2012 Security Workers Suspended Over Made-Up Bomb Checks

June 22, 2012

Two senior members of London 2012’s security firm have been suspended after reports suggested they didn’t carry out a number of security checks in the Olympic Park. The security workers, whose sniffer dogs were used to search for explosives during the building of the Olympic Park, are alleged to have said that they carried out security checks that never happened over a three-month period. G4S, the security company who holds the £250m security contract for London 2012, has told LBC 97.3 a full review of its canine operation is now taking place and safety and security of the venue remains their primary focus.

A statement read: “Two senior members of our dog team working on the Olympic Park have been suspended from duty while an investigation takes place into allegations of irregularities. “A full review of our canine operation on the Olympic Park is being undertaken, and if any shortcomings in the system are uncovered they will be corrected. “We take breaches of working practices extremely seriously and if our investigations reveal evidence of malpractice we will take appropriate action against those responsible. “While enquiries take place we are unable to go into further details  The safety and security of the Olympic Park remains our primary focus.”

Source = LBC News

Continue reading →

Cllr Jane Kenyon

“THE MULBERRY BUSH”

By Nigel Ward

Further to my article on Councillor Jane Margaret Kenyon recently – and I am much heartened by the unprecedented public endorsement (800+ FaceBook ‘Likes’) – describing my attempts to have both elected representatives and paid public servants held to account, I hope readers will be interested in some of the background details.

Readers of my first article on this subject will recall that I conclude by calling upon Councillor Kenyon to openly and transparently address the following question:

• “How can it be that the Chair of a British Police Authority can also be the Chief Financial Officer of a Corporation suspended for non-payment of debts who has concealed this and other interests and abused a position of trust to effectively censor legitimate scrutiny – yet remain Chair of the North Yorkshire Police Authority, Chair of the NYPA Management Board, Director of the Association of Police Authorities Ltd., and Scarborough Borough Councillor Portfolio Holder for Finance, Procurement and Legal?

Or to resign . . .

Continue reading →

———————————————-

Police officer’s ‘blood was up’ when he hit newspaper seller who died at G20 protests because another demonstrator left him ‘humiliated’ by escaping arrest

June 18, 2012

The police officer who struck Ian Tomlinson with a baton minutes before the newspaper vendor died did so when his ‘blood was up’ after being ‘humiliated’ by a protester who had escaped as he was trying to make an arrest, a court heard today. The actions of PC Simon Harwood, who is charged with manslaughter, were described by the prosecution today as being ‘more akin to thuggish behaviour than proper reasonable policing’. The jury was told that he allegedly sent the homeless newspaper seller flying with a ‘forceful baton strike’ and a ‘powerful push’ as he stood with his back to police and his hands in his pockets during the G20 protests.

PC Harwood, 41, had been ’embarrassed if not humiliated’ after trying to arrest a G20 protester who was daubing graffiti on a police van, only for the vandal to wriggle free, to the cheers of a watching crowd. After being struck, 47-year-old father-of-nine Mr Tomlinson fell to the ground during the April 2009 demo before staggering 70 metres away, where he eventually collapsed and died minutes later near the Royal Exchange Buildings in the City of London. CCTV footage taken on April 1, 2009 by police and members of the public captured the newspaper seller falling to the ground before staggering away.

An initial post-mortem concluded his death had been the result of a heart attack. But after footage of the assault shot by American banker Chris La Jaunie and CCTV of the subsequent collapse emerged, two further examinations concluded he had died as a result of internal bleeding. Prosecutor Mark Dennis QC, opening PC Harwood’s manslaughter trial, told jurors how Mr Tomlinson became unwittingly caught up in the G20 demo as he walked home from Monument to Smithfield. The prosecutor told jurors Mr Tomlinson did not die of natural causes, but that the ‘assault’ by PC Harwood caused his collapse and death. He told Southwark Crown Court that ‘It was a rush of blood to the head, it was unnecessary behavior more akin to thuggish behaviour than proper reasonable policing.’

Source = Daily Mail

Continue reading →

—————————————————————————

What is the City of London?

“The City of London provides local government and policing services for the financial and commercial heart of Britain, the ‘Square Mile’ “

In addition to the usual services provided by a local authority such as housing, refuse collection, education, social services, environmental health and town planning, the City of London performs a number of very special functions. It runs its own police force and the nation’s Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey.

Continue reading →

June 15, 2012

———————————————-

August 8,  2010

Displacing the Bedouin

Twice last week employees of the Israel Lands Administration, with the help of a large police contingent, demolished the homes of around 300 residents in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Al-Arakib in the Negev. Most of them, citizens of the State of Israel, including many children, were left not only without homes, but humiliated, frustrated and shocked. Both times the police were brutal, and neither time did the state offer an alternative, compensation or assistance, either material or psychological, for the people whose village was demolished and world was destroyed. That’s how a country treats its citizens. Even if there is substance to the state’s claims that the village’s lands belong to the state and not to the inhabitants, it should have offered other solutions besides sending in bulldozers again and again. There is a large cemetery at Al-Arakib and water wells that the residents say denote their possession of the land, along with old ownership documents. They claim they were forced to abandon the area after the War of Independence and that they returned in the 1990s because the land remained empty.

Continue reading →

Some of the world’s biggest stars – from Madonna to the Red Hot Chili Peppers – are being accused of putting profit before principle in a growing backlash against artists performing in Israel. Campaigners angry at human rights abuses against the Palestinian people – symbolised by Israel’s policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinians and allowing Israeli settlers to take over their land – are demanding a boycott of Israeli venues in a campaign that echoes the 1980s protests against South Africa and the infamous venue Sun City. Last week Madonna came under fire for her decision to perform in Israel to kick off her world tour last Thursday. “By performing in Israel, Madonna has consciously and shamefully lent her name to fig-leafing Israel’s occupation and apartheid and showed her obliviousness to human rights,” said Omar Barghouti of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

Continue reading →