'Cut police pensions' to punish misconduct, MPs say

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Police officers who commit serious misconduct should have their pensions docked, a group of MPs has said.

The Home Affairs Select Committee also called for a new code of ethics for all officers in England and Wales.

Its report comes after the "plebgate" affair and a series of allegations about the conduct of undercover police.

The Police Federation said integrity in policing was "paramount", but it was yet to be convinced a new code of ethics would make a difference.

The committee said there were currently at least eight investigations under way as a result of police failings, which had so far cost £23m.

And last week, it was alleged that undercover Metropolitan Police officers attempted to smear the family of Stephen Lawrence in the wake of his murder.

'Nose clean'

The MPs recommended that the recently-formed professional standards body, the College of Policing, should "establish a scale of fines which should be docked from officers' pensions in cases of the most grave misconduct".

One officer told the committee that colleagues tempted to commit wrongdoing often weighed up what they stood to lose and their pension was seen as a big financial incentive to "keep your nose clean".

But the committee said it had learned of numerous cases where police officers facing corruption allegations had retired to avoid disciplinary proceedings and had suffered no financial penalty.

It cited the example of Sir Norman Bettison, former chief constable of West Yorkshire, who stepped down while facing a disciplinary investigation for gross misconduct charges relating to the Hillsborough disaster.

The report said there was currently no way to prevent such resignations, although the government is planning to change the system so that all disciplinary hearings will be taken to their conclusions even if the officer in question resigns or retires.

The committee also recommended that the College of Policing introduce a new code of ethics, and require all new officers to obtain a Certificate in Knowledge of Policing.

Labour MP and committee chairman Keith Vaz said: "Broken systems of accountability and a patchwork of police standards and training, have allowed a minority of officers to get away with corruption and incompetence which is blighting an otherwise excellent service with dedicated officers."

He added: "The days of Dixon of Dock Green are over. The new landscape of policing requires a new type of police officer ready to meet the new challenges."

'Highest standards'

A Home Office spokeswoman said the government had already announced "a package of integrity measures to tackle misconduct and promote transparency and a more open culture in the police".

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“Start Quote

There will be considerable cost in creating yet another discipline body within the College of Policing”

SpokeswomanPolice Federation

"Under these measures, the College of Policing will publish a new code of ethics and create a single set of professional standards."

From April this year, all regular recruits to the Met Police are required to achieve the Certificate of Knowledge of Policing, which covers skills like dealing with victims and witnesses, and arresting and interviewing suspects.

College of Policing chief executive Chief Constable Alex Marshall said it was working with forces to encourage a wider roll-out of that requirement.

A spokeswoman for the Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents rank-and-file officers, said it remained to be convinced "that creating a new code of ethics would be any more effective than that which already exists and one that we believe already demands the highest standards of each and every police officer".

"Further, there will be considerable cost in creating yet another discipline body within the College of Policing, along with forces themselves, the IPCC and the HMIC."

She added: "Integrity in policing is paramount, but knee-jerk reactions to historic cases and those involving an extremely small minority of the 134,000 officers who police this country with absolute commitment should not dictate future policy making."

The MPs' report also recommends that all forces publish details of misconduct hearings and their outcomes on their websites - a practice recently introduced by Scotland Yard.

And it calls for Home Office plans for a chief constables' register of interests - and a register of dismissed officers - to be implemented immediately.

Among the eight ongoing investigations currently being held into alleged police failings are Operation Alice - concerning the plebgate affair involving former minister Andrew Mitchell - and Operation Elveden, into alleged corrupt payments between police officers and journalists.

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Taliban 'should join Afghanistan peace process'

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David Cameron and Hamid Karzai urge the Taliban to come forward for peace talks

The Taliban should engage in the political process if they want a role in Afghanistan's future, British Prime Minister David Cameron has said.

Speaking in the country during a one-day visit to UK troops, he said he wanted to see a political as well as a security solution to the conflict.

He said the Taliban must know they need to give up their arms.

