Crime

Palestine Action can proceed with a legal challenge against the government over the group’s ban as a terror organisation, the Court of Appeal has ruled.Founder Huda Ammori took legal action against former home secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to proscribe the group under anti-terror laws.The ban, which began on 5 July, made supporting the direct-action group a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.Around 2,000 protesters have so far been arrested and face possible charges under the Terrorism Act for defying the controversial ban in a series of major demonstrations.Ms Ammori was initially granted permission to launch a judicial review by Mr Justice Chamberlain, after finding that two parts of her case were “reasonably arguable”.However in September, the Home Office brought a challenge against this decision to the Court of Appeal in London.Barristers for the Home Office argued Ms Ammori should bring her legal challenge to the home secretary and then the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), rather than the High Court for a “judicial review”.Nearly 500 people were arrested for supporting Palestine Action in a vigil staged in Trafalgar Square earlier this month More

Sir Keir Starmer has been condemned for his “disgraceful” rhetoric aimed at Reform UK after a party council leader in Warwickshire was reportedly attacked in the street.George Finch, Britain’s youngest council leader, said he was called a “racist” and a “fascist” by a man who allegedly assaulted him in Nuneaton town centre on Friday evening.The 19-year-old, who suffered no lasting injury from the incident, told the Daily Mail that the alleged attacker “was wound up and sent into battle by the dangerous rhetoric of Labour and the Greens”.The incident, which Warwickshire Police are investigating, comes days after Reform leader Nigel Farage accused Sir Keir of inciting violence against him during his speech at the Labour Party conference.During his speech to delegates, Sir Keir had said that the politics of Mr Farage and Reform was “racist” and said anyone who argued that people who have lived here for generations should now be deported is “an enemy of national renewal”.Earlier this month, newly elected Green leader Zack Polanski also criticised Mr Farage’s party, saying its politics were “dangerous, deceitful”.George Finch says the alleged attacker ‘was wound up and sent into battle by the dangerous rhetoric of Labour and the Greens’ More

Stolen mobile phones could soon be permanently disabled in a bid to combat the soaring levels of theft across the UK – but a security expert fears it may not be enough to stop the problem of fraud.Labour MP Dawn Butler is seeking an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, which would require mobile phone companies to block stolen phones within 48 hours of a police report and pay financial penalties if they fail to do so. In theory, this would discourage people from swiping them as they would lose resale value.Ms Butler, who has recently announced she will stand for London mayor if Sadiq Khan stands down, said: “Tech giants have a clear responsibility here: the tools already exist to disable stolen devices, and it’s time to use them.”Dawn Butler, who is tabling the amendment, is the Labour MP for Brent East More

Prisons across the UK were “on the brink of collapse” on three occasions after Rishi Sunak’s last government refused to cut the numbers in jail, an independent review by a former prisons watchdog has revealed.Dame Anne Owers, former chief inspector of prisons, wrote in her 72-page report titled ‘Independent Review of Prison Capacity’ that the overcrowded system was “in crisis” between autumn 2023 and the summer of 2024.At one point, there were fewer than 100 spaces left in adult male prisons, with the network at times “running very close to the edge of capacity” and “within three days of meltdown”, the report said. It remains at nearly 97.5 per capacity, despite Labour’s introduction of several early release schemes.Officials were so anxious about potential breakdowns that they maintained an audit of every decision and document “in case there was a public or parliamentary inquiry”, the report found.Lord chancellor and justice secretary Shabana Mahmood commissioned the prisons review in February More

A Tory MP has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault at London’s Groucho Club.Patrick Spencer, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, allegedly cupped the breasts of two women over their clothes at the famous private members’ club on an evening in August 2023. He has been suspended from the Conservative Party and had the whip withdrawn over the charges. When the charges were made public last month, Mr Spencer “categorically denied” the allegations against him and vowed to defend them “robustly” in court. Mr Spencer is the son of Michael Spencer, a billionaire Conservative peer and founder of finance firm NEX Group.Patrick Spencer is the son of a billionaire Conservative peer Michael Spencer More

Once, when I was a teenager, I was in a Spar in Ballymena when a man walked in and announced he would burn the shop to the ground if it didn’t close immediately. My sister and I did not hesitate. Like everyone else, we believed him – and fled. We had been intending to dash in to the store for just a few minutes to stock up on essentials, amid fears of a long few days ahead of us as rioting broke out across Northern Ireland in the 1990s over Drumcree. So it’s terrifying to watch violence unfold in my hometown again, as we have over recent nights. Violence has erupted in Ballymena More

Whitehall is currently cordoned off while police investigate an abandoned vehicle near Downing Street.The street is closed in both directions between Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square.The Metropolitan Police said in a statement on X, formally Twitter: “A cordon is in place at the southern end of Whitehall as a precautionary measure while officers investigate an abandoned vehicle in the vicinity of Downing Street.”It is understood civil servants working inside government buildings on the road are unable to leave the building, and no one is being allowed to enter.( More

A rape victim has been forced to live just minutes from her attacker – despite assurances from the government that a plan would be put in place before his release to prevent them coming into contact. Christopher Lawson, who was jailed for 16 years in 2017 for the rape and indecent assault of a girl from the age of eight, was released on parole last week after serving half his sentence. As part of the terms of his release, he has been made the subject of an exclusion zone, which prohibits him from going to a particular place or area.Kate Osborne wrote to prisons minister James Timpson to request an ‘urgent review’ of the exclusion zone More