Persistent offenders will face up to two years in prison under Respect orders, as police get powers to seize vehicles
People who persistently demonstrate antisocial behaviour will face up to two years in jail under Labour’s Respect orders, the home secretary will say on Friday.
Yvette Cooper will also announce that police will be given new powers to immediately seize off-road bikes, e-scooters on pavements and street-racing cars as part of the clampdown.
Continue reading...Simon Medland KC told inquiry his membership of organisation was not the reason he was approached by hospital boss
A judge has denied he was asked to give legal advice to hospital bosses over concerns about nurse Lucy Letby because he is a Freemason, a public inquiry has heard.
The Thirlwall inquiry into events surrounding the crimes of Letby heard that both Judge Simon Medland KC and the Countess of Chester’s former director of corporate and legal services, Stephen Cross, are members of the organisation.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Sister says Harshita Brella reported abuse but ‘police processes made her feel more scared and alone’
The family of a woman found dead in a car boot in east London have accused police of not doing enough to protect her, saying she had filed a complaint alleging domestic abuse by her husband weeks before.
The body of Harshita Brella, a 24-year-old Indian citizen who was living in Northamptonshire, was discovered last Thursday in a car in Ilford. Police have named her husband, Pankaj Lamba, as the main suspect for the killing. Officers believe he has fled the country.
Continue reading...Consultant who raised concerns says there could have been earlier victims she has not been convicted of killing
Lucy Letby was likely to have harmed more babies than those she has been convicted of murdering on a hospital neonatal unit, a senior doctor has told a public inquiry.
Dr Stephen Brearey, a consultant paediatrician who raised concerns about the nurse, told the Thirlwall inquiry he believed Letby “didn’t start becoming a killer” in June 2015 and that she may have had earlier victims.
Continue reading...Claim will be first legal action taken related to alleged crimes of former Harrods owner, who died last year
A woman who claims to have been raped and trafficked while working for Mohamed Al Fayed has filed a legal claim in a US court to oblige his surviving younger brother to give evidence about his alleged knowledge of the crimes.
The application filed at the US district court for Connecticut claims Ali Fayed, 80, has “unique and critical evidence” to give about a “more than two-decade-long trafficking scheme that ensnared and irrevocably injured what is reported to be more than 100 women”.
Continue reading...Smoked salmon, artisan cheese and fine wine among food and drink lost by European outlets
Small food producers are increasingly being targeted by organised crime gangs and rogue industry insiders looking to exploit national and global supply chain challenges , according to food crime experts.
The warning comes after several food businesses in the UK and continental Europe revealed how they had lost hundreds of thousands of pounds in scams where thieves apparently posed as legitimate buyers.
Continue reading...GP in inheritance row aimed to kill his mother’s partner by wearing disguise to administer a fake Covid booster jab
“Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction,” said the prosecuting barrister, Peter Makepeace KC, as he outlined a case which reads like the plot of an airport thriller. Think of an Agatha Christie-inspired Columbo episode with a splash of Breaking Bad.
The story of the outwardly respectable GP Thomas Kwan and his plot to kill a man he greedily saw as standing in the way of his inheritance is a wild one.
Continue reading...Muhammad Hassam Ali, 17, was killed by stranger after a four-minute conversation in city centre
A 15-year-old boy who followed a teenager he did not know through Birmingham city centre and stabbed him to death after a four-minute conversation has been jailed for life with a minimum of 13 years.
Muhammad Hassam Ali, known as Ali, was 17 when he died in hospital on 20 January, hours after he and his friend were confronted by two masked 15-year-old boys they had never met as they sat in Victoria Square, drinking hot chocolate and chatting about cricket.
Continue reading...Chief inspector raises prospect of judge-only trials and greater use of magistrates to reduce prosecutors’ caseloads
The backlog of cases in crown courts in England and Wales could hit 100,000 unless radical action is taken to overhaul the criminal justice system, a watchdog has said.
Anthony Rogers, the chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Serious Fraud Office (SFO), said prosecutors’ caseloads were already beyond what had been seen before and he feared the situation could deteriorate.
Continue reading...Detectives say cars including £220,000 Lamborghini were fraudulently bought on finance, shipped abroad and sold on
A fleet of 30 luxury cars worth £6.5m whisked out of the UK to Thailand after being fraudulently bought on finance have been recovered and returned, police have said.
The haul of vehicles included a £220,000 Lamborghini Huracán Spyder – a car described by the maker as “the pinnacle of Italian taste and hand craftsmanship” – along with Porsches, Mercedes and a Ford Mustang.
Continue reading...London’s Neal’s Yard Dairy swindled out of 950 wheels of award-winning cheddars delivered to alleged fraudster
The celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has encouraged cheese lovers to help police catch scammers who defrauded a London dairy out of more than £300,000 worth of English and Welsh cheddar.
