Four held after anti-terror raids
Four men have been arrested in East and southeast London by detectives investigating alleged international terrorism, police said last night (Stewart Tendler writes).
The men, all in their 20s and British citizens, were arrested on Monday evening and yesterday. They were held as part of an operation with West Yorkshire Police linked to the arrest of a man at Manchester airport on June 6. He and a 16-year-old boy were charged last week with terrorism offences and conspiracy to cause a public nuisance by poisons and/or explosives to cause disruption, fear or injury. The arrests were not linked to the Forest Gate raids or London bombings.
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School checks
A review of school records has been ordered by Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, to ensure that pupils are protected from paedophiles. It comes after an Ofsted report found that most schools and councils failed to keep even basic records of staff checks.
Cleared at last
The Court of Appeal overturned the 1972 conviction of Edward Caley-Knowles, now 69, of Whitehaven, Cumbria, for assault and the 1994 conviction of Iorwerth Jones, now 72, of Llandovery, Carmarthenshire, for criminal damage. In each case the trial judge had directed the jury to return a guilty verdict.
Driver jailed
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A retired police inspector was jailed for two years for causing a crash that killed two men. Ralph Parnaby, 67, from York, denied causing death by dangerous driving. He drove so badly on the York by-pass that another driver thought he was drunk. York Crown Court was told that he suffers from Parkinson’s disease.
Car boot girl
A man has been charged with neglect after a four-year-old girl was seen being locked in a car boot. The child was found unharmed three days later and is back with her family in Swansea. The 48-year-old man, from Bracknell, Berkshire, will appear before Swansea magistrates on Friday.
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Loyalist group expels brothers
The largest loyalist terrorist group in Northern Ireland announced yesterday that it had expelled some of its leaders in an apparent attempt to restore what little remains of its credibility among supporters and to reinvolve itself in the peace process.
Andre and Ihab Shoukri, brothers of Egyptian Coptic origin who commanded the UDA’s North Belfast unit, were removed along with a third member, Alan McClean.
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The men have been resisting expulsion and last night there were fears that the move could spark another round of deadly feuding. One expert said that this was the biggest test of the leadership since it forced Johnny Adair out of his Shankill Road stronghold.
The atmosphere in Belfast is also on a knife-edge because of the Whiterock loyalist Orange parade on Saturday.
Murder charge
[This article is subject to a legal complaint]
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A teenager has been charged with the murder of Michael Chapman, 16, who was killed as he walked home across a cricket field on Friday. Lee Cowie, 18, of Sittingbourne, Kent, will appear before magistrates today. A boy also aged 16 and of Sittingbourne has been released on bail pending further inquiries.
Cash scrum
A man wearing a Welsh rugby jersey caused a town centre scrum in Aberystwyth, Wales, on Monday morning after throwing what is believed to be bank notes worth thousands of pounds into the air. Police said they were investigating a motoring offence in connection with the incident.
Nickell suspect
Detectives were last night interviewing a man aged 40 in connection with the unsolved murder of Rachel Nickell. The suspect was taken from Broadmoor hospital and interviewed at a London police station under caution. Ms Nickell was stabbed in front of her young son on Wimbledon Common in 1991.
£11m sunflowers
A masterpiece by Egon Schiele, the Austrian Expressionist, exchanged hands last night for £11.7 million following its rediscovery more than 60 years after it was confiscated by the Nazis. Sonnenblumen, or Wilted Sunflowers, went to an anonymous collector at Christie’s in London.
Ramsay’s libel win
Gordon Ramsay and the team behind the television series Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares won £75,000 libel damages at the High Court over false allegations in the Evening Standard last November that the programme faked scenes to make a restaurant in Silsden, West Yorkshire, look like a health hazard.
Levy faces loan quiz in private
Lord Levy, Tony Blair’s personal fundraiser, is to be questioned in private over the Labour funding controversy (Andrew Pierce writes).
The Constitutional Affairs Committee decided to hold the hearing in camera after an intervention by police officers investigating the £14 million in secret loans given to Labour.
The cross-examination will take place within the next two days but the committee declined to give a date to try to maximimise the secrecy.
Detectives said that any public airing of evidence by Lord Levy could hamper their inquiries. He was one of only three people who knew about the donations, with Mr Blair and Matt Carter, the then Labour general secretary. Four of the 12 secret lenders were nominated for peerages. The committee might publish a transcript of Lord Levy’s evidence if it is does not relate to the loans investigation.
Police Bill curbed
Moves to merge police forces received a setback last night when peers backed plans to curb John Reid’s power to go ahead (Richard Ford writes).
They voted that mergers between the 43 forces in England and Wales can proceed only if a local police authority urged the Home Secretary to do so. This would effectively end Mr Reid’s power to initiate changes without the agreement of the local police authority.
The Home Office said that it would seek to reverse the defeat when the Police and Justice Bill returns to the Commons.
More housing
Up to 820,000 homes should be built in the South East over the next 20 years, a government report says — 60 per cent more than the region had planned.
The report, by the consultants Roger Tym & Partners, suggests that the 28,900 new homes a year agreed upon by the South East England Regional Assembly are not enough.
The assembly criticised the report yesterday as “fantasy” and environmental campaigners said that the new homes would put enormous strain on water supply and sewerage systems.
Detention failings
Four short-term immigration detention centres are unfit to hold children and for overnight stays by other migrants, according to a watchdog.
Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, reported shortcomings at centres in Luton and Stansted airports, Waterside Court in Leeds and premises at Portsmouth ferry terminal. The inspectors found that staff at the centres were concerned about the suitability and safety of
the new escort vehicles provided by G4S, the private company that runs the four facilities.