dimanche 28 juin 2026

‘My son was killed by his girlfriend’

England book date with DR Congo | Simon Case interview
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Britain’s most popular daily newsletter, read by more than 850,000

Sunday, 28 June 2026

Issue No. 490

Good morning.

Ashe Smith believed James Self, her son, was in a normal relationship. When he was killed by his abusive girlfriend, Smith was devastated at not seeing the truth before it was too late. Now, she is working with police to raise awareness of domestic violence against men. Sybilla Hart reports on her interview with the “remarkable woman” below.

Plus, England have made it through to the last 32 at the World Cup as group winners after beating Panama 2-0. Oliver Brown, our Chief Sports Writer, argues that although the atmosphere at the final whistle may have been euphoric, concerns about the England squad remain.

Allister Heath, Sunday Telegraph Editor

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In today’s edition

Simon Case: Burnham will have to be honest or he will go the same way as the last five PMs

The US-Iran war may have ended, but 6,000 miles away the death toll is rising

Plus, how tennis could add 10 years to your life

Ends soon: A year for £1.99 per month

Stay ahead of every crucial update as Burnham closes in on No 10

 

‘My son was killed by his girlfriend’

Ashe Smith says her son, James Self, was the victim of a society prejudiced against men

Sybilla Hart

Sybilla Hart

 

Domestic violence makes headlines depressingly often. However, it is rare for the victim to be male. I recently met Ashe Smith, whose son James Self, 47, died after an attack by his girlfriend. He was brutally beaten by Polly Murphy and endured six agonising weeks in hospital before succumbing to his injuries. Murphy is now serving a life sentence for the crime.

Smith is devastated both by James’s death and at not seeing the truth about her son and his partner’s relationship behind closed doors. “I feel very naive…” she told me, “and James was too embarrassed to tell us what he was going through.”

James Self

James Self died on Dec 21 2023, aged 47

Smith says society seems to be prejudiced against men when it comes to domestic violence. She believes that “people have grown up with the idea that men are physically stronger than women”.

Now able to find some calm since Murphy’s conviction, she is determined that her son’s death should not be in vain. Smith wants to encourage more men to come forward and share their burdens – and she is working with police to raise awareness. She is, I think, a remarkable woman.
This exclusive interview is available only to subscribers.
Continue reading

 

World cup diary

Bellingham to the rescue yet again as England book date with DR Congo

Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane both scored against Panama

Oliver Brown

Oliver Brown

Chief Sports Writer at the MetLife Stadium, New York

 

The mood at the final whistle was euphoric as Harry Kane celebrated becoming his country’s record World Cup goalscorer by leading fans in a rousing refrain of Wonderwall.

England made it difficult for themselves against Panama, the tournament’s only team not to score a goal, but finally prevailed courtesy of second-half goals for Kane and Jude Bellingham. Now, at last, the serious business begins.

They are through to the last 32 as group winners, ready to face the Democratic Republic of Congo in Atlanta on Wednesday. It begins a mouthwatering run of fixtures, potentially involving a duel with co-hosts Mexico at the Azteca Stadium.

But there are some concerns simmering close to the surface. One in particular is at right-back, with Jarell Quansah going off with a strained ankle midway through the second half, compounding England’s catalogue of problems in that position. They have already lost both Reece James and Tino Livramento to injuries and can ill afford Quansah being consigned to the sidelines as well.

There is a nagging sense that it never needed to be this way. Tuchel had a ready-made world-class right-back in Real Madrid’s Trent Alexander-Arnold, but he decided to leave him out of the squad. The manager is adamant his players do not fear anybody. It is a mindset they will need in abundance as the sharp end of the tournament approaches.
Read the full match report here

England player ratings: Rogers better off bench and Anderson too isolated

England rely on two world-class players – they are not yet a team

Roy Keane and Gary Neville’s wild punditry shows why neither made it as a manager

Scoreboard
 

Opinion

Daniel Hannan Headshot

Daniel Hannan

Burnham threatens to be the latest PM thwarted by Tony Blair’s deep state legacy

Even Starmer ended up frustrated that the administrative and judicial state stands in the way of delivering for the voters

Continue reading

 
<span style="color:#DE0000;">Janet Daley</span> Headshot

Janet Daley

I don’t regret Brexit. But Trump’s ignorance is making Europe look serious

Continue reading

 
<span style="color:#DE0000;">Arthur Reynolds</span> Headshot

Arthur Reynolds

Wes Streeting talks like a centrist but governs from the Left

Continue reading

 
Matt Cartoon
 

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In other news

Weekend reads

Simon Case photographed for The Telegraph this week in central London

Simon Case: Burnham will have to be honest or he will go the same way as the last five PMs

The former Cabinet secretary worked closely with David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer. Now, in his first major interview since leaving Whitehall, Simon Case tells Gordon Rayner, our Associate Editor, why all of them ended up failing and what Andy Burnham, the putative Labour leader, must do if he is to escape the same fate.
This story is available only to subscribers.

Continue reading

 

The US-Iran war may have ended, but 6,000 miles away the death toll is rising

In Madagascar, there is a thin line between death and survival. In its rural communities, a relatively common medical condition can rapidly become a death sentence. Yet in the country’s remotest regions, a fragile support network of planes, supply chains, and volunteer medics is under threat from a conflict thousands of miles away writes Verity Bowman, our Foreign and Global Health Security Reporter. The US-Iran war may be drawing to a close, but its death toll is still rising – an unexpected consequence of a global fuel and food shortage triggered by the crisis in the Middle East.

