Category Archives: Crime

Priti Patel says ‘sorry if people feel there have been failings’ over PPE

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Home secretary also launches campaign to tackle domestic abuse during lockdown

The home secretary has said she is sorry if people feel there has been a failure to supply sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) to NHS staff, as it was revealed that 19 UK health workers had died after contracting coronavirus.

Speaking at the daily Downing Street coronavirus briefing, Priti Patel was asked twice if she would apologise about the lack of PPE being provided to frontline workers. “I’m sorry if people feel that there have been failings,” she said. “I will be very, very clear about that.”

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Four men jailed in first year since upskirting law was introduced

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Work is still needed to raise awareness about the problem, campaigners say

Four men have been jailed in the year since the upskirting law was introduced in England and Wales, figures show.

Campaigners said the legislation offered a route to justice for victims, but said more work was needed to raise awareness about the seriousness of the issue.

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Coronavirus crisis leads to steep drop in recorded crime

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Offences including burglary and violence fall by as much as 20% in some areas

The coronavirus crisis has led to a drop in recorded crime, by as much as 20% in some areas.

Offences such as burglary and violence were down last week compared with the previous seven days, after Boris Johnson made his first request for people to stay home on the Monday.

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UK police chiefs: coronavirus could bring out worst in humanity

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Warning after crimes including theft of oxygen canisters and puncturing of ambulance tyres

Police chiefs have warned the coronavirus pandemic could “bring out the worst in humanity” after a spate of opportunistic crimes hindered efforts to control the crisis.

The theft of oxygen canisters from a hospital, the puncturing of ambulance tyres and the raiding of food banks by thieves were among the “worrying isolated incidents” in recent days raised by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).

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Salmond’s acquittal could make him the SNP’s biggest challenge

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Nicola Sturgeon’s party is now in the sights of its vindicated and emboldened ex-leader

When Nicola Sturgeon addressed a private gathering of Scottish National party politicians at Edinburgh Napier University towards the end of August 2018 and little more than a week after the original sexual harassment allegations against her predecessor Alex Salmond were made public, she spoke frankly: “How we deal with this and how we are seen to respond to this will say a lot about who we are as a party and also about the country we are today and want to build for the future.”

Speaking outside the high court in Edinburgh on Monday afternoon following his acquittal on 13 charges of sexual assault, Alex Salmond suggested that the verdicts would ultimately say something very different about the SNP. He referred to “certain evidence I would like to have seen led in this trial”, which would now “see the light of day”. Sources close to the former first minister were already briefing his belief that Nicola Sturgeon herself played a role.

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Crown court trials on hold while judges seek ways to protect juries

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Pause follows uncertainty over how trials would work given physical distancing needs

Crown court trials across England and Wales were suspended or collapsed on Monday as judges attempted to find safer ways for juries and lawyers to conduct hearings.

There have been suggestions, including from the Ministry of Justice, that courts move to handling urgent work only during the coronavirus crisis, but no one has defined what types of cases that might involve.

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Three men arrested in Essex after haul of loo roll found in van

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Vehicle pulled over by police also contained a stash of stolen handwash and other items

Three men have been arrested after police found a van full of stolen toilet roll and handwash.

Officers were alerted by a report of suspicious activity in the Essex town of Hatfield Peverel at 10.20pm on Friday. It was alleged that a van was driven through a barrier at a building site in Bury Lane.

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‘Police have failed us’: vulnerable pair allege inaction from force

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Disabled mother and son claim Somerset and Avon police have not helped to stop the abuse and violence they are suffering

A UK police force is facing fresh questions over its approach to vulnerable individuals after it emerged a disabled mother and son have endured years of abuse and violence, near to where a disabled refugee was murdered in 2013.

Ruth and Zac Jones, from Bristol, say they have had a brick thrown through their window and four vehicles set on fire, among a series of targeted attacks similar to those that preceded the death of Bijan Ebrahimi in 2013.

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Pop star Duffy says she was raped, drugged and held captive

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Welsh singer made statement on Instagram saying she was held captive for several days

Aimee Duffy, the Welsh pop singer known as Duffy who retreated from the public eye following her hugely successful debut album Rockferry, has said she was drugged, held captive and raped by an unidentified person.

In a statement on her official Instagram account she said: “The truth is, and please trust me I am OK and safe now, I was raped and drugged and held captive over some days. Of course I survived. The recovery took time. There’s no light way to say it. But I can tell you in the last decade, the thousands and thousands of days I committed to wanting to feel the sunshine in my heart again, the sun does now shine.”

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The youth centre battling back after the shock of a tragic stabbing

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A year after the murder of Glendon Spence, a community is facing up to the surge in youth violence

On 21 February 2019, two young men ran into the Marcus Lipton youth centre in south London on a busy Thursday and stabbed 23-year-old Glendon Spence to death. The tragedy sent shockwaves across my community in Loughborough Junction.

Faced with intergenerational cycles of neglect and disadvantage, young people have for decades considered the youth centre as a second home. Glendon’s murder was a sharp reminder that, in modern Britain, street violence can pierce even the most resilient of spaces; another loved soul frozen in time.

