Category Archives: Police

‘It’s one of the fundamental issues of our time’: Ben Jamal, the man behind London’s pro-Palestine march

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The son of a Palestinian vicar from west Jerusalem and an English mother has helped bring hundreds of thousands of people on to the capital’s streets

“By and large, it’s all been resolved,” said Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC), of his latest meeting with the Metropolitan police about the pro-Palestine march due to take place on Armistice Day in central London.

A “very long meeting” with officers on Wednesday morning had “focused on ironing out the final details of logistics”. There would be just one final discussion to confirm the precise finishing point of Saturday’s procession from Marble Arch to Nine Elms, close to the US embassy, he said.

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Rishi Sunak says pro-Palestine march on Saturday is ‘proof of UK’s commitment to freedom’ – as it happened

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Prime minister says he finds prospect of march ‘disrespectful’ but says freedom includes ‘right to peacefully protest’

Keith is only now asking about Covid. All the questions so far have been about process.

Sedwill says, when concerns about Covid arose, he did not agree to a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee taking place immediately. He wanted to ensure that the meeting was prepared for. And he was concerned that having a Cobra meeting might alarm people.

I felt that a Cobra which might have been convened primarily for communications purposes wasn’t wise. Two days later I was advised there was a genuine cross-government basis for it and I agreed.

May we be plain please as to what you mean by communications purposes. Were you concerned that the Cobra was being called by the DHSC [the Department of Health and Social Care] for presentation purposes, that is to say to make a splash about the role of DHSC, perhaps its secretary of state [Matt Hancock], and that’s why you initially hesitated.

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Thousands demonstrate in Trafalgar Square for Gaza ceasefire

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Protesters converge on square after sit-ins at Oxford Circus and Charing Cross station and chants outside BBC

Thousands of protesters have gathered in Trafalgar Square demanding a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Chants – including the contentious “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as well as “Ceasefire now!” – rang out, as some protesters climbed on top of bus stops and let off green and red flares.

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UK ministers to hold Cobra meeting on terrorism threat from Israel-Hamas conflict

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Suella Braverman will meet police and national security officials at No 10 to discuss ‘accelerated’ risk

UK ministers will hold an emergency meeting of its Cobra committee amid concerns that the Israel-Gaza conflict has raised the possibility of a domestic terrorist incident.

The home secretary, Suella Braverman, will meet national security officials and police at No 10 on Monday to assess the security risk after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel more than three weeks ago.

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Britain is ‘omni-surveillance’ society, watchdog warns

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Exclusive: Fraser Sampson says law is not keeping up with AI advances as police retain 3m images of innocent people

Britain is an “omni-surveillance” society with police forces in the “extraordinary” position of holding more than 3m custody photographs of innocent people more than a decade after being told to destroy them, the independent surveillance watchdog has said.

Fraser Sampson, who will end his term as the Home Office’s biometrics and surveillance commissioner this month, said there “isn’t much not being watched by somebody” in the UK and that the regulatory framework was “inconsistent, incomplete and in some areas incoherent”.

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UK police urged to double use of facial recognition software

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Policing minister Chris Philp suggests target of more than 200,000 searches over next six months

Police are being encouraged to double their use of retrospective facial recognition software to track down offenders over the next six months.

Policing minister Chris Philp has written to force leaders suggesting the target of exceeding 200,000 searches of still images against the police national database by May using facial recognition technology.

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Police seek four people for ‘pro-Hamas’ signs at Palestine demo in London

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Placards declaring support for Hamas and featuring images of paragliders used to attack Israel would break UK terrorism law

Police are looking for four people alleged to have shown support for terrorism, including a man who held a placard declaring full support for Hamas, and three women alleged to have brandished photos of paragliders, which may be a reference to those that were used to attack Israel.

The Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism command issued photos of the suspects and said hate crimes continued to increase. Another big pro-Palestinian demonstration through central London is scheduled for Saturday.

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‘I became his property’: Lewis Edwards’ victims speak of deep trauma

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Families talk of devastation at not being able to protect children from abuse of serving police officer

The victims of Lewis Edwards and their families have spoken of the deep trauma they suffered and the psychological effects of his crimes.

Some of the girls he targeted contemplated suicide or self-harmed and said they could never trust the police again. Relatives described their guilt at not spotting what was going on, feelings of failure at not being able to protect their children, and devastation that the abuser was a serving officer. Many expressed heartbreak that Edwards stole the innocence of their daughters.

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‘Organised gangs’ are shoplifting to order in UK, John Lewis boss says

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Groups of thieves are targeting high-value items such as bottles of spirits, warns the retail group chair Sharon White

John Lewis chair Sharon White has raised fears for the safety of its store workers amid a rise of “organised gangs” of shoplifters who are targeting high-value items such as bottles of spirits.

White, the head of the department store group which also owns Waitrose supermarkets, said it was “not an exaggeration” to describe the change as an epidemic.

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Met must explain decision over ‘jihad’ chant at protest, says minister

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Mark Harper says police should use full force of the law, as Met chief due to meet Suella Braverman

The Metropolitan police will be asked to explain to the home secretary why they failed to take action against demonstrators who chanted about “jihad” in London at the weekend, the transport secretary, Mark Harper, has said.

