podcast on BBC Sounds.
PA Media
Gary Lineker was photographed leaving his London home on Tuesday morning
The presenter, whose contract was coming to an end, entered negotiations with the BBC's new head of sport in October.
BBC News understands that Lineker was open to staying on at Match of the Day, but the BBC did not offer him a new contract for the show.
"With 33 million viewers last season across the Premier League and FA Cup, Match of the Day remains part of the staple diet of football fans who still get a huge buzz from hearing that iconic theme tune on a Saturday night," the BBC said.
"The show continually evolves for changing viewing habits bringing its unique and unmatched analysis and commentary across all platforms. Future plans for Match of the Day will be announced in due course."
The incident, involving a pedestrian and a car, happened between junctions 24 for Bridgwater and 25 for Taunton at around 23:00 GMT on Monday
The M5 in Somerset is closed in both directions after a 17-year-old girl died in a collision.
Avon and Somerset Police said the incident, involving a pedestrian and a car, had happened between junctions 24 for Bridgwater and 25 for Taunton at around 23:00 GMT on Monday.
The force said the girl had died at the scene and her next of kin had been informed. No one else was injured in the collision.
National Highways said the road was expected to remain closed throughout Tuesday morning, while enquiries ware carried out.
Police said a mandatory referral had been made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct due to recent prior police contact.
Anyone who witnessed the collision or may have dashcam footage which could help the investigation, is urged to contact police.
Footage online showed several people lying on the ground
A car ploughed into a crowd outside a stadium in the Chinese city of Zhuhai on Monday evening, injuring multiple people, police have said.
The 62-year-old male driver, surnamed Fan, has been arrested.
Local reports estimate that at least 20 people, many of whom were struck while exercising at Zhuhai Sports Centre, were injured and have been sent to hospital.
The incident took place despite heightened security in the city, which is also hosting a major civil and military airshow.
Most videos of the incident posted by eyewitnesses have since been scrubbed off Chinese social media, but some footage still circulating online show many people lying on the ground and being attended to by paramedics and bystanders.
Some of the victims appear to be unconscious.
An eyewitness, Mr Chen, told Chinese news magazine Caixin that at least six groups of people had gathered at the stadium for their regular walks when the incident happened.
The groups use a designated walking path that traces the stadium's perimeter.
Mr Chen said his group had just completed its third lap around the stadium when a car suddenly charged towards them at a high speed, "knocking down many people".
“It drove in a loop, and people were hurt in all areas of the running track - east, south, west, and north," another eyewitness told Caixin.
The outlet reported that many elderly people, as well as teenagers and children, were among those injured.
It is unclear whether the incident was linked to the high-profile Zhuhai Airshow, which started on Tuesday at a venue just 40km (24 miles) away from the stadium. China is showcasing its latest warplanes and attack drones at the show, and top Russian official Sergei Shoigu is expected to attend.
Several entrances and exits to the sports centre have been closed during the airshow to facilitate "control", the centre's management said on Tuesday.
China has seen a spate of violent attacks on members of the public in recent months.
She will attend events in London this week but for shorter periods than originally planned.
And she will miss the premiere for Gladiator II on Wednesday evening.
It is understood there is no cause for alarm - and her plans are being adjusted to avoid any setback after recovering from a bug.
The Queen will attend a Booker Prize reception at Clarence House on Tuesday, but will meet guests for a shorter period than planned.
She will also still attend a Palace reception with the King on Wednesday to celebrate the TV and film industry, but is not expected to be present for the whole event.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts.
Justin Welby said he should have more rigorously followed up the details of John Smyth's abuse in 2013
A survivor of abuser John Smyth has called for the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to resign over his failure to act after learning about the abuse in 2013.
Andrew Morse told the BBC he was abused for four years from when he 17 during the 1970s and 1980s and described being beaten by the British barrister whom he met at Winchester College.
He said he felt Justin Welby’s admission that he had not done enough in response to the reports meant that the Archbishop and the Church of England had effectively been involved in a "cover-up".
