‘We miss her all the time,’ say relatives of woman killed by serving Met police officer Wayne Couzens
The family of Sarah Everard have paid tribute to her on the first anniversary of her murder by a police officer, saying she was “wonderful and we miss her all the time” and that they “live with the sadness of our loss”.
Everard, 33 was abducted, raped and killed by serving Met officer Wayne Couzens as she walked home in south London on 3 March last year.
Continue reading...Despite vowing change, plans set to be released by the NPCC will oppose an admission of institutional racism
Police leaders in England and Wales will decide not to accept that their forces are still institutionally racist, as they try to battle their way out of a race crisis.
Chief constables began considering a public admission in December and have held a series of private meetings among forces to try to find agreement.
Continue reading...Chair of forthcoming strategic review says force must modernise to tackle blockchain-era criminals
A “crisis of confidence in policing” can only be put right through fundamental reform or risk the end of policing by consent, the head of a review of the police service will warn on Tuesday.
Sir Michael Barber, the chair of the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales, will say that a “Betamax police force” is unsuccessfully pursuing “blockchain-enabled criminals” as he urges modernisation of crime-fighting technology and new training for officers.
Continue reading...Staff allowed ‘limited access’ before Sue Gray inquiry evidence passed to police
Downing Street staff being questioned by police about alleged lockdown breaches will be allowed to view notes on the evidence they gave to the Sue Gray inquiry.
Those spoken to as part of the Cabinet Office probe were told they could see the notes with a member of Gray’s team present but would not be allowed to bring a phone into the room, to be accompanied by a lawyer, or to request any changes.
Continue reading...Legal hearing challenges Home Office decision to prevent duke from paying for police protection when visiting
Prince Harry “does not feel safe” when he is visiting the UK, a place that “is, and always will be, his home”, his legal team have told the high court.
His desire to return to see family and friends was emphasised on the first day of a legal hearing related to his claim over the Home Office’s decision not to allow him to pay for police protection for himself and his family while in the UK.
Continue reading...London mayor denies claim he gave Cressida Dick ultimatum over Charing Cross officers
Scotland Yard has been forced to admit it was “unacceptable” for one of its official Twitter accounts to apparently criticise the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, leading him to accuse the force of amplifying misleading information.
Khan tackled the suggestion – made in a now-deleted tweet by the verified “Metropolitan Police taskforce” – that he did not understand the rules for disciplining officers.
Continue reading...Confidence in force fell sharply during past five years, with 68% saying Met did a good job in 2017
Public confidence in the Metropolitan police has fallen sharply in the five years Cressida Dick has been leading Britain’s biggest force, figures published on Wednesday show.
Only 51% of those in London said they believed the Met did a good job in their local area, down 17 points compared with the last survey before Dick became Met commissioner in April 2017.
Continue reading...Abuse of the policing body’s ‘red notice’ system is blamed as an activist is forced to return to life in prison in the Gulf state
Marko Štambuk arrived at Belgrade district prison on a Monday morning in late January, only to be told his client was no longer inside. “Immediately I knew something had happened,” he said.
Štambuk, a lawyer, had spent the previous Friday frantically obtaining an injunction from the European court of human rights (ECHR) demanding Serbian authorities halt the extradition of his client, Ahmed Jaafar Mohamed Ali, a Bahraini dissident. This banned the Serbian authorities from extraditing Ali until late February, and warned them that doing so would constitute a rare breach of the European convention on human rights.
Continue reading...Bas Javid says racism is an issue ‘but what I won’t do is describe all of the organisation as a racist organisation’
A senior Metropolitan police officer has said racism is a problem in the country’s largest force.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Bas Javid, the brother of the health secretary, Sajid Javid, acknowledged “people who have racist views and are racist” were among the force’s staff.
Continue reading...Patsy Stevenson says Cressida Dick presided over a force where misogyny and racism had thrived
A student whose photograph went viral after her arrest at a vigil following the murder of Sarah Everard said she “almost cried” when she heard Dame Cressida Dick had resigned as Metropolitan police commissioner.
Patsy Stevenson was pinned to the ground at the vigil on 13 March at Clapham Common, south London, for Everard, who had been kidnapped while walking home before being raped and murdered by the serving Met officer Wayne Couzens.
Continue reading...Telegram posts show far-right groups ‘emboldened’ by physical attack on Labour leader
The Metropolitan Police is investigating death threats against Keir Starmer made in the wake of Boris Johnson’s accusation that he “failed to prosecute” Jimmy Savile.
