Dickless Tracy suspended for 'gross misconduct' over claims she told friends of Amber Peat's suicide before her parents knew she had died

A police officer has been suspended over claims she text friends about Amber Peat's suicide before the schoolgirl's parents knew she had died.

The female Nottinghamshire Police officer is accused of sending messages to a friend and family member containing confidential information regarding the missing person's investigation.

Amber Peat, 13, was found hanging in a hedge in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire in June this year after being reported missing.

Deputy Chief Constable Sue Fish said: 'I am deeply upset that we are investigating such allegations.

'As soon as they came to light the officer involved was suspended from duty and an internal investigation commenced.

'We are now pursuing fast tracked misconduct proceedings to ensure the officer is dealt with appropriately as soon as possible.

'My colleagues have informed those victims or families who are referred to in the messages sent and apologised to them for the suffering this news will undoubtedly cause them.

'The cases they relate to have been reviewed independently and I am confident that the outcome of those investigations has not been adversely affected by this disclosure and/or the attitudes expressed.

'In addition I give my personal apology to those victims and their families for this disrespectful, shameful behaviour.

'As an organisation we pride ourselves on the high standards of professionalism and integrity we set for our officers and staff.

'We will take swift and robust actions against any person who falls below this standard.

'I hope that the actions of this officer does not detract from the efforts of the hundreds of people who represent Nottinghamshire Police on a daily basis and who work very hard to keep our communities safe and protect vulnerable victims of crime.'

The suspension for  'gross misconduct' relates to a number of 'shameful' incidents involving the same police officer since 2012.

It is alleged that she sent text messages sent which included racist and derogatory language, information disclosed about police officers stopping someone the sender and recipient both knew, identifying the person stopped and describing what happened.

She is further accused of sending texts including derogatory comments about victims of crime with whom the officer had professional contact in their role, sending messages that included an image of an adult vulnerable victim from a police interview with whom the officer had professional dealings and about whom they made derogatory comments.

The final allegation against the policewoman is that she sent text messages to a friend and a family member which contained confidential information relating to Amber Peat's missing person's inquiry the officer was working on and its progress.

Nottinghamshire Police were criticised earlier this year after it emerged officers took two days to investigate what turned out to be the final sighting of tragic Amber.

The schoolgirl went missing from the home she shared with her mum Kelly Peat and stepdad Danny Peat, in May but it was four days before her body was discovered nearby on June 2.

A report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission found that a man called police claiming he saw a young girl matching Amber's description disappearing into bushes close to her house.

But it was 48 hours before police took him to the spot to discover the teenager's dead body.

Social services have also come under fire after we revealed how Amber begged them for help 17 months before her death and asked to live with dad Adrian.

But bosses in Derbyshire failed to tell colleagues in Nottinghamshire about Amber's complaints when the family moved just a few miles over the border weeks later.

Original report here

UPDATE of Oct 8:  Pc Samantha Goodwin has now been fired


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Australia: Case dismissed against accused bikies arrested while buying ice-cream

A HIGH-PROFILE lawyer has rubbished Queensland’s anti-bikie laws, describing them as totally useless and nothing more than a political stunt.

His comments came as a court dismissed the case against five alleged bikies who were arrested under anti-association laws after they bought ice-cream during a Gold Coast holiday in January 2014.

The dismissal in Southport Magistrates Court this morning came as the prosecution revealed it had no evidence against any of the accused.

Bill Potts, who represented two of the five men, said the case cost $500,000 of public money and was the latest example of the laws failing to meet the burden of proof in court.

He added that his clients were guilty of nothing more than arguing over what type of ice-cream they wanted.

“The offence in effect is buying ice-cream in a public place,” Mr Potts said.  “The biggest controversy was whether it should be a choc-top or a vanilla ice-cream.”

Victorian friends Bane Alabejovic, Kresimir Basic, Darren Keith Haley, Dario Halilovic and Daniel Morgan Lovett were all arrested and charged while leaving an ice-cream shop at Surfers Paradise during a holiday with their families.

The five were accused of being bikie gang members and charged under a law introduced by the former Liberal-National Party government to prevent members of a criminal organisation from knowingly gathering in a group of more than two people in a public place.

At the time of their arrests, a woman who claimed to be the partner of one of the men said she was disgusted by what had happened.

“Basically the boys have gone to get the kids ice cream and the police have got them and locked them up,” she told reporters after the men were detained.

“To me I think it’s gross, gross, inhumanity, you wouldn’t even treat dogs like this.”

Mr Potts told the Australian at the time: “The police found no drugs, no guns, no evidence of any criminality.

“Their offence is walking down the street and looking for ice creams. It is now illegal to be friends in a public place looking for an ice cream in Surfers Paradise.”

Queensland’s anti-bikie laws attracted scathing criticism when they were passed in October 2013, with senior barrister Stephen Keim telling a lawyers conference on the Gold Coast last year that the laws breached human rights.

This morning, after the case against the men was dismissed, Mr Potts said he hoped the anti-bikie laws would be abolished when they were reviewed by the current Queensland government.

He added that this was the latest anti-association case to be thrown out without proof.  “Not one prosecution has been able to be sustained,” he said.  “Anti-association laws don’t work ... it prevents nothing and saves nobody.”

All five men spent more than two weeks in custody following their arrests, including time in solitary confinement, before being granted Supreme Court bail.

Mr Potts said his clients were considering their legal options regarding possible civil action.

Original report here


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British police devote huge resources to investigating lurid allegations by a convicted fraudster

A child protection officer who first named former Home Secretary Leon Brittan and other prominent figures as members of an alleged VIP paedophile ring was once jailed for fraud, it has emerged.

Chris Fay, a social worker who headed a child welfare charity, brought up the allegations of organised child sex abuse at Elm Guest House in London.  Fay, now 69, claimed on oath that Brittan had been involved in abuse and that in March 1990 he had seen a photograph of the former Tory politician in a French maid’s uniform, with a young boy.  The photo had been shown to him by Carole Kasir, co-owner of the Elm Guest House, he said.

A list of famous alleged attendees, including Cabinet ministers, MPs, churchmen, pop stars, spies, judges, tycoons and members of the royal household, was also drawn up by Fay.

It was later uploaded to the internet at a time when claims emerged that Downing Street had been aware of the operation of a powerful paedophile sex ring.

But Fay’s evidence has been brought into question by his 2011 fraud conviction, reported by the Sunday Telegraph. The former Labour councillor was sentenced to a year in prison for being part of a scam in which pensioners were conned out of almost £300,000.

Victims were told they were buying shares in property and Tesco but were issued with fake certificates.  Fay, of Blackheath, south-east London, was involved in helping to launder cash through false bank accounts.

Police are continuing to investigate allegations of historic sex abuse at the now-defunct Elm Guest House in Rocks Lane, Barnes, South West London.

While supporting evidence for the presence of most of those named on Fay's list remains elusive, police accept that the late Liberal MP Cyril Smith, a known child abuser, was indeed a visitor to the guest house.

Fay told The Telegraph he regretted the list had been made public and conceded that some of the public figures named were innocent.  He insisted he was never meant to see the light of day but that a former colleague had posted it on the internet.

Other names on the list included Harvey Proctor, a number of other Tory MPs, and Ron Brown, a former Labour MP, who is now dead. Mr Proctor has vehemently denied the allegations.

Fay said his list was based on conversations he had with Kasir. She was found guilty at the Old Bailey in 1983 only of running a disorderly house and possessing obscene videos. She was given a suspended sentence.

Kasir always denied that child abuse had taken place at Elm Guest House and maintained that the business was nothing more sinister than a gay-friendly hotel.

After years of drug and alcohol abuse, Kasir was found dead of an insulin overdose in 1990.  A coroner decided that she had killed herself, again with a drugs overdose, but child protection campaigners, including Fay, claimed she was murdered as part of the VIP cover-up.

One friend previously told MailOnline that Kasir had boasted she had a stash of incriminating photographs in a bank vault, for which she had turned down an offer of £20,000. One of those pictures allegedly included Cyril Smith.

Earlier this month a police inquiry into alleged murders by VIP paedophiles was left in crisis when the Metropolitan Police said it was no longer prepared to say that the key witness is ‘credible and true’.

