A decorator who stole watches worth around £32,000 from the Duke of Westminster's home has avoided jail "by the skin of his teeth".
Matthew Turner, 24, was given a 20-month sentence, suspended for two years, after admitting the burglary of three watches, taken in August 2022.
Turner was working on renovations at Eaton Hall, on the outskirts of Chester, when he took the items from the bedroom of the duke, otherwise known as Hugh Grosvenor.
Image:The 7th Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor. Pic: PA
Sentencing Turner at Chester Crown Court, Judge Steven Everett, the Honorary Recorder of Chester, said: "You have escaped prison by the skin of your teeth."
The court heard Turner, who was addicted to cocaine at the time, took a Cartier London Tank JC watch, bought for £18,000, a Panerai Luminor Marina watch, worth £7,000, and a Breitling watch, worth about £7,000.
The items are of "huge sentimental value, beyond their financial worth," the duke said in a statement.
"My bedroom is a private, extremely personal space within my home," he said, adding, "I feel very uncomfortable knowing someone who is trusted to do a job has entered my room and stolen my personal possessions."
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The burglary only came to light when Harry Fane, who had sold the Cartier watch to the duke, spotted it for sale on an auction site in November that year in what was described in court as an "astonishing coincidence".
Judge Everett said it was clear Turner had declined to tell police where the other two watches, which have never been recovered, were, suggesting "at least one of the watches went to your drug dealer."
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At the time of the offence, Turner was working for a firm which had worked on the duke's estate for more than 50 years and were "well and truly trusted" by the family, the court heard.
He was said to own "half of London" when he inherited his title and 300 acres of land across Belgravia and Mayfair, on his father's death, in 2016.
Myles Wilson, defending, said Turner had been spending hundreds of pounds on cocaine.
He said: "It's a typical scenario where his debts increase, his dealers become more desperate, he becomes more desperate and he's committed crime and really self-destructed."
Peter Hussey, prosecuting, said Turner had admitted a separate offence of taking £60 from a work colleague that December.
Turner was told he must complete 200 hours of unpaid work and 30 days of rehabilitation activity.
With a blood pressure cuff pumped tight around my arm, straps around my chest monitoring my breathing, and sensors on my fingers to pick up any traces of sweat, veteran polygraph test examiner Don Cargill says he can easily spot the signs I've told him a fib.
I've denied writing the number three on the piece of paper placed underneath my chair, in a simple exercise designed to show how my body reacts to lying. Even with nothing to lose, it's an uncomfortable experience.
But while commonly associated with daytime television programmes like The Jeremy Kyle Show, the use of lie detectors is expanding within the criminal justice system.
And the answers people give could help determine whether or not they can see their children - or even land them back in jail.
Image:Lie detector tests featured regularly on The Jeremy Kyle Show. Pic: ITV
In an office above a branch of Carpetright in west London, Mr Cargill carries out private polygraph tests. His clients have included foreign politicians accused of bribery, bodybuilders who want to prove they haven't taken performance-enhancing drugs, and people accused of stealing from their family or being unfaithful to a spouse.
More and more are trying to cheat the polygraph using instructions found online, he says. "There's a lot of techniques they do but we spot 90% of them or more."
I'm asked to jump up and down and open my mouth before my test. Some people have pressed drawing pins into the bottom of their shoes, or even superglued tacks in their mouths, to create a pain response in their brain to distort the chart, Mr Cargill says.
He asks for identification to make sure a stand-in hasn't been sent and carries out other simple tests to spot signs of sleep deprivation or illegal drug use.
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A camera is trained on the subject's eyes to make sure they don't cross them or "zone out", while a seat pad is in place to catch out anyone clenching their bottom.
All of these methods have been used to try to cheat the test, Mr Cargill says.
Image:Sky's Henry Vaughan takes a lie detector test
Can lie detectors be cheated?
It is possible to beat the polygraph, says Newcastle University Emeritus Professor Don Grubin, but it takes a lot of practice with the equipment and examiners are trained to spot the signs of anyone trying to trick the test.
Double child killer Colin Pitchfork - who was jailed for life after raping and strangling 15-year-olds Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth in Leicestershire in 1983 and 1986 - was recalled to prison in 2021 partly due to concerns he was using breathing techniques in a bid to beat the lie detector.
The Home Office says the polygraph records physiological changes in a person, quoting research from the American Polygraph Association which found deception is accurately detected in 80 to 90% of cases.
Since 2014, probation services have carried out more than 8,800 polygraph tests, while police have conducted more than 4,600, says Prof Grubin, who explains around 60 to 70% result in disclosures - where someone reveals relevant information.
