Former Sugababes star expecting second child

FORMER SUGABABES star Heidi Range is expecting her second child after suffering two miscarriages in 18 months.

The 37-year-old singer announced the news in an interview with Hello! magazine and said the child, a girl, is expected in August.

Range, from Liverpool, already shares threeyear-old daughter Aurelia with husband Alex Partakis, who she married in a 2016 ceremony in Florence, Italy.

She told the magazine they were “over the moon” but it had been a nerve-wracking time until she’d had her scans.

Range joined the group in 2001 after a stint in Atomic Kitten and performed with them until 2011 when the group went on hiatus.

WOMEN’S ADVANCEMENT in society has been “set back” by the pandemic, and will likely lead to more domestic abuse in the future, Labour MP Jess Phillips has warned.

The shadow minister for domestic violence said economic independence, ability to work and career progress of women has been badly hit by the crisis. And she warned that the greater imbalance between men and women as a result would lead to “more domestic abuse in the future, not less”.

She said: “The lockdown will have massively increased people’s risk register at the same time as decreasing their opportunities for escape. But not even escape – escape is too big a term – their opportunities to be in front of somebody else, whether that is someone in the shop or a teacher in their kids’ class, or their social worker, their staff, their colleagues.

“We just have eliminated touch points that keep people safe.”

The MP is calling for an employment scheme for women, akin to those for young people, to be introduced to deal with the jobs lost in hospitality and retail. “When male politicians who are fathers stand on platforms and thank mothers for basically taking an economic nose dive - I don’t want your thanks, I want your governance,” she said.

Figures last month showed domestic abuse-related offences in England and Wales rose by 10 per cent in a year, despite overall crime falling in the pandemic.