An internal investigation has been launched into the running of the £1million Operation Midland inquiry after police found no evidence that a string of senior Establishment figures were responsible for killing three boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

In an extraordinary volte-face, Scotland Yard will not now say publicly that it still believes the account of the VIP murders by the ‘main witness’ – known only as ‘Nick’.

Operation Midland started nearly a year ago after Nick, 47, claimed he was abused by a murderous paedophile gang linked to the luxury Dolphin Square apartment complex including former armed forces head Lord Bramall, former prime minister Sir Edward Heath, ex-home secretary Lord Brittan and former heads of MI5 and MI6.

Original report here


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Man in prison denied medication.  Dies

Xanax and Klonopin are just benzodiazepines, related to Valium.  So providing them should have been no problem.  Providing Methadone, an opioid, may have had other issues.  One notes that a  2009 Cochrane review found that methadone use did not affect risk of death.  Authorities may have been aware of that. So the person below could be said to have died of his heroin addiction, or side-effects of that

A disturbing case of police negligence has rocked America after footage emerged of a man who slowly died in his cell after being jailed over a traffic offence.

David Stojcevski, 32, was sent to prison for thirty days for failing to pay a $US772 fine stemming from careless driving. But the Michigan man was a drug addict and was taking prescription drugs Methadone, Xanax, and Klonopin to treat his addiction. Without his badly needed medicine, he began having hallucinations, lost over 20 kilos and his body eventually shut down.

Stojcevski was under self-harm watch due to a misdiagnosis of mental instability, not drug addiction, and jail officials were supposed to be watching him constantly, reports WDIV Detroit.

He should have been checked every 15 minutes. Instead police seemed to take little notice of his erratic behaviour and despite being under constant video surveillance, he died in his cell after 17 days.

The family is suing the county “for a substantial amount” their lawyer Robert Ihrie told CBS. “This is shameful, substantial and unconscionable neglect,” he said.

The lawsuit was filed earlier in the year but the story broke Thursday with the video below. The family says they want the public to see the footage from inside the cell, but some may find the vision confronting.

Original report here


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Were these cops high?  Totally irrational and aggressive behavior

But they get off Scot-free.  How can Americans put up with this sort of thing?


The mother concerned

Dashcam footage captured the horrifying moment two police officers drew their guns on a husband and wife after pulling them over while they were rushing to the hospital to give birth.

James Reiner was driving his wife Dana to the hospital after her water broke in January 2012 in Hebron, Indiana when they passed a police car that suddenly turned on its lights and pulled them over, despite the fact that they were not speeding.

That is when James got out to tell Sgt. Anthony Dandurand that his wife was pregnant and they needed to get to the hospital. He responded by cuffing the man on the ground while another officer, Travis Thomas, held a gun on James.

Dana then tried to show the men that her waters had indeed broken - and they pointed a gun directly at her belly and yelled at her to 'get back in the fu**ing car.'

Dana was eventually picked up at the scene by an ambulance and taken to the hospital where she gave birth just minutes later according to an interview she did with The Times of Northwest Indiana.

The doctor had to pause her delivery twice in that brief time to unwrap Dana's daughter's umbilical cord, later saying that had she given birth on the side of the road the child would have died.

In the end, Dana gave birth to a healthy baby girl she named Abigail.

James was not there however, because despite the fact that Dana proved she was pregnant and in labor, police still took him to jail and booked him, forcing him to spend the night and miss his daughter's birth.

'That’s a moment you are never going to get back. There’s no redoing it,' said Dana.

'When I think about the fact that James, who is a wonderful man, was deprived of that - it makes me sad. And it makes me sad that Abby missed out on that, too. They missed out on that very first, that bond.'

A U.S. District magistrate agreed with Dana in July 2014, when he ruled that the officers had absolutely no right to detain the couple after learning Dana was in pregnant, let alone take James to jail.

'The court does not think a reasonable officer, after realizing (as Officers Dandurand and Thomas did soon after handcuffing James) that plaintiffs were en route to the hospital to have their baby, would have continued to detain them, much less have kept James under arrest and taken him to jail for the night.

'To the contrary: such conduct, at that point, violates the clearly established guarantees of the Fourth Amendment,' wrote Magistrate Judge Paul Cherry.

The Reiners reached a settlement with the police department in May, but neither of the officers has ever been punished in any way for their actions that night.

And the men not only violated the constitutional rights of the Reiners as a judge later declared, but they also can be heard on the dashcam video six minutes into the arrest saying they will delete the video.

On the second dashcam video after 14 minutes an officer can be heard saying they know how to delete dashcam footage.

Both officers can also be heard saying to James over the course of the dashcam videos from Dandurand and Thomas' cars that he will be going to jail and missing the birth of his child because he tried to flee from police.

Dandurand also later claimed that he had been chasing the couple for five miles, when in fact it was just over one mile until they pulled over.

He also said that he was advised to take James into custody by Porter County Deputy Prosecutor Rebecca Soto, though she later said the officer had misled her at the time. The Reiners attorney said that Soto later said to him that 'she felt angry toward Sgt. Dandurand, because she felt that he hadn’t been truthful with her.'

The worst part now is that this still is not over as the couple must work to expunge James' record.  'We still have a process that we have to go through to clear his name, so that it’s not detrimental to his career,' said Dana.

Original report here



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Motorcyclist crash victim who was left lying in a ditch for more than two hours because three police forces couldn't decide who should rescue him

An injured motorcyclist was left lying in a ditch for more than two hours because three police forces could not decide which of them should rescue him.

Biker Richard Collins, 49, crashed off the B645 road and into a ditch after swerving to avoid a car, near the village of Tilbrook in Cambridgeshire, which borders Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire on Sunday afternoon.

He called the police shortly after 4pm, but emergency services did not arrive until 6.40pm.

He was eventually taken to hospital in a police car with a broken arm, and the mix-up was branded a 'scandal' by a local police and crime commissioner.

Mr Collins had been out riding with five other motorcyclists and was at the back of the group when he hit the uneven road.

He said that a man in a pickup truck witnessed the accident, and told him that police and an ambulance were on their way.

'I managed to get back out of the ditch and on the road and sat and waited,' he said.

'I think I was in quite a lot of pain, I can't really remember but I was trying not to move my arm.  'It was at a right angle, like a Harry Potter bent, floppy arm, and I had bruising.

'I waited about an hour and a quarter and then called 101. I didn't want to call 999 as I didn't want to block the line.

'At that point Northamptonshire Police said my call had been logged and someone was on their way.'

Cambridgeshire Constabulary said they received a call at 4.20pm from Northamptonshire Police but after assessing the incident referred it back to them.

Bedfordshire Police said they were informed about the job at 4.25pm by Northamptonshire Police, but told them it was not in their patch.

At 5.40pm, an hour and 15 minutes later, Bedfordshire Police were informed that emergency services had not attended the crash site, prompting them to dispatched a police car.

However, due to the distance the car had to travel and difficulties in locating in the casualty, the car did not reach Mr Collins, from Sandy, Bedfordshire, until 6.40pm.

He was then taken in the car to Bedford Hospital as no ambulance had attended.  

'The police officer could not believe nobody had responded and wasn't going to wait for an ambulance to come and she took me to hospital, she was wonderful.

'I'm annoyed because nobody has apologised to me about it. I've seen reports saying they have apologised but not to me. They can just pick up the phone and do it.

Bedfordshire Police and Cambridgeshire Police said they believed East Midlands Ambulance Service was contacted about the crash.

However, the ambulance service told the BBC it could not find the incident on its logs.

The postal address of Tilbrook is Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, but on map it sits on the borders of the three counties.

Cambridgeshire Police have said investigations have confirmed the incident took place in Bedfordshire.

A spokesman said: 'Investigations have confirmed that the incident took place in Bedfordshire. However it remains clear that a better response should have been given by all three forces.

'We will now work with Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to find out what went wrong and ensure this is not repeated.'

Police and Crime Commissioner for Northamptonshire Adam Simmonds described the case as a 'scandal' and said 'someone should answer for that'.

Northamptonshire Police said have said they are looking into the 'unacceptable delay'.

Original report here


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City Of Tulsa trying to settle Million-Dollar Wrongful Conviction Lawsuit

Faulty eye-witness ID again. DNA exoneration.  Details here

The City of Tulsa is working to settle a wrongful conviction lawsuit with a potential payout of more $1 million.