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Over half of UK women killed by men die at hands of partner or ex

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Femicide Census for 2018 shows 149 women killed, the highest number since census began

More than half the women killed by men in the UK in 2018 were killed by a current or former partner, many after they had taken steps to leave, according to a report on femicide.

The fourth Femicide Census, conducted by Women’s Aid and the campaigner Karen Ingala Smith, found 149 women were killed by 147 men in 2018. The number of deaths is an increase of 10 on the previous year and the highest number since the census began.

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Disability charity boss jailed after stealing from pension fund

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Patrick McLarry sentenced to five years for defrauding scheme of more than £250,000

The former head of a charity has been jailed for five years after he admitted defrauding a pension scheme for workers with disabilities and using the money to buy houses in England and France.

Patrick McLarry took more than £250,000 from the pension scheme of Yateley Industries for the Disabled and used it to buy homes for himself and his wife and pay off a debt for a pub lease.

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Police uncovering ‘epidemic of child abuse’ in 1970s and 80s

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PM told to say sorry for remark about ‘spaffing’ money up wall as 4,024 claims lead to guilty verdicts

Police say they are uncovering a hidden “epidemic” of paedophile abuse in the 1970s and 1980s, with thousands of allegations leading to convictions against people who abused their power to attack children.

New figures seen by the Guardian show that 4,024 allegations led to guilty verdicts at court after police investigations since 2014 into decades-old child sex offences.

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Families call for inquests into deaths of Vietnamese migrants

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Letter calls for full inquests into deaths of 39 people in a refrigerated lorry last year

Families of the 39 Vietnamese migrants whose bodies were discovered in a refrigerated lorry in Essex last year and campaigners in the UK are calling for inquests to be held into the deaths.

While criminal proceedings related to the tragic deaths continue, there has been no indication whether there will be any wider investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident.

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Streatham: man shot dead by police after stabbings in south London – latest updates

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Police say two people injured after man shot dead in terrorism-related incident on Streatham High Road, south London

The British Red Cross has provided this statement on the Streatham terror incident:

Our sympathies are with those affected by this afternoon’s incident in Streatham. We are in communication with the authorities leading the response and are closely monitoring the situation.

We are ready to make the UK Solidarity Fund available to those affected by the attack.

Police have given an update on the condition of the three people known to have been injured in the Streatham terror attack this afternoon.

One is in hospital in a life-threatening condition.

A second victim was treated for minor injuries at the scene before being taken to hospital.

A third victim has been taken to hospital – their condition is not life-threatening.

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Reynhard Sinaga victim: ‘I thought I might have killed him’

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Student fought back after waking during assault and was treated by police as a suspect

The student who exposed the serial rapist Reynhard Sinaga has said he feared he had killed him after he woke and fought back when he found he was being abused.

Sinaga, 36, was jailed this month for a minimum of 30 years for 136 rapes against dozens of young men in Manchester. Police believe he would have carried on offending had one of his victims not woken up during an attack and called 999.

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Reynhard Sinaga may have been raping men as far back as 2005

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Photos, videos and ‘trophy items’ suggest ‘Britain’s worst ever rapist’ attacked 195 men between 2005 and 2017

Police in Manchester believe the PhD student dubbed “Britain’s worst ever rapist” may have attacked men as far back as 2005 – and have admitted he called them at least twice to help evict men from his flat.

Reynhard Sinaga, 36, from Indonesia, posed as a “good Samaritan” outside clubs in central Manchester, inviting men back to his flat for a drink or to charge their phones, before slipping the date rape drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) into their drink. He then recorded himself raping them, sometimes for hours at a time.

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Criminal records scandal: police chiefs blame Theresa May

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Former home secretary accused of botched reforms that led to failures over foreign criminals

Theresa May has been blamed by chief constables for botched police reforms that led to tens of thousands of alerts on foreign criminals being kept from their home countries.

The former home secretary is accused of “starving” the crucial police national computer (PNC) of money against advice from forces and instead pushing ahead with an ambitious and costly super-database to replace it that is now years behind schedule and millions of pounds over budget.

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Exclusive: CPS seeks longer sentence for rapist Reynhard Sinaga

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Crown Prosecution Service asks attorney general to review 30-year term for student who raped up to 195 men

A man described as Britain’s most prolific rapist could have his sentence increased after the Crown Prosecution Service wrote to the attorney general saying Reynhard Sinaga should serve longer than 30 years in prison.

Sinaga, a 36-year-old mature student from Indonesia, was given a life sentence with a minimum tariff of 30 years by a judge at Manchester crown court last week. Suzanne Goddard QC told him it was “borderline” whether he should be given a whole-life term but decided that he should not be considered for release until he was 66, having been unanimously convicted by four juries of drugging and abusing 48 men while they lay comatose in his Manchester flat.

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Revealed: UK concealed failure to alert EU over 75,000 criminal convictions

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Calls in UK and Europe for inquiries into scandal in which details of crimes by foreigners not passed on

The UK has failed to pass on the details of 75,000 convictions of foreign criminals to their home EU countries and concealed the scandal for fear of damaging Britain’s reputation in Europe’s capitals, the Guardian can reveal.

European trust in the UK on security issues sank to a new low on Tuesday night after details emerged of the apparent cover-up, which prompted calls for an investigation in the UK and a warning from one senior MEP that a Brussels inquiry was inevitable.

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