Four senior British police officers are under investigation over allegations of misconduct for partaking in a gangland killing case, news reports said.

Staffordshire Police launched an inquiry into the murder of amateur footballer Kevin Nunes, 20, who was gunned down in a country lane in 2002, British media reported. 

Nunes, a drug dealer who had been on the books of Tottenham Hotspur, was shot dead in an execution style killing after a gang dispute. 

His killers, Levi Walker, Antonio Christie, Adam Joof, Michael Osbourne and Owen Crooks were all jailed for life after being found guilty of murder by a jury at Leicester Crown Court. 

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) will look into the handling of the investigation into case of the four officers, including the lead on police ethics. Five men were jailed in connection with the killing in 2008. 

The IPCC confirmed that formal notice of investigation had been served on “a number of former and serving Staffordshire Police officers”. 

Meanwhile, Northamptonshire Police Authority confirmed that its force's chief constable Adrian Lee and deputy chief constable Suzette Davenport were being investigated. 

Lee is also the head of the Association of Chief Police Officers' ethics portfolio.

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teenager who murdered a 16-year-old schoolboy outside a pub in Stretford has denied his motive was revenge for another gangland killing.

 

A teenager who murdered a 16-year-old schoolboy outside a pub in Stretford has denied his motive was revenge for another gangland killing. Moses Mathias told Manchester Crown Court he intended to commit a robbery but instead fired at a vehicle carrying Giuseppe Gregory out of "fear for my life". He said he did not learn of the death in May 2009 until the next day. Àt the age of 15 he later went on the run. Mathias, now 18, remained at large until he was arrested in Amsterdam earlier this year on a European Arrest Warrant after a joint investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency and GMP. He was flown back to the UK in June and four months later admitted the murder of the youngster who was gunned down in the early hours of May 11 in a car outside the Robin Hood pub in Stretford. In March 2010, Mathias's associates Njabulo Ndlovu and Hiruy Zerihun, then aged 19 and 18, were jailed for life and ordered to serve minimum terms of 21 years and 23 years respectively after they were convicted of Giuseppe's murder. Their trial heard the pair carried out the attack in revenge for the murder of Zerihun's boyhood friend Louis Brathwaite, also 16, who was shot dead in a betting shop in Withington, south Manchester, in January 2008. They were affiliated to Fallowfield Man Dem, a splinter group of the notorious Gooch Gang, who targeted Giuseppe and his friends because of their association to the rival gang the Longsight Crew. Mathias, of no fixed address, also admitted possessing - with Zerihun and Ndlovu - an imitation firearm, a self-loading pistol, a .32 pistol and six .32 bullet cartridges. But now he has argued the basis of his plea and claimed he did not know Louis Brathwaite, saying in evidence that the plan was to enter the pub and "rob the tills".

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two years of crisis and bank debt in Europe, the roaring euro party is over.

 

 Greeks are emptying their bank accounts, Italians are proposing that the Roman Catholic Church begin to pay nearly $1 billion in property taxes on lucrative hotels and businesses, and in the UK, protesters sans jobs have settled near 10 Downing in the wake of the nation’s biggest general strike in years. Spain has seen well-dressed panhandlers in Madrid. The Netherlands report higher bankruptcies and lower exports. French banks are cutting thousands of jobs. And in bailed-out Portugal, two religious and two civil holidays – weekdays off – will now fall on weekends, even as healthcare costs there have suddenly doubled in many hospitals. All across Europe, the severity of belt-tightening and public anger has brought a new stream of “austerity stories” to the fore: job cuts and their effect, new instances of ethnic hate, worry about social stability. Rising right-wing violence The majority of these stories flow out of Europe’s southern tier, the “less competitive” economies. Two Senegalese street traders in a Florence market were shot and killed Dec. 13 by a right-wing fanatic and three wounded. Higher piles of uncollected garbage sit on Greek streets and there’s an increase of drugs and crime there. Immigrants who used to be welcome labor five years ago in Greece, Italy, and especially in Spain, are now subject to heavy ID checks and public frowns, and there are more spasms of violence by vigilante groups. At times, the surly climate means that “Anyone who might pass for migrant runs the risk of being beaten up,” says Judith Sunderland of Human Rights Watch Europe. “There’s a gloomy mood… in ordinary neighborhoods that I visit… worry about jobs, benefits, social security and the cost of living,” says Pap Ndiaye, social historian at the Paris School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences. “On top of that, minorities are concerned about backlash or adding problems to the general population. A few years ago, minorities with degrees were leaving France for Great Britain but now the UK is no longer so hospitable. Now we are seeing a phenomenon of looking to the Americas. More professionals are moving to Montreal, for example… with no plans to come back to France.” Belt-tightening across the spectrum To ease austerity, Greece is selling ferryboats to Turkey and what appear to be third-world items like string, used auto parts, and TV antennas to improbable places like the Bahamas and the Marshall Islands. Italy this week said it will release some 3,300 prisoners with less than 18 months on their sentence – remanded to their homes – to save an estimated $500,000 a day. As Greece ekes out its EU bailout loans quarterly – the next tranche is still under negotiation – ordinary folks are depleting their bank accounts. The governor of the Greek central bank, Georgios Provopoulos, recently told parliament, "In September and October, savings and time deposits fell by a further 13 to 14 billion euros. In the first 10 days of November, the decline continued on a large scale.” The effect is to reduce the ability of banks to lend, he said. Some of the austerity effect may be indirectly positive. In Spain, archeologists outside Seville are glad that the building craze of the past 10 years has been halted, since planned shopping centers were to be erected on unexplored Copper Age settlements. Spanish police have also cracked down on a sophisticated forgery ring that was printing 50 euro notes out of a canning factory. In Italy, the 950 members of parliament that make nearly $200,000 a year are expected to cut their pay as the new government of Mario Monti seeks to deal with a cumulative 1.9 trillion euros in debt. Italy’s politicians earn twice that of French and German counterparts, and four times that of Spanish. Strains in northern Europe Yet various stresses and strains owing to new fracturing in Europe are not restricted just to the southern tier. Britain reports a 17-year high in unemployment even as EU figures show it has the 2nd highest living standard in Europe. London riots last August took place mainly among have-nots. Prime Minister David Cameron decided last week to opt-out of a German-French-engineered intergovernmental EU treaty designed to force discipline on EU states and stop future crises, seen as possibly isolating Britain. The decision highlighted an earlier decision by the town council of Bishop’s Stortford to alter an official 46-year old “sister city” or “twinning” relationship with the German town of Friedberg, near Frankfurt. The council is made up of mostly Tory or “euroskeptic” politicians and critics chided the town for downgrading the sister city status at a time of drift of European unity. More pertinently, perhaps, official November figures in the Netherlands, a more competitive state, show that some 610 businesses declared bankruptcy, an increase of 85 from October, and up from an average of roughly 500. Meanwhile, Dutch exports declined for the first time in two years in October. Dutch finance minister Jan Kees de Jager told reporters this week the country faces recessionary times and said there “are no taboos” in what may be cut in the budget. “We felt this coming. It is certainly not positive,” he said. “There are no easy times ahead of us.” The Netherlands will cut an estimated $24 billion under austerity measures, though the Freedom Party of anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders says it will not vote for cuts without a promise to end some $6 billion in foreign development aid.