A cache of evidence documenting the threats was sent to Scotland Yard on Friday afternoon, including a number of apparently identifiable users on the messaging app Telegram who called for the Labour party leader to be hanged or “executed”.
Continue reading...The London mayor vows to oppose anyone who fails to understand deep problems at beleagured force, in wake of Cressida Dick resignation
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, today sets the stage for a dramatic showdown with the home secretary, Priti Patel, over who should be the next Metropolitan police commissioner as he vows to oppose anyone who does not understand the deep “cultural problems” within the beleaguered force.
Writing in the Observer, three days after his intervention forced Cressida Dick to abruptly resign, Khan says recent revelations of officers bragging about violence towards women and exchanging racist and Islamophobic messages rekindled personal memories of the “bad old days of the Met” during his own childhood.
Continue reading...Suspect arrested 30 minutes after woman in Durham, Ontario, mistakenly contacts English force
Control room staff helped save a woman in danger more than 3,000 miles away after she contacted the wrong Durham police force.
Durham constabulary was contacted on Wednesday afternoon on its online live chat facility by a distressed woman who reported an intruder trying to get into her home in Durham, Canada.
Continue reading...There was precedent for a commissioner determined to root out misbehaviour. Failure to follow it cost her the top job
When Robert Mark was appointed commissioner of the Metropolitan police in the 1970s he wryly suggested his ambition was to ensure the service arrested more criminals than it employed.
In the five years of his leadership (1972 to 1977) Mark’s success can be measured by the 50 criminal officers he put before a court, and the nearly 500 others who were swept out of the organisation as a result of his ruthless uncovering of the entrenched and institutionalised corruption which had protected them for too long.
Sandra Laville, a former Guardian crime correspondent, is now its environment correspondent
Continue reading...Chief to leave role two years early after London’s mayor accused her of failing to deal with misogyny and racism in the force
Cressida Dick has been forced out as head of the Metropolitan police after London’s mayor accused her of failing to deal with a culture of misogyny and racism within Britain’s biggest force.
Dick’s dramatic resignation was announced just hours after she told a radio phone in that she would stay in post and had a plan to rid the Met of its toxic culture. But when City Hall let her aides know the plan was inadequate, the commissioner decided to boycott a showdown meeting set for 4.30pm and quit instead.
Continue reading...Parliamentary report finds ‘compelling evidence’ of trafficking and highlights missed opportunities to protect vulnerable people later stripped of citizenship
There is “compelling evidence” that British women and children currently detained in camps in north-east Syria were trafficked to the country against their will, according to a new parliamentary report.
After a six-month inquiry by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on trafficked Britons in Syria, the report published on Thursday highlights how systemic failures by UK public bodies enabled Islamic State (IS) trafficking of vulnerable women and children as young as 12.
Continue reading...Mayor of London ‘disgusted’ by recent scandals and suggests he is prepared to try to oust commissioner
The mayor of London has signalled he is prepared to try and oust the Metropolitan police commissioner in days or weeks over a series of scandals.
Sadiq Khan said he was “disgusted and angry” by recent failings and that he thought Cressida Dick lacked a plan to boost confidence in the police force which had been “knocked and shattered”.
Continue reading...Kristina O’Connor says detective who was investigating after men tried to steal her phone asked her out
A woman is taking legal action against the Metropolitan police after a detective who told her she was “amazingly hot” while investigating her attack kept his job.
Kristina O’Connor, now 33, said she was sent inappropriate messages by DCI James Mason after he responded to her report of an attempted robbery in October 2011.
Continue reading...Urgent protection for minority groups facing increased repression needed in crisis connected to escalating clashes across central Asian ex-Soviet region, say human rights groups
Parents of men killed by Tajikistan forces have called on the international community to step in and urgently protect ethnic groups being targeted by the Tajik regime.
In a rare interview, families from the Pamiri ethnic minority have demanded that soldiers who killed their sons be brought to justice and urged the UN to prevent a new phase of conflict in Tajikistan, a landlocked country in central Asia.
Continue reading...In El Carmen de Bolívar, LGBTQ+ people want the history of their brutal persecution by police and paramilitaries to be told, but the sense of safety is fragile and many still face prejudice
In a mountain town near the north coast of Colombia, three drag queens strike poses in the blazing sun. Wearing extravagant Caribbean carnival costumes, they place each high heeled step carefully to avoid puddles. Neighbours come out to take photos and cheer.
This impromptu show has unique significance in the streets of El Carmen de Bolívar, representing the remarkable resurgence of a community once brutally victimised by homophobic armed groups.
Continue reading...