But he emphasised that the peace process "must be Afghan-owned; it must be Afghan-led".

At a joint press conference in Kabul with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Mr Cameron stressed that the country's future was in the hands of the Afghan people."I believe that the Taliban, watching all this progress, are beginning to realise that they are not going to secure a role in Afghanistan's future through terror and violence but by giving up their arms and engaging in a political process.

"But let me make absolutely clear this peace process is for Afghanistan to determine.

"It must be Afghan-owned; it must be Afghan-led. There is no other agenda that Britain has, that America has, that any country in the West has - no other agenda other than your stability, your security and your prosperity, that is why we wish this peace process well, but it must be your peace process, not anybody else's."

President Karzai said violent attacks by Taliban, like the one on the presidential palace several days ago, would not deter Afghans from seeking peace.

"We have had them killing the Afghan people but we still ask for peace. This was peanuts, comparatively speaking. Quite an irrelevant attack.

"We are more concerned when they attack the Afghan civilians; we are more concerned when they attack Afghan schools and children. I wish they would spend all their time attacking the presidential palace and leave the rest of the country alone."

The incident came just days after representatives of the Taliban opened an office in Qatar's capital, ostensibly for starting negotiations about a peace process. The US also announced it would begin formal talks to be followed by the direct Afghan talks.

Tactical hindsight

Mr Cameron spoke after comments came the most senior British soldier in Afghanistan, Gen Nick Carter, said the Taliban should have been invited to the negotiating table in 2002, soon after they were removed from power.

Gen Carter told the Guardian it would have been easier to find a political solution when the Taliban were "on the run" in 2002.

"I think that at that stage, if we had been very prescient, we might have spotted that a final political solution to what started in 2001, from our perspective, would have involved getting all Afghans to sit at the table and talk about their future.

"The problems that we have been encountering over the period since then are essentially political problems, and political problems are only ever solved by people talking to each other."

Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff said, on Saturday, that it was easy to make comments with hindsight.

"I think to say 'did we miss a trick' will be for the historians to judge.

"The fact is... the military has been there deployed in their request as part of the International Security Assistance Force for over a decade, as part of a UN and a Nato mandate, and with many other nations we have set the conditions for politics to play a part.

"And so really I think the general's remarks are in the context of politics now playing a part in the future of Afghanistan."

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West should have talked to Taliban - British general

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The West should have tried talking to the Taliban a decade ago after they had just been toppled from power, the UK's top general in Afghanistan has said.

Gen Nick Carter said it would have been much easier to find a political solution when they were on the run.

His comments in the Guardian come days after attempts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table stalled.

Gen Carter also warned Afghan forces would need military and financial support after troops leave in 2014.

The Kabul government would have only shaky control over some areas, he said.

Negotiation attempts

A major conference on the future of Afghanistan held in Bonn, Germany, over a decade ago did not include the defeated Taliban former government of Afghanistan.

Gen Carter, deputy commander of the Nato-led coalition, acknowledged it was easy to be wise with the benefit of hindsight but added: "Back in 2002, the Taliban were on the run.

"I think that at that stage, if we had been very prescient, we might have spotted that a final political solution to what started in 2001, from our perspective, would have involved getting all Afghans to sit at the table and talk about their future.

"The problems that we have been encountering over the period since then are essentially political problems, and political problems are only ever solved by people talking to each other."

Last week, US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed caution over whether peace talks on Afghanistan with the Taliban could take place.

A row over the status of a Taliban office in Qatar's capital Doha has overshadowed efforts to start peace negotiations there.

BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said the row had simply underlined the diplomatic and practical difficulties that remained for anyone wishing to talk to the Taliban.

Gradual withdrawal

Gen Carter said he was confident that Nato's handover of security to Afghan forces would eventually bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

He said that overall the police and army had been shaped into sustainable institutions strong enough to protect a critical presidential election next year and guarantee stability for the majority of the country after Western forces withdrew.

However, he added that the Afghan army and police would still need help in the years to come because they had been built up very quickly.

