The Daily Telegraph - 20.08.2019

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Four men jailed for

machete killing of father

Four men have been jailed for a total of

100 years for the murder of a father of

four in a “vicious, terrifying and

sustained” machete attack.

Sajed Choudry died following the

assault in November last year close to

his home. The 42-year-old suffered

horrific injuries, including slash

wounds to his ears which had to be

reattached using a skin graft.

During the trial, jurors heard Mr

Choudry had been rowing with the Ali

family for several months before the

feud escalated to violence near his

home in Blackburn, Lancs.

Judge Mr Justice Dove sentenced

Sadaqat Ali, 36, his brother Rafaqat Ali,

38, their father-in-law Fazal Ilahi, 63,

and another man, Syed Ali Akbar, 45,

to life terms at Preston Crown Court

yesterday.

NEWS BULLETIN

Pub burgled days after

landlord’s fatal stabbing

Thieves targeted a pub and took the

landlord’s van just days after he was

stabbed to death, it has been reported.

Christian Thornton, 49, died in an

attack near the Hammer and Pincers

pub in Widnes, Cheshire, on Aug 11 but

police are appealing for witnesses to a

break-in at the pub that took place

over the weekend.

The intruders took cash from fruit

machines, the staff tip jar and Mr

Thornton’s van, which was later found

abandoned in Cherry Sutton, Widnes.

Det Sgt Mark Roberts called the

burglary “sickening”. Lee Abbott, 35, is

to stand trial for his murder next year.

Lost Constable sketch

found in cardboard box

A lost sketch by English artist John

Constable has been discovered during

a house clearance in west London.

The work, entitled A London Terrace

of Trees and Figures, shows a

Georgian town house surrounded by

large oaks.

It was found tucked away in a box

by the vendor, who inherited the 1820s

sketch from her neighbour in Holland

Park 15 years ago.

It is now being sold by Dawsons

Auctioneers, of Maidenhead, Berks,

and it is expected to fetch £6,

when it goes under the hammer on

Saturday.

Mother’s cancer ‘not

enough’ for benefits

A mother of three claims she was told

by the Department for Work and

Pensions that she “did not have

enough cancer” to receive benefits

while she was suffering from the

disease for more than seven months.

Katie Larn, 29, applied for daily

living allowance and mobility benefits

after she was diagnosed with

Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Ms Larn, who

was working as a carer, claims she was

told she did not qualify for support.

She said: “They told me I couldn’t

get the benefits, and I said, ‘Are you

telling me I don’t have enough

cancer?’ and they said, ‘Yes’.”

Caterers win return of

seized ‘hippy crack’

Border Force officers have been forced

to return £800,000 worth of

confiscated laughing gas capsules to a

catering firm.

Officers seized 200,000 capsules of

nitrous oxide, known as “hippy crack”

to recreational users, after finding

them in a container at Southampton.

But now a judge’s ruling they were

meant for illegal activity has been

overturned. Elevator Enterprises, who

imported the capsules, argued they

were meant to be used in whipped

cream and so were exempt from

import regulations.

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Whole world in their hands Choristers from Holy Trinity Church Coventry rehearse for evensong as Gaia, a 23ft sculpture

of Earth, hangs on display at Peterborough Cathedral. Luke Jerram, the British artist, used Nasa images to achieve accuracy.

JOE GIDDENS / PA WIRE

Betting firms’ tweets luring children

By Charles Hymas
HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR

BETTING firms are using social media
to entice children into gambling, an in-
vestigation has found.
Around 41,000 UK followers of gam-
bling-related accounts on Twitter are
under the age of 16, according to a
study by Bristol University and Demos,
a social policy think tank.
They found children made up 6 per
cent of followers of traditional gam-
bling accounts, rising to 17 per cent of
accounts focused on gambling on e-
sports, multiplayer video games played

competitively for spectators, typically

by professional gamers.

Of those responding to e-sports bet-

ting tweets in the UK, 28 per cent were

children. Yet, only 0.1 per cent of this

content contained a warning about the

minimum age for gambling, gambling

responsibility or the application of

terms and conditions.

The study found that 68 per cent of

traditional sports and 74 per cent of e-

sports tweets appeared to contravene

regulations in some way by presenting

gambling as an income source or by en-

couraging it at unsociable times.

Advertising of free bets was also

prevalent on Twitter, with half of

tweets from gambling accounts related

to “free” or “matched” bets, which un-

derstate the risks of betting and are

complex for young and vulnerable

gamblers to understand.

Only 7 per cent of tweets sent from a

gambling account included some kind

of warning within the text, with only 4

per cent advising responsible use.

The report, funded by the charity

GambleAware, urged tech firms to

make better use of age-verification

tools and technology to screen out chil-

dren from gambling ads, and for regu-

lators to pursue those breaking the

rules and consider tighter regulations.

The researchers found betting ad-

vertising is widely shared on Twitter.

Over nine months in 2018, 888,

tweets were sent from Twitter ac-

counts known to be related to betting,

reaching 700,000 in the UK.

Bookmakers and their affiliates sent

an average of 14 tweets per day.

Josh Smith, of Demos, said: “High

volumes of messages are produced to

appeal particularly to children, with

thousands of children in the UK follow-

ing and responding.

“Advertising regulations are being

regularly flouted by gambling advertis-

ers online. We hope this report serves

as a call to action – both to technology

companies to make it easier for gam-

bling customers to get a clear picture of

what they’re getting into, and to regu-

lators who must continue to ensure

that these new [e-sports] actors are

compliant with regulation.”

