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2003 in the United Kingdom

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2003 in the United Kingdom
Other years
2001 | 2002 | 2003 (2003) | 2004 | 2005
Countries of the United Kingdom
England | Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales
Popular culture

Events from the year 2003 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

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Events

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January

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  • January – Toyota launches an all-new Avensis to be built at TMUK.
  • 10 January – Ian Carr, a 27-year-old banned from driving with a total of 89 previous convictions (including causing death by dangerous driving), admits causing the death by dangerous driving of a six-year-old girl in Ashington, Northumberland – a crime which sparks widespread public and media outrage across the United Kingdom.[1]
  • 14 January – Anti-terrorism detective Stephen Oake is murdered in Crumpsall, Manchester by Islamic terrorist Kamel Bourgass after being stabbed eight times while attempting his arrest.[2]
  • 25 January – Central line underground train crashes into the tunnel wall at Chancery Lane tube station in London, injuring 34 people.
  • 29 January – Sally Clark, a 38-year-old former solicitor from Cheshire, is released from prison after the Court of Appeal clears her of murdering her two sons, who are believed to have suffered sudden infant death syndrome.[3]
  • 30 January – Richard Colvin Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber", is sentenced to life imprisonment by a United States court.[4]
  • 31 January – One of the longest prison sentences ever issued in a British court for a motoring offence is given to killer driver Ian Carr, who receives a nine-and-a-half-year sentence for causing death by dangerous driving – his second conviction for the crime in twelve years.[5]

February

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March

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  • 12 March – Iraq disarmament crisis: UK Prime Minister Tony Blair proposes an amendment to the possible 18th U.N. resolution, which would call for Iraq to meet certain benchmarks to prove that it was disarming. The amendment is immediately rejected by France, who promises to veto any new resolution.
  • 15 March – Comic actress Dame Thora Hird dies in a nursing home in London, aged 91, less than a year after her final appearance on BBC Radio.
  • 18 March – Parliament votes to approve an invasion of Iraq.
  • 20 March – 2003 Iraq war: Land troops from United Kingdom join troops from the United States, Australia and Poland in the invasion of Iraq.
  • 22 March – Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from Royal Navy submarines take part in a massive air and missile strike on military targets in Baghdad.
  • End – First arrest of a British-based terrorist group linked to Al-Qaeda, in Operation CREVICE.[7]

April

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  • 6 April – British forces capture the city of Basra during the invasion of Iraq.
  • 8 April – Three men are convicted in relation to a Real IRA campaign that saw bombs explode in London and Birmingham in 2001. Two others have already admitted plotting to cause explosions as part of the same campaign.[8]
  • 9 April – Invasion of Iraq: the Battle of Baghdad, fought with British air support, concludes, ending Saddam Hussein's rule in the country after 24 years in power.[9]
  • 21 April – Robert Wardle is appointed Director of the Serious Fraud Office of England and Wales.[10]
  • 29 April – Tony Blair holds a one-day summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin mocks the United Kingdom and America's failure to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.[6]

May

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June

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July

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  • 2 July – Chelsea F.C. are bought by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich for a sum of £150,000,000 from current chairman Ken Bates, twenty-one years after he bought the club for £1.[16]
  • 15 July – David Kelly appears before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, to answer questions over the information he had given to Andrew Gilligan.
  • 18 July – David Kelly is found dead near his home in Oxfordshire – police suspect that he committed suicide.[17]
  • 20 July – The BBC confirms that Dr. David Kelly, found dead from a suspected suicide two days earlier, was the main source for a controversial report that sparked a deep rift with the government.[18]
  • 27 July – The British-born American actor and comedian Bob Hope dies at his home in California, two months after his hundredth birthday.
  • 30 July – Eurostar train number 3313/14 sets a new speed record at 334.7 km/h (208 mph) on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

August

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September

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October

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November

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December

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Undated

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  • 153,065 divorces this year.
  • Sales of the DVD home video format take the largest share of the UK home video market for the first time. The format, first launched in the UK in June 1998, accounts for more than 70% of home video sales this year as the VHS format's popularity falls and many new titles are not being released on it.[38]
  • New car sales reach a record high this year of nearly 2,600,000, with the Ford Focus enjoying its fifth successive year as the United Kingdom's best-selling new car. BMW sales also reach a record high, with the BMW 3 Series managing well over 60,000 sales as the UK's ninth best-selling car. Sales of Vauxhall, Peugeot, Renault and Volkswagen cars remain strong as well, while Nissan also enjoys an increase in sales largely due to the popularity of its new version of the Micra.