His company, Behavioural Measures UK, has trained and supervised dozens of police and parole polygraph test examiners over the past decade, and like other experts in the field, he doesn't like the term lie detectors.
The technology detects the "cognitive process" (or the brain working harder) when someone tells a lie, he explains.
Image:The results of a polygraph test
The "real skill lies in the experience of the examiner", says Mr Cargill, the chief executive of VAST Screening Technologies Ltd and the chairman of the British and European Polygraph Association.
"Nervous reactions are completely different from people telling lies," he says. "Your heart rate physically increases because you're triggering the autonomic nervous system, which triggers a fight, flight or freeze response. You want to run away."
But critics, including University of Northumbria researchers Dr Marion Oswald, a professor of law, and associate professor Dr Kyriakos Kotsoglou, say much of the research is carried out by the industry itself and the accuracy can't be tested in a real-life situation - because it is impossible to verify if someone has told a lie.
They say it is an intrusive "interrogation" technique used to illicit confessions, arguing the polygraph device itself is unnecessary and could be swapped for putting someone's hand on a photocopying machine - a method apparently used by Detroit police and immortalised in cult American crime drama The Wire.
"If you can convince the subject that she or he is being monitored for lies and they believe it, then she or he will disclose more information," says Dr Kotsoglou.
How are lie detectors used?
The results can't be used as evidence in criminal courts but mandatory lie detector tests have been used as a licence condition for sex offenders since 2014, then rolled out to convicted terrorists in 2021 in the wake of the Fishmongers' Hall attack.
They are also used by police and the security services to monitor the small number of terror suspects made subject to Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (Tpims).
There is currently a three-year trial for their use on domestic abuse offenders, while the new Criminal Justice Bill proposes to extend this to convicted murderers who pose a risk of committing a relevant sexual offence on release.
The tests provide "invaluable information we would otherwise not have had about offenders' behaviour which helps us to better protect the public", the Ministry of Justice says.
The Metropolitan Police is looking into using lie detection technology to vet new recruits or root out corrupt officers following a string of damaging scandals, including the cases of Sarah Everard's murderer Wayne Couzens and serial rapist David Carrick.
Image:David Carrick and Wayne Couzens
But "this is still at an early research stage" and there are no imminent plans to use the technology in this way, the force says.
Others are turning to lie detectors to try to prove their innocence.
Kevin Duffy, 70, passed a polygraph test after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a child, but the results weren't taken into account by the judge who jailed him for more than nine years.
His son Ryan Duffy, 44, says: "If there's something that can be used when it's one person's word against another's that can highlight some kind of evidence, why can't it be used?
"If they are prepared to look at it after conviction for single case issues such as, 'are you using public transport, hanging around schools', and relying on data for probation services, then why can't you use it beforehand?"
Image:Kevin Duffy took a polygraph test to try to prove his innocence. Pic: Ryan Duffy
People can't be sent back to prison for failing a test, but they can face further sanctions, such as stricter licence conditions, and they can be recalled for making disclosures that reveal they have breached licence conditions or indicate their risk has increased.
The information gathered can be shared with police to carry out further investigations, which could lead to charges, while those found trying to trick the polygraph can also be recalled to prison.
A government report last year revealed four convicted terrorists were sent back to jail as a result of lie detector tests - three were recalled after disclosing "risk-related information", while the fourth didn't comply with their polygraph licence condition.
Image:Sensors pick up any traces of sweat during the polygraph test
An increasing number of police forces are using the polygraph, which is seen as a useful tool to monitor and assess the risk of people on the sex offenders' register, allowing officers to concentrate stretched resources on those deemed the most dangerous.
At least 14 of the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales are now using lie detectors, with 14 police officers and 11 staff qualified as polygraph examiners, according to figures obtained by Liberty Investigates.
The data shows 671 polygraph tests were carried out by the 13 forces who provided figures by calendar year, up from 458 in 2018, and a five-year high.
More forces are expected to start using the technology as the College of Policing makes available training through its "polygraph school".
Image:Polygraph tester Don Cargill reviews Henry's results
Suspects facing lie detector tests
Testing is "only mandatory by way of conditional caution or a positive obligation of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order or Sexual Risk Order" imposed by the courts, says the National Police Chiefs' Council, and "any police use of polygraph will form part of a wider and detailed risk management plan tailored to the individual concerned".
But the University of Northumbria researchers say a non-statutory regime of testing is being carried out by some forces, including on suspects during criminal investigation.