Neal’s Yard Dairy, a distributor and retailer of British artisan cheese, delivered 22 tonnes of award-winning clothbound cheddar to the alleged fraudster posing as a wholesale distributor for a large French retailer before realising it had been duped.
Continue reading...Former chancellor says ‘increasing borrowing means interest rates would be higher for longer’ as Reeves says it will ‘make space for investment’
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has said that “no one knows” who Robert Jenrick, the Tory leadership contender, is.
Of the two candidates left in the contest, Jenrick is the one who is doing most to appeal to Tories who defected to Reform UK, because he is saying Britain should leave the European convention on human rights.
I know the fella. Is he the chap that one day was on the very much on the left of the Conservative party and is now on the right of the Conservative Party?... No one knows who he is.
I’m sure government can agree that support and providing opportunities for young people should be central to the policy of any government. We are glad to see the government working to build closer economic and cultural ties with Europe. We want to forge a new partnership with our European neighbours, built on cooperation, not confrontation and move to a new comprehensive agreement.
We must build rebuild confidence through seeking to agree partnerships or associations helping to restore prosperity and opportunities for British people.
We are not going to give a running commentary on the negotiations. We will obviously look at EU proposals on a range of issues, but we are clear that we will not return to freedom of movement.
Continue reading...Downing Street says government ‘shocked’ at inheriting prisons crisis as hundreds of prisoners get early release. This live blog is closed
The funeral of Alex Salmond, the former Scottish first minister who died suddenly earlier this month after delivering a speech in North Macedonia, will be held on Tuesday 29 October, his family has announced.
The funeral will be at Strichen parish church in Aberdeenshire. It will be conducted by Rev Ian McEwan, a friend of the family, and only family and close friends are invited. Salmond will be laid to rest in Strichen cemetery.
According to the Eurostat data, England and Wales had 144 prisoners per 100,000 head of population, the 8th highest rate among EU countries and the highest amongst western European jurisdictions. Scotland had the 9th highest with 137 prisoners per 100,000. Northern Ireland had 76 prisoners per 100,000 of population and was ranked 24th.
Continue reading...Eleanor Brown, 24, given three-year sentence for ‘vindictive, selfish and vengeful offending’ against woman
A woman who posted sexual images of her father’s former lover on an escort site has been jailed for three years by a judge who described it as “vindictive, selfish and vengeful offending”.
Eleanor Brown, 24, had held a deep-seated grudge against the victim after her father had a short-lived affair with the woman in 2012, Leeds crown court heard.
Continue reading...Virginia McCullough, 36, kept bodies of her father and mother in house for four years after their deaths
A woman who murdered her parents and lived with their bodies for four years has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father, John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks, the prosecutor Lisa Wilding KC told Chelmsford crown court. She then murdered her mother, Lois McCullough, 71, the following day.
Continue reading...Hitachi digger tracked down to town of Pruchnik, with arrangements made to reunite it with its owner
A digger stolen from a development site in Dorset has been found five months later and 1,200 miles away in a rural town in south-eastern Poland.
Dorset police received a report on 1 April that a Hitachi digger and a JCB digger had been stolen in the small town of Ferndown, near Bournemouth.
Continue reading...Prosecutors say Christian Brückner, main suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, should be kept in preventive detention
German prosecutors have called for a sexual offences conviction and 15-year prison sentence for a man who is also under investigation separately over the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann.
The 47-year-old German national, who has been identified by local media as Christian Brückner, is on trial at the Braunschweig state court in northern Germany over offences he is alleged to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
Continue reading...NCA says cybercriminal gang used family links to spy agency to shield members targeted by US authorities
A prolific Russian cybercriminal gang carried out attacks against Nato countries at the behest of state intelligence services and used family links with Russia’s domestic spy agency to protect its members after being targeted by US authorities, according to the UK’s National Crime Agency.
The dramatically named Evil Corp group had an unusually close relationship with the Russian state, said the NCA.
Continue reading...Phil Shiner sought up to £200,000 of legal aid funding to represent clients including Khuder Al-Sweady
The former human rights lawyer Phil Shiner has pleaded guilty to fraud charges linked to claims made against Iraq war veterans.
Shiner, 67, appeared at Southwark crown court on Monday and pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA). He will be sentenced on 2 December.
Continue reading...Family of Paula Leeson sued Donald McPherson after criminal prosecution over fatal drowning collapsed
A man who stood to claim a £4.4m estate from his wealthy wife has had his inheritance blocked by a judge who ruled he killed her.
The family of Paula Leeson, 47, who was found dead in a swimming pool in a Denmark holiday home in 2017, sued her husband, Donald McPherson, 51, for unlawful killing after a criminal prosecution collapsed when there was not enough evidence.
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