Markets and farm shops among targets of organised crime gangs, say experts

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.

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‘Stranger than fiction’: Sunderland doctor Thomas Kwan’s plan for murder

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.

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Boy, 15, who fatally stabbed teenager he did not know in Birmingham is jailed for life

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.

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Crown court backlog in England and Wales ‘could hit 100,000 without radical overhaul’

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.

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Fleet of 30 luxury cars taken to Thailand returned to UK, police say

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.

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Jamie Oliver asks cheese lovers to help catch thieves behind £300,000 cheddar scam

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.

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Jeremy Hunt claims Labour changing debt definition will ‘punish families with mortgages’ – as it happened

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.

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No 10 says Starmer ‘shares public anger’ at early prisoner releases but system facing paralysis without it – as it happened

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.

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Woman in Leeds jailed for posting sexual images of father’s ex-lover online

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.

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Woman jailed for life after murdering parents and living with bodies in Essex

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.

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Digger stolen from Dorset found 1,200 miles away in rural Poland

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.

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Prosecutors call for 15-year sentence for McCann suspect in unrelated rape trial

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.

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Russia’s FSB protected Evil Corp gang that carried out Nato cyber-attacks

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.

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Former human rights lawyer admits fraud over Iraq war claims

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.

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Cleared man’s claim to wife’s fortune blocked as judge rules he did kill her

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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Woman, 52, and daughter admit part in far-right disorder in Middlesbrough

Amanda Walton, who was walking dog when she threw missile, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend all plead guilty

A woman, her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend have admitted taking part in violent far-right disorder earlier this month in Middlesbrough.

Amanda Walton, 52, who was walking her pet chow chow, threw a missile and damaged a car. Her daughter Megan Davison, 24, jumped on the roof of a car. Davison’s boyfriend Jake Wray, 23, stopped cars at a junction demanding: “Are you white? Are you English?”

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Man who threw object at Nigel Farage in Barnsley gets suspended sentence

Josh Greally, 28, pleaded guilty to public order offence over incident during election campaign

A man has been given a suspended prison sentence after being convicted of throwing what appeared to be a coffee cup at Nigel Farage during the general election campaign.

Josh Greally, 28, was sentenced to six weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, at Barnsley magistrates court after throwing items at the Reform UK leader who was campaigning in the South Yorkshire town.

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Lucy Letby inquiry should be postponed or changed, experts say

Group including neonatal experts and statistics professors question its setup amid concerns about conviction

A group including some of the UK’s leading neonatal experts and professors of statistics is calling on the government to postpone or change the terms of a public inquiry over concerns about the conviction of the neonatal nurse Lucy Letby.

In a private letter to ministers, seen by the Guardian, the 24 experts said they were concerned that the inquiry’s narrow terms could prevent lessons being learned about “possible negligent deaths that were presumed to be murders” in the neonatal ward of the Countess of Chester hospital (CoC).

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Killer asks to return to UK to help find victim’s body 55 years after murder

Nizamodeen Hosein was deported following 20 years in prison for 1969 murder of Muriel McKay

The chilling words of a convicted murderer will soon be heard, peeling back the decades to a winter’s night in 1969, in a revelatory new recorded interview with one of the two brothers who kidnapped and killed Muriel McKay. “Maybe the only solution is to get on the spot. To be there again, I’ll have to retrace my steps,” Nizamodeen Hosein will say.

The notorious killer at the centre of a police hunt that dominated the news 55 years ago has suggested that a trip back from Trinidad and Tobago, where he was deported in 1990 after 20 years in prison, might jog his fading memory about the location of the body of the 55-year-old woman he abducted from her Wimbledon home in an extraordinary case of misidentification.

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Man dies after alleged assault at Southwark tube station in London

Male 28-year-old victim had been in critical condition since Thursday, and suspect who was arrested on Friday is in custody

A man has died after allegedly being assaulted at a London Underground station, British Transport Police (BTP) said.

The victim, currently identified only as a 28-year-old man, had been in a critical condition in hospital since Thursday and died on Saturday evening, with his family by his side.

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