Continue reading

 

Hacked off Hugh Grant pushes next prime minister to curb free speech

Hugh Grant arrives at the Community Sports Club in Makerfield, Greater Manchester

Fifteen years after the phone hacking scandal, Hugh Grant – aka @HackedOffHugh – believes his moment to win tougher press regulation has finally arrived, writes James Warrington, our Media and Telecoms Editor. As Andy Burnham prepares to enter Downing Street, campaigners hope to revive Leveson-style regulation over the media, while Labour weighs new controls for online platforms. Britain’s prized free speech protections are being sucked into a political war.

Continue reading

 

Telegraph journalists assemble their perfect festival bill – from Taylor Swift to The Smiths

Our dream Glastonbury line-up (if it was on this year)

It’s Glastonbury weekend, but with the festival on a fallow year (perhaps for the best, given this scorching weather), The Telegraph’s writers couldn’t resist compiling their fantasy line-ups. Dead or alive, British or American: Michael Deacon, Neil McCormick and more pick their dream headliners, from a reunited Smiths and R.E.M. to Taylor Swift and Prince. Who would be yours? 

Continue reading

 

Your Sunday

How tennis could add 10 years to your life

Will Stoddart decided to pick up a racquet after hearing that playing tennis was associated with a 15 per cent lower risk of dying

Of all the things you can do in midlife to live longer – eat better, sleep more, stress less – picking up a tennis racquet may be the most powerful. A recent study linked the sport to a 15 per cent lower risk of dying, the strongest results for a single form of exercise, including jogging or going to the gym. Here’s why.

Continue reading

Here is another article that I hope you’ll find helpful this morning:

 

Devil’s Advocate

Shall I tell you what’s really disruptive to learning? Heat stroke

Alexandra Jones

 

My child attends a very well-maintained nursery in east London. They have air conditioning in every room and a vast garden shaded by plenty of trees. It’s basically impossible to get into – thanks, if rumours among the neighbourhood nannies are to be believed, to extremely stringent DEI policies. I digress, I have absolute faith that it’s the best place for her if the mercury rises. Not least because our ex-council mid-terrace is insulated to the point of suffocation.

Despite that, if the only other option were to send her to the kind of grotty establishment I myself attended as a child and teenager, where half the lessons were conducted in portacabins known to reach 43C at even the barest sniff of a sunny interval, you bet I’d be keeping her at home.

Common sense dictates that if it’s hot enough for the pavements to melt, it’s too hot for a child to sit in a poorly ventilated prefab box doing phonics. Shall I tell you what’s really disruptive to learning? Heat stroke.

“What about work?” a colleague asked this morning when I let my feelings be known. Well, that seems like a problem for them – my biggest responsibility is to my child. The fact is, we seem to be on the receiving end of a heating climate, a not unwelcome position to be in, if we’re honest with ourselves. However, that doesn’t mean that we have the infrastructure to handle it.

People are quick to point to other parts of the world where they go about their lives even in furnace conditions, but that’s because they’ve adjusted. If the next few summers do indeed bring the sort of temperatures that climate doomers have predicted, then it’d be sensible to follow the example of those hotter economies: air con where possible, daily siesta everywhere else, no outdoor work and schools that follow hot weather timetables.

 

One great life

Jim Sewell, ‘supercop’ who caught dozens of villains as head of the Murder Squad and the Flying Squad

Jim Sewell, right, being presented with an award from the FBI at the US embassy: he was the most widely travelled British policeman of his day

Jim Sewell, who has died aged 94, was nicknamed “Supercop” by the press on account of his remarkable clear-up rate, writes Andrew M Brown, our Obituaries Editor.

He rose to near the top of the Metropolitan Police, but his golden years were the 1970s, when he ran the Murder Squad and then the Flying Squad.

Creative in his approach, when chasing villains who had battered a petrol station attendant to death, he once borrowed 200 pupils from a nearby prep school to comb the countryside for a stolen cash register.

Sewell

Sewell as deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, c 1983

Another especially callous case was the shotgun killing of a bank cashier, since the young woman had already complied with the thief’s demand to hand over the money.

When crime writer PD James interviewed Sewell, she described the contents of his “murder bag”: as well as handcuffs and a tape recorder, it included more gruesome items such as “sample bottles for stomach contents” and an “instrument for the extraction of teeth from the corpse”.

In 1981, Sewell led the crowd-security operation at Charles and Diana’s wedding. The day was gloriously crime-free: “Thieves have to have holidays too,” Sewell enthused.

Read Jim Sewell’s full obituary here

 

On this day

1846 | The saxophone is patented by Antoine-Joseph Sax

1914 | Franz Ferdinand is assassinated, setting off a chain of events that lead to the First World War

1919 | Treaty of Versailles is signed in France, ending the First World War

1982 | Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales announce the name of their first born: William (and our front page coverage the following day)

Birthdays:
Elon Musk (55), Kathy Bates (78), Mel Brooks (100)

Front page
 

Puzzles

Panagram

Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including The 1% Club, Cogs, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.


 

Yesterday’s Panagram was FLEDGLING. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle.

 

Thank you for reading.

Allister Heath, Sunday Telegraph Editor

P.S. Please share your thoughts on the newsletter at fromtheeditor@telegraph.co.uk.

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Stay ahead of every crucial update as Burnham closes in on No 10

 

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