However, he expressed optimism about Afghanistan's future as long as the US and its allies came through on promises of financial and military support.

Some 8,000 British troops are still serving in Afghanistan, around half of them at Camp Bastion in Helmand province, ­many of them still mentoring or advising Afghan forces.

Until last year, the UK had 137 bases in Helmand but the gradual withdrawal ahead of the end of combat operations by 2015 means the mission is gradually changing with just 13 bases still operating

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UK government backs three-person IVF

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The UK looks set to become the first country to allow the creation of babies using DNA from three people, after the government backed the IVF technique.

It will produce draft regulations later this year and the procedure could be offered within two years.

Experts say three-person IVF could eliminate debilitating and potentially fatal mitochondrial diseases that are passed on from mother to child.

Opponents say it is unethical and could set the UK on a "slippery slope".

They also argue that affected couples could adopt or use egg donors instead.

Mitochondria are the tiny, biological "power stations" that give the body energy. They are passed from a mother, through the egg, to her child.

Defective mitochondria affect one in every 6,500 babies. It can leave them starved of energy, resulting in muscle weakness, blindness, heart failure and death in the most extreme cases.

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The woman who lost all her children

Every time Sharon Bernardi became pregnant, she hoped for a healthy child.

But all seven of her children died from a rare genetic disease that affects the central nervous system - three of them just hours after birth.

When her fourth child, Edward, was born, doctors discovered the disease was caused by a defect in Sharon's mitochondria.

Edward was given drugs and blood transfusions to prevent the lactic acidosis (a kind of blood poisoning) that had killed his siblings.

Five weeks later Sharon and her husband, Neil, were allowed to take Edward to their home in Sunderland for Christmas - but his health slowly began to deteriorate.

Edward survived into adulthood, dying in 2011 at the age of 21.

Now Sharon is supporting medical research that would allow defective mitochondria to be replaced by DNA from another woman.

Research suggests that using mitochondria from a donor egg can prevent the diseases.

It is envisaged that up to 10 couples a year would benefit from the treatment.

However, it would result in babies having DNA from two parents and a tiny amount from a third donor as the mitochondria themselves have their own DNA.

'Clearly sensitive'

Earlier this year, a public consultation by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) concluded there was "general support" for the idea and that there was no evidence that the advanced form of IVF was unsafe.

The chief medical officer for England, Prof Dame Sally Davies, said: "Scientists have developed ground-breaking new procedures which could stop these disease being passed on, bringing hope to many families seeking to prevent their future children inheriting them.

"It's only right that we look to introduce this life-saving treatment as soon as we can."

She said there were "clearly some sensitive issues here" but said she was "personally very comfortable" with altering mitochondria.

Scientists have devised two techniques that allow them to take the genetic information from the mother and place it into the egg of a donor with healthy mitochondria.

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1) Two eggs are fertilised with sperm, creating an embryo from the intended parents and another from the donors 2) The pronuclei, which contain genetic information, are removed from both embryos but only the parents' is kept 3) A healthy embryo is created by adding the parents' pronuclei to the donor embryo, which is finally implanted into the womb

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The result is a baby with genetic information from three people.

They would have more than 20,000 genes from their parents and 37 mitochondrial genes from a donor.

It is a change that would have ramifications through the generations as scientists would be altering human genetic inheritance.

Objections to the procedure have been raised ever since it was first mooted.

Dr David King, the director of Human Genetics Alert, said: "These techniques are unnecessary and unsafe and were in fact rejected by the majority of consultation responses.

'Designer baby'

"It is a disaster that the decision to cross the line that will eventually lead to a eugenic designer baby market should be taken on the basis of an utterly biased and inadequate consultation."

One of the main concerns raised in the HFEA's public consultation was of a "slippery slope" which could lead to other forms of genetic modification.

Draft regulations will be produced this year with a final version expected to be debated and voted on in Parliament during 2014.

Newcastle University is pioneering one of the techniques that could be used for three-person IVF.

Prof Doug Turnbull, the director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research at the university, said he was "delighted".

