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Lost and helpless in a foreign country, Abu Omar* was grateful to be given a place to stay in a hotel after arriving in the UK last year.After fleeing a refugee camp in Jordan, he and his young family were offered a room in a London hotel, which had been designated for asylum seekers by the goverment.Abu and his wife Sarah* live there with their two young children, packed together into a tired and bleak single room. Living day to day inside the four walls, they survive on a diet of bread, cheese and fruit. They said they decided to stop eating the hotel food after their children, a daughter aged 4 and a son aged 6, both contracted food poisoning from uncooked chicken served there. Abu had little with him when he arrived in Britain and, after his pair of trousers got torn, he was left with only one outfit – the tracksuit he had arrived in.Once a week, Sarah would hand-wash his tracksuit in the sink of their hotel room. With nothing else to wear, he would remain there for a day or two in his underwear until his clothes had dried.St George’s flag hung outside of a Home Office hotel More

Reform MP Lee Anderson has admitted to previously “gaming the system” to help people secure benefits. The Ashfield MP made the revelation during a press conference, explaining his past role at the Citizens Advice Bureau before entering politics.“Before I came into politics, I worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau,” he said. “We used to fill the form out for clients … I can tell you now, we were gaming the system.” Mr Anderson described the process as “a competition” between the adviser and the Department for Work and Pensions.He said he knew advisers at the organisation who had “a 100 per cent hit rate” on benefits forms and could get “the fittest man in Ashfield” onto the personal independence payment (PIP).The Ashfield MP told a press conference that he worked at the Citizens Advice Bureau before entering politics More

Another prisoner could be mistakenly freed from jail again if the government does not undertake a “systematic” inquiry into how a migrant sex offender was wrongly released, criminal justice experts have warned. Hadush Kebatu, who was jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford on Friday in an error that has sparked widespread condemnation. A prison officer has been suspended while a probe takes place, with the government set to announce an independent inquiry.Experts have now claimed that mistakes in the release of inmates happens “all the time” and is symptomatic of the chaos within the prison system, which has suffered from overcrowding, lack of investment, poor staff retention and delayed government decision-making. Richard Gareside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, told The Independent: “People need to be held accountable for mistakes, but the underlying context is that this is a prison system in crisis.“If they [the government] don’t do a systematic look at what’s gone wrong, then I suspect it won’t be long before we have another of these kinds of incidents.”Kebatu was arrested on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park after a two-day manhunt More

The accidental release of a migrant sex offender from prison is a sign that the UK justice system is “broken”, a minister has said.Steve Reed called for the criminal justice system to be “rebuilt from the bottom up” after the mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu, who was imprisoned for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.The Ethiopian national was jailed for 12 months in September for the offence, and was wrongly freed from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre, in an incident that sparked widespread condemnation.Speaking to Sky News on Monday, the housing secretary said: “This individual had no right to be in the country in the first place, let alone committing the kind of offences that he committed.“I’m sure everybody else watching was just as shocked when they saw this individual had been released accidentally. It wasn’t that he made an escape bid: he was released in a way that should not have happened. Now, that is a sign, isn’t it, of a broken criminal justice system.”Hadush Kebatu was arrested on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park after a two-day manhunt More

Rapid rent rises combined with frozen housing benefits are set to push more people into crisis if Labour does not act, a damning new report has warned.The affordability gap between rental prices and support for low-income tenants is set to reach a record 17 per cent next year, findings from the influential Resolution Foundation show. This represents an average shortfall of £104 a month – or just over £1,200 a year – as households are forced to face rising debt or homelessness.Without action the figure will reach 25 per cent by 2029-2030, the think tank adds, meaning an average shortfall of £180 a month.Local housing allowance, which sets housing benefit rates, has been frozen by the Labour government until at least 2026, following a brief unfreeze in April 2024. This is the formula that sets how much funding the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will give each council to administer housing benefit, uprating it to cover at least the cheapest 30 per cent of rents in the area that year.The funding gap for housing benefit is most stark in London, a new report shows More

France may reverse its pledge to forcefully turn back small boats in the Channel, according to reports, in a blow to Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to stem the number of migrants arriving in the UK. France is backing away from the commitment amid political turmoil in the French government, according to sources who have spoken to the BBC.Then-home secretary Yvette Cooper said in April that she had “persuaded France to change its rules”, with the French agreeing to intervene once migrants are in the water to stop the crossings. Previously, French police had not taken active steps against migrants once they were in the water due to the danger to life. Ms Cooper promised in April that the changes would come in “over the next few months”, and French police officers were filmed by media in July wading into shallow waters and using knives to slash an inflatable small boat. Now sources have told the BBC that the plan to intercept the dinghies has halted. One figure linked to French maritime security said it was “just a political stunt”. Migrants try to board smugglers’ boats in an attempt to cross the English Channel off the beach of Gravelines, northern France, in September More

Pressure is mounting on Prince Andrew to give up his Windsor mansion and “take himself off to live in private” as a group of MPs urges the government to formally strip him of his dukedom. Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said the public is “sick” of the disgraced royal, after it emerged he had paid only a peppercorn rent on his 30-room mansion for more than 20 years. Andrew announced he will give up use of his royal titles amid renewed focus on his links to Jeffrey Epstein. The prince vehemently denies the allegations that Virginia Giuffre, whose posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl was officially published on Tuesday, was forced to have sex with him three times after being trafficked by the billionaire financier.“He’s embarrassed the royal family time and again,” Mr Jenrick said, adding that Andrew has behaved “disgracefully”. “He should really now leave public life forever, stop having any subsidy from the taxpayer whatsoever and go and lead an entirely private life. The public are sick of Prince Andrew and the damage that he’s done to the reputation of our royal family and this country.” Activists from the anti-monarchy group Republic protest on Tuesday at the gates to Royal Lodge where Prince Andrew lives More

British troops will be given new powers to shoot down drones threatening UK and US military bases with plans to extend them to protecting airports.Defence secretary John Healey is set to unveil his vision on how to protect Britain’s most critical military bases in response to a growing threat posed by Russia today in his Mansion House speech.Although the new powers will initially apply only to military sites, the government was “not ruling out working to extend those powers” to other important sites like airports, the Telegraph said, citing a source.Currently, troops can use specialist counter-drone equipment, which can track incoming drones, hijack signals, and divert them.The new proposal will give soldiers or Ministry of Defence Police a “kinetic option” to shoot them on site, which they can only do now in extreme circumstances.Defence Secretary John Healey More