It's triggered the first use of a "million dollar rule" at city hall, meaning the settlement will get some extra scrutiny.

After some big payouts, and specifically one over Great Plains Airlines, the city's political leaders decided if the city were to agree to a big settlement, they wanted in on the negotiations.  That's never happened -- until now.

When Sedrick Courtney walked out of a hearing, his conviction overturned, one of the questions was what he missed during 15 years in prison.  "When I left, I had babies, and when I got home my babies had babies, so I missed a lot,” Courtney said.

Three years later, a judge is set to put a dollar amount to what Courtney's time was worth. His attorneys are asking for a lot of money.  "Well above a million. That's about all I can say,” said Gerry Bender in the City of Tulsa’s Legal Department.

Bender will lead the negotiations for the city legal department, but he'll have a lot of people looking over his shoulder. The entire city council might be in the room, and it will be an actual city council meeting, just out of public view.

“ It might make it more difficult to get a consensus, but I don't really know,” Bender said. “I think they may want to participate to see what it's all about, to see what it's like.”

It's happening now because of a new rule requiring city council oversight of payouts over $1 million.

“The mayor on anything below $1 million is the sole authority on approving a settlement,” Bender said.

In the Courtney case, the city doesn't expect to pay over $1 million, but the rule applies if there's even a chance.

The city remains confident the evidence is on its side, even though DNA testing undermined key physical evidence.

Courtney's attorney argues it was the police lab that made shaky evidence seem convincing.

"This conviction was based on eyewitness testimony, not anything our police officers and lab did,” Bender said.

The settlement hearing in the case is next Tuesday, and the city at least hopes it can be wrapped up in one day.

Original report here


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Lazy British cops refuse to help apprehend a thief

Four police officers who were flagged down by a supermarket manager as a security guard grappled with a thief drove away after saying they were 'not kitted up to help', a misconduct hearing heard.

Constables Jonathan Webb, Mark Higgins, Joanne Parr and Paul Birch were driving through Liverpool in a police car when they were stopped by David Markey, the deputy manger of a nearby Tesco Express.

He asked them for help as his colleague Shaun Rigby desperately grappled with thief Roy Fagan, who had fled the shop, in the road just a few feet away.

However, a police misconduct hearing in Wavertree, Merseyside, was told that Pc Webb, who was sat in the front passenger seat, wound down his window but declined to help saying he was not 'kitted up'.

It is alleged that they then drove off - all failing to provide either direct assistance or assistance by way of causing another patrol to attend.

The officers all deny that they breached standards of professional behaviour during the incident, which happened at around 9.15pm on December 5, last year, with the interaction between the constables and Mr Markey said to have lasted nine seconds.

Mr Markey was forced to call 999 but before further officers were able to arrive, Mr Rigby was assaulted by Fagan 'kicking or kneeing' him in the head.

The hearing was told that the incident came to the attention of Merseyside Police following a complaint by a member of the public.

James Berry, counsel on behalf of Merseyside Police's professional standards, said the force had considered the complaint against the officers to be 'very serious'.

'Mr Markey hailed down a passing police vehicle,' said Mr Berry. 'The officers in that vehicle did not give assistance but drove off.'

He added that because of Fagan and Mr Rigby's position in the road they had been 'vulnerable to traffic'.

Pc Higgins had been driving the car, and Mr Berry told the hearing that Pc Webb was in the front passenger seat.

'He wound down the window to speak with Mr Markey,' Mr Berry continued. 'Mr Markey's evidence is that he'd detained a shoplifter and pointed towards Fagan and Mr Rigby who were a matter of feet away from the car.'

He added that Pc Webb had said words to the effect of 'we are not tooled up' or 'we are not kitted up'.

Mr Markey asked for them to radio for assistance, which Pc Webb is alleged to have said he would do before the car drove off.  But no call was made, and Mr Markey made his own emergency call.

Another police unit arrived almost eight minutes later, and Fagan was arrested. He was later given two eight-week sentences, suspended for 12 months, for assault and for stealing alcohol to the value of £4.62.

Mr Berry said that the officers' propositions were 'extraordinary and incredible' and said that the two Tesco employees had 'no reason to lie, no reason to exaggerate, no reason to embellish'.

He added: 'They were just doing their job in difficult circumstances and rightly and properly expected help of those officers.'

CCTV played to the panel showed Mr Rigby struggling with the offender, who had stolen beer and cider from the shop.

The CCTV showed Mr Rigby waiting outside the store for the shoplifter, before pinning him up against the glass.

The scuffle then spilled out in to the busy city centre road and Mr Rigby detained the thief while the officers' marked police car was flagged down.

Mr Berry said it was the officers' 'duty to assist'.

'All maintain as well as not seeing the struggle in the road they did not hear or pay attention to what was said.

'Mr Markey was quite clearly seeking assistance. Each of the officers were aware that assistance was required and the conversation was taking place a few feet from where they were sitting.'

Mr Markey claimed he pointed towards the altercation and asked for assistance 'in a normal volume, slightly elevated because of the traffic'.

'I was nervous about oncoming traffic and the male was trying to squirm and get away in fits and starts,' he told the hearing.

'After discussing the situation with Shaun, I realised what a dangerous position I was in.'

He then confirmed that PC Webb had heard what he was saying 'because he responded', allegedly saying that the officers were 'not tooled or kitted up'.

The officers claim they did not see the struggle despite it being in close proximity to the car.

The hearing was told that Mr Rigby had been 'disappointed' with the actions of the officers.

'I felt I was left vulnerable situation,' he said. 'In my job, we have to work with the police a lot and we have brought a lot of people to justice in the past.

'For the officers to drive off and not help and leave us in the middle of the road when they had the best tool they could have had, the car, was disappointing.'

It is Pc Webb's case that he maintains that Mr Markey did not tell him that a shoplifter had been detained and did not ask him for radio assistance.

He insists that he had told Mr Markey the officers were 'on their way to a police briefing'.

Counsels for PC Parr and PC Birch, who were in the back seat of the vehicle, made applications before the hearing was opened for the allegations to be dropped.

They cited lack of evidence that the officers 'must have heard the exchange with PC Webb'.

However, the panel, which is tasked with deciding if the constables’ conduct fell below the standards of professional behaviour and whether it amounted to gross misconduct or not, turned down the application and opted to hear the evidence in full.

The hearing, which is expected to last four days and is the first of its kind to be held in public in Merseyside, continues.

Original report here

UPDATE:  The cop who took the complaint has been fired


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Amazingly foolish statement by London police

Deciding and publicly declaring guilt before a matter had even come to court.  If that's not "prejudicing" a case, nothing is

Senior police admitted that giving public credence to claims of rape and murder at the heart of Westminster had been an error.

They said that repeatedly describing untested claims by the man – known as Nick – as ‘credible and true’ had appeared to pre-empt the outcome of the case – adding that only prosecutors can rule whether a case is brought to court, where a jury must ultimately decide where the truth lies.

The Met Police broke its silence after days of criticism of Operation Midland, its multi-million-pound historic child sex abuse inquiry.

Dozens of officers are investigating claims by Nick that three boys were raped and murdered by an Establishment sex ring.

After interviewing him three times last year, the Met held a press conference in which senior investigating officer Kenny McDonald said his allegations were ‘credible and true’.

The statement ignited a frenzy of claim and counter-claim about who might be responsible for such appalling crimes and whether there was conspiracy at the highest levels to cover them up.

Yesterday, Scotland Yard appeared to accept that these comments may have led the public to assume Nick was telling the truth, insisting in a statement: ‘We always retain an open mind.’

It added that the starting point for child abuse inquiries was always to ‘believe the victim’, adding: ‘That is why … our senior investigating officer stated that he believed our key witness and felt him to be credible.  ‘Had he not made that considered, professional judgment, we would not have investigated in the way we have.

‘We must add that whilst we start from a position of believing the witness, our stance then is to investigate without fear or favour, in a thorough, professional and impartial fashion, and to go where the evidence takes us without prejudging the truth of the allegations. That is exactly what has happened in this case.’

Last week, former director of public prosecutions Ken Macdonald QC said it had showed a ‘medieval contempt for the accused’ by backing Nick’s uncorroborated claims so publicly.

