Former Met chief reveals he questioned prince as a witness in 2005 about note written by princess
The former Metropolitan police chief John Stevens has disclosed that he questioned Prince Charles over allegations that he had plotted to kill Diana, Princess of Wales.
Charles was interviewed as a witness in 2005, during a three-year investigation into Diana’s death in a Paris car crash in 1997, the Daily Mail reported.
Continue reading...He had been in Britain since November and intended to claim asylum on the basis that he had been persecuted in the US for his journalism
The American journalist Barrett Brown has been arrested and detained in the UK for allegedly overstaying his visa and for alleged public order and incitement offences relating to his role in holding a protest banner which said: “Kill Cops.”
Police arrested Brown on Monday at a canal boat moored in east London, where he had been living for several months with a British woman. He was interviewed and released on bail the following day, but immediately detained by immigration authorities.
Continue reading...Gerald Banyard found guilty of perverting course of justice over attack by Khalid Masood in 2017
A police hunt is under way for a man who “looked to exploit an extremely tragic and serious situation” by framing an innocent person for the Westminster terror attack.
Gerald Banyard, 67, of Whalley, Lancashire, sent two handwritten notes to police in the days after the Westminster Bridge attack by Khalid Masood in March 2017, claiming that his landlord’s partner had been involved in the atrocity, in which five people were killed including PC Keith Palmer.
Continue reading...Officer used alias Alan Bond while infiltrating the Socialist Workers party between 1981 and 1986, inquiry hears
A fourth undercover officer who spied on political campaigners is alleged to have fathered a child with a woman he met while using a fake identity, a public inquiry has heard.
The officer used the alias Alan Bond while infiltrating the Socialist Workers party between 1981 and 1986.
Continue reading...Hearing finds Ben Hannam’s actions ‘harmed public confidence in, and the reputation of’ force
A man who became the first British police officer convicted of belonging to a neo-Nazi terrorist organisation has been dismissed from the Metropolitan police without notice.
Ben Hannam was found guilty on 1 April of membership of the banned rightwing extremist group National Action (NA) following a trial at the Old Bailey.
Continue reading...BBC documentary to examine incidents that led to setting up of unit on which Line of Duty’s AC-12 is based
One of London’s most senior police officers, described by a colleague as “the greatest villain unhung”, was believed to be involved in major corruption in the 1970s but never prosecuted, according to a new documentary on police malpractice.
Former officers who exposed corruption at the time describe how they were threatened that they would end up in a “cement raincoat” if they informed on fellow officers and were shunned by colleagues when they did.
Continue reading...Police broke up a Good Friday service at a Polish church in London after officers said it was violating English coronavirus regulations. People were worshipping at Christ the King church in the south of the capital when police arrived following reports of queues outside the building. The service was being streamed live on social media and footage showed officers addressing those in attendance, telling them the gathering was unlawful. The church defended the service, arguing regulations had been met
Continue reading...My father, Raymon Anning, who has died aged 90 from pneumonia aged 90, was a police officer who rose through the ranks to become the last British commissioner of the Hong Kong police force, commanding more than 30,000 police officers.
He was not particularly well educated, having left school at the age of 15, but Ray was always extremely ambitious. This was partly due to his desire to do better than his father, who was also a police officer.
Continue reading...Five women taken to hospital as a result of car hitting a lamppost in Streatham, south London, and four arrested
A teenage girl is in a critical condition after a car being chased by police crashed into a lamppost.
The Met has launched an investigation into the collision, which happened in the early hours of Sunday morning in south London and left five women in hospital.
Continue reading...Metropolitan police chief stands firm after criticism from London mayor and home secretary
Britain’s most senior police chief defied pressure to resign as she dismissed “armchair” critics amid widespread outrage over officers manhandling women who were mourning the killing of Sarah Everard.
Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, was publicly rebuked by the home secretary, Priti Patel, and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for providing an unsatisfactory explanation of why police broke up a vigil for Everard in London’s Clapham Common on Saturday, near where she was allegedly abducted before being murdered.
Continue reading...Analysis: the police’s handling of the Sarah Everard vigil raises questions over whether authorities are going too far
Defending the Metropolitan police’s handling of Saturday night’s Sarah Everard vigil, assistant commissioner Helen Ball argued the force had to act “because of the overriding need to protect people’s safety” from the threat of coronavirus. Yet last year’s Black Lives Matter protests in some 300 US cities did not cause a spike in cases there, a July report from the National Bureau of Economic Research found. The outdoor air played a part in dispelling the virus and, in cities with big rallies, infections even fell because those who did not take part stayed home instead of shopping or eating out – activities that carry a greater risk.