Suella Braverman is to meet the force’s commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, after video footage from a rally on Saturday organised by the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir showed a man talking about Palestine and asking what the solution was, before the word “jihad” was heard.

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Gaps in UK law allowing ‘jihad’ ‘known to government’

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Britain’s ex-head of counter-terrorism says government failed to act on a recommendation to change legislation

Gaps in UK law that would allow words such as “jihad” to be shouted at rallies were known to the government but not acted upon, Britain’s former head of counter-terrorism has revealed.

The comments from Neil Basu come as some ministers condemned police for their handling of weekend demonstrations in London, with the home secretary, Suella Braverman, due to meet the Metropolitan police commissioner on Monday.

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Family of black boy rammed by Met police car win fight for IOPC inquiry

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Watchdog to investigate why 13-year-old with water pistol was knocked off bike by armed police in Hackney

The family of the black boy rammed off his pedal cycle by police who mistook his water pistol for a real gun have won their fight to have an independent investigation into the incident launched.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) on Friday reversed a decision it had made twice to let the Metropolitan police investigate the actions of its own officers.

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Police watchdog investigates conduct of 12 officers and staff in David Carrick case

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IOPC says 11 current or former officers and one staff member being investigated over handling of allegations against Carrick

Twelve police employees, including serving officers, are under investigation for misconduct over the handling of allegations against the serial rapist and former Metropolitan police officer David Carrick.

Carrick, 48, a former armed officer, pleaded guilty in January to 85 serious offences including 48 rapes between 2003 and 2020, making him one of the worst sexual offenders in modern British criminal history.

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London police defy ban on badges linked to far right and white supremacy

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Met officers seen wearing divisive ‘thin blue line’ symbol at sensitive protests despite orders to remove them

Metropolitan police officers are openly defying orders not to wear badges appropriated by the far right and linked to white supremacy.

In July, the force’s chief, Mark Rowley, banned officers from wearing the “thin blue line” badge saying that in the US an equivalent symbol had been used by “hard-right groups”.

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Two Jewish schools in London to close over security fears

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Ministers announce £3m extra funding for charity that helps protect Jewish community sites

Two Jewish schools in north-west London are set to close temporarily because of safety fears after the crisis in Israel and Gaza, as ministers announced £3m for a charity that helps protect Jewish community sites.

The extra support for the Community Security Trust (CST) was announced after a roundtable discussion at Downing Street involving ministers, police and the charity, which recorded a quadrupling of antisemitic incidents in the UK since Hamas’s attack on Israel.

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First minister says SNP MP who defected to Tories ‘probably never believed’ in Scottish independence – as it happened

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Humza Yousaf says Lisa Cameron’s move was ‘the least surprising news I’ve had as leader of the SNP’

NHS waiting lists have hit a new record high, with more people facing long waits, PA Media reports. PA says:

Figures for the NHS in England show 7.75 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of August, up from 7.68 million in July.

This is the highest number since records began in August 2007 and comes despite Rishi Sunak saying cutting waiting lists is one of his priorities.

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Keir Starmer says Labour will tackle obstacles holding back housebuilding as protester interrupts conference speech – as it happened

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Labour leader says party has ‘plan to get Britain building again’ after security breach where protester threw glitter on him at start of speech

Labour has published fresh details of how the community policy guarantee (see 9.43am) will work.

On community policing

On Starmer, told that after Reeves’ reassurance over economy, his speech designed to paint a ‘picture of hope’ & it ‘emotive rather than a big policy drop’> the word cloud on what Starmer’s about peppered with don’t know and even ‘nothing’. This his chance to hammer home values

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Met increases patrols in London after reports of Israel attack celebrations

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Minister shares video posted by Rachel Riley of people waving Palestinian flags in west London

The Metropolitan police have said they have increased patrols in London after receiving reports of people celebrating the attack on Israel by Hamas.

Hamas sent fighters across the border and fired thousands of rockets in what it said was a new operation on Saturday morning. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the group would “pay a price that it hasn’t known until now” as he called up reservists.

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Met police failing children at risk and victim blaming, says damning report

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Inspectorate demands emergency changes as Scotland Yard accepts its child protection services are in chaos

The Metropolitan police are failing in their efforts to protect children from criminal and sexual exploitation while bungling efforts to find missing young people, a damning official report has found.

The findings have led Scotland Yard to accept its child protection services are in chaos, and a senior officer admitted that “too often we are letting them down”. The policing inspectorate, which authored the report, said it was also concerned with “the frequency with which officers and staff use victim-blaming language”.

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Nine rapes at Harrogate military college reported to civilian police in 13 months

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Figures raise questions about safeguarding at college given ‘outstanding’ for welfare by Ofsted

Nine rapes at the Harrogate military college, which trains 16- and 17-year-olds for careers in the British army, were reported to civilian police over a 13-month period to the middle of August, figures show.

Disclosed under freedom of information legislation, the figures raise questions about safeguarding at Harrogate, and why its welfare arrangements are rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted.

In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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