He said: "This is excellent news for families with mitochondrial disease.

"This will give women who carry these diseased genes more reproductive choice and the opportunity to have children free of mitochondrial disease. I am very grateful to all those who have supported this work."

The fine details of the regulations are still uncertain, yet it is expected to be for only the most severe cases.

It is also likely that children would have no right to know who the egg donor was and that any children resulting from the procedure would be monitored closely for the rest of their lives.

Sir John Tooke, the president of the Academy of Medical Sciences, said: "Introducing regulations now will ensure that there is no avoidable delay in these treatments reaching affected families once there is sufficient evidence of safety and efficacy.

"It is also a positive step towards ensuring the UK remains at the forefront of cutting-edge research in this area."

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Family die in 'murder-suicide' on Spain's Costa del Sol

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Police sealed off the scene in Mijas in the Costa del Sol

A family has been found dead following a suspected murder-suicide in Spain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mother and daughter were found in the bedroom of an apartment in Mijas, on the Costa Del Sol, and the husband's body was in another room, police said.
The women both held Irish passports, the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin told the BBC. Reports suggest the father was British.
The couple, in their 50s, and daughter, in her late 20s and understood to have had a disability, were living in Spain.
Earlier reports from the Press Association news agency (PA) quoted police as saying all three were British, but the Spanish authorities had been unable to confirm this to the BBC.

 

 

Police's "initial hypothesis" was that the deaths were a murder-suicide, PA reported.
The Irish department of Foreign Affairs said it was liaising with Spanish police and was also trying to contact the dead women's relatives.
The UK Foreign Office said it was also aware of the deaths, was liaising closely with the local police and was "ready to provide consular assistance".
Spain's Guardia Civil said the flat was rented and the landlord had raised the alarm.
"The latest information we have is that the owner of the house had not heard from the family for a few days and had not been paid," a police spokeswoman said.
'Popular resort' "He went to the house [on Wednesday] and when there was no reply at the door, he went inside. Inside he saw the man dead on the sofa and immediately called the Guardia Civil.
"When officers inspected the house, they found the wife and the daughter dead in a bedroom."
An official with Spain's Interior Ministry said the family had lived for a long time in Mijas, which is a popular resort, inland from the Andalusian coast.
Reports quoting neighbours suggest the man was British and that they had heard three shots in the area several days ago.
The bodies have been removed and the building is cordoned off.
The identities of the dead will be released after post-mortem examinations have been carried out.

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Stephen Lawrence's mother to meet May amid 'smear' claims

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Home Secretary Theresa May is to meet the mother of Stephen Lawrence, amid claims police tried to "smear" the family in the wake of his 1993 murder.

It is thought Mrs May will seek to reassure Doreen Lawrence that the two existing inquiries examining the claims will be objective and thorough.

Human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield will also attend on Thursday to ask for a judge-led inquiry into the claims.

Scotland Yard is also looking into claims Stephen's friend was bugged.

'Shocked and angry'

Black teenager Stephen Lawrence was killed in a racist attack as he waited for a bus in Eltham, south London, in April 1993.

It was more than 18 years before Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of his murder by an Old Bailey jury, after a review of the forensic evidence, despite them having been identified as suspects at the time.

A public inquiry in 1998 accused the Metropolitan Police of institutional racism and found failings in how they had investigated the murder.

Stephen's family had campaigned for 20 years for his killers to be brought to justice.

Mrs Lawrence said the allegations that an undercover police officer had been ordered to infiltrate the family's campaign had topped everything she had heard since her son's murder, and she was shocked and angry.

Mrs May announced on Monday that the claims would be investigated by two existing inquiries, those of:

• Barrister Mark Ellison QC, who is examining police corruption during the original investigation into the killing
• Operation Herne, an investigation into undercover policing at the Met, led by the chief constable of Derbyshire Police, Mick Creedon, and partly overseen by the police watchdog

The private meeting between Mrs Lawrence and the home secretary is understood to have been suggested by Mrs May, who has met Stephen's mother several times before.