While not an exact parallel with the Clapham Common event, it suggests even huge and noisy protests, where thousands of people are shouting and chanting, are not necessarily cauldrons for infection. And they can be done safely, according to the human rights organisation Liberty. For example a socially distanced rally was held in Tel Aviv in April last year against the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, with thousands of people shouting and waving banners each in their own space, two metres apart.
Continue reading...The evening began in grief and silence, as hundreds gathered in south London to remember Sarah Everard and call for changes to keep women safe.
The vigil ended in anger and violence, as police trampled flowers and candles laid out in tribute to Everard and tried to silence women speaking out in her memory
Unofficial event on Clapham Common marred by at least one arrest and confrontations with officers
The evening in south London began in grief and silence, as hundreds gathered to remember Sarah Everard and call for changes that will keep others safe. It ended in anger and violence, as police trampled flowers and candles laid out in tribute to Everard and tried to silence women speaking out in her memory.
Tensions were high before the vigil, which had officially been cancelled after the Metropolitan police refused to give the organisers a permit. That compounded anger at the force, already high after a serving officer was charged with Everard’s kidnap and murder.
Continue reading...Neil Basu says move to protest appointment of William Shawcross could harm process
Britain’s best chance of reducing terrorist violence risks being damaged amid a huge backlash to the government’s choice of William Shawcross to lead a review of Prevent, the country’s top counter-terrorism officer has told the Guardian.
Assistant commissioner Neil Basu’s comments came after key human rights and Muslim groups announced a boycott of the official review of Prevent, which aims to stop Britons being radicalised into violent extremism.
Continue reading...Ambulance service unable to save teenager after attack in Newham
A 15-year-old boy has died after being stabbed in east London and a murder inquiry has been launched, the Metropolitan police has said.
Officers were called just before 7pm on Friday following reports of a stabbing in Woodman Street, near to the Royal Docks in Newham. Police and members of the London ambulance service (LAS) attended and found the teenager suffering injuries. Despite the efforts of the emergency services he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Continue reading...Police ordered to pay £15,500 to man trafficked to UK from Vietnam as a boy who was detained and threatened with deportation
The Metropolitan police is to pay £15,500 to a victim of slavery who tried to report his traffickers but was instead arrested for immigration offences and sent to a detention centre.
The man, referred to in court as KQT, was 15 when he was taken by traffickers from Vietnam through Russia to the UK in a refrigerated lorry. He was arrested on arrival and placed in foster care, but shortly after was collected by his traffickers and forced to work on a cannabis farm, where he was locked inside a storeroom and only fed one meal a day. In January 2018, he escaped his captors and walked into a police station to report his ordeal.
Continue reading...Cressida Dick says stop and search has helped save young black lives
Britain’s top police officer has denied her force’s leadership were too slow to realise it had race a problem and said its controversial tactics have not oppressed young black men but saved scores from being stabbed.
Hitting back at months of revelations and criticism, Cressida Dick said the Metropolitan police, who police more than half of Britain’s black population, had a “strong record”.
Continue reading...Met police counter-terror unit has been asked to investigate allegations, court hears
Counter-terrorism police have been asked to investigate claims that witnesses and claimants in a terror-funding case were intimidated by officials working for the state of Qatar, the high court has been told.
Allegations of perverting the course of justice emerged at the hearing in London on Wednesday in a case involving compensation claims submitted originally by eight Syrian refugees against Doha Bank, the headquarters of which are in the Gulf state.
Continue reading...Police showed ‘disregard of the the principles of a free media’, says Society of Editors
Scotland Yard has apologised after journalists and photographers covering an anti-lockdown protest were told to leave and threatened with arrest.
Journalists at the demonstration protesting the new national lockdown in England in Trafalgar Square on Thursday were reportedly told by officers they were not seen as essential workers and needed special permission from the Metropolitan police service (MPS) to be present.
Continue reading...Three women share ‘shattering’ experiences in statement made to public inquiry
The former wives of undercover police officers have told a public inquiry about the “shattering” discovery that their marriages were “imbued with deceit” as a result of their husbands’ covert deployments.
A statement was made to the inquiry on behalf of three women who believed they were making personal sacrifices so their husbands could go undercover to infiltrate political groups during long-term deployments.
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