Large police cordon in place and murder inquiry launched after latest attack in north-west London
A 16-year-old boy has died after a stabbing in north-west London.
The Metropolitan police were called to Munster Square in Camden, close to Regent’s Park, at about 11.10pm on Monday. The boy was pronounced dead at the scene, with paramedics in attendance.
Continue reading...Three officers injured as officers are forced to retreat from pyre to mark 1971 mass internment
Youths in north Belfast have attacked riot police in a standoff over an unauthorised republican bonfire.
The officers withdrew in their Land Rovers from the New Lodge area on Thursday afternoon after coming under a hail of bottles, bricks, fireworks and other projectiles that injured three officers.
Continue reading...Watchdog received complaint that police did not properly investigate girl’s death
An independent investigation has been launched into how police responded to the death of a 12-year-old girl in a river in Greater Manchester.
Shukri Yahya Abdi drowned in the Irwell in Bury on 27 June. Greater Manchester police said there were no suspicious circumstances and warned people of the dangers of swimming in rivers, lakes and reservoirs in hot weather.
Continue reading...Counter-terror chief raises ‘deep concerns’ as key crime-fighting tools will be lost
The UK’s safety and security would suffer from a no-deal Brexit and no amount of planning and preparation can erase the risk, Britain’s head of counter-terrorism has said.
The Scotland Yard assistant commissioner, Neil Basu, said key crime-fighting tools would be lost and their replacements would not be as good.
Continue reading...UK police have updated family of 29-year-old Joel Eldridge about the development
Portuguese police investigating the disappearance of a man from East Sussex have discovered a body.
Joel Eldridge, 29, from Bexhill, was living in Macieira, near Serta in Portugal, when his family last heard from him in mid-July last year.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Neil Basu calls for sociologists and criminologists to help tackle terrorism in UK
Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer has said the police and security services are no longer enough to win the fight against violent extremism, and the UK must instead improve community cohesion, social mobility and education.
In his first major interview since taking up his post last year, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Neil Basu told the Guardian that up to 80% of those who wanted to attack the UK were British-born or raised, which strongly indicated domestic social issues were among the root causes.
Continue reading...Over 6,300 officers deployed for June trip, at time of mounting pressure on police resources
Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK cost the Metropolitan police nearly £3.5m, figures have revealed, at a time of rising pressure on police resources.
Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated against the US president in the capital before he attended a D-day commemoration service in Portsmouth.
Continue reading...Mario Cerciello Rega died after being repeatedly stabbed early on Friday in a crime that has shaken Italy
Two American students have appeared in court in Rome accused of stabbing a plain-clothes police officer to death on a street near their hotel.
Gabriel Christian Natale Hjorth, 18, and Finnegan Lee Elder, 19, from San Francisco, appeared in court in connection with the death of Carabinieri paramilitary police officer Mario Cerciello Rega, 35. The dead man, and a fellow officer, were in plain clothes when they confronted the two Americans in the wake of a drug deal gone wrong, the court heard.
Continue reading...NCA harvesting EU crime databases in attempt to mitigate loss of access to data, leaked report suggests
Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) is harvesting information from EU databases, including 54,000 files covering criminals, terrorists and missing persons, in an attempt to mitigate the heightened risks of a no-deal Brexit, according to a leaked document.
The report, seen by the Guardian, suggests EU alerts have been transferred to the Police National Computer (PNC) to give UK forces access after 31 October but that key strands of British policing remain “in jeopardy” because of the growing danger of a no-deal exit since Theresa May’s resigned as prime minister.
Continue reading...US president refers to message about Met police twitter account, calling London mayor ‘incompetent’
Donald Trump has retweeted the British far-right commentator Katie Hopkins and launched another attack on Sadiq Khan.
Referring to a message from Hopkins that the Met’s Twitter account had been targeted by hackers on Friday night, in which she said officers had “lost control of London streets” and “lost control of their Twitter account too”, Trump tweeted: “With the incompetent mayor of London, you will never have safe streets!”
