The Victims’ Commissioner is demanding that the Metropolitan Police explain its decision not to pursue a full investigation into claims a teenager was trafficked to the UK to have sex with Prince Andrew.
The Observer understands that Dame Vera Baird QC, a former solicitor general and chair of the Board of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, has taken a close interest in the allegations, first examined by Scotland Yard in 2015.
Continue reading...Field Marshal Lord Bramall, who has died aged 95, was chief of the defence staff from 1982 until 1985, the pinnacle of a long military career that began just in time to land him on the beaches of Normandy as a freshly minted second lieutenant in the D-day invasion of June 1944.
But in March 2015 he was drawn into the saga of claims of historical paedophilia and child abuse in high places that began with the unmasking of Jimmy Savile in 2012. Bramall’s cottage in a village near Farnham, Surrey, was raided by police as part of a co-ordinated initiative that also included the homes of Lord (Leon) Brittan, the former home secretary, who died in January 2015. All this was part of Operation Midland, set up by the Metropolitan police in response to allegations against a number of notable public figures.
Continue reading...Section 14 order issued to halt protest across London was not legitimate, high court rules
Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion protesters may sue the Metropolitan police for unlawful arrest after the high court quashed an order banning the group’s protests in London last month.
In a judgment handed down on Wednesday morning, Mr Justice Dingemans and Mr Justice Chamberlain said the section 14 order imposed during XR’s “autumn uprising” in October was unlawful.
Continue reading...Ten ambulance crews sent to incident in south-east London, with local roads closed by police
One person has died and 15 more have been injured after two buses and a car collided in south-east London, the emergency services have said.
The Metropolitan police were called to the scene in Orpington, in the borough of Bromley, shortly after 10pm on Thursday night. They said one person, whom they did not name, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Continue reading...Rail services from the London hub suspended while police dealt with trespassing incident
Commuters travelling through London Euston faced major disruption after services were delayed or cancelled during rush hour.
All rail services from the central London station were suspended and the West Coast main line was closed while police dealt with a trespassing incident on Friday evening.
Continue reading...City-wide Met police operation begins to clear Trafalgar Square and other protest sites
Police have banned Extinction Rebellion protests from continuing anywhere in London, as they moved in almost without warning to clear protesters who remained at the movement’s camp in Trafalgar Square.
The Metropolitan police issued a revised section 14 order on Monday night that said “any assembly linked to the Extinction Rebellion ‘Autumn Uprising’ ... must now cease their protests within London (MPS and City of London Police Areas)” by 9pm.
Continue reading...The Met had vowed not to shy from historical sex abuse after the Jimmy Saville scandal
The revelations about the Jimmy Savile scandal in 2012, and how the popular entertainer abused hundreds with the authorities ignoring concerns about him, created a shockwave.
Continue reading...Publication also reveals extent of deputy Labour leader’s role in failed Operation Midland
Scotland Yard officers agreed to publicly say they believed the key witness in a multi-million pound investigation into an alleged Westminster VIP paedophile ring, according to a damning report which lays bare a series of police failings.
The revelation was omitted three years ago when the Metropolitan police released a heavily redacted version of the high court judge’s report on its handling of the £2.5m Operation Midland, which ended without a single arrest.
Continue reading...Police say Brexit campaign broke law but claim insufficient evidence to continue
The Metropolitan police have announced they will take no further action against the Leave.EU campaign for spending offences in the Brexit referendum, despite accepting that it broke the law.
In a statement released on Friday, the Met concluded there was insufficient evidence to justify further investigation of the group, which was set up by the insurance businessman Arron Banks.
Continue reading...Superintendent Darius Hemmatpour said that taking 20,000 police of the streets created a void
Funding cuts to police and public services that previously helped stop people, especially the young, from offending has helped fuel the surge in violent crime, a police chief has said.
Supt Darius Hemmatpour of Scotland Yard’s violent crime task force, said stabbings and other life-threatening attacks in London spiked after 2017, and suggested that austerity was a factor.
