Stacey Sharples, 31, from Farnworth in Bolton, pleaded guilty on Monday at Bolton Crown Court to 10 counts of perverting the course of justice.

The allegations were made between 2013 and 2019, with most of the men arrested and spending time in custody, including some undertaking intimate examinations, said Greater Manchester Police.

They added that a number of the men lost their jobs or partners, were disowned by family and friends, or saw declines in their mental health after being falsely branded a rapist.

Greater Manchester Police said the investigation into Sharples began after lines of inquiry "consistently" revealed evidence contrary to what had been disclosed by her.

The force said there was a "continuous, wilful making of false allegations" by Sharples, who knew "full well the consequences for each of the men involved".

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Nine of the men who Sharples made false allegations about also provided impact statements.

Reece Lockett said: "My life was turned upside down the day I was falsely accused of rape. My mum and dad disowned me. My partner of five years left me. I lost my part-time job."

Astron Inman said: "Words can't describe the torment my head has gone through. I moved to Sweden not long after to re-evaluate my life and wasn't a part of my children's lives for a couple of years.

"My love life had dramatically fallen, I have been single ever since and I find it hard how to approach the opposite sex."

Detective Sergeant Steven Gilliland, who investigated this case, said on Wednesday after sentencing: "We took the allegations made by Stacey Sharples seriously, explored all lines of enquiry and swiftly made arrests or interviewed all the men she accused.

"We gave her multiple opportunities to provide further explanation or information to us, after interviews with the men and subsequent evidence uncovered didn't align with her first recollection, as we understand that trauma can impact how victims and survivors recount their experiences.

"Ultimately, as the evidence continued to demonstrate that the reports were untrue, coupled with the desire for justice from some of the men who had been falsely accused, it was right that we followed the evidence and pursued the individual who had actually committed a criminal offence.

"I would like to pay tribute to the strength of these men, who have endured an experience no one would ever wish to go through, and done so with dignity. I hope they feel a sense of justice for what happened to them today."

He added: "To anyone out there who has been a victim of rape or any sexual offence, I plead that the actions of Miss Sharples do not stop you from seeking support, whether that be from police, a charity or support service."

The police said false accounts undermine those who have genuinely experienced sexual violence.

It added that the time spent investigating Sharples' claims could have been put towards investigating genuine reports of sexual offences.

Anthony Russell, 43, is accused of murdering 52-year-old Huntley at HMP Frankland, near Durham.

He appeared before Newton Aycliffe Magistrates' Court on Wednesday via videolink.

Wearing a grey sweatshirt while sitting at a table, Russell spoke only to confirm his name and that he understood he will appear at Newcastle Crown Court on Thursday.

A spokesman for Durham Constabulary previously said that "a man has been charged with murder following an incident at HMP Frankland in Durham".

The spokesperson said "emergency services were called to reports of an assault in the workshop" on the morning of 26 February.

The 52-year-old was taken to hospital with serious injuries, but died on 7 March.

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Huntley was convicted of the murders of 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in 2002.

He killed them after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets, then dumped their bodies in a ditch. In December 2003, he was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment.

Police officers were called to Thorpe St Andrew School, around two miles east of the city centre, at 10.24am on Wednesday.

The 15-year-old white British boy was arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, Norfolk Police said.

He has been taken to Wymondham police investigation centre for questioning, while the victim was taken to hospital with minor injuries.

There was a heavy police presence at the school on Wednesday afternoon, including multiple marked cars and forensics vans, and paramedics were also on scene.

A spokesperson for Broad Horizons Education Trust, which runs Thorpe St Andrew, said the whole school was put into lockdown as a result of the incident.

"We have clear procedures in place and our staff acted swiftly, with the whole school going into lockdown, with children staying in their classroom with their teacher," the spokesperson said in a statement.

"One of our students was injured and is now being treated in hospital for minor injuries.

"This has obviously been a distressing experience for our whole community and our focus now is on making sure all students feel supported as we begin to understand what happened."

A 16-year-old student said a bell began to ring "continuously" while she was in a lesson, and her teacher put a table against the door.

Speaking outside after the school was closed early for the day, Letizia Brister said she was "just shocked" but added that "the teachers and all the staff definitely knew what they were doing and I did feel quite safe".

Her father, Leon Brister, 35, said the family suffered "two and a half hours of anguish just waiting, virtually being kept in the dark with no information", but did praise the school for keeping the rest of the children safe.