The force has struggled to find any evidence to stand up the accusation that prominent figures including former prime minister Edward Heath were involved in the paedophile ring at Dolphin Square in Westminster.

Police have interviewed Lord Bramall, 91, one of the country’s most senior former soldiers, and former Tory MP Harvey Proctor.

But 11 months after the investigation began, it is understood that many officers are divided on whether it is possible to continue, and some are raising questions over Nick’s credibility.

Mr Proctor strongly denies any involvement and said the allegations had destroyed his reputation and that of eight other alleged paedophile ring members.

In its statement, the Met said the focus of its inquiry remained on ‘allegations of the homicide of three young boys’.

It added: ‘These cases take time. We can all see the legacy that has been created by police and other authorities who appeared not to take allegations seriously in the past and the impact that has had on the confidence of victims to come forward.’

Original report here


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Is the therapy that brings out false memories behind Britain's  extravagant VIP abuse claims?

This month Sir Cliff Richard is to begin a three-month concert tour to mark his 75th birthday. Yet it is being planned under a dark cloud.

Last August, the police raided his Berkshire home and tipped off the BBC to film it live via helicopter. This was part of Operation Yewtree, an investigation into 'historic sex abuse' by anyone deemed 'a celebrity' — and especially anyone who might have worked with the late Jimmy Savile.

Yesterday, that cloud had partly lifted from Sir Cliff. One of the police's three investigations into claims by unnamed men that they were abused by the singer has been dropped.

According to a report in the Sunday Times: 'The inquiry is said to have foundered because detectives have been unable to find evidence to substantiate the claims.'

Ah, evidence. In the hysteria about so-called VIP sex abuse, that word has been sorely missing. Yet it is at the very heart of our criminal justice system.

It is an unfortunate fact that the more heinous an alleged crime, the greater the pressure to bring the perpetrators before the courts — and therefore the more likely the police are to become unscrupulous in their treatment of those accused.

This accounts for such an appalling miscarriage of justice as the jailing, 40 years ago, of six innocent Irishmen for the murder of 21 people in the Birmingham pub bombings. Yet the bombings themselves were all too real. Members of the IRA were indeed responsible.

Now, however, there seems an obsessive need on the part of the authorities to pursue the perpetrators of unspeakable crimes . . . which may never have taken place at all.

This is the purpose of several police investigations, notably Operation Midland, into claims that a number of boys were sexually tortured and murdered by a group of so-called VIPs, including a former Prime Minister, sundry other peers and MPs, Army generals and senior members of the Security Service.

One of the key 'witnesses' to these proposed crimes, whose name is known to us only as 'Darren', was yesterday revealed as a man with a history of false claims.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that 'Darren' had previously been sentenced to two years' imprisonment for making hoax bomb calls, nuisance and threatening calls about neighbours and criminal damage.  He also falsely confessed to the murder of a prostitute during a high-profile police manhunt in the Nineties.

But the police have been agonisingly slow — at least for those he has accused — to come to the conclusion that they have been sent on the wildest of wild goose chases. This is partly because they have been under political and media pressure.

The former comes largely in the person of the new Labour Deputy Leader, Tom Watson. Watson was contacted by 'Darren' and has taken up his cause, possibly attracted by the fact that the alleged VIP murderers included at least two former Tory MPs.

'Darren's' bizarre claims — such as witnessing a man with Down's syndrome being pulled apart by two cars being driven in opposite directions by the aforementioned VIPs — have also been obsessively and profitably championed by a news agency called Exaro.

It was to Exaro, therefore, that Mr Watson declared: 'Darren told me that he fears for his safety. Were he to be attacked, I will personally make sure everyone who needs to know will know who these people are.'

The time will come for Watson to apologise. And as I believe him to be fundamentally decent, I trust he will make that apology in the same place he made some of his accusations under privilege: on the floor of the House of Commons.

One of the Scotland Yard officers involved in the investigation into 'Darren's' claims complained to the Telegraph: 'We are between a rock and a hard place. We don't want people to ever lose faith in coming to the police. We believe our victims.'

I found this disturbing. What is meant by 'our victims'? Do the police own them? And until there is proof that a crime has taken place, these are not 'victims' but claimants.

This shows a similar contempt for due process as displayed by Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald, the man in charge of Operation Midland, when last December he declared that the stories of the man who had provided many of these claims, known as 'Nick', were 'credible and true'.

When McDonald said this, he had not even interviewed a single one of the claimed VIP abusers, still less found any of the bodies of the allegedly murdered children.

On Saturday a probing Mail investigation revealed something about 'Nick'. It noted: 'On the internet he has written extensively about being abused but says therapy has helped him come to terms with his past.'

I hope, for the sake of the police's reputation, that 'Nick's' therapy was not so-called 'recovered memory' treatment, a now discredited practice described as 'the worst catastrophe to befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era'.

In the Eighties and Nineties, a number of people were induced by psychoanalysts to 'remember' appalling sexual abuse which hitherto had never crossed their minds.

Forms of hypnosis were often used, and the result was that some wretched men (and women) came genuinely to believe that they had taken part in 'satanic ritual abuse' and the like. It was all nonsense, but compelling nonsense — and some courts fell for it. In this context, I am intrigued by the report that 'Darren' had falsely confessed to a murder.

Next month, Portobello Books is to publish The Strange Case Of Thomas Quick, by Dan Josefsson. Thomas Quick was the name adopted by Swedish petty criminal and drug addict Sture Bergwall, who under 'recovered memory' therapy, confessed to raping, killing and even eating more than 30 victims.

These were supposedly reenactments of 'recovered memories of sexual abuse' he had experienced as a child.

Extraordinarily compelling in the dock as a witness to his own 'crimes' (which he had never committed), he was convicted of eight murders. He had trawled newspapers for unsolved killings and convinced the Swedish police that he was responsible — even though he never led them to a single body.

In 2008, his 'confessions' were shown to be untrue and by 2013 the last of his convictions was overturned. The Swedish government has ordered an inquiry into this devastating failure of its justice system. There will be lessons in it for our own authorities.

Original report here


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Tulsa Mother Of Murdered 3-Month-Old Files Lawsuit Over Wrongful Conviction

Only AB blood found at crime scene.  Mother was A

A woman who was freed from prison after being sentenced to life for slitting her 3-month-old son's throat has filed a lawsuit for her wrongful conviction.

Michelle Murphy’s lawsuit says an officer at the time coerced a confession from her, planted evidence and that there was faulty and false blood comparisons.

The Tulsa Police Department, former Tulsa County District Attorney, Tim Harris and a number of former police officers are named in the suit.

Some of the allegations include:

    Ms. Murphy’s wrongful arrest, detention, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment were the result of egregious misconduct by law enforcement officers, forensic analysts and their supervisors, acting individually and in concert to use any means necessary to obtain a conviction;

    Detective Mike Cook coerced a confession from the seventeen (17) year-old Ms. Murphy which had no basis in reality and Cook knowingly used this false evidence to support a probable cause arrest affidavit;

    Det. Cook prompted and threatened Ms. Murphy into stating she was in a “dream” and she “accidentally fell” and, if Cook is credited, she accidentally cut through the bone, grizzle and sinew of her infant son’s neck;

    At the end of the day, TPD was stuck with an implausible statement and a misleading new release to the media that Ms. Murphy was a murderess who had “confessed”;

    Faced with this reality, acting individually and in concert, the defendants then intentionally planted evidence and fabricated false inculpatory evidence against Ms. Murphy, irreparably and unconstitutionally tainting her criminal trial by distorting the other evidence presented against her – faulty and false blood comparison evidence from the so-called forensic lab and evidence from a paid informant whose recent released from a mental hospital was withheld from the jury;

    Det. Cook even groomed the probable killer into a star eyewitness before this witness died under mysterious circumstances;

Murphy, who had been in jail or prison for 20 years, had her sentence vacated by DNA evidence in 2014.

In the 1995 trial, prosecutors argued that certain samples of blood at the crime scene did not belong to the baby. Subsequent DNA testing showed that was incorrect, documents say.