Publications

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Births

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Jude Bellingham
Bella Ramsey

Deaths

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January

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Roy Jenkins

February

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Philip John Gardner
Keith Ross
Chris Brasher on a Dominican stamp

March

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Adam Faith
Dame Thora Hird

April

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Cecil Howard Green

May

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Noel Redding
Rachel Kempson
Trevor Ford

June

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Philip Stone
Sir Denis Thatcher

July

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Kathleen Raine
Bob Hope

August

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Diana Mitford
Sir Wilfred Thesiger

September

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Robert Palmer

October

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Anne Ziegler (right) with her husband Webster Booth

November

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Greg Ridley
Ted Bates

December

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David Hemmings
Sir Alan Bates

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Killer driver's 89 convictions". BBC News. 10 January 2003. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  2. ^ Bunyan, Nigel (13 April 2005). "The bungled raid that left a policeman face to face with an al-Qa'eda assassin". The Daily Telegraph.
  3. ^ "2003: Solicitor cleared of killing sons". BBC News. 29 January 2003. Archived from the original on 1 February 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
  4. ^ "2003: 'Shoe bomber' jailed for life". BBC News. 30 January 2003. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
  5. ^ "Driver who killed girl after life ban is jailed for nine years". The Independent. London. 31 January 2003. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022.[dead link]
  6. ^ a b c d e Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 653–656. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
  7. ^ Andrew, Christopher (2010) [2009]. The Defence of the Realm. London: Penguin. p. 817. ISBN 978-0-141-02330-4.
  8. ^ "Men guilty of dissident bomb plot". BBC News. 8 April 2003. Retrieved 11 September 2023.
  9. ^ "2003: Saddam statue topples with regime". BBC News. 9 April 2003.
  10. ^ "Press release on his appointment". Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
  11. ^ Wells, Matt (2004). "The Story of the Story". In Rogers, Simon (ed.). The Hutton Inquiry and Its Impact. London: Politico's Guardian Books. pp. 28–41. ISBN 978-1-84275-106-0.
  12. ^ "Charles Clarke Welcomes Margaret Hodge as Minister for Children" (Press release). Department for Children, Schools and Families. 13 June 2003. Retrieved 28 January 2011.
  13. ^ "Matches Played 13 June 2003". Cricinfo. 2009. Retrieved 14 June 2012.
  14. ^ a b c Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
  15. ^ "Poll tracker". BBC. 2010. Archived from the original on 1 February 2011. Retrieved 28 January 2011.
  16. ^ "Russian businessman buys Chelsea". BBC News. 2 July 2003. Archived from the original on 24 January 2009. Retrieved 18 September 2010.
  17. ^ a b "2003: Missing Iraq expert – body found". BBC News. 18 July 2003. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
  18. ^ "BBC admits Kelly was 'main source'". BBC News. 20 July 2003. Retrieved 6 January 2008.
  19. ^ "Hutton inquiry begins". BBC News. 1 August 2003. Retrieved 6 January 2008.
  20. ^ "2003: Britain swelters in record heat". BBC News. 10 August 2003. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
  21. ^ McGuinness, Ross (16 March 2009). "Metro". p. 30.
  22. ^ "2003: End of an era for Concorde". BBC News. 24 October 2003. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
  23. ^ "2003: Tory Party leader resigns". BBC News. 29 October 2003. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
  24. ^ "2003: Royal baby born prematurely". BBC News. 8 November 2003. Retrieved 18 March 2009.
  25. ^ "Tories' Davis backs death penalty". BBC News. 16 November 2003. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
  26. ^ "2003: High security as Bush visits UK". BBC News. 18 November 2003. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
  27. ^ "2003: British targets bombed in Istanbul". BBC News. 20 November 2003. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
  28. ^ "2003: England win Rugby World Cup". BBC News. 22 November 2003. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
  29. ^ "Man given life for triple murder". BBC News. 25 November 2003. Retrieved 11 September 2023.
  30. ^ "M6 Toll road opens". BBC News. 9 December 2003.
  31. ^ "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2003". Retrieved 27 January 2008.
  32. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2003". Retrieved 27 January 2008.
  33. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2003". Retrieved 27 January 2008.
  34. ^ "2003: Mother cleared of murdering babies". BBC News. 10 December 2003. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
  35. ^ "Finding CPR/HICP Date". Office for National Statistics. 2010. Retrieved 6 January 2011.
  36. ^ "2003: Ian Huntley guilty of Soham murders". BBC News. 17 December 2003. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
  37. ^ "Blunkett launches Huntley inquiry". BBC News. 17 December 2003. Retrieved 18 March 2009.
  38. ^ "10 years on and the DVD is still going strong | British Video Association". Archived from the original on 31 December 2013. Retrieved 29 December 2013.
  39. ^ Sewell, Andrew R. "Review: Dug to Death" Archived 2 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine, "Reviews: Dug to Death: A Tale of Archaeological Method and Mayhem." The Journal of The Society For Industrial Archeology, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2004. http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/sia/30.1/br_10.html Archived 2 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  40. ^ Gresens, Bill. "Death by Theory: A Tale of Mystery and Archaeological Theory (Review)". Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center (U of Wisc/La Crosse). Archived from the original on 8 January 2013. Retrieved 31 March 2012.