Norwich North MP Alice Macdonald wrote on social media: "Reports from Thorpe St Andrew School are incredibly serious and deeply alarming.

"Immediately, we need to give the police time to ensure that everyone at the school is safe.

"My thoughts are with all of them and their families, especially the victim who has been taken to hospital."

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The school, which was rated "good" in its 2025 Ofsted inspection, is an 11 to 18 mixed secondary school which also includes a sixth form.

Police added that the incident is not believed to be linked to a hate crime reported at the same school last week, involving allegations of antisemitic chanting during a football match involving a Jewish school.

Its members, which is to say most of the world's rich nations, will release an unprecedented amount of oil from their national stockpiles into the global market in the coming weeks.

This emergency stockpile release is more than double the last record, a whopping 400 million barrels of oil, to come from the stockpiles of its members around the world. Yet here's the striking thing: far from falling, oil prices barely budged. After the announcement, Brent crude was still around 25% higher than before the attacks in the Gulf began.

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All of which raises the question: why? The short answer is that even after this new infusion of oil, the world is likely to remain short of oil. The long answer comes back to the fundamental nature of the oil market.

The best way to think of the oil market is as an enormous set of pipes through which crude oil and its products are constantly flowing. What matters, far more than how much oil there is in the ground, either in the form of reservoirs or stockpiles, is something more simple: how much oil is pumped through the global system every day.

And in recent years, the amount pumped through the system each day has worked out at about 100 million barrels of oil. Now, these numbers go up and down as the seasons turn and perhaps, in the coming years, might go down as people adopt electric cars and find alternatives to fossil fuels. But the key thing to keep in the back of your mind is that for the time being, much of the world's living standards - our access to transportation, to power, to consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and the rest - depends on that 100 million barrels of oil pumped through the world's pipes.

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All of which brings us back to the Persian Gulf, which is responsible for about 30% of the world's oil, of which around 15 million barrels pass through the Strait of Hormuz each day. The heart of the energy shock the world is getting its head round comes back to the fact that it is running short of 15 million barrels of oil a day. In other words, it's all about that gap - between the oil we need to keep the world functioning and the oil we actually have.

Just not enough supply

That brings us back to the IEA's emergency release. While the overall number is certainly high, what matters even more is a number the organisation didn't release on Tuesday: how much of that oil it expects to come out each day. In other words, how much of the 15 million barrel gap will those emergency supplies fill?

The expectation among analysts is that the number will be 4-5 million barrels, which is not nothing but, as you'll know if you have elementary mathematics, still leaves the world at least 10 million barrels short of oil each day.

There are other sources of oil. For one thing, Saudi Arabia, and to a lesser extent the United Arab Emirates, could pump more oil through their pipelines to ports that are not inside the Gulf (in other words, meaning tankers do not need to brave the straits). That might, optimistically, mean another 5.7 million barrels of oil.

On top of this, there are a handful of ships still passing through Hormuz. An educated guess suggests this might bring in another half a million or maybe, at the outside, a million barrels.

Tot it all up, though, taking the very best case scenario, and you're still talking about a shortfall of 4 million barrels of oil for the global economy. This is far less scary than the 15 million shortfall we started off with, but it is nonetheless not enough to satisfy global oil consumption.

Why prices are still high

Which is at least part of the explanation for why oil prices are still so high and why, all around the world, countries are feeling the impacts. We tend to focus, here in Europe, on the stuff we are beginning to see - on higher petrol prices and the implications for bills. But it's fanning out elsewhere too, especially in Asia. Indian oil refineries are shutting down; provinces are rationing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) supplies for local households. Workers in Thailand and Vietnam are being urged to work from home to safeguard petrol supplies.

And the longer this goes on, the more of these impacts we will see. The world is facing an energy gap; it's not clear how it bridges it.

The driver has been arrested in Washington DC and no injuries have been reported, a police spokesman said.

Officers were called at about 6.37am local time "to the vicinity of the White House... after a van drove through the barricade at Connecticut Avenue and H Street, Northwest", he added.

The Secret Service said the man crashed into the temporary security barrier just before 6.30am (10.30am in the UK).

He was immediately arrested by officers from the Secret Service's uniformed division, the agency said, adding that he was being interviewed and that criminal charges were pending.

A police bomb squad was called to the scene, checked the vehicle and determined it to be safe.