Murphy's attorney's claimed the baby was killed by 14-year-old neighborhood kid William Lee, who committed suicide after Murphy's preliminary trial. According to court documents, Lee had a history as a juvenile delinquent. Lee is the one who called 911 from a pay phone in the neighborhood the night the baby died. He told dispatchers he was reporting a domestic situation, documents say.

Lee later testified that he couldn't sleep and was walking around outside the apartment complex in the middle of the night when he heard Murphy and the baby's father arguing. He claimed that through the apartment windows, he saw Murphy carry the baby from one room to another, and the next time she appeared, she had blood on her arms and the baby was in the floor in blood.

After his death, investigators took a sample of Lee's tissue in an autopsy to compare to the blood found at the murder scene. Lee had the same AB blood type as the baby. According to court documents, Murphy's genetic profile and Type A blood did not match the blood samples extracted from the crime scene, court documents say.

The case against Murphy was dismissed with prejudice, which prevents it from being refiled in the future.

Original report here



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The Mountain of Legal Injustice in the USA

In view of the thousands of laws in the USA for whose violation people are punished even though no identifiable person has been harmed by their actions, is it not wholly appropriate to say that those who are punished are in fact being punished for political crimes?

For example, persons entering or leaving the USA must file a declaration of the exact amount of cash and negotiable monetary instruments they are carrying if they have more than $10,000, notwithstanding that the money is their own. Here are the penalties for failure to file an accurate report as stated on FinCEN Form 105:

PENALTIES: Civil and criminal penalties, including under certain circumstances a fine of not more than $500,000 and Imprisonment of not more than ten years, are provided for failure to file a report, filing a report containing a material omission or misstatement, or filing a false or fraudulent report. In addition, the currency or monetary instrument may be subject to seizure and forfeiture. See 31 U.S.C.5321 and 31 CFR 1010.820; 31 U.S.C. 5322 and 31 CFR 1010.840; 31 U.S.C. 5317 and 31 CFR 1010.830, and U.S.C. 5332.

Think about this. For the “crime” of carrying, say, $20,000 of my own money into or out of the USA without accurately reporting it, the government may legally take the money, fine me $500,000, and put me in a steel cage for 10 years. Think about it. Are such reporting requirements in themselves not an outrageous invasion of one’s privacy and peaceful personal affairs? And are not the absurdly severe penalties for mere failure to make an accurate report the stuff of nightmares?

If you think about this law, which is but a single example among thousands that might be given, and you suppose that it is the kind of law that ought to be enforced in a free society, may God have mercy on your erring soul. The USA has become a legal nightmare of perfectly legal injustice, and aside from the lawyers, who thrive on this vast body of injustices, hardly anyone has an inkling of just how enormous and pervasive it really is.

Yet every day, millions of Americans are thinking, there ought to be a law . . . .

Original report here


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Multicultural British policeman and two other men charged over fake claims of a terror plot to kidnap another officer

A serving policeman has been charged over an alleged fake terror plot to kidnap a fellow officer.

Pc Amar Tasaddiq Hussain, 29, was charged by West Midlands Police with two counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and two counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office.

Two other men, Adil Bashir, 25, and 30-year-old Muhammad Sheikh, both from Birmingham, have also been charged with the same four offences, a police spokesman said.

Hussain, who is based in Birmingham, has been suspended from duty with immediate effect.

He has been bailed to appear at Cannock Magistrates' Court next month alongside Bashir, who is unemployed and from Small Heath, and Sheikh, a self-employed tutor from Bordesley Green.

The charges follow an investigation into a tip-off given to West Midlands Police on December 8 last year in which it was claimed an officer was to be kidnapped as part of a terrorist plot.

The alleged hoax led to heightened security measures, which later spread across the country.

Officers at West Midlands Police were called in for special overnight briefings and advised not to come to work or go off shift in uniform after the threat was judged to be credible.

Speaking at the time, Assistant Chief Constable Garry Forsyth said the steps were prompted by 'information relating to the safety of West Midlands Police officers and police staff'.

He added: 'West Midlands Police treat all information relating to matters of security extremely seriously.  'In this particular case we have received information relating to the safety of West Midlands Police officers and police staff.  'There is nothing at this time to suggest there is an increased risk to members of the public.

'We have taken the opportunity to remind all employees of the need to be vigilant. Our priority remains serving our communities and protecting them from harm.'

The incident also prompted Scotland Yard to make its own assessment of the information received by West Midlands Police.

The subsequent investigation was led by officers from West Midland Police's Anti-Corruption Unit with support from the region's Counter Terrorism Unit.

A West Midlands Police spokesman said on Tuesday: 'At a time when the national threat level was severe, the threat was considered credible and police acted swiftly to protect officers and police staff.  'A subsequent investigation revealed that the call was false and malicious.'

A 31-year-old man arrested on the day of the alert was eliminated from inquiries and has since been deported.

In October last year the threat level to police officers across the country was raised to substantial, meaning a targeted attack is a strong possibility.

Original report here


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All charges dropped against man, 63, who served 34 years in jail for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl in 1976

All charges have been dropped against an Indiana County man who served 34 years in jail for the killing of a 15-year-old girl in 1976.

Lewis Fogle, 63, was released from SCI Pine Grove in Pennsylvania on bond after a judge vacated his murder conviction based on new DNA evidence last month.

Senior Judge David Grine freed Fogle from prison on $25,000 unsecured bond in August but granted the prosecutor's request to be given a month to determine if there was enough evidence to retry Fogle on a second-degree murder charge.

Today, Indiana County District Attorney Patrick Dougherty agreed to dismiss all charges against Fogle in the rape and murder of Deann Katherine Long in 1976.

The judge's decision stemmed from a joint motion by the New York-based Innocence Project and Dougherty.

Fogle was arrested alongside three other men in 1981 after Long, of Cherry Tree, Indiana County, was raped and shot in the head in July 1976.

He was the only one to stand trial and was 30 years old with a pregnant wife and an infant son when he was convicted a year later.

The teenager's body was found in a rural area a short distance from her home a day after she was last seen.

The newly discovered DNA findings that freed Fogle found that he was not the source of semen found on the young girl’s body.

Now, Fogle says he hopes anyone who was involved will be brought to justice.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Fogle said he was pleased that his ordeal was over and that he has spoken to Long's family since being freed.

'I told them I wished it had never happened in the first place,' he said.

'They know I'm innocent, they even told me so. I told them I would help bring the truth out. I'm not going to rest until that happens.'

Original report here


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Stupid British prosecutors again

A science teacher who used a meat cleaver in classes to bring his subject to life for pupils endured '11 months of hell' after he was charged with bringing a bladed article to school.

Jonathan Abbott, 35, kept the kitchen implement in his desk to teach children about subjects including the splitting of the atom.

But he was reported to senior staff at Mildenhall College Academy in Suffolk when a supply teacher found the cleaver in an unlocked drawer while he was on holiday and the matter was reported to police.

Dr Abbott was suspended and forced to attend a series of hearings at court until the Crown Prosecution Service finally announced it was offering no evidence this week.

If convicted he could have faced up to four years in jail and a £5,000 fine.

Speaking from his home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, today, he said: 'I am obviously relieved and happy. It has been 11 months of hell.

'I am somebody who loves my job and I have not been able to work, so it has been very difficult for me.

'I was charged with having a bladed article within a school – however, it is a legitimate defence if you have it for an educational purpose or you have authority.

'From day one I said it was for an educational purpose. I have been in crown court four times and magistrates court once. Throughout that time, nobody has looked at the case until now and said 'Actually, you are right'.

'The CPS admitted yesterday that they had reviewed the case and it showed there was significant evidence it was being used for an educational purpose throughout.'

Dr Abbott kept the cleaver at the school since beginning his first teaching job there in September 2012.

One demonstration he used it for was chopping an apple in half while discussing the splitting of the atom. Ipswich Crown Court also heard it was also employed to show how enzymes work.

Dr Abbott, who previously did scientific research and lectured at several universities, said he was taught to use a blade as a teaching aid when he was at teacher training college.

'I was doing a technique that was taught to me so there are hundreds and thousands of teachers doing exactly the same thing,' he claimed.

He is still facing possible disciplinary procedures and said he was unable to confirm whether the school knew he had the cleaver or how often he had used it.

He was charged with the potentially career-ending offence after police were contacted on October 23 last year.