Lambeth Palace has said Mr Welby has no intentions of stepping down from his role.
Mr Morse's calls for the archbishop to quit come after a recent independent review, led by Keith Makin, found Smyth might have been brought to justice had Mr Welby reported the matter to police when he first heard about it shortly after taking up his office in 2013.
The review said that from July 2013, "the Church of England knew, at the highest level, about the abuse that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s", naming Mr Welby specifically in a group which would have had knowledge.
It found that the "several opportunities were missed" to make a formal report of the abuse to police in the UK.
The review says "there was a distinct lack of curiosity shown by these senior figures and a tendency towards minimisation of the matter".
"I think his admission that in 2013, which is really modern day in comparison to the 1970s and 1980s, that he didn't do enough, that he wasn't rigorous, that he was enacted is enough in my mind to confirm that Justin Welby along with countless other Anglican churchmen were part of a cover-up about the abuse," Mr Morse told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Andrew Morse met John Smythe when he was a pupil at Winchester College
Smyth, who died in his 70s in Cape Town in 2018, was accused of attacking boys at his Winchester home who he had met at a Christian summer camp in Dorset during the 1970s and 1980s.
Mr Morse said he met Smyth at Winchester College where chapel services and evangelical Christian meetings were held to which Smyth was invited as an outsider to talk.
"I believe he was a predator," Mr Morse said.
"He picked on a few boys within that group, befriend us, invited us back out to lunch at his family home and slowly over the years became a sort of father figure to me."
Mr Morse explained Smyth built a relationship which then became more physical and violent.
Smyth introduced the notion to Mr Morse that he was "sinning" and needed to "mark those sense in a form of repentance that really would mean something to the Lord".
"On my 21st birthday John Smyth told me that I was still sinning and that I required what he called a 'special beating'," he said.
"That was beatings of hundreds of lashes of a cane and I realised that I couldn't take things any longer.
"I firstly wrote a couple of anonymous letters to Christian leaders and to John Smyth but when those had no affect and I decided to take my own life."
John Smyth is believed to be the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England
The investigation came after a report by the Iwerne Trust in 1982, which was not made public until 2016.
The Makin review reports that despite his "appalling" actions having been identified in the 1980s, he was never fully exposed and was therefore able to continue his abuse.
Smyth was encouraged to leave the UK and he moved to Zimbabwe without any referral being made to police.
In Zimbabwe he was charged with the manslaughter of a 16-year-old boy, who was attending one of his summer camps. Smyth was not convicted of the offence.
During this time, church officers "knew of the abuse and failed to prevent further abuse", the independent review led by Keith Makin says.
Mr Morse told the BBC he believes the "cover-up" extended until 2017 when Channel 4's report was broadcast which then led to a "proper police investigation".
"That had nothing to do with the Church or Justin Welby or the actions of Lambeth Palace," Mr Morse said.
"It was the outside media who held the Church to account.
"I think even by their own rules they should have been much more proactive. John Smyth was still alive at this time.
"We know now he was abusing teenagers in Africa so there was plenty of opportunity for that to stop and for the police to become involved.
"It is those African lives and those African victims that are very much on my conscience - and I would hope on the archbishop's conscience too."
Mr Morse explained he believes if Mr Welby steps down from his role as Archbishop of Canterbury then it would "be an opportunity to stand" with Smyth's abuse victims.
"I think the church is incredibly stringent with its rules for every day vicars and those lower down the scale about what to do when abuse is reported to you," Mr Morse said.
"I believe that now is an opportunity for him to resign."
Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley said the decision to publish the letter "had not been taken lightly"
But, despite the growing calls and pressure on Mr Welby to quit, Lambeth Palace has said he has no intention to do so.
"The Archbishop reiterates his horror at the scale of John Smyth's egregious abuse, as reflected in his public apology," Lambeth Palace said.
"He has apologised profoundly both for his own failures and omissions, and for the wickedness, concealment and abuse by the church more widely.
