Ahead of the G7 summit starting on Friday, 5,000 mutual aid officers have arrived in the area from police forces across the UK. They will join 1,500 officers and staff from Devon and Cornwall police being deployed at the event.
More than 100 police dogs will be working at the summit, though no police horses are due to be there
Category Archives: UK security and counter-terrorism
GCHQ’s mass data interception violated right to privacy, court rules
Human rights judgment follows legal challenge begun in 2013 after Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing revelations
GCHQ’s methods for bulk interception of online communications violated the right to privacy and the regime for collection of data was “not in accordance with the law”, the grand chamber of the European court of human rights has ruled.
It also found the bulk interception regime contained insufficient protections for confidential journalistic material but said the decision to operate a bulk interception regime did not of itself violate the European convention on human rights.
Continue reading...Far-right attack inevitable, warns informant who identified London nail bomber
Undercover agent who identified 1999 attacker says police are failing to keep pace with online spread of extreme ideology
An undercover informant who identified the man behind Britain’s deadliest far-right attack has warned that a similar atrocity is inevitable due to the spread of extreme ideology online.
The mole, codenamed “Arthur”, told his handler, who then informed the police, that David Copeland was behind a series of attacks that killed three and injured more than 100 over a bombing campaign lasting less than two weeks in 1999.
Continue reading...Police hunt man who tried to frame person for Westminster terror attack
Gerald Banyard found guilty of perverting course of justice over attack by Khalid Masood in 2017
A police hunt is under way for a man who “looked to exploit an extremely tragic and serious situation” by framing an innocent person for the Westminster terror attack.
Gerald Banyard, 67, of Whalley, Lancashire, sent two handwritten notes to police in the days after the Westminster Bridge attack by Khalid Masood in March 2017, claiming that his landlord’s partner had been involved in the atrocity, in which five people were killed including PC Keith Palmer.
Continue reading...People with dyslexia have skills that we need, says GCHQ
UK surveillance agency says it has long valued neuro-diverse analysts – including Alan Turing
Apprentices on GCHQ’s scheme are four times more likely to have dyslexia than those on other organisations’ programmes, the agency has said, the result of a drive to recruit those whose brains process information differently.
GCHQ says those with dyslexia have valuable skills spotting patterns that others miss – a key area the spy agency wants to encourage as it pivots away from dead letter drops and bugging towards high-tech cybersecurity and data analysis.
Continue reading...Murder of Kremlin critic in London ‘was made to look like suicide’
Nikolai Glushkov was strangled by assailant who then wrapped dog lead around his neck, inquest told
The prominent Kremlin critic Nikolai Glushkov was strangled at his home in south-west London by an unknown assailant who wrapped a dog lead around his neck in a crude attempt to “simulate” the appearance of suicide, an inquest heard.
Glushkov’s body was discovered on 12 March 2018 at his suburban home in New Malden. His daughter Natalia Glushkova told the hearing that she and Glushkov’s partner, Denis Trushin, had called round that evening after growing concerned.
Continue reading...Watchdog steps in over secrecy about UK women in Syria stripped of citizenship
Exclusive: Home Office refusal to disclose how many women are in same position as Shamima Begum prompts action
The Home Office’s refusal to disclose the number of women who, like Shamima Begum, have been deprived of their British citizenship after travelling to join Islamic State is under investigation by the information commissioner.
The watchdog said it would step in after the government refused to share the data with a human rights group concerned about the conditions of British women and children detained in camps in north-east Syria, where conditions are dire.
Continue reading...GCHQ releases ‘most difficult puzzle ever’ in honour of Alan Turing
12 riddles linked to new £50 note featuring the codebreaker may take seven hours to crack
GCHQ has released its “most difficult puzzle ever”, a set of 12 riddles linked to design elements of the new £50 note featuring the mathematician and codebreaker Alan Turing.
The questions begin with a relatively straightforward crossword-style puzzle that starts by asking where GCHQ’s predecessor agency, where Turing worked, was based during the second world war. A two-word answer, nine letters then four, is required.
Continue reading...IRA Brighton bomber ‘scouted Labour conference seven years earlier’
Patrick Magee says he was in IRA team that visited town in 1977 to potentially target government figures
The IRA bomber who almost wiped out Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative cabinet in 1984 secretly scouted a Labour party conference in Brighton seven years earlier, he has disclosed.
Patrick Magee surveilled the Brighton conference centre in October 1977 when the IRA sought to hit back at the then Labour government for its policies in Northern Ireland.
Continue reading...MI5 involvement in drone project revealed in paperwork slip-up
Exclusive: Document produced by university cited agency as secret funder of research
For an agency devoted to secrecy and surveillance, it is an embarrassing slip-up. An inadvertent disclosure on a university document has revealed that MI5 is partly behind what was meant to be a covert bug and drone research project.
Ostensibly, Imperial College’s research was to create a quadcopter system for charging remote agricultural sensors – but MI5’s participation has emerged because somebody involved stated it was the secret second funder of the programme.
Continue reading...UK’s anti-terror chief fears rights group boycott threatens Prevent review
Neil Basu says move to protest appointment of William Shawcross could harm process
Britain’s best chance of reducing terrorist violence risks being damaged amid a huge backlash to the government’s choice of William Shawcross to lead a review of Prevent, the country’s top counter-terrorism officer has told the Guardian.