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Brits who invested their savings in their adopted countries may not be able to withdraw cash and could even lose their homes if banks call in loans

Marbella, Andalusia, Spain (pic: Getty)

EMERGENCY evacuation plans for Brits living in Spain and Portugal are being drawn up amid fears of the euro collapsing.

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The drastic proposals emerged as a former Security Minister warned expats could be left stranded and destitute by the break-up of the single currency.

Brits who invested their savings in their adopted countries may not be able to withdraw cash and could even lose their homes if banks call in loans, worried ministers are warning.

The Foreign Office is preparing to bring them back from Spain and Portugal if the two countries are forced out of the euro, triggering a banking collapse.

A million Brits live in Spain and 50,000 in neighbouring Portugal – plus a million in the other eurozone countries.

And Baroness Neville-Jones, who only stepped down as a minister in May, called the situation “very, very worrying”.

The Tory peer – who once chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee for MI5, MI6 and other security agencies – said: “Spain is clearly a vulnerable area. If that happens, one of the things that will happen in a crash of that kind, is that the banks would close their doors. You would find that there are people there, including our own citizens, a lot of them, who couldn’t get money out to live on. So you would have a destitution problem.”

British planes, ships and coaches could be sent to pluck our citizens from debt-ridden Spain and Portugal

Commenting on the evacuation plans, she added: “I think they are right to be doing that. I think this is a real contingency that they need to plan against – very, very worrying.”

Officials are braced for a nightmare scenario where thousands end up penniless and sleeping at airports with no means of getting home. Planes, ships and coaches could be sent, with some expats being brought out through Gibraltar.

The Foreign Office could offer small loans while piling pressure on the banks to give Brits access to their funds.

Spanish and Portuguese banks guarantee the first 100,000 euros deposited by savers but many put limits on withdrawals in a crisis.

A powerful credit rating agency downgraded 10 Spanish banks last week, while another warned over the weekend the debt crisis was threatening to spiral out of control.

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Spanish king forced son-in-law to quit job in 2006

 

 

King Juan Carlos told his son-in-law in 2006 to cut ties with a company now mired in corruption allegations, an official at Spain's royal palace said Sunday. Authorities are probing the activities of a non-profit company run by Inaki Urdangarin between 2004 and 2006. "(The king) ordered him to stand down from his activities and he sold his shares," said the official, who works at the royal palace's press office, confirming reports in the Spanish press. "He was told he shouldn't work for himself and it would be better if he worked overseas." Urdangarin, 43, also known as the Duke of Palma de Mallorca, now works for Spanish telecommunications giant Telefonica in Washington, where he lives with with his wife, Infanta Cristina. The scandal, the first to hit Spain's royal family in years, centres on Urdangarin's time at the helm of the Instituto Noos, now suspected of siphoning off money from contracts paid by the regional government of the Balearic Islands, where the institute is based. The royal palace did not uncover any lies or fraud in 2006, the source said. However, a royal legal advisor found signs the Noos institute was possibly involved in commercial activities not consistent its non-profit mission. On December 12, the royal palace froze Urdangarin out of official activities over the scandal. The royal family traditionally maintains a discreet profile in Spain, where Juan Carlos is widely respected, credited with guiding the country to democracy after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. The scandal has nevertheless caused anger at a time when ordinary Spaniards are being squeezed by spending cuts and a lack of jobs, with an unemployment rate of 21.5 percent. 

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Spain's longest-serving inmate received a government pardon yesterday that saw him and his family convinced that he would walk free immediately

After 35 years in jail and eight successful breakout attempts, Spain's longest-serving inmate received a government pardon yesterday that saw him and his family convinced that he would walk free immediately – only for him to remain behind bars.