People arrested on suspicion of committing online child sex offences, for example, could be asked to take a test as part of a risk assessment to determine whether they can have contact with children, including their own.
Figures obtained by Prof Oswald and Dr Kotsoglou, using freedom of information requests, show that at least 228 such polygraph interviews were carried out over six years.
Other responses indicated use in "voluntary" risk assessments of convicted sex offenders, including those who apply for removal from the sex offenders' register, and ambitions to use polygraph testing for more general offences such as violence.
History of the lie detector
The polygraph machine was invented in 1921 by police officer John Larson in Berkley, California, and has been used by US law enforcement agencies ever since and spread across the world.
His work was picked up by Leonard Keeler, who is widely credited as the inventor of the modern lie detector.
In the 1990s, the polygraph entered the computer age as statisticians at Johns Hopkins University developed an algorithm to analyse the data collected.
Jack Ruby, who shot dead Lee Harvey Oswald two days after he assassinated John F Kennedy requested and was granted a polygraph test to try to prove he was not involved in a conspiracy with Oswald - but then FBI-director J Edgar Hoover said the technique was not "sufficiently precise" to judge truth or deception "without qualification".
Notable failures include CIA agent Aldrich Ames, who passed two polygraph tests while spying for the Soviet Union.
Prof Oswald says: "I think our concern is that should we really in this country be basing really serious criminal justice decisions in a legal system on a scientific technique that is highly contested, to put it mildly, and hasn't, especially in the policing circumstance, been discussed by parliament?"
The College of Policing says: "The College is working closely with the NPCC to establish a Polygraph School so that policing in England and Wales has access to standardised learning and development in the use of the tool that is tailored to their operating environment.
"The College will develop operational advice so that forces using the tool have a consistent basis on which to do so whilst recognising the relevant legal provisions."
Image:A new test known as 'polygraph in a box' has been developed
What is the future for lie detectors?
The technology has existed in some form for around a century and now Mr Cargill has invented what he calls a "completely revolutionary" Validated Automated Screening Technology (VAST) system - or "polygraph in a box".
Programmed to find out anything from whether someone has massaged the qualifications on their CV to if they're a member of an international terrorist organisation, he says the device is as accurate as any polygraph examiner and is already being used by police in the UK.
But the testing time is reduced to around 20 minutes from three hours and can be used with just 15 minutes training.
After filling out a questionnaire, the subject - attached to the device, wearing headphones and sensors on their fingers and palm - is instructed to silently answer "no" to the questions by a person in a recorded video on the screen. A human then grills them about any responses that indicate deception.
"I call it a truth verifier rather than a lie detector because what it's doing is testing integrity," explains Mr Cargill.
The technology, he says, would be ideal for use in police vetting and he wants to see it rolled out to areas such as Border Force, where officers could verify someone's age or country of origin.
The Nottingham killer Valdo Calocane could become eligible for release after three years under the terms of the hospital order imposed by the judge, The Telegraph can reveal.
The 32-year-old took the lives of 19-year-old university students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar before killing 65-year-old school caretaker Ian Coates in a series of violent attacks in Nottingham on June 13 in 2023.
The order, under section 37 of the Mental Health Act 1983, entitles an offender to a review of their mental health every three years where they could become eligible for release if doctors assess that they have recovered and are of sound mind.
Under the terms of his sentence, Calocane is also subject to a section 41 order which gives the Justice Secretary or a first tier tribunal the power to block his release on the grounds that he is assessed to still be a risk to the public.
However, the judge did not impose a section 45a order, which would have meant that even if Calocane was judged safe to release, he would only be allowed to serve the rest of his sentence in jail, rather than in the community.
The Telegraph revealed on Thursday that Victoria Prentis, KC, the Attorney General, is to review the sentence after a complaint was lodged with her office that it was “unduly lenient”.
She has 28 days to decide whether to refer the case to the Court of Appeal to decide whether the sentence was appropriate and should be increased.
School caretaker Ian Coates (left) and university students Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber were killed by Calocane in violent attacks
Legal experts suggested that one option would be to impose a section 45a so that Calocane would be required to serve his sentence in prison if he was to recover his mental health.
The judge decided against the 45a order on the basis that the current prognosis is that Calocane is unlikely to recover sufficiently to be released and is likely to spend the rest of his life in a secure hospital.
It is understood there is concern within Government at the three-yearly-review trigger for release. It has been raised previously as a source of additional trauma for bereaved families by the victims’ commissioner.
Offenders can apply to have the review every year, rather than an automatic reassessment every three years.
