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]
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]
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.
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
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 IRAcampaign 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]
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]
The
BBC announces that the hugely popular character
Den Watts will return to its soap opera
EastEnders later this year, fourteen years after he was supposedly killed off.
15 May – The government suspends all flights to and from
Kenya after warnings of an imminent
al-Qaeda attack.[6]
29 May – Journalist
Andrew Gilligan broadcasts a report on the
BBC Radio 4Today programme stating that the government claimed in its 2002 dossier that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within forty-five minutes knowing the claim to be dubious. A political storm ensues. Gilligan has interviewed weapons expert
David Kelly.[11]
15 June – The News of the World publishes an article in which Ian Huntley is photographed in his cell at Woodhill Prison. An undercover reporter had got a job in the prison and was employed as Huntley's guard.
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.
1 August – The
Hutton Inquiry into the recent death of weapons expert Dr. David Kelly, chaired by judge
Lord Hutton, opens,[19] beginning to take evidence on 11 August.[17]
3 August – Police use the
taser for the first time.[14]
10 August –
Brogdale, near
Faversham, enters the
UK Weather Records for the highest ever recorded temperature of 38.5 °C, a record which holds until July 2019. The
2003 European heat wave makes this the United Kingdom's hottest summer for thirteen years.[20]
September
4 September – The rebuilt
Bull Ring shopping centre in
Birmingham is officially opened by Sir Albert Bore.
Section 1 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, later
High Speed 1, from Fawkham Junction to the
Channel Tunnel is opened for passengers.
The comeback of
Den Watts (played by
Leslie Grantham) in EastEnders is screened, fourteen years after the character was supposedly killed off, and just over four months after the BBC confirmed that Grantham would be returning to the series.[21]
October
24 October – Supersonic aircraft
Concorde makes its final commercial flights after twenty-seven years.[22]
16 November –
David Davis, the new Shadow Home Secretary, calls for a return of the death penalty for murderers found guilty of the most horrific murders; citing
Moors murderer Ian Brady and Yorkshire Ripper
Peter Sutcliffe as criminals whose crimes would meet the criteria.[25]
18 November
United States President
George W. Bush makes a state visit to London in the midst of massive protests.[26]
Passage of the
Local Government Act 2003 including the repeal in England, Northern Ireland and Wales of controversial
Section 28 of the
Local Government Act 1988 which prevented local authorities from "promoting homosexuality". Section 28 had already been repealed in Scotland since 2000.
20 November
Several bombs explode in
Istanbul,
Turkey at several British targets. The Turkish head office of
HSBC and the British consulate are destroyed and the British
Consul-General,
Roger Short is killed.[27]
24 November – The High Court in
Glasgow imposes a minimum sentence of 27 years for Al Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of bombing
Pan Am Flight 103 over
Lockerbie,
Scotland.
25 November – Serial killer
Anthony Hardy, of
Camden, is jailed for life at the
Old Bailey for murdering three women. The dismembered remains of two victims were found in a pub bin in December 2002.[29]
26 November – The final Concorde flight touches down in Filton, Bristol where it is welcomed by the
Duke of York.
December
9 December – The
M6 Toll motorway opens, giving the United Kingdom its first toll motorway and providing a northern by-pass for the congested section of the
M6 motorway through the
West Midlands conurbation.[30]
The
Court of Appeal overturns two murder convictions against 40-year-old
Wiltshire woman
Angela Cannings, who was wrongly convicted of murdering her two baby sons in April last year. Mrs. Cannings, who has a surviving daughter, always maintained that her sons were both victims of
sudden infant death syndrome.[34]
16 December – The Government announces plans to build a new runway at
Stansted Airport in Essex and a short-haul runway at
Heathrow Airport sparking anger from environmentalist groups.
17 December –
Ian Huntley is found guilty of the
Soham Murders and sentenced to life imprisonment at the
Old Bailey. A
High Court judge will later decide on the minimum number of the years that he will have to serve before being considered for parole. His ex-girlfriend
Maxine Carr is found guilty of perverting the course of justice and receives a jail term of three-and-a-half years, but she will be freed on licence (under a new identity to protect her from reprisal attacks) in May 2004 as she has already served sixteen months on remand.[36]Home SecretaryDavid Blunkett orders an
inquiry into how the police vetting system failed to prevent Huntley from getting a job in a school after it is revealed at the end of his trial that he had been suspected in the past of crimes including
underage sex, rape,
indecent assault and burglary.[37]
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.