Since 1976, Spanish courts have found Miguel Angel Montes Neiro guilty of more than 30 robberies and armed burglaries, many committed while on the run. But even as a spokesman for the Spanish government, Jose Blanco, confirmed yesterday that Montes Neiro, 61, had received a pardon for two of his multiple crimes, another outstanding sentence – for robbery and illicit possession of firearms – will see him remain in jail.

Montes Neiro, from the province of Granada in southern Andalusia, was predictably delighted when news of the pardon broke yesterday lunchtime, telling his family by phone: "Don't come to the prison gates when I get out, I want to walk the first two or three kilometres so I can feel the fresh air like a free man."

However, it emerged that his pardon was only partial and that a court review of a 13-year sentence was still pending.

Montes Neiro spent his first night in the cells in 1966, aged 16, when he was arrested for stealing a packet of cigarettes. His first formal sentence came a decade later for desertion – but not before he had spent 10 days in army prison for stealing a sub-machine gun.

During his numerous breakouts, the most recent in 2009 when he spent two hours on self-imposed parole to attend the wake for his mother, Montes Neiro found the time to marry twice and have two children – and to commit a string of hold-ups and kidnaps.

Montes Neiro's record is as varied as it is long. He has been convicted of beating up hostages on three occasions, and he once formed part of a gang that broke into a Granada home and threatened to cut off a man's thumb unless his wife revealed the location of his safe.

His escapes include one from a maximum security prison in the Spanish colony of Ceuta in 1979, but perhaps his most dramatic breakout came in 1981: after hanging himself in a staged suicide bid, breaking two ribs, he escaped from prison hospital in a taxi.

On the run for a total of three years, his repeated recapture was facilitated by his tendency to remain in or near his home town. His one spell abroad, in Morocco, ended when he returned to Granada because he missed his family.

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Spanish, Italian police smash drug smuggling ring

 

Spanish and Italian police made five arrests while busting a drug-trafficking ring that for years smuggled cocaine from South America to Europe, investigators said on Friday. The group arranged for narcotics to be put on merchant ships headed to Europe. Just before the vessels arrived at their destination, the smugglers would dump cocaine packages overboard, Spanish police said in a statement. Members of the gang waiting in inflatable boats would then pick up the cocaine and take it to shore, from where it was distributed to customers in Spain and Italy, officials said.Two members of the group were detained in the Italian port city of Genoa in March in a joint operation by Spanish and Italian police. Police detained another three members of the group, including its leader, three months later in the northwestern Spanish coastal region of Galicia. "During the search of the home of the ringleader, police found a vault camouflaged behind the wall of the cellar, which housed security cameras that monitored the rest of the house as well as two large safes, cash, valuable watches, computer equipment and documents," police said in the statement. Police also seized 55 kilos (120 pounds) of cocaine, three cash-counting machines and five cars. Spain is the main gateway to Europe for cocaine from Latin America and for cannabis from north Africa

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The top ranks of the Government are now coming to the conclusion that the break-up of the euro is inevitable.

 

 I understand that Hague, like the Chancellor, now believes this will happen soon. Osborne told Cabinet colleagues on Monday that the Merkel-Sarkozy plan for greater fiscal discipline within the eurozone was no solution to the current  crisis. Rather, he said, ‘it was like standing over a man having a heart attack and telling him that to avoid one in future he should do more exercise and cut down on cholesterol’. This view that the euro is unlikely to survive is why there are, so far, few worries about Britain being isolated by the eurozone bloc and its allies. The Government is also confident that the differences between the countries in the single currency will remain – that the Netherlands and Finland will continue to take a more liberal attitude to financial services and the single market than the French and the Italians. But there’s little doubt that Cameron’s decision to wield the veto changes Britain’s relationship with the other members of the European Union. The days of Britain carrying on down the same route as the rest of Europe, just at a slower pace, are now over. As one of Cameron’s closest allies says: ‘We are now, inevitably, en route to a very different destiny.’ ... but one rift is healing, at least Labour’s failure to capitalise on the weakening economy has led to renewed tensions within the party’s ranks. Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, is the target of much of this backbiting. Shadow Cabinet sources complain he is more interested in justifying his record in office than winning the argument about what to do now. Balls’ detractors argue that his bellicose statements are drowning out Ed Miliband’s message.

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father of three was killed in bed near his sleeping wife and children when his house was sprayed with bullets in a drive-by shooting

 

Oakland police say a father of three was killed in bed near his sleeping wife and children when his house was sprayed with bullets in a drive-by shooting. Officer Kevin McDonald said one of many bullets passed through a wall and hit 46-year-old mechanic Thourn Nhep, who was pronounced dead at the scene when police arrived Saturday. Neighbors say a mid-size sedan sped away after the shooting. McDonald tells the Oakland Tribune (http://bit.ly/s7iXXn) the shooting was not random, but did not give further details of who was targeted and why. No one had been arrested. Nhep's 18-year-old daughter Sok told the Tribune it was the third time the house had been shot at recently. Sok said her father was a "good guy" who had nothing to do with violence.

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In line with other Costa del Sol towns, Marbella has decided to stop paying for lighting along the A-7

 

In line with other Costa del Sol towns, Marbella has decided to stop paying for lighting along the A-7, claiming that national highways should be paid for by the central government. From December 1st, only bills for the electricity needed for the stretch between Puerto Banús and Guadalmina are still being met by the corporation, the explanation being that this road runs through a town, San Pedro, and also that it would be dangerous to leave it unlit in view of the roadworks taking place. The tunnel on the AP-7 where the toll road and the Puerto Banús road diverge also still has lights, as the company holding the toll road concession has agreed to put the bills in its name. With this, the Town Hall will save a total of 350,000 euros a year.