Continue reading...‘Unauthorised access’ led to series of messages being posted and emailed to subscribers
Scotland Yard’s principal Twitter account, which is followed by more than 1.2 million people and is used to provide important alerts in times of crisis, tweeted a series of bizarre messages on Friday night after becoming “subject to unauthorised access”.
Many of the dozen errant tweets, some of which referred to the British rapper Digga D, were also repeated in press releases emailed out to journalists from the force’s official email address. Officers said they were “assessing to establish what criminal offences have been committed” over the security breach.
Continue reading...‘We’re not boy racers,’ says organiser after 17 injured, two seriously, after spectators were hit
Local people and witnesses to a crash at a car meet in Stevenage that left 17 people injured have said the event was not organised or policed properly.
For 17 years, drivers of modified cars have gathered in the Hertfordshire town to parade their vehicles for fellow enthusiasts. Thursday’s event, which was raising money for a charity supporting bereaved parents, turned to disaster when some of the spectators watching from the side of the road were hit following the crash between a Nissan 350Z and a Toyota GT86.
Continue reading...Report says police have only superficial understanding of crimes against older people
Older victims of crime are being let down by the police and the wider criminal justice system, according to the first inspection report on the age group.
The police have only a “superficial understanding” of the crimes committed against older people, the report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services and Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate says.
Continue reading...Individual liability removed but duty requires police, councils and NHS to work together to tackle violence
A new legal duty on public health bodies in England to tackle serious violence, including knife crime, must be backed by cash if it is to be effective, organisations have warned.
The public health duty, requiring bodies to share data, intelligence and knowledge, will be announced by the government this week, following the conclusion of an eight-week consultation.
Continue reading...GCHQ called in to help counter-terrorism police examine email and phone records
The suspect behind the leak of confidential memos from Britain’s Washington ambassador has been identified, the Sunday Times newspaper has reported.
British officials have launched an inquiry to find the person responsible for the leak of emails published by the Mail on Sunday. Counter-terrorism police have launched a criminal investigation.
Continue reading...Force had said that publishing leaked diplomatic cables may breach Official Secrets Act
The Metropolitan police has rowed back from its warning that journalists could face prosecution if they publish any further leaked diplomatic cables such as those that ran in the Mail on Sunday last weekend, precipitating the resignation of the British ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch.
In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, the Met assistant commissioner Neil Basu said the force “respects the rights of the media and has no intention of seeking to prevent editors from publishing stories in the public interest in a liberal democracy. The media hold an important role in scrutinising the actions of the state.”
Continue reading...Josie Birds said to have ‘thoroughly enjoyed’ gesture by Greater Manchester police
One of the UK’s largest police forces apparently arrested a 93-year-old woman who had committed no crime because it was her “dying wish”.
In a tweet that received more than a thousand likes, Pam Smith wrote to Greater Manchester police to thank them for the gesture towards her grandmother, Josie Birds.
Continue reading...Lib Peck insists tactics are succeeding despite Londoners ‘feeling powerless’ over crime
The head of London’s newly formed violence reduction unit has said Londoners feel powerless about levels of street crime but insisted that increased use of stop and search powers had been successful.
Lib Peck, the former leader of Lambeth council who was appointed to the role in January, made the comments while on a two-day fact-finding trip to Glasgow, visiting some of the Scottish unit’s key projects and meeting senior officials.
Continue reading...Rebecca Bryant told girlfriend of son ‘don’t tell them who you are’ in text before murder trial
A police officer who hid the fact she knew a juror on a murder trial she was involved in and then lied about it to a senior officer has admitted breaching standards of professional behaviour.
DC Rebecca Bryant sent her son’s girlfriend, Laura Jones, a text on the eve of the murder trial in which she said: “Don’t tell any of them who you are.”
Continue reading...Police and ambulance units replaced 24 cars, vans and 4x4s due to novichok contamination
Emergency services spent hundreds of thousands of pounds scrapping and replacing contaminated vehicles after the Salisbury nerve agent poisonings, it has been revealed.
Police and ambulance services had to destroy 24 cars, vans and 4x4 vehicles following the attack on the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. The pair collapsed after coming into contact with novichok at Skripal’s home in Salisbury on 4 March last year. DS Nick Bailey, 39, was also taken to hospital.
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