Continue reading...Over 6,300 officers deployed for June trip, at time of mounting pressure on police resources
Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK cost the Metropolitan police nearly £3.5m, figures have revealed, at a time of rising pressure on police resources.
Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated against the US president in the capital before he attended a D-day commemoration service in Portsmouth.
Continue reading...US president refers to message about Met police twitter account, calling London mayor ‘incompetent’
Donald Trump has retweeted the British far-right commentator Katie Hopkins and launched another attack on Sadiq Khan.
Referring to a message from Hopkins that the Met’s Twitter account had been targeted by hackers on Friday night, in which she said officers had “lost control of London streets” and “lost control of their Twitter account too”, Trump tweeted: “With the incompetent mayor of London, you will never have safe streets!”
Continue reading...‘Unauthorised access’ led to series of messages being posted and emailed to subscribers
Scotland Yard’s principal Twitter account, which is followed by more than 1.2 million people and is used to provide important alerts in times of crisis, tweeted a series of bizarre messages on Friday night after becoming “subject to unauthorised access”.
Many of the dozen errant tweets, some of which referred to the British rapper Digga D, were also repeated in press releases emailed out to journalists from the force’s official email address. Officers said they were “assessing to establish what criminal offences have been committed” over the security breach.
Continue reading...GCHQ called in to help counter-terrorism police examine email and phone records
The suspect behind the leak of confidential memos from Britain’s Washington ambassador has been identified, the Sunday Times newspaper has reported.
British officials have launched an inquiry to find the person responsible for the leak of emails published by the Mail on Sunday. Counter-terrorism police have launched a criminal investigation.
Continue reading...Force had said that publishing leaked diplomatic cables may breach Official Secrets Act
The Metropolitan police has rowed back from its warning that journalists could face prosecution if they publish any further leaked diplomatic cables such as those that ran in the Mail on Sunday last weekend, precipitating the resignation of the British ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch.
In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, the Met assistant commissioner Neil Basu said the force “respects the rights of the media and has no intention of seeking to prevent editors from publishing stories in the public interest in a liberal democracy. The media hold an important role in scrutinising the actions of the state.”
Continue reading...Relatives of eight people killed in terrorist attack said security services had fallen short
The families of the London Bridge victims criticised the authorities on Friday after a coroner cleared MI5 and police of failing to prevent the terror attack despite having the ringleader under investigation.
After more than seven weeks of harrowing evidence, the inquests into the deaths of the eight victims of the June 2017 attack came to an end with the conclusion that they had been unlawfully killed.
Continue reading...Cressida Dick says more officers and rise in stop and search had reduced stabbings and murders
The Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, has hailed big falls in violent crime in London in the past year, with fights over drugs, predominantly cocaine, playing a key part in the rise in the number of stabbings and homicides in the capital.
Related: Criminals going unpunished because of cuts, says police chief
Continue reading...Group’s ongoing peaceful disruption in London is gaining it global attention and new members
On Monday morning a strange sight appeared, edging its way through the buses, taxis and shoppers on Oxford Street in London.
A bright pink boat, named Berta Cáceres after the murdered Honduran environmental activist, was being pulled carefully through the traffic, eventually coming to a halt in the middle of one of London’s busiest thoroughfares.
Continue reading...Fears that WikiLeaks founder will be extradited to the US if he leaves London embassy
Supporters of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gathered outside the Ecuadorian embassy in central London after the organisation said its sources in Ecuador had revealed he could be removed from the building “within hours to days”.
Ecuador’s foreign ministry released a statement saying it “doesn’t comment on rumours, theories or conjectures that don’t have any documented backing”, but a senior Ecuadorian official said no decision had been made.
Continue reading...Andrew Parker and Cressida Dick say numerous plots have been foiled in recent years
Far-right terrorism has been identified as a key threat to the safety and prosperity of the country, according to the director general of MI5, Andrew Parker, and Cressida Dick, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police.
Writing in the Times, the pair warned that while Islamist terrorism remains the largest by scale, they are also “concerned about the growing threat from other forms of violent extremism … covering a spectrum of hate-driven ideologies, including the extreme right and left.”
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