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MALAGA professor has been sentenced to a year in prison after telling a student she would only pass if she had sex with him.

 

 The pupil, who had failed the last exam of her teaching degree, had gone to see her teacher because she was worried about her situation. The professor assured her he would ‘find a solution’ and asked for the pupil’s phone number. He later phoned her and told her to come to his house at 7.30 in the evening. When she arrived he locked the door and said that in order to pass she would have to have to have sex with him and when she tried to leave, he started trying to touch her breasts. Thankfully the girl had brought back-up after growing suspicious about the private meeting. Her sister, brother-in-law and a friend heard her shouting and started banging on the door – at which point her professor let her go. The pupil was admitted to Carlos Haya hospital the following day with anxiety. The professor, who has also been ordered to pay his pupil 2,000 euros in compensation, was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment at the Provincial Court.

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I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations.

 

I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations. But then my “rights” try to move in, and they, too, can force my serenity level down. I have to discard my “rights,” as well as my expectations, by asking myself, “How important is it, really? How important is it com­pared to my serenity, my emotional sobriety?” And when I place more value on my serenity and sobriety than on anything else, I can maintain them at a higher level—at least for the time being.   -- Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict, Alcoholics Anonymous, page 452 (3rd Ed.) -- Acceptance Was The Answer, Alcoholics Anonymous, page 422 (4th Ed.)

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A woman claiming to be the ex-wife of Colonel Gaddafi's captured son Saif al-Islam has emerged in Ukraine with extraordinary stories alleging domestic violence and womanising.

Nadia, a blue-eyed brunette claims to have met him when she worked as a stripper in a top Moscow nightclub, and says she is currently in hiding, fearing for her life.

She claimed that as she prepared for marriage to Saif, she had to fly to Paris to have an operation to 'restore' her virginity. '

'The doctor proved my innocence in the presence of Saif's aunt. Then I embraced Islam,' she added.

'I tried to have a normal family, but Saif wanted to live as a single man with lovers and orgies,' she said in a Ukrainian newspaper interview.

While there is no proof of her claim of have married and divorced Saif after two years, her claim appears to be taken seriously in Russia and Ukraine.

If she is who she says, she could be a key witness at his trial whether it is in Libya or under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

One aspect of his trial is likely to be his alleged friendship with a number of prominent British figures, including Prince Andrew, Tony Blair and Lord Mandelson.

High life: Nadia claims playboy Saif loved luxury and money and was a womaniser. He is pictured here at the Viennese Opera Ball in 2006

'Our house looked like more as bordello: a lot of his friends and a lot of women,' she said.

'We got married under religious traditions, I embraced Islam for that, but nobody treated me as the mistress of the house.

'There was no respect at all. My husband tried to make me a submissive Eastern woman, and I couldn't stand that attitude.

 

 

'That broke me, ate me from inside. And what's more important, Saif took drugs and he couldn't control himself when he was under narcotics.

 

 

 

'He had certain sexual perversions in sex, for example, he liked to do it in public. I understood that we couldn't live together.'

Nadia, who is believed to be 29, claimed that their relationship ended after a furious row in a restaurant which culminated with him beating her and throwing her out of a window but she miraculously survived.

She claimed she was in a coma for 47 days, and that Gaddafi - who acknowledged her but never started a conversation with her - was outraged by his son's behaviour.

Gaddafi was known to have employed Ukrainian nurses in his medical team, but until now it was not known his second son has a wife from the former Soviet country.

Arrested: Sair al-Islam Gaddafi sitting with his captors in Obari airport on Saturday

Of Gaddafi himself she said: 'About me being in hospital, he was in a fury. He kicked Saif away to the desert. It could spoil the reputation of the family that was already not so clean.'

She left Libya and returned to Moscow. 'The last time he came was in 2008, and he suggested that we lived together again ~ but I was cold to him by that time.'

Nadia said she was working in Moscow until 2010 but a mutual friend then told her to disappear or she could face danger.

She claimed that Saif could not have replaced his father. 'He was afraid of his father, as of fire. And Gaddafi, I think, despised him for internal weaknesses.'

The fall: Saif al-Islam sits after his capture, with his fingers wrapped in bandages and his legs covered with a blanket, at an undisclosed location

Playboy Saif loved luxury and money. She said: 'He was cheating on me all the time.'

Nadia - it is not known if this is her real name - is apparently in hiding in the Crimea where she says she is fearful of his enemies. 'I don't know any secrets, but still I'm scared,' she said.

She claims not to be rich but for Saif 'it was all in a day's work to spend $20,000 (USD) at a restaurant.

'When we separated I had only luxurious earrings which I managed to sell for $1million. I lived in Moscow on this money. Now almost nothing is left.'

Her most recent interview was with Ukrainian paper Respubika. It was made shortly before his capture.

'I thought Saif would turn my life into an Eastern fairytale,' she said. 'It didn't work.'

 

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Latin Kings charged in Texas slaying

 

Fifteen members of the Almighty Latin Kings have been indicted for alleged roles in 19 murders, including slayings of juveniles and a pregnant woman. One of the murders was in Big Spring, Texas, according to the indictment, made public Friday. The murders were done to control gang territory and further their illegal activities, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The indictment also alleges that two Chicago police officers robbed people for the gang, sometimes while in uniform, the Sun-Times reported. Several Latin King members already had been convicted in connection with a 2008 drive-by shooting in Big Spring where six people were shot with an AK-47.  The victims included a woman who was 26 weeks pregnant at the time. She and another victim died of their wounds, the department reported.

