The Times - UK (2022-05-28)

20 2GM Saturday May 28 2022 | the times

News

The former partner of Lord Ashcroft’s
son has told for the first time how she
accidentally shot dead a police chief in
Belize.
Jasmine Hartin said she initially lied
about what had happened because she
was in shock.
Superintendent Henry Jemmott, 42,
died of a gunshot wound to the head
while Hartin was alone with him on a
pier on the island of Ambergris Caye
after midnight on May 28 last year.
At first she had told officers he had
been shot by a man in a boat. She later
retracted this, and in a new docu-
mentary attempts to explain her state
of mind at the time.
Hartin said she was handling his
Glock 17 pistol and did not realise it was
loaded while they had a late-night
drink together. “I don’t ever remember
touching the trigger at all. Next thing I

tially said that, that I barely remember

what I said.

“To be honest, I regret I should have

probably just been honest from the

moment. But when you’re in that much

shock and mental trauma, you... I don’t

know. It doesn’t make sense why I said

that. I don’t know why I said that.”

Hartin eventually told police that

Jemmott was getting her to practise

loading his Glock 17 pistol when it went

Ministers were warned about the
“inadequate” performance of private
firms at the Passport Office six months
ago.
Backlogs at the agency have thrown
summer travel plans into jeopardy and
staff have warned that the situation will
worsen before it improves.
Applicants desperate to get their
passports in thime for a holiday paid
£5.4 million for a fast-track process last
month alone.
Data published by the government,
covering the three months to Decem-
ber and tracking the performance of
the most valuable contracts with
private companies, shows that seven

Ministers knew of Passport Office problems six months ago

were not reaching agreed targets. Six

were rated as inadequate and a further

one as requiring improvement, mean-

ing ministers knew of the problems at

least six months ago.

However, not until last month was

the boss of Teleperformance, the firm

that runs the Passport Office’s custom-

er contact operation, given a dressing

down by the Home Office.

Teleperformance has a five-year

£22.8 million contract but The Times

revealed last week that the company

had been accused of giving customers

“poor, misleading advice”.

The delivery company DHL has

increased its capacity to pick up the

slack from TNT, which holds a £77 mil-

lion agreement over three years for

passports and other Home Office

services. The contract ends in July.

Figures given to the Labour MP Nick

Smith by the Home Office showed that

44,386 people paid to fast track their

applications to a one-week service last

month, up from 21,124 in December.

The process costs £142 for an adult

and £122 for a child, meaning that

would-be travellers spent at least

£5.4 million on the expedited process.

Over the next six months the

Home Office expects 240,000 one-

week applications at a cost of at least

£29.2 million.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home

secretary, said: “People shouldn’t have

to shell out more money during a cost of

living crisis to speed up the process. It

should be Priti Patel’s job to get a grip

and sort this out.”

Documents showed three contracts

where Teleperformance was not hitting

targets. The first, on responding to

emails, was missed from October to

December and rated inadequate

because staff were prioritising answer-

ing calls. But targets were also being

missed for the length of time it took to

answer calls. Customers have reported

being on hold for hours or cut off when

trying to contact the agency.

The documents said that by Decem-

ber performance had improved, and

the Home Office has said Teleperform-

ance has since hired new staff.

FedEx, which owns TNT, was rated

inadequate for 24 and 48-hour passport

delivery services. DHL was drafted in to

help but customers have still com-

plained of passports being lost.

Cooper added that Patel, the home

secretary, “knew more than six months

ago that the Passport Office was having

problems but did nothing to prevent the

complete misery to families across the

country”. She added: “That is unaccept-

able and is letting the British people

down.”

A TNT spokeswoman said staff were

doing “all they can” to ensure passports

arrive on time and that from January 1

performance had returned to normal.

Teleperformance is understood to be

recruiting an extra 500 staff by the mid-

dle of next month. TNT has previously

apologised for the effect on services.

