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Groom-to-be killed in horror e-scooter crash just 48 hours before his wedding

Groom-to-be killed in horror e-scooter crash just 48 hours before his wedding

Daily Mirror10-06-2025

Scott Catton, 54, collided with a car door that suddenly swung open and was rushed to hospital - but tragically succumbed to his injuries just two days before his wedding
A groom-to-be was killed in a devastating e-scooter crash just 48 hours before he was due to marry the love of his life. Scott Catton, 54, was riding through Top Valley, Nottingham, last Thursday (June 6) when he collided with a car door that suddenly swung open.
He was rushed to Queen's Medical Centre with broken ribs and a severe brain bleed, but despite doctors' efforts, the father-of-one tragically died from his injuries on Saturday. Scott was set to marry his fiancée Debi on Monday and the couple had planned to fly off to Majorca for their honeymoon the following day. Instead, his family are now facing heartbreak and loss, as they rally around to raise funds for funeral costs and to support Debi and Scott's 13-year-old son.


His brother in-law Philip Bates, 56, said: 'He was on his way home and on an electric scooter, someone opened a car door and he just hit it. He broke ribs, his collar bone and had a severe brain bleed. We went straight to the hospital where we spent most of the weekend.
'He was supposed to get married at Arnold Registry Office at 2pm yesterday. They were going to Majorca, they were supposed to fly out today. It's horrendous. It's never a good time, but this is the worst time though. He was the life and soul of the party, everyone loved him.
'He was a cheeky chap. He was massively into his sports and we both played football. He played for local teams, and played at veterans level. He loved his cricket and boxing. He went to Wembley to watch England and he recently went to watch the Eubank vs Benn fight. He was Nottingham Forest mad too.
'Because he wasn't married he's got money himself. To get it released is a long process, so the main aim is to pay for the funeral and take the strain off of his partner and give any money left over to his son. The main reason is to help his son out and give him something.'
Philip has now set up a GoFundMe to help cover funeral costs and to set up a trust for retired-EON advisor Scott's son. In a statement, the family said: 'Today (Saturday the 7th of June) we had to say goodbye to a much loved friend, partner, father, uncle and brother.
'Scott had a traffic accident from which he didn't recover. I am trying to raise funds to give him the send off that he deserves any remaining funds will be put into trust for his 13 year old son he leaves behind. Funeral arrangements will be posted in due course. He was due to marry his partner on Monday 9th June. We are all in deep shock please find it in your hearts to help.'
More than £5,700 has been raised so far towards a £7,500 target. In response, the family said: 'We are truly humbled and grateful for all your generosity. It just shows how loved Scott was. I will keep the fund raising going to help Scott's son. Massive thanks to everyone who has donated and a special thanks to the Park Tavern and the Oxford public house who are organising fundraising events.'
Nottinghamshire Police said officers were investigating the incident but were unable to provide any more information at this stage.

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Sarah Champion: I'm called racist for taking on grooming gangs
Sarah Champion: I'm called racist for taking on grooming gangs