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Devastating report into the failures of police and care agencies to protect teenage girls who have been groomed, raped and sold by male gangs, most of whom are Asian.

The mother of one teenager from Leeds, who attempted suicide after a gang rape, said her daughter was the victim of a 'broken system.'

'Everyone failed her,' she told The Times. 'There was no sharing of information. 

'They (police) had the names and knew where they (abusers) worked yet the men who did this have never once been arrested or spoken to by the police.'

West Yorkshire Police vowed to look again at the case to see if 'there is evidence that can help bring evil men to book'.

Growing worry: CCTV footage shows now jailed gang members Mohammed Romaan Liaqat and Abid Mohammed Saddique meeting girls as they cruise the streets of Derby in a BMW

Jailed: Saddique, left, and Liaqat, right, were leaders of the paedophile ring in Derby and committed a catalogue of offences against vulnerable young girls

Children's charity Barnardos has been calling on the Government to take action on child exploitation since January with its Cut Them Free campaign.

 

 

 

Other caregivers have also suggested that political sensitivities are to blame for a near paralysis of the systems designed to keep children safe.

JOSIE'S STORY

Like most little girls, Josie lived for horses. She had an exemplary school record with 100 per cent attendance rate.

But at 13, the teen from Keighley, West Yorkshire, was given a laptop and quickly became addicted to Facebook.

Her father was then warned his daughter was spending a lot of time with older Asian men.

One even told the father he would 'slit his throat' when he answered the phone to him.

From there it got worse. Josie started disappearing overnight and began drinking. 

Yet, when her father locked his daughter in her room to protect her, it was he who got into trouble with the police for false imprisonment.

He told The Times he has since collected every scrap of evidence to prove his daughter is being sexually exploited by gangs.

'The police kept saying that they're waiting until Josie realises it's wrong,' he said.

'Is that really the best they can do?

CHARLOTTE'S STORY

When the father of 14-year-old Charlotte looked at his daughter's Facebook profile, he discovered 'loads of male, Asian friends.'

Concerned, he started to restrict his daughter's activities. The teen from Keighley, West Yorkshire, then went to live with her mother.

He tracked down all the names and addresses of her friends he believed were involved and passed them on to police.

Meanwhile her school was reporting Charlotte had begun arriving looking 'dirty and extremely thin'. 

She was going missing for days at a time, according to agency notes.

By October last year she 'admitted she has slept with different Asian males.'

The police told Charlotte's father they hoped to take action against the men.

That was 17 months ago and he is still waiting.

'There's no will to deal with this issue in Keighley' he said.

'What chance have these kids got if that's the attitude of the police?'

There is a culture 'which assumes that once a girl gets to 14 she's beyond hope of intervention - it's too late,' a source told The Times.

Police and care agencies often say that they cannot take action against suspects without the victim's co-operation. 

However, a 2008 protocol established by the force and West Yorkshire's five local authorities states: 'Adults involved in child sexual exploitation... should be treated as child sex abusers and subjected to the full rigour of the criminal law.'

NICOLA'S STORY

Nicola is the only case in six who was groomed by a gang of white men. 

The abuse began when she was 12 after a visit to Leeds from her family home in Bradford.

Nicola had thought they were 'really nice people' but by 13 she was doing drugs - 'everything but heroin'.

She was raped twice. The first time she was 'drugged up to the eyeballs' and remembers being dragged into a bedroom and gang raped.

Afterwards her mother took Nicola to the police station, only to be told that 'we don't deal with that here'.

In desperation Nicola's mother took her daughter to New Zealand and away from the gang.

She let her return four months later. 

Nicola did return to her old haunts but discovered it wasn't really what she wanted.

'I used to think it was so exciting,' she told The Times. 'But after New Zealand, it was like seeing them with another pair of eyes.'

She hasn't been back since.

Children's minister, Tim Loughton, suggested two weeks ago that the plan will call on councils to act with a 'much greater urgency' to identify victims of sexual exploitation while taking 'robust action against those who commit these appalling crimes.'

As well as the gang rape case of the girl in Leeds, five new cases have been highlighted by The Times' investigation.

No one has been prosecuted for sex exploitation in any of them. Only one of the girls in the six cases had been in care. 

One was groomed by white students, but in all the other cases, the perpetrators were Asian, mostly of Pakistani origin.

This pattern of abuse at the hands of male Asian gangs in the West Yorkshire area has been highlighted before, but never formally acknowledged.  

In January the Asian ringleaders of a gang in Derby, who brought a ‘reign of terror’ to a city’s streets, targeting and grooming young girls for horrific sexual abuse, were jailed.

Abid Saddique and Mohammed Liaqat were told they would serve a minimum of 11 years and eight years respectively before they could be considered for release.

A DfE spokesman refused to reveal the contents of the National Action Plan but said: 'We are publishing an action plan this week and that will draw on work around the country to prevent sexual exploitation, identify those at risk and support victims.

'It will address the challenge of securing prosecutions and the need for robust action against perpetrators.

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Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it. So runs the slogan. Would you

 

Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it. So runs the slogan. Would you? Here's interim (that's reassuring) chief executive Sam Weihagen doing his safe-as-houses routine: "It's business as usual. We are trading within all our covenants. We have all the protection in place like any other travel company, and customers should not worry at all." Well, not quite like any other travel company. Thomas Cook of course holds an Air Travel Organisers' Licence from the Civil Aviation Authority which means customers should get their money back in the event of calamity. But the simple fear of being stranded a week after passengers of Austria's Comtel Air had to bribe pilots with £20,000 just to return to Birmingham is bound to unsettle would-be customers. There's a circle at work here and it is vicious. Given the choice between a similarly priced holiday with Thomas Cook or, say, Thomson, why would you risk the former? To counteract this, Thomas Cook might have to slash prices. That will eat into margins, cut profits and put banking covenants at risk. It might very quickly find it needs to borrow even more money. The company insists: "This is a robust business that has a strong future". We'll see.