“For victims’ families it means they can feel as if they are perpetually living on the edge, with the case being reviewed year after year after year,” said a victims’ commissioner source.
Calocane was originally charged with murder but this was downgraded to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to his paranoid schizophrenia.
Outside Nottingham Crown Court after the sentencing, Barney’s mother Emma criticised the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) saying she had felt “rushed, hastened and railroaded” into accepting the manslaughter plea.
Mr Coates’ son James said: “This man has made a mockery of the system, and he has got away with murder.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman on Thursday said “any lessons must be learned” by the CPS, police and NHS and told them they must review their handling of Calocane and the killings, describing it as a “truly harrowing” case and offering his “heartfelt condolences”.
A spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s office confirmed a complaint had been received which would now be considered by Ms Prentis and her legal team. More than 100 offenders had their sentences increased in 2022, the latest data shows.
A CPS spokesman said: “Our thoughts and sympathies are with the families of the victims at this incredibly difficult time. Engagement with those who have been left bereaved is one of our highest priorities and in all cases, we continue to liaise with victims’ families throughout the legal process.”
The statements of the parents of the two Nottingham students killed by a paranoid schizophrenic evince a pain that will never leave them. They raise serious questions about how the killer Valdo Calocane was allowed to roam the streets looking for innocent victims.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and was sentenced yesterday to be detained indefinitely in a high-security hospital.
Calocane was a ticking time bomb who had been in and out of mental institutions. He should have been sectioned but wasn’t. He should have been arrested for assaulting a police officer but wasn’t. He should have been tried for murder but wasn’t.
The families are rightly angered by the set of circumstances that was allowed to develop to snuff out the lives of two 19-year-olds and 65-year-old school caretaker Ian Coates. It is a wretched story of incompetence and complacency.
The mother of Barnaby Webber, who died with his friend Grace O’Malley-Kumar, said it was not true that the Crown Prosecution Service had brought the families along with their decision to prosecute Calocane for manslaughter, not murder. “We’ve been rushed, hastened and railroaded,” she said.
While she did not dispute he was mentally unwell, the level of premeditation suggested someone who knew what he was doing. Like Peter Sutcliffe 40 years ago, he should have been tried for murder even if the end result is the same.
The police have apologised for failing to follow up an arrest warrant against Calocane for months. Mrs Webber said they had blood on their hands and the entire system had let down those it was supposed to protect. It is a harsh verdict but one that cannot be gainsaid.
Humza Yousaf has apologised “unreservedly” to both the UK Covid inquiry and to people bereaved by the pandemic for the Scottish government’s failures to hand over WhatsApp messages relating to the handling of the crisis.
“There’s no excuse for it. We should have done better,” Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, told the inquiry on Thursday.
A tense day of evidence at the inquiry, which is sitting in Edinburgh for a second week, revealed that the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon had described Boris Johnson as “a fucking clown” as he broadcast to the nation to announce a second Covid lockdown in October 2020.
She told her chief of staff: “His utter incompetence in every sense is now offending me on behalf of politicians everywhere.”
Following a succession of revelations about how senior Scottish ministers and officials regularly deleted informal messages and exhibited apparent disdain for freedom of information rules, Yousaf also told Jamie Dawson KC, lead counsel for the inquiry, that he had instructed an externally-led review into the use of WhatsApp and other unofficial technology in the Scottish government.
His announcement came as evidence taken earlier in the day revealed that, despite consistent Scottish government denials, decisions about pandemic restrictions and strategy did appear to have been made using WhatsApp, in seeming contradiction of Sturgeon’s insistence that she did not conduct her government’s Covid response through informal messaging.
On Thursday morning the inquiry was shown exchanges between Sturgeon and Liz Lloyd, who served as her chief of staff and strategic adviser between 2015 and 2023, in which Sturgeon described the former UK prime minister as “a fucking clown”.
Sturgeon went on the dismiss the UK government’s Covid communications strategy as “awful … we’re not perfect but we don’t get nearly enough credit for how much better than them we are”.
Lloyd, who described herself as Sturgeon’s “thought partner”, was shown several exchanges, including one regarding the numbers allowed to attend weddings and another suggesting “a good old-fashioned rammy [quarrel]” with the UK government over furlough policy.
There was a furious response last week from bereaved families and opposition politicians when the inquiry heard that Sturgeon “retained no messages whatsoever”, while Scotland’s national clinical director, Jason Leitch, joked in a group chat that WhatsApp deletion was his “pre-bed ritual”.