"As he has said, he had no awareness or suspicion of the allegations before he was told in 2013 - and therefore having reflected, he does not intend to resign."
Winchester College told the BBC it apologises unreservedly for its part in the victim's "terrible experiences".
BBC Action Line: If you have been affected by issues in this story, find out what support is available here.
Dame Sally Davies said she had worried about someone picking up Novichok from the moment she knew "Russian agents had been involved" in the incident
The former chief medical officer for England said she had experienced nightmares about someone picking up discarded nerve agent after the poisoning of a former spy.
Sergei Skirpal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by Novichok in Salisbury in March 2018.
The attempted murders were followed by the death of Dawn Sturgess, 44, in July of that year, after she was exposed to the chemical weapon which was left in a discarded perfume bottle.
The inquiry into Ms Sturgess' death heard how Dame Sally Davies had worried about someone picking up Novichok from the moment she knew "Russian agents had been involved" in the incident.
Dawn Sturgess died after being exposed to Novichok in July 2018
In her witness statement, read to the inquiry by Francesca Whitelaw KC, Dame Sally said she had been concerned "about the disposal by the foreign agents of any residual nerve agent".
She also said she had raised her concern during at least one meeting, before becoming reassured that the police were hunting for a discarded vial, including by the river in Salisbury, and by the Environment Agency, who would "monitor the unusual numbers of dead fish appearing in the river".
“This led to me later saying publicly that no one should pick anything up which they had not dropped," she added.
Dame Sally said she had later attended a meeting where concerns about the statement and whether it would "panic the public" were raised.
'No cover up'
She said the discussion had ended with the agreement that she was independent and experienced and could say what she felt mattered, but she added the only record of her making this statement is her own statement in September when she referred to advice she gave in March.
However, the counsel for Ms Sturgess' family, Jesse Nicholls, said Dame Sally had said she had given the advice publicly, “because that obviously should have happened but it didn’t”.
She replied: “No, you are trying to suggest there was a cover-up, there was no cover-up.”
The inquiry also discussed a letter, dated 16 March, from Dame Sally to Sir Jeremy Heywood which said that on March 7, at the request of No 10 and the Metropolitan Police, she had issued a statement alongside Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley announcing the risk to public health as a result of the incident was “low, based on the current evidence available”.
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Rep Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican, to serve as national security adviser, two sources familiar with the matter told CBS News, the BBC's US partner.
A veteran of the war in Afghanistan and a long-time Trump supporter, Waltz was re-elected to Congress last week - though he will have to vacate his office to serve in the White House.
In this role, Waltz would serve as a key White House adviser on national security and foreign policy matters. It is a prominent role that does not require confirmation.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is in talks to be Trump's nominee for secretary of state, though the pick is not a done deal, two sources told CBS.
Waltz and Rubio's offices did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.
Waltz: a soldier and congressman
A decorated Green Beret and Army veteran, Waltz served multiple tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa.
He drew on his experiences serving in the Pentagon during the George W Bush administration and in combat in his book Warrior Diplomat: A Green Beret's Battles from Washington to Afghanistan.
Waltz's military experience led to key national security committee assignments when he was elected to Congress in 2018, serving on the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees.
The Florida congressman's expressed views in Congress have hewed closely to Republicans' political views on national security and foreign policy since Trump's election in 2016 - but they also acknowledge the US's key role in global affairs.
Waltz has suggested NATO allies increase their defence spending, though he has not gone as far as Trump and said the US should leave the alliance altogether.
"Look we can be allies and friends and have tough conversations," Waltz said last month.
He has said the US should maintain its support for Ukraine, but in recent weeks he's advocated for a reassessment of the US funds sent to aid the country.
Waltz has also taken a tough line on China while in Congress, and - as chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness - argued that the US needs to do more to prepare for conflict in the Pacific.
Since the US's 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, Waltz has frequently criticised President Joe Biden and the White House for its decision to leave the country.