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Police were in dark over foreign axe killer living in UK

 

COPS did not know an East European axe murderer was living in the UK until he caused a killer car crash, a court heard yesterday. Intars Pless, 34, hacked through a friend's throat in his native Latvia, then moved to Britain after he got out of jail. But Lincoln Crown Court heard police can only check a foreign national's record if they break the law here. So Pless's horrific crime came to light only after he drove into moped rider Valentina Planciunene, 37, while over twice the limit. Stuart Lody, prosecuting, told the court: "On the night of Valentine's Day he decided it would be a perfectly good idea to drink a very large quantity of whisky. Surprised "He and a friend spent a considerable period of time drinking whisky and driving around. "During the driving he was possibly drinking whisky as well. An empty whisky bottle was found in the boot of the car. "At the time of the collision he was heavily under the influence of alcohol. His ability to drive would have been severely impaired." Pless was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving after the jury heard he left her dead in the road in Wyberton Fen, Lincs. He was told he faces a long jail term. The judge also called for his deportation.

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Thomas Cook is running low on cash and has begun talks with its banks

Thomas Cook planes parked at Munich airport last year. Photograph: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images

Thomas Cook is running low on cash and has begun talks with its banks, in an effort to increase its borrowings to tide it over the slow Christmas season.

Shares in the tour operator fell by more than three quarters on Tuesday morning after it admitted that trading has "deteriorated" in recent months. It is now seeking to borrow more in the short term, and has postponed the publication of its financial results until the talks are concluded.

Shares in the company, which abruptly lost its chief executive three months ago, tumbled by more than 75% to 9.3p at one stage.

Tour operators tend to run low on cash in the slower winter months, but even so, the news stunned the City. Only last month, Thomas Cook said it had agreed a further £100m in short-term funding from its banks explicitly for the winter lull.

A spokeswoman said that discussions with banks were merely a "prudent" and "pro-active" move. Thomas Cook still has cash in the bank, she said, but wants to be prepared for any unexpected shocks over Christmas. All customer orders are protected by the ATOL protection scheme and equivalent programmes, she added. "Thomas Cook still has cash on the balance sheet, but because conditions have deteriorated further [since October], particularly around trading, some of that extra funding has been used up. Thomas Cook feels it needs more headroom to be prudent," she said.

Interim CEO Sam Weihagen added: "It's business as usual. We are trading within all out business, and financial, covenants, we have all the protection in place like any other travel company, and customers should not worry at all."

The company is seeking roughly £100m more in its latest talks. It made the decision to renew talks with banks on financing after realising the scale of the recent downturn in an internal trading update meeting yesterday.

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Chicago cops accused of working for Latin Kings held without bond

 

Two Chicago police officers accused of committing armed robberies at the will of alleged Latin King members were ordered held without bond Monday. Alex Guerrero, 41, and Antonio C. Martinez Jr., 40, were the ones in handcuffs Monday afternoon, appearing before a federal judge in orange Porter County jumpsuits. The duo were named in a 46-page indictment unsealed Friday that alleges a racketeering conspiracy among fifteen Latin King gang members or associates. Guerrero's attorney, Kevin Milner, fought for his client to be on home detention. He said his clients' parents offered to put up their $175,000 Chicago home for their son's pretrial release. "For Mr. Guerrero to violate his bond, his parents would be on the street homeless," Milner said. "I've known Mr. Guerrero for 15 years. He would rather slit his wrists than do that to his parents." Milner claimed there was no evidence against Guerrero, and that the father of six had no criminal record. According to the indictment, Guerrero and Martinez Jr., committed armed robberies of drug dealers in Illinois and Indiana while in uniform and under the guise of performing legitimate police operations. They allegedly turned over the drugs and money to the Latin Kings in exchange for about $10,000 in kickbacks. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Nozick argued that Guerrero and Martinez were dangers to the community after using Chicago police vehicles, service weapons and uniforms to rob people at gunpoint. Nozick also said Guerrero was a flight risk, as his wife has family in Mexico and he faces up to life in prison.  Magistrate Judge Andrew Rodovich ordered Guerrero held without bond. Milner said they were disappointed with the decision, and that his client would be sitting in jail for at least a year pending trial for a crime he did not commit.  "I don't know who will give him that year back," Milner said. Martinez Jr., did not contest being held pending trial.

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Police on the Costa del Sol were yesterday hunting a gang who stole £1million of cocaine from a warehouse where authorities held seized drugs before destroying them.

Police on the Costa del Sol were yesterday hunting a gang who stole £1million of cocaine from a warehouse where authorities held seized drugs before destroying them.

The thieves used laser equipment to cut through the metal doors of the store in the docks at Malaga, the capital of the southern Spanish holiday coast. 

They struck when there were no security guards on duty and  it had been left to the paramilitary Civil Guard to watch the building.

The drugs were being stored in a warehouse in Malaga when the thieves struck

 

Drugs seized by police and customs are stored there for tests to be carried-out before the courts issue orders to destroy them.