After pleading not guilty to the charge on July 3 a nine-day trial was pencilled in at Ipswich Crown Court for the end of November this year.

But at a hearing on Monday, prosecutor Edward Renvoize said the Crown took the view that 'it was not in the public interest to continue with the prosecution' and recorder Ian Evans dismissed the case.

Asked if he wanted to say anything on behalf of his client, defence barrister Jonathan Goodman commented: 'There is a lot that could be said. It's clearly been incredibly stressful over a long period of time.'

Dr Abbott has suspended on full pay from the 1.087-pupil school, which was known as Mildenhall College of Technology before converting to an academy in 2013.

It was rated 'good' in its first Ofsted report in March this year, when it was praised for its 'imaginative development of the curriculum'.

The school is one of 18 sponsored by the Academy Transformation Trust, where a spokeswoman said she could not confirm if Dr Abbott would be allowed back to teach.  She said: 'We can confirm that legal proceedings have been concluded in this case.  'However, given that an internal process may be carried out within the academy we are unable to make any further comment.'

The school's chairman of governors, Ian Gray, refused to comment.

The Crown Prosecution Service did not respond to requests for comment.

A Suffolk Police spokesman confirmed that Dr Abbott had not been arrested and had been interviewed under caution. He added: 'A file was submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service and it was their decision to bring a charge in the case.'

A mother of a pupil at the school who asked not to be named said: 'Dr Abbott is a fantastic teacher who tries to make lessons interesting.

'It is disgusting that he was charged with a criminal offence and dragged into court. I am delighted that common sense has prevailed and the charge has been dropped.'

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: 'It seems a bit heavy handed to have charged this teacher with a criminal offence and taken him to court. They could have given him some sort of warning inside the school.'

Original report here



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Lying black cop reinstated



A Suffolk Superior Court judge has upheld a decision by an arbitrator who ruled that the Boston Police Department must reinstate an officer fired in 2012 for allegedly using excessive force during an arrest and then lying about the incident.

The city had challenged the ruling, involving Officer David C. Williams, contending that the commissioner had the right to fire officers and that it would violate state law and sound public policy to cede that power to an arbitrator. In a June 29 decision, Superior Court Judge Dennis J. Curran agreed that the commissioner should have the “right and authority” to “manage and discipline” his officers. But he found that state law and legal precedent bound him to uphold the arbitrator’s 2013 ruling.

“The court is constrained by the arbitrator’s finding of fact,” Curran wrote. “The charges against Officer Williams represent a potentially serious breach of [his] oath and the public trust. Nonetheless, no matter how valid and poignant the police department’s concerns are, it is beyond the court’s power to grant the requested relief.”

Former Commissioner Edward F. Davis fired Williams over the arrest of Michael P. O’Brien, then of Methuen, in the North End on March 16, 2009. A police trial board had determined that Williams used an improper chokehold on O’Brien during a heated fender-bender dispute between O’Brien and another motorist just after midnight on Hanover Street, and later lied about the arrest. The city paid O’Brien $1.4 million in 2012 to settle a civil rights suit.

In reinstating Williams, the arbitrator, Michael C. Ryan, had ruled that O’Brien, a former Middlesex County correction officer, was not a credible witness, was intoxicated the night of the arrest, and had a motive to lie. “[I]t is clear to me that O’Brien’s account of the incident was not truthful,” Ryan wrote. “If officers became aggressive, and there is no doubt that they did, it was because the behavior of O’Brien and his friends warranted it.”

Bonnie McGilpin, a City Hall spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that Boston “is reviewing the decision and determining whether or not to appeal.” She added that “Williams’ status will remain as terminated (unpaid) unless the City decides not to appeal the decision.” Williams stands to receive more than $400,000 in back pay, as well as retroactive benefits, other compensation, and restored seniority upon reinstatement.

The city has 30 days to appeal, McGilpin said.

“David Williams is very happy with the decision and is hoping to get back to work as soon as possible,” said John Becker, an attorney with Sandulli Grace, which represents Williams’s union, the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association.

“I hope they’ll accept the decision of the Superior Court,” he said.

The judge’s ruling was not unexpected given the deference generally given to arbitrators’ decisions, said Neil V. McKittrick, a labor lawyer at Ogletree Deakins. Going forward, he said, the question is whether Boston will seek to reexamine with the union what constitutes just cause for terminating a police officer under their collective bargaining agreement.

“Maybe in those circumstances involving claims of police brutality, the police commissioner should have more discretion to deal with an issue the public has identified as a significant concern,” McKittrick said.

O’Brien’s attorney, Howard Friedman, said his client was “very disappointed.”

“Being a law enforcement officer, he wanted to get Williams off the police force,” Friedman said. “That’s why he came forward.”

Friedman called David Williams “an exceptionally lucky police officer.”

“Boston is unlucky because now they have to figure out what to do with him,” Friedman said.

In testimony before the police trial board, O’Brien asserted that the night of the arrest, Williams tackled him, put his arm around his neck, and drove him into the pavement after O’Brien pulled out a cellphone camera during the traffic stop. Williams countered that he had O’Brien in a “semi-bear-hug hold.”

In December 2012, the department’s Internal Affairs Division found Williams had used a chokehold and was untruthful in his testimony. He became the first officer Davis fired under a policy, launched in January 2010, that said officers would be terminated for lying in department reports, in court, or to police investigators. Williams then challenged the firing.

The case represents the second time the police department has been ordered to take back Williams. In 1998, Williams was fired for his role in the 1995 near-fatal beating of Michael Cox, a plainclothes officer who was mistaken for a homicide suspect. In 2005, an arbitrator ruled Williams was fired without just cause and ordered that he receive $500,000 in back pay and be reinstated.

That episode also cost the city. Cox, now a deputy superintendent, sued the city over the incident and received an $817,000 settlement. He also sued Williams and reached an out-of-court settlement.

Original report here


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Outrage as black woman was 'forced to spend eight days in a psych ward because cops would not believe the BMW she was driving was hers'

A black woman claims she was held against her will at a mental hospital for eight days then slapped with a $13,000 bill because a police officer didn't believe the BMW she was driving belonged to her.

Kamilah Brock, 32, sued the city earlier this year for unspecified damages and claims that her constitutional rights under the Fourth and 14th Amendments were violated and that she was a victim of racism.

She is arguing that she endured 'unwanted and unwarranted intrusion of her personal integrity, loss of liberty [and] mental anguish' during and after her bizarre encounter with police last year.

Brock tearfully recounted the nightmare to PIX 11 on Thursday which began when she was reportedly pulled over by NYPD on September 12 of last year as she was stopped at a traffic light in Harlem.

When an unidentified police officer asked her why her hands were not on the steering wheel she told him it was because she was dancing to her car music and that she didn't think that was a problem because she was at a red light.

'I said I was dancing, I am at a light,' Brock told PIX11.

'He asked me to get out of the car.'

The Huffington Post reports that Brock was then taken into custody and transported to the NYPD's 30th precinct where she was held for several hours but never charged with a crime.

Police told her to go back to the station the next day to pick up her 2003 BMW 325CI.

When Brock, a banker, returned the following day to claim her car she says the police did not believe her when she said that she was the rightful owner of the luxury vehicle.

'I just felt like from the moment I said I owned a BMW, I was looked at as a liar. They put me in handcuffs and said they just need to put me in handcuffs to take me to my car. And I said OK, whatever it's gonna take to get to my car.'

'Then EMS approached me,' she continued.

'And they said we're gonna take you to your car. And I'm like, in an ambulance? I'm going to my car in an ambulance? I'm going to my car in an ambulance? I was just so confused,' she said.

The Huffington Post reports that medical records show Brock was taken to Harlem Hospital, stripped naked, forced to take lithium, and injected with powerful sedatives.

'He held onto me and then the doctor stuck me in the arm and I was on a stretcher and I woke up to them taking my clothes off, specifically my underwear,' Brock told PIX 11.

'Then I went back out again. When I woke up the next day, I felt like I was in a nightmare. I didn't understand why that was happening to me.'

The records also show that personnel at Harlem Hospital tried to make her deny that she owned a BMW, was a banker, and that President Barack Obama followed her on Twitter.

Medical staff believed that Brock had Bi Polar disorder for her claims about the BMW, her job, and her social media account.