Waltz would be the second member of Congress to be tapped to serve in the next Trump administration, which will require him to resign his office in the House of Representatives and potentially slim Republicans' controlling majority.
He would be the fifth national security adviser to serve under Trump, who appointed four different men to serve in the position during his first term. He fired three of them.
Michael Flynn, a retired general and Trump loyalist lasted for only 24 days before he was fired.
Trump then appointed and later dismissed HR McMaster, another retired general who would later criticise the president-elect and his allies in a memoir that he published earlier this year.
John Bolton, who served in the post for 17 months and was Trump's longest-serving national security adviser before also being fired, became highly critical of his former boss and has advocated against the president-elect's efforts to return to the White House.
Robert O'Brien, a lawyer who served in the Bush administration, finished out Trump's first term as national security adviser.
Rubio: the foreign policy hawk
It is not yet certain that Rubio will be nominated to serve as secretary of state, but the Florida Republican's career has set him up to be America's next top diplomat.
Several US media outlets have reported that Rubio is in talks with the Trump transition team over the senior position, but it has not been finalised. It appears the president-elect could still change his mind.
Rubio has built out his resume in the Senate, however.
He serves as the vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and sits on the Foreign Relations Committee.
Rubio is considered a foreign policy hawk, particularly toward China and Iran. While supportive of Ukraine, he previously said the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine needs to "be brought to a conclusion”.
Trump and Rubio now have a cordial relationship, but it hasn't always been that way.
Both men ran for president in 2016, and the two developed a bitter rivalry. They clashed on a variety of issues - particularly immigration - and the conflict led to various insults: Trump referred to the senator as “Little Marco” and Rubio mocked Trump's "small hands".
The Florida senator, 53, went on to back his rival and the two patched up their relationship during Trump's first term.
Rubio was an early supporter of Trump in this election’s primary.
The son of working-class Cuban immigrants, Rubio was first elected to the Senate in 2010.
He has since become a stalwart of Republican politics, and was once floated as a potential running mate to 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney and to Trump in 2024.
Minutes before Jen is about to appear, composed and resolute, on live TV to an audience of millions, she is vomiting in the studio’s toilets.
She and four other women are due to speak for half an hour about how they were sexually assaulted by Mohamed Al Fayed.
“I couldn’t eat that morning, and I was sick about 15 minutes before we went on air,” Jen says of the interview with BBC Breakfast at the end of September.
“I wasn’t very well practiced at that point at telling my story and finding words. So I had a very physical reaction.”
About a week earlier, a BBC documentary, Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods, had aired. It uncovered decades of abuse perpetrated by the billionaire and former Harrods owner, who died last year at the age of 94.
Jen had worked as his personal assistant for five years from 1986 to 1991. Her story was told anonymously under the pseudonym “Alice” in the documentary, and her voice was also distorted to protect her identity.
This interview with BBC Breakfast was the first time she’d agreed to waive her anonymity - meaning it was the first time she’d spoken publicly, as herself, about what she had been through almost four decades ago.
Jen waived her anonymity for the first time on BBC Breakfast in September
“One of the things [my counsellor] said to me before I fully decided to tell my story face-to-camera was that when you do that, you lose control of your story - because all of a sudden it’s not yours anymore,” she says. “It’s out in the world, you can’t really control who knows it, what they think, what their reactions are.
“I was terrified of that, because I felt so ashamed of what happened.”
But Jen didn’t realise then that the four other women sitting next to her on the red sofa - all survivors of Al Fayed’s abuse - would become friends.
All five women - Jen, Lindsay, Nicole, Katherine and Gemma - had worked for Al Fayed. Some aspects of their experiences differ, others are disturbingly similar. As they took turns recalling their abuse on the programme, they felt vulnerable.
Seven weeks on, laughing together on a mild autumn day in London’s Battersea Park, they are unrecognisable. BBC Breakfast is meeting them again to hear about how they’ve been supporting each other.