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Prison for man who left €5,000 bill at Marbella hotel

 

A MAN has been sentenced to a year in prison for failing to pay a bill of more than €5,438 at a luxury Marbella hotel. He had been staying at the Marbella Club on the Golden Mile for a week in September 2003 and during the stay, used different services which amounted to €5,438, which he left without paying. The hotel made a formal complaint but the trial wasn’t held until this year mainly due to difficulties locating the man. He admitted that he has stayed at the hotel but had refused to pay the bill because he thought it excessive for the services he had received. His lawyer maintained that he attempted to reach an agreement with the hotel, which the manager claims that he had shown no intention of paying, and that until the day of the trial, when he handed in €3,349, he hadn’t received any money from him. The judge considered that the man had intended to commit fraud and he was sentenced to two years in prison and the payment of the bill plus interests. He appealed, and Malaga Provincial Court, although maintaining that he intended to commit fraud, reduced the sentence by one year because he had attempted to repair some of the damage by bringing a large part of the money he owed to the trial to give to the hotel.

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Gang targets wealthy diners

 

Diners at some of the city's most popular restaurants had their credit card details stolen by waiters working for gangs, who targeted customers with American Express black cards, then spent millions of dollars on expensive clothes and vintage wine, it is alleged. The cards of wealthy customers at Smith & Wollensky, the Capital Grille and Wolfgang's Steakhouse restaurants were allegedly "skimmed" and used to buy Rolex watches, Jimmy Choo shoes and Chanel handbags. Almost 30 people have been charged with crimes, including racketeering, conspiracy and grand larceny, after the alleged fraud ring was broken by police in Manhattan. Seven waiters at the restaurants are alleged by prosecutors to have been recruited by Luis Damian "D.J." Jacas, the 41-year-old alleged ringleader, and equipped with card-copying devices. They were instructed to focus on customers with premium credit cards, including the American Express black card, so that expensive purchases would not trigger alerts to customers. "The thieves were very selective, waiting until they were handed cards with extremely high or unlimited credit," said Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance.

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Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart supermarket fortune and the the 10th richest woman in the United States, opened a spectacular fine art museum in her home town

Architect Moshe Safdie looks out of a window next to a large red untitled magnifying disk sculpture by artist Fred Eversley at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Photograph: Danny Johnston/AP

When Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart supermarket fortune and the the 10th richest woman in the United States, opened a spectacular fine art museum in her home town, she might have expected plaudits and gratitude. It hasn't quite worked out that way.

The long-awaited opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum for American Art in Walton's home town of Bentonville, Arkansas, has provoked mixed reactions. Some have celebrated the unveiling of a significant new private art institution, but many have criticised the decision to spend $1.4bn of company and family foundation money as the retail colossus cuts back its workers' benefits.

Protesters at the museum have informally joined forces with the Occupy Wall Street camps across the US and point to growing ties between the Occupy movement and established trade unions.

The museum, which opened last weekend and features a survey of American art from Benjamin West to Georgia O'Keefe, from Norman Rockwell to Andy Warhol, and from Joan Mitchell to Walton Ford, has also come under criticism from within the art establishment for both inflating values and buying masterpieces from impoverished art institutions without giving local institutions a chance to match Walton's offer.

While historians point out that this is little different from 19th-century robber barons such as Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie amassing vast collections of European art and bringing it to America, the prospect of hundreds of masterpieces in rural Bentonville, two hours' drive from Tulsa, is still controversial.

Walton, at 62 the youngest of Walmart founder Sam Walton's four children, started buying specifically for the project in 2005. The Moshe Safdie-designed institution, which sits in 120 acres of dogwood trees and trails minutes from downtown Bentonville, already has 440 works on display and 800 in storage.

"We set market records for very few pieces that we purchased," says curator, David Houston. "But there is latent criticism from an east coast elite that bringing a famous painting like Thomas Eakins's [$68m] Gross Clinic to Arkansas is itself an act of cultural vandalism. We're bringing art to the public, but it's a different kind of public, and there are social and political connotations to that."

In the week since Crystal Bridges opened, it has already seen 5,000 registered visitors. "Sheer curiosity and hunger for an institution like this bears out Alice Walton's vision," Houston says.

Ben Waxman, spokesman for the union-affiliated Making Change@Walmart, said: "Opening a huge, opulent museum in the middle of nowhere while the company is cutting health insurance for its employees is troubling. It sends the message Wal-Mart doesn't care about them."

The issues of wealth distribution that have brought art into conflict with the labour movement at Crystal Bridges have also been on display at Sotheby's during the billion-dollar modern, impressionist and contemporary sales earlier this month in New York.

Since August, when Sotheby's dismissed 43 unionised art handlers, its salesrooms have been besieged by Teamsters union members, bearing an inflatable rat and a fat cat banker with a cigar in one hand and throttled worker in the other. "The company is having its most profitable year in 267 years and they locked us out in the middle of our contract," said Teamsters member Phil Cortero. "Sotheby's represents the richest people in the world. When you lose your shirt down on Wall Street you come and hock your stuff here."

Increasingly, the Teamsters are joined by Occupy Museum activists, chanting "We are the 99%!" They protest that the multimillion dollar art handled by auction houses is used to maintain and transfer the wealth of the 1%.

Outside Christie's, which is not involved in the dispute, Los Angeles property developer Eli Broad, one of America's wealthiest men, confirmed as much to the New York Times. "People would rather have art than gold or paper," he said.

OWS Labor Outreach member Mike Friedman said that Occupy had no problem with the art itself. "But at a time when we're seeing cutbacks in health and education spending, we're seeing the transfer of wealth by way of tax cuts and subsidies to an elite who use excesses of that transfer to buy these magnificent works of art."