Brock's lawyer Michael Lamonsoff says that his client told the truth the entire time and claims that Brock was discriminated against because she is black and that a white woman would not have had the same experience.

Earlier this summer the city claimed that Brock had been 'acting irrational, she spoke incoherently and inconsistently, and she ran into the middle of traffic on Eighth Ave' during the traffic stop with police.

The NYPD previously only confirmed that Brock was taken into their custody.

Original report here


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Keystone Kops at the FBI

Complete dummies with the power of arrest!



America drops sale-of-secrets-to-China case against Temple physics professor after making embarrassing - and crucial - evidence error

An American scientist who was accused of being a spy for China has had all the charges against him dropped after the FBI admitted it had made a massive mistake in arresting him in the first place.

Federal agents had claimed they had evidence that Dr Xi Xiaoxing sent the secret blueprints for a sophisticated U.S. device called a 'pocket heater' to Chinese scientists.

But months after the physics professor was led away in handcuffs from Temple University, where he works, the FBI admitted the blueprints they found were not for the heater at all - but for a totally innocuous gadget.

On Friday night, Dr Xi, 57, said in a phone interview reported in the New York Times: 'I don’t expect them to understand everything I do. But the fact that they don’t consult with experts and then charge me? Put my family through all this? Damage my reputation? They shouldn’t do this. This is not a joke. This is not a game.'

Federal prosecutors sought to dismiss the charges on Friday after being confronted with statements from physicists that investigators had misunderstood the technology.

Prosecutors thought Dr Xi was sending information related to a magnesium diboride pocket heater for which he had signed a nondisclosure agreement, his lawyer Peter Zeidenberg said.

When they arrested Xi in May, prosecutors said he had participated in a Chinese government program involving technology innovation before he took a sabbatical in 2002 to work with a U.S. company that developed a thin-film superconducting device containing magnesium diboride.

Superconductivity is the ability to conduct electricity without resistance. A superconducting thin film could be key to making computer circuits that work faster. Films of magnesium diboride are particularly promising for this use, and Xi helped develop a way to make them.

Prosecutors say he 'exploited it for the benefit of third parties in China, including government entities,' by sharing it with the help of his post-doctoral students from China. Xi also offered to build a world-class thin film laboratory there, according to emails detailed by prosecutors in May.

But Xi was sending information about a different device, which he helped invent. It was not restricted technology or supposed to be kept secret by a nondisclosure agreement, Zeidenberg said.

'It was typical academic collaboration,' he added. 'Nobody's getting rich off this stuff.'

In any case, the pocket heater is patented and plans on how to make it can be looked up online, Zeidenberg said.

Asked how the government made such a mistake, Zeidenberg said he didn't know.

The U.S. attorney's office in Philadelphia declined to comment on the four-page motion the office filed seeking to drop four counts of wire fraud against Dr Xi.

The motion still must be approved by U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick.

Xi, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China, was chairman of Temple's physics department until his arrest. He voluntarily stepped down as chairman and remains a faculty member.

He and his lawyer, Peter Zeidenberg gave a presentation on August 21 to investigators that included affidavits from world-renowned physicists and experts who looked at the emails between Xi and contacts in China.

They explained that he was involved in a scientific pursuit that had a very narrow commercial application and did not involve restricted technology, Zeidenberg said.

'We're very relieved that the charges against my father were dropped,' his daughter, Joyce Xi, said by telephone from the family's home in the Philadelphia suburbs. 'It's been a very difficult time for our family and we're looking forward to regaining some normalcy in our lives.'

Federal prosecutors want the opportunity to confer with their own outside experts and have reserved the right to bring charges again, Zeidenberg said.

'We have no reason to think that that's going to happen,' he said.

Original report here


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Political blundering and corruption in Britain puts Marine in jail

Military chiefs are plotting to cover up a damning report that could help free a Royal Marine jailed for murder.

Evidence casting doubt on Sergeant Alexander Blackman’s conviction for killing a Taliban insurgent is to be ‘swept under the carpet’, the Mail can reveal.

His fight for justice was boosted by a huge wave of public support yesterday after we revealed that crucial facts were deliberately withheld from his court martial in 2013. The Mail has already reported that:

*    The Afghan fighter that Blackman shot had been mortally wounded;

*    Two of his comrades had been blown up, a third tortured and the limbs of mutilated soldiers hung from a tree by the Taliban;

*    His commanding officer resigned in disgust at his treatment.

And yesterday it also emerged that:

*    The jury trying Blackman was split 5-2 and put under pressure to convict;

*    Some were desk-job sailors without experience of battle;

*   The defence team blundered by failing to fight for a manslaughter conviction;

*   The Royal Navy is plotting a ‘media strategy’ to hush up findings of failures by senior commanders;

*    Retired military chiefs including Lord Dannatt called for the case to be re-examined.

Last night Blackman’s wife Claire said she was overwhelmed by the response from the public so far, and immensely proud of her husband, who had been made to ‘pay terribly for one mistake in the heat of battle’.

She added: ‘This was war. This man would gladly have tortured my husband before killing him if the roles had been reversed.’

Supporters say the veteran commando – believed to be the only British serviceman ever convicted of murder on the battlefield – was made a scapegoat for failings by top brass.

The Mail has discovered that an inquiry, commissioned after the murder conviction for wider lessons to be learnt from the incident, was given a disturbing insight into failings by Blackman’s superiors that directly contributed to his state of mind at the time of the shooting.

But instead of making these failings public, the Ministry of Defence is planning to absolve itself of all responsibility and heap further blame on Blackman, a secret letter seen by this newspaper suggests.

Last night Frederick Forsyth, the author spearheading the campaign for justice for Blackman, said: ‘It is disgraceful that navy top brass plan to sweep under the carpet evidence which could help Sgt Blackman.

‘He and his men were abandoned in an Afghan hell on earth until they were dangerously exhausted – a grenade with the pin out.

‘Now the sergeant has been left to rot in jail while the brass pretend they have never heard of him.’

The campaign aims to fund a new legal appeal to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which has the power to send his case back to the Courts Martial Appeal Court where his murder conviction could be reduced to manslaughter.

Within hours of the campaign being launched yesterday, more than a thousand people had sent messages of support.

Many also donated money online to fund the Blackmans’ legal appeal, with one person even hand-delivering a £50 cheque to the Mail’s office in London.

Backers from all over the world vowed to help the jailed serviceman clear his name, including hundreds of veterans and professionals from all walks of life.

By September 15, 2011, when Blackman shot the insurgent his troop had already become ‘psychologically defeated’, according to an official assessment.

The Mail’s investigation has uncovered the truth behind the ‘tour that broke J-Company’. Alleged chain of command failings, unheeded warnings, under-manning and equipment shortages put unimaginable pressure on the Royal Marines manning the front line.

The isolated troops were forced to pursue Downing Street’s ‘hearts and minds’ strategy – while the Taliban were taunting them by displaying the body parts of their mutilated comrades in a tree.

Yesterday Lord Dannatt, former head of the British Army, rejected Blackman’s claim that his conviction for murder was part of a ‘hearts and minds’ campaign to win over Afghan opinion and ‘show the world how politically correct we are’.

But he said that ‘if there is new information it should be put on the table and the case should be opened up’.

Major General Julian Thompson, who led the Marines in the Falklands, said: ‘I have thought from the very beginning that the case should be reopened. I have always believed that the sentence was far too stiff.’

Tory MP Adam Holloway, a former Captain in the Grenadier Guards who fought in the First Gulf War, said: ‘I have known [the colonel who resigned] Ollie Lee well for 20 years and what he’s saying must be correct. The case should be reopened.’

Original report here


(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress.  If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where  posts  appear as well as on  the primary site.  I have reposted  the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts  HERE or HERE or here

James Blake demands an apology from cop who body-slammed him to the ground as NYPD commissioner admits 'it should not have happened'

OF COURSE the assault was racially motivated.  Blacks are so often un-co-operative with the cops that the cops go in hard from the get-go

New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has apologized for the mistaken arrest of retired tennis star James Blake, but has quashed allegations that the athlete's race had anything to do with the incident.

Blake, 35, was waiting for a car to pick him up to attend events at the U.S. Open on Wednesday when he was tackled by a cop who mistook him for a suspect in an identity theft case. He claims it took police 15 minutes to realize they had nabbed the wrong man.