Mr Mansfield, who has previously represented the Lawrence family, told BBC Radio 5 live he would attend the meeting, and said that there needed to be a public inquiry into the police's "institutionalised deceit".

Stephen Lawrence was killed at a bus stop in south-east London in 1993

Stephen's father Neville has previously said "nothing short of a judge-led public inquiry will suffice".

The meeting comes following fresh claims on Tuesday that Duwayne Brooks, who was with 18-year-old Stephen at the time of the murder, had been targeted by police.

The BBC learned that the Met secretly recorded its officers' meetings with Mr Brooks, his lawyer, and a detective at the solicitor's office.

They were unaware the meetings were being recorded.

Scotland Yard's directorate of professional standards is looking into the claims.

'Domestic extremists'

Meanwhile, the newspaper that broke the story of the alleged smear campaign and subsequent allegations that undercover officers from Scotland Yard had spied on critics of police corruption, has made fresh claims.

The Guardian reported on Wednesday that a national police unit that uses undercover officers to spy on political groups is currently monitoring thousands of people it has deemed "domestic extremists".

A total of 8,931 individuals "have their own record" on a database kept by the National Domestic Extremism Unit, for which the Met Police is the lead force, it reported.

The details were disclosed to the newspaper following a freedom of information request.

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Moors murderer Ian Brady to address mental health tribunal

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Moors Murderer Ian Brady is expected to speak publicly later, as a tribunal over his mental health draws to an end.

It would be the first time he has spoken publicly for nearly 50 years.

The 75-year-old argues he is no longer mentally ill and should be moved from a high-security hospital to prison.

Brady, along with his accomplice Myra Hindley, tortured and murdered five children aged from 10 to 17, burying some of their victims' bodies on Saddleworth Moor in the Peak District.

The last time Brady was heard in public was in 1966 at Chester Assizes, where he denied the murders.

He was eventually found guilty of three and jailed for life. He and Hindley later confessed to the other two. Hindley died in prison in 2002, aged 60.

Brady has been held in Ashworth Hospital, a high-security psychiatric hospital in Maghull, Merseyside, since 1985.

'Makes toast'

Brady's legal team say he has a severe personality disorder but is not mentally ill and could be treated in prison rather than hospital.

But staff at Ashworth say he remains a paranoid schizophrenic who should stay at the hospital.

His reasons for wanting to return to prison remain unclear, although it is thought he might try to starve himself to death in prison.

He has been on hunger strike since 1999 but doctors at Ashworth can force-feed Brady through a tube in his nose under mental health law.

On Monday, a nurse told the tribunal that, despite his hunger strike, Brady often took the food made available to him, and he "makes himself toast every morning".

The serial killer looks likely to be the final witness at the tribunal, which is sitting at Ashworth Hospital and will be relayed to the press and public on TV screens at Manchester Civil Justice Centre.

The judgement of the panel will be released at a later date yet to be fixed

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Police 'spied on' Stephen Lawrence family, says Guardian newspaper

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Peter Francis, who says he says he posed as an anti-racism campaigner, served in the Met's now-disbanded Special Demonstration Squad

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A former undercover police officer says he was ordered to infiltrate the Stephen Lawrence campaign in 1993, the Guardianhas reported.

Peter Francis told the newspaper and Channel 4's Dispatches programme he posed as an anti-racism campaigner in a hunt for "disinformation" to use against those criticising the police.

The aim was to smear the dead teenager's family, he said.

Scotland Yard refused to confirm or deny the account.

But a spokesman said the Metropolitan Police shared the Lawrence family's concerns.

Stephen's mother Doreen said the revelation had topped everything she had heard since her son's murder, and she is shocked and angry.

Riot fears

Mr Francis served in the Met's now-disbanded Special Demonstration Squad, which specialised in gathering intelligence on political activists.

In 1993 he says he was ordered to prepare a cover story which would portray him as an anarchist, but when Stephen was murdered and the Lawrence family began a high-profile campaign for justice, the plan changed. He was to pose as an anti-racism campaigner.