Professor Agnes Nairn, of Bristol

University, said: “Children’s e-sports

gambling is under the radar in two

ways: it’s online where parents won’t

see it and uses clever content market-

ing such as memes, pictures and funny

stories, to appeal to and implicitly in-

fluence young people.”

Woman miscarries in

Home Office custody

By Daily Telegraph Reporter

A WOMAN who suffered a miscarriage

while unlawfully detained has been

granted a £50,000 payout from the

Home Office.

The 33-year-old from Vietnam was

being trafficked when she was de-

tained for three days at Heathrow.

The woman, who was eight weeks

pregnant as a result of rape in Finland,

was having a miscarriage at the time.

When she told immigration officials

she was bleeding, she was held for eight

hours and subjected to questioning.

An investigation into the woman’s

treatment found significant failings by

officials when she arrived in the UK.

She was taken to Hillingdon hospital

where doctors thought she should stay

as it was likely she was having a miscar-

riage, but a decision was made by the

Home Office to detain her instead.

The woman told The Guardian she

was so unwell she was unable to stand

and had to be escorted out of the hospi-

tal. After three days she was released

from detention. It was later confirmed

that she had suffered a miscarriage.

The Home Office finally accepted she

was a victim of trafficking and granted

her leave to remain in the UK.

“I felt so bad, I kept being taken to

different parts of the airport and asked

so many questions by different offi-

cials,” the woman said. “All I wanted to

do was lie on the floor.

“I kept asking to be taken to hospital

because I was in so much pain in my

tummy and was bleeding so much.”

A heavily redacted internal investi-

gation report by the Home Office’s pro-

fessional standards unit, seen by The

Guardian, stated that although officials

“genuinely acted in what they felt to be

the best interests” of the woman, “the

investigation found significant failings

in the detention ... a lack of risk assess-

ment for placing her in detention and a

failure to complete detention reviews”.

The woman said she was terrified

during her ordeal but was too scared to

ask any questions.

“I thought if I said anything they

might put me on a plane and deport me

straight away while I was having the

miscarriage, so I kept quiet,” she said.

“I was very frightened of my traffick-

ers but I was even more frightened of

the Home Office.”

‘We must invest to stop UK

being attractive to criminals’

Continued from Page 1

had specific gang bosses in their sights,

she said: “We do.” The work is being led

by the NCA’s newly formed Economic

Crime Centre, funded with £48 million

in government cash but with no guar-

anteed income stream after 2020.

Ms Owens said she was worried that

efforts against organised crime were go-

ing to be squeezed out by a focus on

counter-terrorism and the “understand-

ably deeply-valued” visible street police

officer. She said counter-terrorism re-

ceived £750 million a year compared

with £550 million for the NCA and re-

gional police organised crime units.

“There isn’t a competition, and I

wouldn’t want it to be presented as

such,” she said. “But it is important to

make comparisons when terrorism and

serious and organised crime are na-

tional security threats. We need a

strong, effective capable NCA.”

She added: “The nature of serious or-

ganised crime has changed and there-

fore the visible front line we need to

fight serious and organised crime isn’t

all the traditional beat bobby. We need

undercover officers who can work on

the dark web to identify the most vile

child sex of abusers and offenders. We

need data analysts and scientists to un-

derstand cyber attacks.

“We need financial investigators

who can take assets off the elite who try

to manipulate UK systems. So it’s im-

portant that, yes, we have this visible

policing, but it’s supported by other

specialists.”

The battle against organised crime

was limited by “variable capabilities”

in different regions and a strategy that

was a “bit toothless” in failing to spec-

ify what resources were needed in each

region, Ms Owens said.

“My fear is that if we don’t see

change in capabilities and investment,

that the growth in serious and organ-

ised crime will continue.

“At its worst, more children will be

abused, violence could continue on the

streets and we could see more cyber at-

tacks, and the UK continue to be the

place where criminals look to invest.”

EU criminals

face ‘symbolic’

UK entry ban

on Brexit day

By Charles Hymas

EU CRIMINALS will be barred from
the UK in a “symbolic” move when
freedom of movement ends on Oct 31 in
the event of a no-deal Brexit.
Boris Johnson will change the rules
to allow UK border officials to turn
away any EU criminals previously
jailed for a year or more, sweeping
away EU regulations that allowed any
EU national entry unless they were a
threat to public safety.
EU holidaymakers will still be free to
come to the UK but Mr Johnson and
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, are also
drawing up tougher rules on the rights
of EU nationals to live and stay in the
UK if they arrive after Oct 31.
A Downing Street spokeswoman
said: “Freedom of movement as it cur-
rently stands will end on Oct 31 when
the UK leaves the EU. So we will intro-
duce, immediately, much tougher
criminality rules for people entering
the UK.
“Details of other changes immedi-
ately on Oct 31 for a new immigration
system are currently being developed.”
It is not clear how border officials
will be able to conduct criminal checks
on arrivals from the EU as Britain is un-
likely to have access to the European
Criminal Records Information System
(ECRIS) in the event of a no-deal exit.
The rights of the three million EU
citizens who came to Britain before Oc-
tober 31 to apply to settle or “pre-settle”
in the UK are unaffected by the pro-
posed changes.
“EU citizens and their families still
have until at least December 2020 to
apply to the EU Settlement Scheme and
one million people have already been
granted status,” the Home Office said in
a statement.

News

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