Assistant commissioner Neil Basu’s comments came after key human rights and Muslim groups announced a boycott of the official review of Prevent, which aims to stop Britons being radicalised into violent extremism.
Continue reading...George Blake, notorious cold war double agent, dies aged 98
Former MI6 spy exposed hundreds of western agents and settled in Soviet Union after escape from jail
The former British spy and Soviet Union double agent George Blake has died at the age of 98.
The RIA news agency reported that Blake died in Russia, citing the country’s SVR foreign intelligence agency. “We received some bitter news – the legendary George Blake passed away,” it said.
Continue reading...Largest number of Prevent referrals related to far-right extremism
Of cases referred on to Channel, 43% were for rightwing and 30% for Islamist radicalisation
Just 11% of referrals to the government’s controversial Prevent programme were ultimately deemed to be at risk of radicalisation, with the largest number of referrals relating to far-right extremism.
The annual figures emerged as James Brokenshire, the security minister, warned that far-right terror posed “a growing threat” which had been accelerated by the amplification of conspiracy theories online during the pandemic.
Continue reading...Javid advised of ‘hostile public sentiment’ to Shamima Begum, court told
Officials told then home secretary that withdrawing Isis recruit’s citizenship would not hurt community relations, supreme court hears
Home Office officials declared “public sentiment is overwhelmingly hostile” to Shamima Begum and argued removing her British citizenship would not affect community relations when they advised Sajid Javid to act against her last year.
The then home secretary was formally advised that “the general feeling” was that the young woman, who travelled from east London to live under Isis in Syria aged 15, had “made her decision and must now live with it”.
Continue reading...Police let public down on night of Manchester Arena bomb, chief says
British Transport Police assistant chief constable says officers should have been patrolling site of attack
A senior police chief has admitted that officers who failed to patrol the site of the Manchester Arena bomb “let the public down”.
An inquiry into the terrorist attack heard that two British Transport Police (BTP) officers left the area to take a meal break of more than two hours, involving a five-mile trip to buy kebabs.
Continue reading...Qatari officials intimidated claimants in terror case, high court told
Met police counter-terror unit has been asked to investigate allegations, court hears
Counter-terrorism police have been asked to investigate claims that witnesses and claimants in a terror-funding case were intimidated by officials working for the state of Qatar, the high court has been told.
Allegations of perverting the course of justice emerged at the hearing in London on Wednesday in a case involving compensation claims submitted originally by eight Syrian refugees against Doha Bank, the headquarters of which are in the Gulf state.
Continue reading...Life during wartime: how west Belfast became the frontline of the Troubles
Acts of state violence, and repeated official denials, drove some Northern Irish Catholics to armed resistance. But not everyone in west Belfast supported the IRA’s methods
When Johnston Brown, a 27-year-old detective with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) – the overwhelmingly protestant police force of Northern Ireland – volunteered in late 1977 to serve at Andersonstown police barracks in Catholic west Belfast, he was given a few pieces of very clear advice. He should never stop at a red light in west Belfast if it was safe to drive on. He should assume that any pedestrians who wanted to cross the road may be part of a trap – members of the security forces had lost their lives this way. Nor should Brown ever indicate that he was turning into a police barracks. He should approach with the flow of the traffic and then swerve suddenly in through the gates, to reduce the risk of being shot, and to make it harder for anyone to make a note of his registration number. And if he were unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of gunmen, he must attempt to shoot his way out – never try to talk himself out of trouble.
“I remember clearly,” Brown wrote in 2005, “one older detective sergeant, a man in his late 40s, telling me sternly: ‘Here you have at most between five and eight minutes at the door of any house you may call at on an enquiry. You have that much time to conduct the enquiry and get the hell out of those areas, because five to eight minutes is all the time it takes for the Provos [the Provisional IRA] to get hold of a weapon and a volunteer who will be only too keen to kill you before you conduct your enquiry and leave.’”
Continue reading...MI5 boss says Russian and Chinese threats to UK ‘growing in severity’
Ken McCallum also pledges to boost diversity in the service as response to Black Lives Matter movement
MI5’s new boss has said the spy threats posed by China and Russia to the UK are “growing in severity and complexity” while the terrorist threat from Isis and the far right “persists at scale”.
Giving his first speech since his domestic spy agency’s director general in April, Ken McCallum focused on risks from hostile states, including undermining “the integrity of UK research” on a coronavirus vaccine.
Continue reading...Manchester Arena bombing victim not evacuated for over 40 minutes, inquiry told
John Atkinson arrived at hospital 90 minutes after terror attack and later died of blood loss
A victim of the Manchester Arena attack who had to wait more than 40 minutes after the bombing to be evacuated from the scene told a paramedic: “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”, a public inquiry has heard.
John Atkinson, 28, was not taken from the blast site for 46 minutes, before being carried on a cardboard advertising hoarding to a casualty clearing station.
Continue reading...UK set to introduce bill allowing MI5 agents to break the law
Government says bill is not a ‘licence to kill’ but critics call for limits on agents’ activities
A bill allowing confidential informants working for MI5 and the police to break the law will be introduced on Thursday amid a row about whether committing crimes such as murder and torture should be explicitly banned.
The government says that the covert human intelligence sources bill does not amount to a “licence to kill” because it will be compliant with the European convention on human rights, which safeguards the right to life and prohibits torture.
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