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He says the Metropolitan Police were concerned the reaction to the Lawrence murder might result in rioting similar to that following the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles.

He joined the group Youth Against Racism in Europe which rallied around the Lawrence family as they tried to push for Stephen's killers to be found after a botched police investigation.

He told the Guardian and Dispatches his senior officers put him under pressure for "any intelligence that could have smeared the campaign. Along the lines of: the family were political activists, someone in the family was involved in demonstrations, drug dealers, anything. What they would have done with the intelligence, I can't call it, but that was our remit."

At one point, Mr Francis says he was asked to go through a list of visitors to the Lawrence house to provide information about those in contact with the family.

He also claims to have told Scotland Yard that Stephen's friend, Duwayne Brooks, had been involved in violence during a demonstration against the BNP in Welling.

Mr Brooks was traumatised by his experience of watching Stephen die but following Mr Francis's disclosure, police searched CCTV pictures of the protest and he was arrested. The case was eventually dismissed by a judge.

'Really angry'

Mr Francis, who used the name Peter Black while under cover, says the aim of his operation was to ensure that the public "did not have as much sympathy for the Stephen Lawrence campaign" and to persuade "the media to start maybe tarring the campaign".

Asked what information he produced, he said: "I wasn't successful, no SDS officer was successful, in finding anything really concrete. It was really just a bit of hearsay, tittle-tattle."

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Doreen Lawrence said she was shocked and angry at the disclosure.

"It just makes me really, really angry," she said, "that all of this has been going on and all the time trying to undermine us as a family.

"Somebody sitting somewhere, calculating what, you know, what they'd be doing to look at and infiltrate, our family. It's like, we're treated as if to say we're not human beings.

"We weren't linked to any political groups, you know, we weren't linked to any of them so at the time.

"Nothing can justify the whole thing about trying to discredit the family and people round us."

The Metropolitan Police would not confirm or deny the account given by Mr Francis, but admitted "the claims in relation to Stephen Lawrence's family will bring particular upset to them and we share their concerns".

An independent investigation into a number of allegations against former under cover police officers, codenamed Operation Herne is under way.

In a statement the Met said: "Any actions by officers working on or with the Special Demonstration Squad need to be understood by Operation Herne in terms of the leadership, supervision, support, training, legal framework, tasking and reporting mechanisms that were in place at the time."

But the force gave the same response to allegations that another undercover officer had helped write the leaflets at the centre of the McLibel trial in the mid 1980s.

Doreen Lawrence told the Guardian that the family had been suspicious of police motives at the time

The statement said: "At some point it will fall upon this generation of police leaders to account for the activities of our predecessors, but for the moment we must focus on getting to the truth."

'Morally reprehensible'

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "These are shocking and appalling allegations and we need to know the full truth of what happened.

"An investigation is currently under way into the actions of undercover police officers within the Met.

"However, given the significance of the Lawrence case, and the unresolved concerns about corruption too, the Home Secretary should seek a faster investigation into these specific allegations," she said.

Mr Francis told the Guardian he had come forward because of the "morally reprehensible" way in which under cover officers had sometimes worked.

He is particularly angry his role was never discussed by the Stephen Lawrence public inquiry chaired by Sir William Macpherson. He claims senior officers deliberately chose to withhold the information from the inquiry.

Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager, was killed as he waited for a bus in April 1993.

More than 18 years later, in January 2012, Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of his murder by an Old Bailey jury after a review of the forensic evidence.

Dobson and Norris had first been arrested in connection with the murder just weeks after it happened, but the case against them collapsed.

In 1999, an inquiry chaired by Sir William Macpherson - a retired High Court judge - into the killing and its aftermath published a report accusing the police of institutional racism.

Criticising the police, Sir William said he was "astonished by the lack of direction and organisation during the vital hours after the murder".

The Lawrences had been patronised, treated with "insensitivity and lack of sympathy", and kept in the dark about the investigation, he added.

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