Usually a fierce defender of his officers, Bratton broke character on Thursday and was quick to offer an apology to Blake.  'We are very interested in speaking with Mr. Blake... to extend our apology. It should not have happened,' Bratton said, according to NBC News.

He explained that the man officers were looking for could be the 'twin brother' of Blake, but that the way Blake described being 'body-slammed' to the ground is 'very disturbing' and not the way officers are trained to behave. The officer who first arrested Blake has been put on modified duty while the department conducts an internal investigation, Bratton said.

At the same time, Bratton shut down questions that the rough arrest had anything to do with Blake's African-American ethnicity.

'Sorry, race has nothing at all to do with this,' Bratton said. 'If you look at the photograph of the suspect it looks like the twin brother of Mr. Blake.'  'So let's put that nonsense to rest right now, race has nothing to do with this. We have a witness who identified Mr. Blake as an individual that he had sold a phone to and had been given a false credit card,' he said.

Bratton added that he wants to apologize to Blake, but has been unable to contact him at his hotel. He not only wants to say sorry, but says officers need to interview Blake to get his version of events for the official record.

That counters claims Blake made earlier in the morning, when he appeared on Good Morning America. Blake said he still hadn't received an apology from the NYPD despite many reporters being able to track down his contact information.

Blake says while he initially didn't want to talk publicly about the arrest, he changed his mind after talking to his wife.

'She said, "What if this happened to me?" Blake recalled to GMA. 'Immediately, I was furious because I thought about what I would be thinking if someone did that to my wife, if someone tackled her in broad daylight, paraded her around in a busy, crowded sidewalk in New York City with handcuffs with her cuffed behind her back, and taking away her dignity.'

Following the incident, Blake told his version of events to the New York Daily News and said that there was 'probably a race factor'  in his arrest.  But on GMA Thursday morning, Blake backtracked those comments, saying he believes the issue is the force cops used when they arrested him.  'This was a case of excessive force, you’re not making it about racial profiling,' Roberts asked him.  'No,' Blake responded.

Following the incident on Wednesday, Blake said he chose to share his story because there are so many other victims of police assault that do not have a public platform.

'It's hard to believe this can still be happening,' he told the Daily News. 'It was definitely scary and definitely crazy.'

Blake told the tabloid that he had just finished up an interview with a tennis reporter Wednesday morning when he went outside the Grand Hyatt  to catch a car to Flushing Meadows.

He says he was texting when he looked up from his phone and noticed a white man in shorts and a t-shirt begin to charge at him. But at first, he didn't think there was a cause for concern.

'Maybe I'm naïve, but I just assumed it was someone I went to high school with or something who was running at me to give me a big hug, so I smiled at the guy,' Blake told the Daily News.

For his politeness, Blake was rewarded with a tackle to the ground. Once the undercover cop was on top of him on the sidewalk, he was told: 'don't say a word'.

Blake then told the officer that he was going to cooperate but wanted to know what the issue was. The officer, who was not wearing a badge, promised to tell Blake and added that he is in 'safe hands'.

'I don't feel very safe,' Blake allegedly said.

Eventually a group of five police officers, all of whom were white, gathered around to make the arrest. Blake says he gave them his ID and U.S. Open pass and says he waited handcuffed for 15 minutes until they figured out that they had made a mistake.

A cooperating witness had allegedly misidentified Blake as a man who had been involved in an identify theft ring operating out of the hotel.

After he was finally released, Blake says that the officer who pushed him to the ground didn't even say sorry. He says he suffered a cut to his left elbow and bruises to his left leg in the accidental arrest. After the arrest, he went to the U.S. Open as planned.

Following the incident, an NYPD spokesman issued a statement to Daily Mail Online, saying: 'Today James Blake was detained by police in midtown Manhattan in regards to an ongoing investigation into fraudulently purchased cell phones, after being misidentified by a cooperating witness.

Once Blake was properly identified and found to have no connection to the investigation, he was released from police custody immediately. In regards to the alleged improper use of force, the Police Commissioner directed the internal affairs bureau to investigate.'

Blake was born in Yonkers, New York and was raised in both New York and Connecticut and attended Harvard before dropping out after his sophomore year to turn professional.

He played professionally from 2001 until 2013, and was ranked the fourth best player in the world in 2006. He retired from the sport in August 2013 and now lives in San Diego with his wife and their two daughters.

Last week he announced he would be running in the New York City marathon to raise money for cancer research.

Original report here



(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress.  If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where  posts  appear as well as on  the primary site.  I have reposted  the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts  HERE or HERE or here

Australia: Gold Coast police brutality: Three cases in two weeks

The Gold Coast cops have had a bad reputation for a long time.  Yet nothing seems to have been done.  What does it take?

A SHOCKING new video has emerged of the moments before a Brisbane Justice of the Peace was brutally assaulted by Gold Coast police.

The Courier-Mail last week revealed CCTV footage of 50-year-old grandfather Ray Currier attacked by police after his colleague was arrested outside a Surfers Paradise nightclub.

The latest video taken on a smartphone by a member of the public and obtained by The Courier-Mail, shows a new perspective that was previously hidden from the view of Gold Coast CCTV cameras.

The three-minute video shows Mr Currier attempting to draw his friends away from the scene where their colleague had just been arrested.

At no point does Mr Currier attack or provoke the group of police officers outside the Surfers Paradise nightclub yet seconds later he is approached by a police officer and punched several times in the head and stomach.

The video also appears to show the officers grab Mr Currier around the throat before pushing him head first into the ground.

Mr Currier’s colleagues made an official complaint to the police the day after the incident but were allegedly told nothing could be done.

A police spokesman told The Courier-Mail the most recent video had been reviewed by senior police from the Gold Coast district and an official complaint had been made to the Ethical Standards Command.

Kris Currier said a family who were visiting the Gold Coast witnessed the attack from their balcony and sent her the footage after reading about her husband’s story in The Courier-Mail.

“I am so grateful this family has come forward and provided us with this footage ... our solicitor now has a very clear picture of what really took place that night,” Mrs Currier said.  “I started crying knowing that Ray could be so brutally bashed by a police officer.”

The disturbing footage has gone viral and the hashtag #Justiceforray has been created to support Mr Currier.

Since the attack on Australia Day, Mr Currier has suffered memory loss, headaches, neck pain and anxiety and his wife said she wants justice for her husband.

“We are hoping that the police officers and staff involved are now investigated and charged with assault,” Mrs Currier said.  “For Ray, I hope he gets the justice he deserves.”

Another incident

THERE are fresh claims of police brutality on the Gold Coast with shocking new video appearing to show an officer punching a handcuffed prisoner in the head.

The Courier-Mail has obtained CCTV footage of officers kneeing a 20-year-old man before one later punches him in the face in Surfers Paradise last year.

The incident is now the subject of an internal investigation and is the third caught on camera recently involving Gold Coast Police.

It is understood the officer who allegedly threw the punch has since left the Queensland Police Service.

The victim, electrical trade assistant Brayden Aaron Mechen, had been charged with serious assault over the incident and was due to face a court hearing at Southport yesterday, but all charges against him were dropped on the morning of the case.

According to court documents, Mr Mechen spat at an officer who then hit the young man in the face. However, that allegation was later withdrawn and Mr Mechen maintains he did nothing wrong.

Video shows police responding to an altercation involving one of Mr Mechen’s friends in Surfers on September 28 last year. Mr Mechen is not involved in the initial altercation, but touches an officer on the shoulder before he is set upon.

Later footage shows his head rock back after a punch before he is bundled into the back of a police wagon.

Queensland Police Union President Ian Leavers said the charges were only withdrawn due to a technicality.

Mr Mechen, who described the ordeal as the most terrifying of his life, denies any wrongdoing and has not ruled out civil action against the QPS.

It is the third instance in the past fortnight of video purportedly showing violence by officers on the Gold Coast.

The first case

One video shows a prisoner being head-slammed at Surfers Paradise police station. That man, Michael Cox, is suing the QPS for more than $100,000.  More on that here.

Original report here


(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress.  If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where  posts  appear as well as on  the primary site.  I have reposted  the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts  HERE or HERE or here