Victims of Mohamed Al Fayed tell BBC of alleged rape and trafficking
“The camaraderie that we’ve built between us now has really given us a lot of empowerment,” Lindsay says. “I just don’t think that we would be this far along in our recovery had we not got each other.”
Lindsay worked as Al Fayed’s personal assistant for five months between 1989 and 1990. She says he sexually harassed her, assaulted her on a daily basis, and then trafficked her to Paris, where he attempted to rape her.
She says that after the documentary aired in September, the women set up a group chat on the messaging app Signal, named “Stronger Together”.
“We draw strength from that [group],” Lindsay says. “If we’ve got any worries, we put it on there and everyone’s got your back. I’m feeling much stronger because we’re part of a whole collective of fabulous, strong women.”
But this is more than a new friendship. Though many of the women only met two months ago, their shared trauma means their bond has deep roots - ones that Jen says will last “probably for the rest of our lives”.
“No one in this world can understand what we’ve been through and the impact it’s had, other than these women and the other women in the group,” says Gemma, who worked for Al Fayed as one of his personal assistants between 2007 and 2009.
She says she became increasingly frightened of Al Fayed during work trips abroad, and was raped by him in Paris.
“It’s almost like the unsaid - you don’t have to say. You just know what each other’s thinking.”
This means that while they have to describe their abuse for the public, there’s no need to “keep reliving the past” with each other.
“There are certain stories that I could never tell my school friends or my family - they just wouldn’t believe me,” Gemma says.
BBC/Graham Hodson
Gemma says she and the other women "just know what each other's thinking"
Many of the women hadn’t told their families about the abuse before they agreed to take part in the film. Jen told her family shortly before going on BBC Breakfast.
But it wasn’t just their families they felt they had to keep it from. Survivors have described female staff at Harrods being deliberately isolated from each other.
Jen explains that she and Lindsay worked in the same office at the same time, but “barely spoke to one another, because that’s how things were in the office”.
“We weren’t really allowed to be friends with one another, and we certainly weren’t allowed to confide in one another,” she said.
These years of isolation have made the women’s new-found connection particularly special. Nicole says the idea of them speaking regularly, forming close friendships and supporting each other would make Al Fayed “absolutely incandescent with rage” if he were alive to see it.
Nicole worked as Al Fayed’s executive assistant between 2005 and 2007, when she was in her 30s. She experienced daily sexual harassment and assault from him.
“We weren’t allowed to talk to each other. We weren’t allowed to share things. We weren’t allowed to share experiences. We weren’t allowed to become friends,” she adds. “He created that environment purposely so that he could get away with doing what he wanted.
“So yeah, he’d be enraged. And I think that’s fantastic.”
BBC/Graham Hodson
Two months on from her appearance on BBC Breakfast, Jen says she feels like a different person
Katherine, who was sexually harassed while working as a senior personal assistant for Harrods in 2005, says many women were, understandably, “too scared to come forward” while the documentary was being made.
But this group of women are trailblazers. Since they first spoke out about their experiences, more than 70 women have contacted the BBC with accounts of abuse by Al Fayed, including sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape.
For Jen, waiving her anonymity on BBC Breakfast two months ago was excruciating in the moment. But the weeks since have felt like a renewal.
“When I’m talking about my life at Harrods, I feel kind of like that happened to somebody else, because it’s something that I’d put in a box and hadn’t talked about with anybody for 35 years,” she says.
“Taking the lid off that box and really examining the contents again made me feel very close to that person, like I was that 16-year-old girl all over again.
“But when I think about how I felt sitting on the sofa six weeks ago, I feel completely different now. I feel stronger, I feel more confident. I feel like I don’t need to feel ashamed.”
Additional reporting by Ellie Price
If you have information about this story that you would like to share please get in touch. Email MAFinvestigation@bbc.co.uk. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist.
A BBC investigation into allegations of rape and attempted rape by Mohamed Al Fayed, the former owner of Harrods. Did the luxury store protect a billionaire predator?
The UK's unemployment rate has risen, official figures suggest, while pay growth continues to slow.