With the end of the Zuccotti Park sit-in, Occupy says it plans to initiate focused protests against cultural institutions associated with big Wall Street donors. It has singled out Lincoln Center, home to the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and New York fashion week, which is financially supported by Tea Party funder David Koch.

Back at Crystal Bridges, Houston argues that it will take years to see the full effect of how the Walton family has used its wealth. The family foundation is active in a whole variety of charitable activities, many of them educational, he says. "Their intent is not to create a shrine to an individual or even a family. Their goal is to create a tremendous cultural resource in this part of the world."

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Hollywood star Natalie Wood was screaming for help as she drowned

Hollywood star Natalie Wood  was screaming for help as she drowned, according to a witness whose account has never been disclosed.

Retired stockbroker Marilyn Wayne has told The Mail on Sunday she tried to report the star’s ‘last desperate cries for help’ but was ignored.

Los Angeles police last week said ‘substantial new evidence’ has led them to reopen their investigation into the death 30 years ago this week. 

Mystery: Natalie drowned after a row while drinking with husband Robert Wagner and co-star Christopher Walken

The West Side Story actress’s drowning off the coast of California was ruled accidental at the time. Now a police source has described Wood’s husband, Hart-To-Hart star Robert Wagner, now 81, as ‘a person of interest’ in the case. 

Wagner – who was on his yacht Splendour with his wife and her alleged lover, Oscar-winner Christopher Walken, on the fateful night – has always maintained Wood, 43, accidentally slipped and drowned as she drunkenly tried to tie up a dinghy against the boat.  

 

Wayne, 68, believes new statements from her and Dennis Davern, skipper of the Splendour, had triggered the latest police probe.

She said: ‘I have been waiting for years for them to take my account seriously but they would never listen.’

Wayne was on a nearby boat with a boyfriend called John on the night of November 28, 1981.

In a sworn statement submitted to the LA Sheriff’s department, Wayne said: ‘My cabin window was open. A woman’s voice, crying for help, awakened John and awakened me, “Help me, someone please help me, I’m drowning”, we heard repeatedly.’

Wayne said John turned on their yacht’s beam light but they couldn’t see anything. Wayne claims she called the harbour patrol officer ‘but no one answered’ and the local sheriff’s office, who told her a helicopter would be sent. But it did not come. 

She also claims to have heard a man’s slurred voice from the direction of the Splendour saying: ‘Oh, hold on, we’re coming to get you.’ 

Natalie Wood and husband Robert Wagner (left) on their boat Splendour, with captain Dennis Davern (right), just weeks before she died

‘Not long after that the cries for help subsided,’ she recalled.

It was only when Wayne gave an account of her story to a U.S. TV crew for a programme scheduled to air next week, that she was asked to give a statement to police.

Wayne’s account matches that of Davern who says he was ‘coerced’ by Wagner’s lawyer into backing Wagner’s story of an accidental drowning after the death.

Davern’s police statement describes a night of heavy drinking that ended in a furious row between Wagner and Wood after Walken had retired to bed.

Emotional: In a television interview, Lana Wood said her sister was terrified of water

Wood's sister has claimed the actress was so scared of water that she would never have tried to get into a dinghy voluntarily before she drowned.

The coroner's ruling, based on accounts from the actress's husband Robert Wagner, outlined how she had fallen into the sea after attempting to secure the small boat, but that finding should not be believed, Lana Wood said.

Wood had developed a deep-rooted fear of water ever since her mother warned her as a child that she would meet her death by drowning in 'dark water', Lana Wood told TMZ.

She said: 'It gave Natalie a great fear. She hated the water, she wouldn't even go into her own pool at home.'

Coroner's officials at the time wrote that Ms Wood was 'possibly attempting to board the dinghy and had fallen into the water, striking her face.'

Lana Wood, also an actress best known for her part in Diamonds Are Forever, had never believed that her sister would have tried to sail herself at night, even after drinking for several hours.

The 65-year-old also claimed that the actress's husband left her to drown on the night of her tragic death.

In an emotional interview Lana Wood said that when Natalie was in the water, Wagner, who she calls RJ, had forbidden the captain from helping her and said: 'Leave her there, teach her a lesson'.

Speaking to TMZ, she claimed Dennis Davern, captain of the Splendour yacht from which Ms Wood fell and drowned in 1981, told her what Wagner had said.  

Lana told TMZ: 'He (Dennis) said that everyone was quite drunk and that a fight broke out and that Natalie was in the water and he and RJ did nothing to pull her out.

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Mystery: The yacht 'Splendour' was pictured today moored in a harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii after investigators reopened the case into the mysterious death of Natalie Wood

Seeking the truth:  Lana Wood, right, said she never believed Wagner's story about how her sister Natalie, far left, died and believes only Wagner can give her the truth

'He said, and this is a direct quote from what Dennis told me: 'Leave her there, teach her a lesson'.'

In her interview she also claimed that the captain told her Wagner called his attorney before he alerted the Coastguard to the incident. 

The revelations come as the police confirmed today that they will reopen the investigation into the death and said they may use new DNA technology after receiving 'credible and substantial information'.

They said, until they find evidence to say otherwise, Natalie Wood's death will still be ruled as an accidental drowning.

The sheriff said at this point her actor-husband Wagner is not a suspect.

One of the key witnesses in the reopening of the investigation is Mr Davern, who police confirmed they would interview.

Mr Davern has blamed Ms Wood's husband for the death,  claiming that - at the behest of Wagner - they did not do enough to find Ms Wood, after he advised against calling coastguards for four hours.

When asked if he thought Wagner was responsible for Ms Wood's death, he said: 'Yes, I would say so.'

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