International
Man guilty of killing stranger by pushing her off Helensburgh Pier
A 29-year-old man has been found guilty of killing a stranger by picking her up and then pushing her off a pier.
Jacob Foster attacked Charmaine O’Donnell at Helensburgh Pier, in Argyll and Bute, in April 2021.
Jurors at the the High Court in Glasgow heard Ms O’Donnell, 25, suffered severe neck injuries and drowned after she was pushed into the water.
Her family said her death had “changed our lives forever”, but that justice had now been served.
Foster, who had denied murder, was convicted of culpable homicide after a trial.
His lawyers had lodged a special defence of diminished responsibility, saying he had an “abnormality of mind” at the time. Foster, from Helensburgh, suffers from a learning disability.
The trial heard that Ms O’Donnell had gone to Helensburgh with a friend, Caitlin McTaggart, on 23 April last year to enjoy the good weather.
The pair began chatting to three men fishing and Ms McTaggart, 25, said it appeared Foster was trying to get involved in the conversation.
She told the court that neither she nor Ms O’Donnell knew him.
The jurors heard there had then been a “commotion” when Ms O’Donnell was pushed over the railings at the pier and someone shouted to Ms McTaggart: “That’s your pal.”
Prosecutor Alex Prentice QC asked Ms McTaggart: “Did you say anything to Jacob?”
She replied: “I was screaming at him to help her. He just kept saying: ‘What have I done? I have taken it too far this time. I am going away for a long time’.”
What is culpable homicide?
Culpable homicide is the term used in Scots law for an offence where someone caused the death of another person by acting unlawfully but with no intention to kill.
It is different to murder where there is criminal intention, and from causing death by an accident where no-one can be blamed.
They could, for example, have assaulted someone in an attempt to injure them, but not to kill them.
There must also not have been “wicked recklessness” – which is usually based on the actions of the accused and the severity of the injuries suffered by the victim.
Deaths can also be treated as culpable homicide rather than murder if the accused was found to be of “diminished responsibility” because of some mental illness, or where there was provocation.
Anyone convicted of murder in Scotland automatically faces a life sentence, but there is no such rule for culpable homicide and people convicted of it are not always jailed.
The equivalent offence in England and Wales is manslaughter.
Stephen Cairns, who was one of the men fishing that day, told the court he remembered speaking to the women and Foster also being there.
The 42-year-old told jurors Ms O’Donnell had been standing at the railings on the edge of the pier at one stage.
He added: “I turned around and saw the accused pushing the girl over the railing.
“He pushed her with both hands.”
Ms McTaggart called 999 to get help and emergency services were sent to the scene.
PC Gary Davidson told the court that Foster had been “quite agitated and talking a lot” when he arrived at the pier.
The officer said Foster had told him: “I just pushed her, it was just a bit of fun.”
The trial also heard from several teenagers who tried to help Ms O’Donnell after she was pushed into the water.
One of them said he had noticed the woman’s shoe floating in the water and “a bit of blood”.
Foster’s lawyers had claimed that because of his mental health issues he had misunderstood an alleged remark Ms O’Donnell made about going into the water.
Sean Templeton, defending, had asked for Foster to be completely acquitted, saying: “It was a young man with learning difficulties who got it wrong.”
After the verdict, it emerged Foster had a number of previous convictions, including assaulting a staff member at a Costa coffee shop in Helensburgh in 2018.
Mr Prentice told the court Ms O’Donnell had been on furlough from her job as an assistant manager at a British Heart Foundation shop. She was due to return a week after she died.
Lord Fairley said in the “very unusual circumstances” of the case he would continue bail and adjourned for reports.
The advocate depute said: “It is clear she was much loved and her death has brought untold and continuing grief.
“She was described as a loving and selfless person.”
Ms O’Donnell’s mother, Jacqueline Gallacher, 50, and stepfather William King, 54, said they believed the jury had reached the right verdict.
“The past 15 months have been the most difficult time we have ever had to face,” they said.
“Losing Charmaine has changed our lives forever. We will never be the same again. Our hearts have been broken.
“She had her whole life ahead of her. She had a great personality and sense of humour, warming the hearts of all who met her.”
‘Treasured colleague’
Mike Taylor, commercial director at the British Heart Foundation, said fellow workers at the charity were “devastated about the tragic death of our treasured colleague Charmaine O’Donnell”.
He added: “Charmaine made an incredible contribution to the BHF over many years, rising from apprentice to assistant manager of our Glasgow Union Street shop, and was an integral member of our team.
“We’re continuing to support all our colleagues and volunteers through this extremely difficult time, and our thoughts are with Charmaine’s friends and family.” (BBC)
There are grave fears for the passengers of a private plane that suddenly vanished mid-flight, sparking a major search off the coast of the US.
US authorities say the Gulfstream G100 lost contact with air traffic control about 2am local time on Saturday (4pm Saturday AET) while flying from L.F. Wade International Airport in Bermuda to Boston Logan International Airport.
The US Coast Guard said the Federal Aviation Administration alerted it after contact was lost with the aircraft – which plummeted from 23,500 feet to 11,000 feet in just three minutes, according to FlightAware data.
“We are praying for a safe outcome,” a spokesperson for Latitude Air Ambulance, which operates the missing plane, told City News.