Times

time21 minutes ago

  • Times

Sarah Champion: I'm called racist for taking on grooming gangs

Sarah Champion did not go into politics to wage war against child sex abuse rings or become a voice for vulnerable teenage girls preyed on by gangs of men of predominantly Pakistani origin who groomed, trafficked and raped them. When she became the Labour MP for Rotherham she did not know they existed. 'I had been running the local children's hospice as CEO when I became an MP in 2012 and I remember reading an article about this 15-year-old Rotherham girl who had a baby by any of three different men and was seen as a little scrubber, and I thought that's not right. Then a girl was found dead in a river, and they said she'd gone mad. Finally, a young white girl came to us with a poorly baby and her boyfriend was a much older Asian man; the relationship seemed odd.' Champion became increasingly uneasy that she did not know what was going on in her own constituency. 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'I went to the police and people in the council saying I had serious concerns about a number of people, but I didn't get any responses. It was hard to know who to trust and I was nervous of giving away girls' names away. My life became one of shadows and pseudonyms.' • Baroness Casey: I feel rage on behalf of the abused girls This was not a race issue for Champion. 'To me this was just child abuse. It wasn't an ethnicity thing. The names weren't typically white English names, but what mattered was they were perpetrators of horrendous crimes. I'm a sloppy lefty to my core; I believe in equality and diversity. I just saw them as criminals.' The MP strongly believes Rotherham police, councillors and social workers should have called out these men as abusers decades ago. 'If they had taken these cases seriously when they began being reported in the 1960s, rather than telling these women they were silly young girls, then there wouldn't have been the boil of frustration there is now. The criminals would have gone to jail, the story wouldn't have escalated across the country, the Pakistani community wouldn't be vilified as though all of them are walking around intent on abusing white girls. They have done a massive disservice to this country.' In no way, Champion says, should these young girls be expected to take the blame. 'I remember when I was 15 and my friends and I were so excited when one of us got an older boyfriend with a car, some children are enamoured by older men, they like feeling special — before it all goes wrong — but we need to protect them.' The Labour MP stresses that she does not think this is about paedophiles. 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She started to believe there was a pattern to cases being reported not just in Rotherham but Rochdale, Telford and Oxford. In 2017, after the conviction of a sex-grooming gang in Newcastle upon Tyne who were largely of Pakistani origin, Champion cracked. 'I did the BBC Today programme because I became so frustrated. They called the day before and I said I am going to say they are Pakistani gangs and they were very concerned. I went on and it was fine, there were no recriminations, just supportive messages. Then The Sun got in touch, and I wrote a piece for them. And all hell broke loose.' Champion had written: 'Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls.' She quit as shadow equalities minister under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, apologising for the 'extremely poor choice of words in [the] article'. She initially claimed her piece had been edited and 'stripped of nuance' but a spokesman for The Sun, which is published by News UK, the parent company of The Times, said: 'Sarah Champion's column … was approved by her team and her adviser twice contacted us thereafter to say she was 'thrilled' with the piece and it 'looked great'.' Champion later said in an interview: 'What I'm really interested in is misogyny. It occurs in many different forms, but the most obvious forms are happening within some ethnic minority communities. I'm thinking female genital mutilation, forced marriage, honour-based violence and this type of child exploitation.' She was immediately branded a racist and for the past few years the abuse hurled at her from all sides has been relentless. 'It's the anniversary of [her fellow Yorkshire MP] Jo Cox's death next week, I was coming through the Tube yesterday and this guy clocked me and put his hand in his pocket and I thought he was going to stab me. You have to recalibrate your head and accept that it is inevitable that someone is going to kill you. It's quite liberating, I am a fatalist. I went through all the panicking and alarms and it eats you up so you just have to resign yourself. The MP David Amess was also a friend so I know what can happen.' • How the child sex grooming gangs scandal unfolded over 20 years Amess was killed in his Southend West constituency. Is it worth Champion risking her life to keep raising the issue of grooming gangs? 'No. But I can't help it.' Does she now wish she hadn't become an MP? 'I genuinely can't answer that. I have tried to become a voice for those who don't have one. But the personal toll? It's living hell. The violence and threat of violence has got marginally better, but it has been horrendous.' The proliferation of grooming gangs dominated by Pakistani-heritage men, she tells me, is like the Post Office scandal and the contaminated blood scandal. 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'I started getting young women coming very distressed because they were having their babies taken off them because social services had decided they were unfit mothers. They would tell me 'I think it is because my boyfriend is Pakistani, and the council is racist'. But it's almost the opposite. The council was afraid to call these men out and saw the victims as having made bad lifestyle choices.' Does she feel that this is as much a class problem as a race problem? 'I don't think it is just working-class girls who have been sucked in, but they are less likely to know how to raise their voices and get people to listen. I've sat with their mothers who say, 'What do I do? I can't chain my daughter up.' One of the groomers' methods is to divide families and get kids put into care so they are even easier prey. I know one parent who had the money and could send her child to a relative out of the region to break the cycle of abuse. So, if you have some cash, you have more options.' 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BBC News

time35 minutes ago

  • BBC News

Essex County Cricket Club pictures show match 100 years ago

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Nottingham Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo signs new three-year deal
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