The Times - UK (2022-02-23)

the times | Wednesday February 23 2022 15

News

Three convicted terrorists including
the brother of the Manchester Arena
bomber have been found guilty of
beating up a prison officer in one of
Britain’s most secure facilities.
Hashem Abedi, who helped to build
the suicide bomb for his brother’s
attack, co-ordinated a “planned act of
retribution” on the custodian manager
at HMP Belmarsh, southeast London.
Woolwich crown court was told that
Abedi, 24, was suspected of being the
“amir”, or leader, of a group of Islamist
terrorist inmates inside the high-secu-
rity unit, known as a “prison within the

The mother of a five-year-old boy
murdered and dumped in a river faked
distress in a “hideous show” to cover up
her involvement in his death, a court
was told.
Logan Mwangi was found dead on
the banks of the Ogmore, near Bridg-
end, south Wales, on July 31 last year.
He had suffered 56 injuries, including
“catastrophic” blows to his head and
abdomen.
Angharad Williamson, 30, his
mother, John Cole, 40, his stepfather,
and a 14-year-old boy, who cannot be
named, all deny murdering him in the
days before his body was found.
CCTV shows Cole and the teenager
taking Logan’s body to the river at
2.43am on July 31. Lights were switched
on in the ground-floor flat while

implications for press freedom, to be held

in private. The force cited a Supreme

Court ruling last week that effectively

banned the media from naming anyone

under criminal investigation.

Police lawyers argue that a suspected

bomber, who was named after his arrest

in 2020, has a “reasonable expectation

of privacy” that requires reporters to be

excluded. The move was condemned as

“deeply worrying” last night by the

Society of Editors, which said there was

clear public interest in the case.

Mullin, 74, a former MP, told The

Times last month: “If West Midlands

police had carried out a proper investi-

gation instead of framing the first half-

dozen people unlucky enough to fall

into their hands, they might have caught

the real perpetrators in the first place.”

Police try to bar reporters

from Birmingham Six case

Sean O’Neill

Mother faked grief, murder trial told

Williamson was alone at home for the

ten minutes before they returned.

Cardiff crown court was told that

Williamson made a 999 call at 5.46am

in which she was “hyperventilating”

and repeatedly begged police to find

her son, who she claimed had gone

missing during the night. Caroline Rees

QC, for the prosecution, said William-

son knew her son’s battered body had

been dumped in the river, 400 metres

from their front door, and the 999 call

was “chilling in that it demonstrates the

extent to which Williamson was pre-

pared to lie and her ability to put on a

performance to save her own skin”.

When police arrived at the flat around

6am Logan’s bottom sheet was in the

washing machine but they found blood

on his Paw Patrol duvet and pillow.

Cole and the teenager deny know-

ledge of how Logan could have died.

Cole has admitted perverting the

course of justice by taking Logan’s body

and clothing to the river, washing the

bloodstained bed linen and making

false reports to police. Williamson and

the boy deny this charge. All three deny

murder. Cole and Williamson deny

causing or allowing the death of a child.

Williamson is said to have struggled

with parenting Logan and Cole had ad-

mitted not liking the boy. The teenage

suspect was described as troubled and

violent and had previously threatened

to kill Logan, the jury was told.

The trial continues.

Will Humphries
Southwest Correspondent

Police have demanded that their

attempt to use anti-terrorism laws to

force an investigative journalist to

reveal his sources should be held

behind closed doors at the Old Bailey.

Chris Mullin, who exposed the mis-

carriage of justice in the Birmingham

Six case, is resisting requests from West

Midlands police for his notebooks from

the 1980s, when he reported that the

force had framed six innocent men for

the 1974 IRA pub bombings.

Mullin says he has a moral and

professional obligation to protect his

sources, including intermediaries who

helped him to trace the real perpetrators.

Police have made late submissions

asking for the hearing, which has

Logan Mwangi

was found dead

with 56 injuries

Terrorist trio

beat up prison

officer in heart

of Belmarsh

Fiona Hamilton
Crime and Security Editor
Duncan Gardham

bruising and lasting damage to his

hearing.

Abedi was serving life with a mini-

mum 55 years after conspiring with his

older brother Salman to kill 22 people

and injure hundreds more at a pop con-

cert at Manchester Arena in May 2017.

Yesterday a further three years and

ten months were added, to run consec-

utively, after he was found guilty of

causing actual bodily harm to Edwards

and assaulting a second officer. Hassan,

22, and Saeed, 23, were given an extra

three years to run consecutively to their

sentences for the assault on Edwards.