A search is now under way off Nantucket in the air and on water as crews work to locate the missing jet, the Coast Guard said. Data from FlightRadar24 showed a number of aircraft searching south of the island.
Six people are missing after a private jet vanished, sparking a major search off the coast of Nantucket in the US.
The plane was en route from Bermuda to Boston when it vanished.
“Air & surface crews have launched in search of the aircraft. Updates will be provided here as info becomes available,” the Coast Guard Northeast District said on X.
The plane was carrying out a medical evacuation in Bermuda – a British overseas territory in the north Atlantic Ocean, according to Clarence Togeretz, Director of Flight Operations at Latitude Air Ambulance.
“We always get rather concerned when our crew doesn’t report to us in a timely manner,” he told NBC News.
“But I will say that again, optimistically and positively, that doesn’t mean that the worst has happened.”
Seventeen people were killed when eight gunmen stormed a bar close to Johannesburg on Saturday evening, with 15 more injured.
In a separate shooting in the early hours of Sunday morning, 10 people were killed outside an entertainment venue in a township near Cape Town and a further 11 were injured.
South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world and has struggled to contain gang-related gun violence in recent years. Police have not indicated a motive for either of the latest attacks.
In Johannesburg, gunmen opened fire on customers outside the bar before continuing the attack inside and torching two vehicles before fleeing.
Police said thirteen men and four women were killed.
Deputy provincial police commissioner Maj Gen Fred Kekana said the attack may have been a retaliation for an incident last month, in which one person was killed and another wounded, according to AFP news agency.
Speaking at the scene, he said police had clear pictures and in some cases names for the suspects.
In Cape Town, five victims died at the scene and a further five people died in hospital.
No arrests had been made in either case on Sunday morning.
The two mass shootings came days after 11 people were killed in the city of Duban when gunmen stormed a house in the KwaMakhutha township.
Illegal weapons are prevalent in South Africa and gun violence has been a persistent problem for decades, with about 60 murders recorded every day in the country of 62 million.
But a recent spate of mass shootings has raised fears that the problem is deepening, with violence often linked to turf wars between gangs engaged in drug trafficking and illegal mining.
In February, President Cyril Ramaphosa called organised crime “the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development”.
Earlier this year the military was deployed alongside police in areas with the highest murder rates in an effort to reduce armed violence.
On Saturday a tenth woman’s body was found in Ekurhuleni, to the east of Johannesburg, with local police saying they were unable to rule out a serial killer operating in the area with similarities between the deaths. (BBC)
The United States has deported more than 25,000 people under secretive agreements with 35 countries to take migrants with no ties to those nations, according to an investigation published Monday.
Since US President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, Washington has been signing deals with developing countries to take migrants who cannot legally be sent home.
The investigation by Forbidden Stories found the administration has earmarked $410 million to be paid directly to the receiving countries, or to UN agencies to facilitate the returns.
At least 25,447 people had already been deported to third countries by August 31, 2026, according to data compiled by Forbidden Stories with a consortium of international journalists.
The vast majority — around 20,000 — were sent to Mexico, but the rest were dispersed to 27 other countries across Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific, and agreements have been finalised with seven more.
The deals vary, including over which nationalities can be deported and whether people with criminal records can be accepted.
An AFP investigation earlier this year found Washington is using visa bans and restrictions on African countries to strongarm them into accepting deportees.
Lawyers told AFP that deportees were being thrown into a “legal black hole”, held without charge in countries where they have no ties and few if any rights.
Forbidden Stories said 49 of Africa’s 54 countries had been approached about accepting third-country deportees.
A little-known State Department division called the Office of Remigration, created in May 2025, has handled most of the negotiations and payments, according to Forbidden Stories.
The office is headed by Christian Jove Ehrhardt, a 41-year-old diplomat who previously worked as a security officer.
The report details his visits to Cameroon, which signed a memorandum of understanding with the US in December on accepting deportees. A week later, it also signed a five-year health assistance programme worth nearly $400 million.
The following month, the State Department said it would provide a further $30 million to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Cameroon to “facilitate the voluntary return of refugees and combat illegal immigration.”
The first plane carrying deportees arrived in Cameroon on January 14.
– Payments –
Other agreements have involved direct payments to governments.
Palau, a small Pacific island nation with a population of under 18,000, signed an agreement in December 2025 to accept up to 75 third-country nationals in return for $7.5 million.
However, only three people have so far been sent under the agreement.
In Eswatini, 32 people have arrived since July 2025 out of a possible 160 under an agreement worth more than $5 million. It has accepted deportees with criminal records, the investigation found.
Of the $410 million planned for the agreements, internal State Department records showed that $81 million was earmarked for signatory governments.
The rest was intended for aid organisations, including more than $178 million for the UN’s International Organisation for Migration, and $123 million for UNHCR.
The agencies have faced criticism over their involvement, although UNHCR told Forbidden Stories that it was not party to the bilateral agreements and that US funding was being used in line with its mandate to strengthen asylum systems.
An IOM spokesperson told Forbidden Stories that the agency’s decisions to accept funding rested “on a single question: whether our engagement will improve the lives of the migrants affected. In these instances, we believe strongly it does.”
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