Category Archives: Crime

Police accused over use of facial recognition at King Charles’s coronation

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Met says technology will not be used to target protesters or activists, but campaigners say use is ‘extremely worrying’

The Metropolitan police has been accused of using the coronation to stage the biggest live facial recognition operation in British history.

The force said on Wednesday it intended to use the controversial technology, which scans faces and matches them against a list of people police want for alleged crimes and could identify convicted terrorists mingling in the crowds.

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Labour accuses Tories of turning country into ‘open sewer’ in Commons water debate – UK politics live

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MPs debate Labour motion that would set aside parliamentary time to pass Labour’s water quality (sewage discharge) bill

Rishi Sunak is seeking to capitalise on his improved relations with the EU with hopes of an agreement to allow British passport holders to use e-gates when travelling in the bloc, Lisa O’Carroll reports.

On small boats, Starmer told This Morning that he wanted to stop the boats. Labour would focus on two policies in particular, he said.

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Man who murdered two-year old Lola James jailed for at least 28 years

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Kyle Bevan given life sentence for murder of stepdaughter, with girl’s mother Sinead James given six-year term

The stepfather and mother of a two-year-old girl who died after receiving more than 100 injuries in a six-and-a-half-hour attack at the family home have been jailed over her killing.

Kyle Bevan, 31, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Lola James, who died from the sort of injuries usually seen in car crash victims or people who have fallen from a significant height. He was told he would serve at least 28 years before he was considered for release.

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One in five child abuse images found online last year were category A – report

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Internet Watch Foundation says amount of material showing most extreme form of sexual abuse has doubled since 2020

The most extreme form of child sexual abuse material accounted for a fifth of such content found online last year, according to a report.

Category A abuse represented 20% of illegal images discovered online last year by the Internet Watch Foundation, a UK-based body that monitors distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). It found more than 51,000 instances of such content, which can include the most severe imagery including rape, sadism and bestiality.

The NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331.

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Crime agencies condemn Facebook and Instagram encryption plans

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Global alliance including NCA and FBI says Meta’s decision to encrypt direct messages could harm children

An alliance of the world’s most powerful law enforcement agencies including the FBI, Interpol and Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) have condemned Meta’s plans to encrypt direct messages on Facebook Messenger and Instagram, saying that doing so will weaken the ability to keep child users safe.

The Virtual Global Taskforce, made up of 15 agencies, is chaired by the NCA and also includes Europol and the Australian federal police among its membership. The VGT has spoken out, it says, owing to the “impending design choices” by Meta, which it says could cause serious harm.

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Joe Biden due to address Irish parliament after saying US relationship with Ireland getting ‘stronger and stronger’ – politics live

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US president praises emerging relationship with Ireland to taoiseach Leo Varadkar

Chris Philp, the policing minister, has published an article in the Telegraph today explaining the changes being introduced to the way that police record crimes in England and Wales. The changes are being introduced following recommendations from the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

Philp says:

Firstly, we are dropping the requirement for police to record some crimes twice or more, reintroducing the previous “principal offence” rule. This will remove multiple entries on the database which effectively re-record the same incident many times.

Accurate crime recording is vital, and these changes will better reflect victims’ experience. Recording crime does not equate to investigating crime and the police will continue to pursue all offences involved in the incident.

Accurate records of crime must be kept, and crimes will be recorded. These changes to the crime-recording rules will enable police to target and focus investigations and provide victims the service they deserve.

Ambulance response times for all types of emergencies have got longer, including for life-threatening illnesses and injuries, but remain below record levels.

Meanwhile around one in 10 people arriving at major A&E departments are having to wait more than 12 hours before being admitted, transferred or discharged – the first time data of this kind has been published.

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Mark Rowley aims to reform the Met on the scale of Robert Mark in the 1970s

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The London police commissioner faces a battle to clean up a force where the same cultures tackled by his predecessor ‘are alive and well’

The Britain of today shares some similarities with the country of the 1970s: then the country was debating its relationship with Europe, flares were in and frequent strikes disrupted everyday life. And then, as now, standards in policing in the capital were so dire that a new broom had to be brought in to clean up the Metropolitan police.

Sir Robert Mark, the legendary reforming commissioner of the Met from 1972, said this about the force he battled to reform: “I had served in provincial forces for 30 years, and though I had known wrongdoing, I had never experienced institutionalised wrongdoing, blindness, arrogance and prejudice on anything like the scale accepted as routine in the Met.”

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‘She was my shadow’: full statement from Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s mother

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Cheryl Korbel pays tribute to her daughter after her killer was jailed for a minimum of 42 years

Cheryl Korbel, the mother of Olivia Pratt-Korbel who was murdered by Thomas Cashman in August 2022, fought back tears as she read her victim impact statement at Manchester crown court.

This is what she said:

This is Liv [the patchwork teddy bear she was holding]. She was made by a lovely lady called Nessa. She was actually made out of Liv’s pyjamas that she lay in when she was in Snowdrops next door to Alder Hey [children’s hospital in Liverpool]. She now shares my bed of a night with me.

I was 36 and already a mum to Ryan who was 13 and Chloe who was eight when I found out I was pregnant. I was shocked. I never thought I would be starting again after nine years.

In October 2012 my mum found out she was pregnant and that started my journey to being a big sister.

Our precious little Olivia was born on 13 June 2013, which was five days after my birthday.

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Rishi Sunak refuses to back Braverman’s widely criticised claim about racial nature of grooming gangs – live

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Prime minister says offenders have been protected by ‘political correctness’ as he announces ‘grooming gangs taskforce’

Starmer says he has not talked to Jeremy Corbyn for two and a half years.