Geraldine Scott Political Reporter

Ex-partner of Lord Ashcroft’s son

tells how she lied about fatal shot

Charlie Moloney know, the gun goes off,” she said in the
documentary One Bullet in Belize. “I
thought it was a safe weapon; [that] it
was clear, empty.”
Hartin, 33, is facing trial for man-
slaughter by negligence, which can be
settled with a fine. She denies the
charge. The Canadian-born socialite
has two children with her estranged
partner Andrew Ashcroft, the son of
Lord Ashcroft, the billionaire Tory
peer.
After officers found the body of their
police chief floating in the water, Hartin
made the false statement which she
later withdrew.
Explaining her actions on the docu-
mentary, which is available on the dis-
covery+ channel, Hartin said: “Once
the adrenaline settled down, once I
calmed down, once everything hit me
then I was like, ‘No, like I remember
what happened, it was an accident’.
“Yeah... I was so in shock when I ini-

off as she tried to hand it back to him.

She said: “I had the magazine. I was

just emptying it and reloading it with-

out it being in the weapon. It was like a

game to see how fast I could take them

out and then put them back in.

“Then at some point, he says he wants

to go back inside, to hand him the maga-

zine, so he was going to refill it real quick.

“I’m using the moon to see and I’m

pushing to try to get the magazine out,

and it was like it was stuck. I don’t ever

remember touching the trigger at all.

Next thing I know, the gun goes off.”

Until late May last year, Hartin,

Ashcroft and their children lived in a

beachside resort that he runs on Amber-

gris Caye, and where she served as a

director. Although the couple’s relation-

ship had deteriorated, Hartin said she

had not been having an affair with Jem-

mott.

Hartin is due to appear at the Su-

preme Court in Belize City on June 13.

Putting a face to a name Volunteers have spent five years tracking down photographs of the thousands of Second World War servicemen and women buried at
the Cambridge American Cemetery, near Madingley in Cambridgeshire, and have been placing them by the headstones to mark US Memorial Day on Monday

GEOFF ROBINSON

P&O suffers

huge loss of

trade after

800 sackings

Charlie Moloney

P&O Ferries has struggled to lure back

customers after it sacked nearly 800 of

its British crew members without

notice, leaked figures suggest.

Briefing slides compiled by the ferry

operator show the damage the business

has suffered after the action taken on

March 17.

Figures showing how many cars,

caravans, coaches, motorcycles, lorries

and foot passengers travelled on P&O

ferries last week were circulated as part

of an internal management video work

meeting on Microsoft Teams on

Monday. They were later shared with

ITV News.

In the week ending last Sunday, P&O

carried 2,134 tourist vehicles between

Dover and Calais, a 92 per cent fall on

the same week in 2018. The route has

until now been the company’s busiest

and most lucrative.

Significantly fewer daily tourist vehi-

cles were carried on P&O’s other routes

than before the coronavirus pandemic.

Hull to Rotterdam was down by

25 per cent, Liverpool to Dublin was

down by 44 per cent and Larne in Co

Antrim to Cairnryan in Dumfries and

Galloway was down by 50 per cent.

A manager at P&O told ITV: “The

[Dover-Calais] figures are absolutely

abysmal. We only had two [out of four]

ships operating last week but even so,

Port of Dover was busy but we weren’t.

We’re not even covering fuel costs

on some crossings. Everything is des-

perately down.”

P&O Ferries intended to replace its

staff with cheaper agency workers who

would be paid an average of £5.50 an

hour.

A shipping consultant who works

with several of the large operators told

ITV: “I would be incredibly shocked if

P&O Ferries is making money. It’s

almost impossible with this level of

traffic. I think the numbers tell you that

P&O completely misjudged how dis-

ruptive sacking its crew would be.”

The Insolvency Service confirmed

last month that a formal criminal

investigation had been launched

into P&O Ferries. The agency was

asked to undertake an inquiry into

the circumstances surrounding the

ferry operator’s behaviour by Kwasi

Kwarteng, the business secretary.

Peter Hebblethwaite, the chief

executive of P&O Ferries, has admitted

that the company broke employment

law by not consulting trade unions

before sacking its workers.

Jasmine Hartin said she was in shock

after the police chief was shot dead