Father-of-one Reece Cox tried to stop an attack, but was set upon by a group, police say.

The Tories take control of Dudley Council and also take their first seats in Sandwell for six years.

Sandwell has remained a Labour council, but that was never in doubt, and the Conservatives will be pleased to have gained nine seats.

They won none in the 2019 elections.

Labour still have 58 seats, while Independents claimed four seats.

The voter turnout was up by 5% from 2019, with 29.5% of eligible residents heading to the polls.

Sophie Calvert
Political Reporter, BBC Radio Stoke

We’re waiting for the full results for the first round of voting for Staffordshire's Police Fire and Crime Commissioner

But if the East Staffordshire results are anything to go by, we might not have to go to the second round.

The Conservative candidate Ben Adams has 14,480 votes in East Staffordshire.

His next nearest challenger, Labour’s Tony Kearon, has 7,886.

There were also 3,012 votes cast there for Independent Deneice Florence-Jukes and 1,188 for Lib Dem Richard Whelan.

The Reform UK candidate Michael Riley got 607.

But these are just the votes for East Staffordshire, not the whole county, so that picture could still change.

The Conservatives have comfortably held on to Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council.

They gained three seats to take their total to 30 with the Green Party the next largest group with 15.

The Lib Dems have three seats, Labour two and there is one Independent.

Giving evidence, a witness says he saw Dalian Atkinson kicked "like you'd kick a football".

The majority of seats declared at the Coventry election count so far, have all been held by the Labour incumbents.

Image source, Coventry City Council

However one Conservative gain has been made in Sherbourne ward by Ryan Simpson.

Hannah Griffiths
BBC CWR

The counts at Coventry should be starting to trickle in soon.

Turnout is 32% overall for these elections.

Postal votes were up by 59% and I’m told 900 litres of hand sanitiser were ordered for this count.

Monica Rimmer
BBC News

A lot has happened since 06:00 this morning, so let's run you through the big stories of the day so far:

• The first council to declare was in Redditch - there the Conservatives took all the contested seats - something council leader Matt Dormer said he was "ecstatic" about. His opponent, Bill Hartnett, said he felt people had voted on national issues.

• The Conservatives also took control of Nuneaton and Bedworth council - the first time they've been in full control since the 2008 election. As you can see, they were pretty happy about that...

• It was also a good night for the Tories in Dudley, who took control of the council - they gained 12 seats and Labour lost 11. Council leader Patrick Harley said it was "a great night for the Conservative party in Dudley". His opposition Qadar Zada said Labour needed to "go away and understand" why the party didn't get support from voters.

• Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited the patch earlier and said it was "early days" but there had been a "very encouraging set of results so far".

• Labour kept hold of both Wolverhampton and Sandwell council.

• Over in Worcestershire, the Tories look to be on track in keeping their majority.

• More councils across West Midlands will declare results later today and the West Midlands mayoral results are due on Saturday.

Local Democracy Reporting Service
Keri Trigg

A Labour candidate in the Shropshire Council elections says she could have missed out on votes because her name was printed incorrectly on the ballot papers.

Elisabeth Roberts is standing in Harlescott division, which has consistently voted Labour at every election since the council was formed in 2009.

Ms Roberts said she put Lisa on her nomination forms - as a name she is also known as - but did not intend for this to be the name on the ballot papers.

When her name appeared as Lisa on the Statement of Persons Nominated, published four weeks ago, she said she contacted the council multiple times to get it corrected. So she said she was shocked to see it on the ballot papers.

Shropshire Council has been asked to comment.

Sophie Calvert
Political Reporter, BBC Radio Stoke

Away from the council elections, counting is now starting in the race for Staffordshire's Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner.

Burton Town Hall is the venue for the declaration which will be this afternoon.

Matthew Ellis, Conservative, has held the role since its creation in 2012 - but he is stepping down.

PFCC turnout for this election across the county is 29%.

James Pearson
Political reporter, BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester

Thirteen out of 57 results are in for the Worcestershire County Council elections.

So far the Conservatives are on course to hold on to their majority, but overall they are down one seat on their 2017 performance.

Despite winning a seat from the Independents in Alvechurch, they've lost Malvern Chase to the Lib Dems, and surprisingly Croome to the Greens.

While Labour have been heavily hit, especially in Redditch's district elections, elsewhere the Greens and the Lib Dems have done well.

Laura Chiverton
BBC Radio WM

All results are now in for Sandwell with the Conservatives taking eight seats from Labour, but control of the council stays with Labour.

We'll have to wait until tomorrow for some results, including those for the West Midlands regional mayor and the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner.

But with the way things have been going so far, the MP for Dudley South Mike Wood is confident his Conservative Party will win both.

He said: "I think there's a very good chance that we manage to get Andy Street re-elected and Jay Singh-Sohal as the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner."

Image source, UK Parliament

Reflecting on his party taking control of Dudley Council, Mr Wood said: "These people don't recognise the Labour Party representing them any more and increasingly they're turning to Conservative candidates and the Conservative Party that will work to pursue their interests."

Bashir Mohamed was found in Ladywood with stab wounds to his arm but later died.

The Labour leader of Dudley council, Councillor Qadar Zada, has said the party need to "go away and understand" why it didn't get the support in the election.

Some counting is still left to do, but the Tories will have overall control.

All the results from Dudley are now in and the final tally is 46 seats for the Conservatives, 24 for Labour and two independents.

A reminder that until last night the council was under no overall control. That changed with the Tories clinching a strong majority.

In the end, Labour lost 11 seats on the council and the Conservatives gained 12.

The final gain by the Tories was a seat won by UKIP in 2019.

Councillor Qadar Zada, the leader of the Labour group said afterwards the coronavirus pandemic had been a factor and that "talking to the public at this time about politics isn't the right thing to do".

But he also said he wouldn't make excuses and would reflect on the results.

"This is a great night for the Conservative Party in Dudley" - the words from the Conservative group leader in Dudley.

"We appear to be sweeping the boards gaining seat after seat, but not just scraping through, but getting fantastic majorities," Councillor Patrick Harley told the BBC.

"It's a total rejection of the Labour party from the people of Dudley.

"Our programme of regeneration and trying to rebuild this borough and make it better is connecting with the people of the borough."

Boris Johnson visited the region on Wednesday to show his support for the region's Conservative mayoral candidate Andy Street.

Mr Johnson joined the current mayor, who is seeking re-election, on one of the region's cycle-for-hire bikes which he said "looked very familiar".

Image source, PA Media

Later that day Sir Keir Starmer was in Birmingham supporting his party's candidate in the mayoral election, Liam Byrne.

He spoke to students and asked them how they'd been coping with the pandemic.

We're not expecting the results of the mayor position until Saturday.

Image source, PA Media

Rob Mayor
Political reporter, BBC Radio WM

More results are still to come but the Tories have enough for a majority.

They've taken nine seats from Labour so far, with more counting still to do.