Belmarsh houses some of the coun-

try's most serious prisoners, many of

them terrorists, and the high-security

unit is for the most difficult of those in-

mates. It acts like a “separation unit” to

ensure the worst terrorists do not mix

with the rest of the prison population.

The three terrorists had been in-

volved in a fight with a group of non-

Muslim prisoners on March 1, 2020,

when their incentive and earned privi-

leges (IEP) level was downgraded from

“standard” to “basic”. This meant they

lost privileges including televisions, and

would have had less association time,

fewer visits and no access to items such

as games stations and DVD players.

Abedi had been demanding changes

to the regime when he co-ordinated the

attack. He had orchestrated six com-

plaint letters from prisoners, including

Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, 30, who

was jailed for life with a minimum term

of 25 years in 2020 after plotting a gun

and knife rampage in London. Abedi

and Hassan had their IEP downgraded

again by Edwards after shaving their

heads without permission.

At a magistrates’ court hearing last

year Abedi said: “I did assault that filthy

pig but I don't see any wrongdoing.”

The jury at Woolwich crown court

was not told about their convictions.

The three prisoners refused to stand for

the judge during the hearing and Abedi

spent much of the time when the jury

was not present laughing and joking.

T

he skeleton of a

flying reptile

that patrolled

the skies of

Scotland during

the Jurassic era has been

hailed as one the most

spectacular fossils ever

found in the UK (Rhys

Blakely writes).

The remains, found on

the Isle of Skye, belong to

a pterosaur with a

wingspan of more than

2.5 metres.

“When it was soaring

over the lagoons of

Scotland 170 million years

ago, it was the largest

flying animal that had

ever lived, as far as we

know,” said Professor

Steve Brusatte of the

University of Edinburgh,

who led the team that

found it.

The species has been

given the Gaelic name

Dearc sgiathanach

(pronounced “jark

ski-an-ach”), which

translates as

“winged reptile”

and also references

the Isle of Skye, the

Gaelic name of

which means “the

Winged Island”.

“This pterosaur

was big — much,

much bigger than we

expected a Jurassic-

aged pterosaur to be.

It was about the size

of a modern-day

albatross, the largest

of today’s flying

birds,” Brusatte said.

It had previously

been thought that

pterosaurs grew to

such sizes only much

later in their history. By

the late Cretaceous

period, the time of the

tyrannosaurus and

triceratops and

immediately before the

extinction event that

wiped out the dinosaurs

66 million years ago, they

were as big as fighter jets.

To achieve flight they

had hollow bones,

making their remains

incredibly fragile, said

Natalia Jagielska of the

University of Edinburgh,

the lead author of the

first study to describe the

Dearc fossil. “And yet our

skeleton, some 170

million years on since its

death, remains in almost

pristine condition.”

Pterosaurs were the

first vertebrates to evolve

powered flight, about 50

million years before

birds. They lived in the

Mesozoic era — the so-

called age of reptiles —

as far back as the Triassic

period, about 230 million

years ago. During Dearc’s

lifetime, Scotland

was much closer to

the equator. “We

would have had a

tropical-type

climate, somewhat

similar to today’s

Canary Islands,”

Jagielska said.

The fossil was

spotted by Amelia

Penny, a PhD

student at the

University of

Edinburgh, who

saw a jaw protruding

from a limestone layer on

a tidal platform on the

Rubha nam Brathairean

headland in 2017.

“We were gobsmacked:

nothing like this had ever

been found in Scotland,”

Brusatte said. “It was the

most incredible moment

I’ve ever had as a

palaeontologist.”

The fossil has been

described in the journal

Current Biology and has

been added to the

collection of the National

Museum of Scotland.

Jurassic era

pterosaur

flies in face

of history

Natalia Jagielska

admires the Scottish

fossil, proof that the

creatures grew larger

earlier than thought

SKYE

Uig

Broadford

Portree

A

10 miles

Pterosaur

fossil found

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STEWART ATTWOOD

Hashem Abedi,

Ahmed Hassan,

above, and

Muhammad

Saeed, left, were

described as “a

pack of animals”

prison”. Abedi could be seen smiling on
CCTV shortly before carrying out the
attack.
Abedi, Ahmed Hassan, who injured
dozens of commuters in a failed bomb
attack at Parsons Green Tube station in
southwest London in 2017, and Muham-
med Saeed, a fellow terrorist, set upon
Paul Edwards like a “pack of animals”.
They stormed his office, where he oper-
ated an “open-door policy”, hit him with
a chair and punched and kicked him.
Edwards told the court that he
had feared for his life in the attack in
which he suffered a head wound,