The rate of unemployment stood at 4.3% in the three months to September, up from 4% the previous quarter.
However, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) urged caution over giving too much weight to its latest jobs figures due to issues with how it gathers the data.
While wage growth has eased, pay is still rising faster than inflation, which measures the rate of price increases.
Four of the victims (clockwise from left): Jade Young, Ashlee Good, Faraz Tahir and Pikria Darchia
It took just three minutes for Joel Cauchi to kill six people and injure 10 more during a stabbing rampage at a popular Sydney shopping centre, an inquest into the attack has found.
A New South Wales Coroner's court heard on Tuesday that Cauchi, 40, was mentally ill and sleeping rough at the time of the incident, and had come off his medication for schizophrenia, prompting his parents to confiscate his hunting knives.
The probe also found that no alarm sounded inside the centre until after Cauchi had been shot dead by police.
The incident on 13 April devastated Australia, where mass murder is rare, and prompted a national conversation about gendered violence.
All up, 14 of the 17 people stabbed that day were female - including five of the six who were killed, and a nine-month-old baby. The NSW police commissioner said at the time that it was "obvious" Cauchi had targeted women.
Tuesday's hearing laid out the areas of focus for an extensive inquiry which is due to begin in full in April 2025. The investigation will look into possible security lapses and failings in the mental health systems in NSW and Queensland, Cauchi's home state.
Speaking in court, Dr Peggy Dwyer SC, the counsel assisting the coroner, said Cauchi had been off his psychotropic medication since 2019, despite authorities being repeatedly warned of his deteriorating state. Cauchi had come "to the attention" of Queensland police several times, she said.
In her statement, Dwyer also provided the first detailed timeline of how the violence actually unfolded in Bondi that day.
She said that Cauchi - who had been sleeping rough in the suburb of Maroubra on the morning of the attack - entered Westfield shopping centre around 15.30 (local), and began stabbing people roughly three minutes later, after removing his knife in line at a bakery.
His first victim was Dawn Singleton, 25, followed by 47-year-old Jade Young and 25-year-old Yixuan Cheng. He then attacked Ashlee Good, 38, from behind.
Good - who has been described by her family as an "all-round outstanding human" - then saw Cauchi stabbing her nine-month-old baby girl in her pram, and was further wounded trying to save the child's life, the court heard.
Faraz Tahir, a 30-year-old security guard, was stabbed next, alongside a colleague. Onlookers at the time said he died "trying to save others".
Cauchi fatally stabbed Pikria Darchia, 55, before being shot dead by NSW Police Insp Amy Scott, who had been on duty close by. Between the moment Scott arrived and the moment she killed Cauchi just over a minute had passed, the court heard.
In total, the attack lasted for five minutes and 43 seconds - yet no alarm sounded during that time.
"It’s presently unclear why it took so long for the alarm to sound," Dwyer said.
Before opening the hearing, state coroner Teresa O’Sullivan acknowledged the pain and loss the broader community was still feeling as a result of the violence.
"I offer my sincere condolences to the family and loved ones who are here in court today as well as those who can’t be here in person," she told the court, according to the Guardian Australia.
"It’s important to me and my assisting team… that you feel safe, you feel heard and you feel cared for throughout this proceeding."
The incident, involving a pedestrian and a car, happened between junctions 24 for Bridgwater and 25 for Taunton at around 23:00 GMT on Monday
The M5 in Somerset is closed in both directions after a 17-year-old girl died in a collision.
Avon and Somerset Police said the incident, involving a pedestrian and a car, had happened between junctions 24 for Bridgwater and 25 for Taunton at around 23:00 GMT on Monday.
The force said the girl had died at the scene and her next of kin had been informed. No one else was injured in the collision.
National Highways said the road was expected to remain closed throughout Tuesday morning, while enquiries ware carried out.
Police said a mandatory referral had been made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct due to recent prior police contact.
Anyone who witnessed the collision or may have dashcam footage which could help the investigation, is urged to contact police.
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