Q: Is he a friend?

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Man accused of pushing wife from Arthur’s Seat was ‘abusive’ and ‘violent’

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Court hears Kashif Anwar, accused of murdering Fawziyah Javed in Edinburgh, had told her it would be ‘OK’ if she died in childbirth

A man accused of murdering his wife by pushing her from Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh was overheard in hospital telling her that if she died in childbirth it “would be OK” because he “would be free”, a court has heard.

Kashif Anwar, 29, is accused of killing Fawziyah Javed, 31, in September 2021 by pushing her from the peak in Holyrood Park, causing her multiple blunt force injuries that led to her death and that of her unborn child.

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Three arrested after two men shot dead in incidents in Cambridgeshire

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Police say man, 27, and woman, 33, arrested in Cambridge and 66-year-old man arrested in Worcester area

Three people have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder after two men were shot dead in two “linked” incidents in separate villages about six miles apart.

Cambridgeshire police said officers were first called to reports of gunshots at a property in Meridian Close, Bluntisham, at just after 9pm on Wednesday. Officers arrived to find the body of a 32-year-old man inside a property with a gunshot wound and are treating his death as murder.

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AI chatbots making it harder to spot phishing emails, say experts

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Poor spelling and grammar that can help identify fraudulent attacks being rectified by artificial intelligence

Chatbots are taking away a key line of defence against fraudulent phishing emails by removing glaring grammatical and spelling errors, according to experts.

Phishing emails are a well-known weapon of cybercriminals and fool recipients into clicking on a link that downloads malicious software or tricks them into handing over personal details such as passwords or pin numbers.

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Tory former policing minister warns Braverman that laughing gas ban could boost trade for drug dealers – UK politics live

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Kit Malthouse tells home secretary of risks of moving substance from legitimate market into the illegitimate market

As Alex Wickham from Politico points out, the questions Rishi Sunak is getting this morning suggest this audience is not happy with the government’s record on crime.

Q: The Conservatives have “dropped the ball a little bit, to be honest”. The questioner says laughing gas is the least of their problems. People are using much harder drugs. He has skimmed through the action plan document. Some of it is good. But punishments need to be firmer. People probably won’t turn up for community sentences. And the government needs to tackle drugs at source.

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Rishi Sunak outlines ‘immediate justice’ scheme to combat antisocial behaviour

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Offenders to clean up damage within 48 hours, wearing jumpsuits or hi-viz jackets, in government bid to claim crime as priority

Offenders guilty of crimes such as vandalism will be ordered to start repairing the damage they caused within two days of receiving their punishment, under a government pledge to tackle antisocial behaviour.

Victims of crimes will also be given a say over the type of punishment that offenders should face, as will communities, under an “immediate justice” scheme to be unveiled by Rishi Sunak on Monday.

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Keir Starmer promises to halve violence against women as part of crime ‘mission’

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Labour’s plan would include dedicated rape courts and domestic violence experts taking 999 calls, says party leader

Keir Starmer has vowed to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, with measures including dedicated “rape courts” and domestic violence experts taking 999 calls.

Setting out one of Labour’s core missions on crime, Starmer said it was the “unfinished business in my life’s work to deliver justice” and said Tory attacks on him for being a human rights lawyer “only shows how far they’ve fallen, and how little they understand working people”.

Restore public confidence in the police and criminal justice system to its highest level.

Halve knife crime incidents, including with an enhanced police presence outside schools.

Drastically improve statistics for the proportion of crimes solved by the police.

Drive down violence against women and improve conviction rates.

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Eleanor Williams jailed for eight and a half years after rape and trafficking lies

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Twenty-two-year-old from Barrow posted photos on Facebook falsely claiming she had been abused

A woman has been jailed for eight and a half years after being found guilty of lying about being raped and trafficked by an Asian grooming gang, and making false rape claims against a series of other men.

Eleanor Williams, 22, from Barrow-in-Furness was convicted in January of nine counts of perverting the course of justice.

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Starmer makes it his ‘personal mission’ to tackle domestic violence

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Labour leader tells Women’s Aid conference he will use his own experience as DPP after collapse in number of charges

Keir Starmer has vowed to make it his “personal mission” to stand up for victims of domestic violence, after a collapse in the number of charges brought for the crime.

The Labour leader said that as the director of public prosecutions he had witnessed “the devastating impact domestic violence has on victims and their families”, and how abuse often escalated into other forms of serious violence.

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Revealed: one in 100 police officers in England and Wales faced a criminal charge last year

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Figure has surged over the past 10 years with pressure growing for officers to be sacked on the spot

Shocking figures obtained by the Observer show roughly one in 100 police officers in England and Wales faced criminal charges, including for sexual offences, last year alone.

An Observerinvestigation has found that the Police Federation, the staff association for police officers, received 1,387 claims for legal support from members facing criminal charges in 2022.

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British organised crime boss arrested in Thailand

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Richard Wakeling, 55, had been on the run since he fled the UK before his trial for drug smuggling in 2018

A British organised crime boss has been arrested in Thailand after being on the run for five years.

Richard Wakeling, 55, from Brentwood, Essex, tried to import £8m of liquid amphetamine into the UK in April 2016.

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Suspects in racially motivated attack banned from Surrey

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Five released on bail conditions including county ban after black girl assaulted outside Thomas Knyvett college in Ashford

Five suspects arrested in connection with what police say was a racially motivated attack on a 15-year-old black girl have been banned from Surrey, while officers have urged a further teenage suspect to turn herself in.

The attack, which took place outside Thomas Knyvett college in Ashford, has sent shock waves through the community and led to demands for an inquiry by MPs.

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