Overview
- Catherine ‘Cathy’ Pearl, a former assistant headteacher at Didcot Girls School, was jailed after admitting to sexually abusing a pupil over a period of more than four years.
- Armed police arrested three men in Middleton Cheney after a weapons incident that led to a nearby primary school being placed in lockdown.
- Thames Valley Police confirmed the body of missing man Benedict Johnson was found in Oxford exactly four weeks after his disappearance.
- The River & Rowing Museum in Henley closed due to financial pressures, with director Steve O’Connor departing as the board announced the shutdown.
- High-street change accelerated as Waterstones left its long-time Grade II-listed Oxford site, Reading’s Munchees closed after 25 years, and March brought a canal boat fatality, a gang attack on teenagers in Blackbird Leys, and two early-hours car crashes in Headington.