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]
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]
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.
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
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 IRAcampaign 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]
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]
The
BBC announces that the hugely popular character
Den Watts will return to its soap opera
EastEnders later this year, fourteen years after he was supposedly killed off.
15 May – The government suspends all flights to and from
Kenya after warnings of an imminent
al-Qaeda attack.[6]
29 May – Journalist
Andrew Gilligan broadcasts a report on the
BBC Radio 4Today programme stating that the government claimed in its 2002 dossier that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within forty-five minutes knowing the claim to be dubious. A political storm ensues. Gilligan has interviewed weapons expert
David Kelly.[11]
15 June – The News of the World publishes an article in which Ian Huntley is photographed in his cell at Woodhill Prison. An undercover reporter had got a job in the prison and was employed as Huntley's guard.
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.
1 August – The
Hutton Inquiry into the recent death of weapons expert Dr. David Kelly, chaired by judge
Lord Hutton, opens,[19] beginning to take evidence on 11 August.[17]
3 August – Police use the
taser for the first time.[14]
10 August –
Brogdale, near
Faversham, enters the
UK Weather Records for the highest ever recorded temperature of 38.5 °C, a record which holds until July 2019. The
2003 European heat wave makes this the United Kingdom's hottest summer for thirteen years.[20]
September
4 September – The rebuilt
Bull Ring shopping centre in
Birmingham is officially opened by Sir Albert Bore.
Section 1 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, later
High Speed 1, from Fawkham Junction to the
Channel Tunnel is opened for passengers.
The comeback of
Den Watts (played by
Leslie Grantham) in EastEnders is screened, fourteen years after the character was supposedly killed off, and just over four months after the BBC confirmed that Grantham would be returning to the series.[21]
October
24 October – Supersonic aircraft
Concorde makes its final commercial flights after twenty-seven years.[22]
16 November –
David Davis, the new Shadow Home Secretary, calls for a return of the death penalty for murderers found guilty of the most horrific murders; citing
Moors murderer Ian Brady and Yorkshire Ripper
Peter Sutcliffe as criminals whose crimes would meet the criteria.[25]
18 November
United States President
George W. Bush makes a state visit to London in the midst of massive protests.[26]
Passage of the
Local Government Act 2003 including the repeal in England, Northern Ireland and Wales of controversial
Section 28 of the
Local Government Act 1988 which prevented local authorities from "promoting homosexuality". Section 28 had already been repealed in Scotland since 2000.
20 November
Several bombs explode in
Istanbul,
Turkey at several British targets. The Turkish head office of
HSBC and the British consulate are destroyed and the British
Consul-General,
Roger Short is killed.[27]
24 November – The High Court in
Glasgow imposes a minimum sentence of 27 years for Al Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of bombing
Pan Am Flight 103 over
Lockerbie,
Scotland.
25 November – Serial killer
Anthony Hardy, of
Camden, is jailed for life at the
Old Bailey for murdering three women. The dismembered remains of two victims were found in a pub bin in December 2002.[29]
26 November – The final Concorde flight touches down in Filton, Bristol where it is welcomed by the
Duke of York.
December
9 December – The
M6 Toll motorway opens, giving the United Kingdom its first toll motorway and providing a northern by-pass for the congested section of the
M6 motorway through the
West Midlands conurbation.[30]
The
Court of Appeal overturns two murder convictions against 40-year-old
Wiltshire woman
Angela Cannings, who was wrongly convicted of murdering her two baby sons in April last year. Mrs. Cannings, who has a surviving daughter, always maintained that her sons were both victims of
sudden infant death syndrome.[34]
16 December – The Government announces plans to build a new runway at
Stansted Airport in Essex and a short-haul runway at
Heathrow Airport sparking anger from environmentalist groups.
17 December –
Ian Huntley is found guilty of the
Soham Murders and sentenced to life imprisonment at the
Old Bailey. A
High Court judge will later decide on the minimum number of the years that he will have to serve before being considered for parole. His ex-girlfriend
Maxine Carr is found guilty of perverting the course of justice and receives a jail term of three-and-a-half years, but she will be freed on licence (under a new identity to protect her from reprisal attacks) in May 2004 as she has already served sixteen months on remand.[36]Home SecretaryDavid Blunkett orders an
inquiry into how the police vetting system failed to prevent Huntley from getting a job in a school after it is revealed at the end of his trial that he had been suspected in the past of crimes including
underage sex, rape,
indecent assault and burglary.[37]
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.