Sturgeon has since clarified that the inquiry does have messages relating to the pandemic, although they were not retained on her device, and has said: “To be clear, I conducted the Covid response through formal processes from my office in St Andrew’s House, not through WhatsApp or any other informal messaging platform.”
Questioning Yousaf about how decisions were made at that time, Dawson asked him if the Scottish cabinet was a decision-ratifying rather than decision-making body.
Yousaf said he disagreed with that assessment, but also spoke to concerns raised in his initial written statement that decisions made by Sturgeon were not “cascaded” to the rest of the cabinet.
He said the pandemic had not been “not normal times” but that there were occasions when Sturgeon and her “gold command”, a select group of senior advisers and ministers, made often time-sensitive decisions that were not discussed at cabinet level.
Asked by Dawson if it was correct that these gold command meetings were not minuted, Yousaf said it was “my understanding that they should have been”.
Yousaf, who has provided the inquiry with his own WhatsApp messages, was asked about an exchange with Leitch that took place on his first day in his role as health secretary. Leitch referred to a meeting and “some FM ‘keep it small’ shenanigans as always – she actually wants none of us”.
Dawson asked if this was an example of Sturgeon wanting to make decisions alone, but Yousaf said this was a “classic example of Jason over-speaking”.
Yousaf was also asked about a WhatsApp exchange which Leitch was challenged on earlier this week, where he asked whether he needed to wear a face mask at an indoor dinner event when he was standing up talking to other guests. Leitch had advised Yousaf to “have a drink in your hands at all times, then you’re exempt”.
But Yousaf denied that he had been asking Leitch for “a workaround”. He told Dawson: “I was asking for clarification on how to comply.”
A baby girl would still be alive were it not for the "reckless, utterly selfish, callous, cruel, arrogant and ultimately grossly negligent conduct" of her parents, a court has heard.
Constance Marten, 36, and her partner Mark Gordon, 49, are on trial at the Old Bailey for the manslaughter of their newborn daughter Victoria.
The court heard the baby was found inside a shopping bag covered in rubbish "as if she was refuse".
The pair deny the charges.
Victoria's body was discovered on 1 March 2023 in a Brighton shed after a weeks-long police search for the family.
The couple are also accused of four other offences - cruelty to their baby; concealment of the baby's birth; causing or allowing her death; and perverting the course of justice by concealing the body.
Tom Little KC, prosecuting, said that while the couple were on the run the "child was transferred to a Lidl 'bag for life' where it would appear it spent much of its life before it died.
He said this would have been clear to the defendants that "this was an utterly inappropriate way to care for any child", particularly given the time of year and weather conditions.
Ms Marten was not present for the first day of her trial, while Mark Gordon was in the dock in the courtroom.
Opening the case,Mr Little KC, said the case involved an "entirely avoidable death of a young baby".
"A young baby girl who would still be alive if it was not for the reckless, utterly selfish, callous, cruel, arrogant and ultimately grossly negligent conduct of these two defendants - who were the parents of that young baby girl."
The prosecutor said the couple, who have four other children, "put their relationship and their view of life before the life of a little baby girl".
Their other four children had all been taken into care after extensive social services interaction, and the prosecution argued the couple concealed the birth of the fifth child because they knew she would be taken into care too.
Mr Little KC added: "Rather than act in the obvious best interests of a vulnerable baby and one that they should have cared for and looked after, they decided instead that they knew best."
He said Ms Marten and Mr Gordon deprived the baby of what it needed - "warmth, shelter and food and ultimately safety".
The jury heard that the couple "essentially went off-grid" and lived in a tent.
They did not seek medical assistance before, during or after the birth, the court heard.
The prosecutor said the couple ended up camping on the South Downs in "freezing and obviously dangerous conditions.
"It was this grossly negligent and obviously dangerous conduct that caused the death of their baby daughter."
Mr Little KC told jurors that only the defendants know the precise date the baby was born but said this appeared to have been after 28 December 2022.
Jurors heard that a Peugeot 206 car which the defendants had been travelling in caught on fire on the M61 in Greater Manchester on the evening of 5 January 2023.
A placenta wrapped in a towel was discovered inside the burnt out car, he told the court.
The prosecutor said that Ms Marten and Mr Gordon fled the scene before the police arrived, and that "it would have been pouring with rain and they were doing this with the baby having left nearly all their items behind".
Mr Little KC said they later went to a Morrisons supermarket in Bolton, but said they did not buy items for the baby.
The prosecutor said friends and family of the defendants and healthcare workers had not been told of the pregnancy, adding that after the discovery in the car a high-risk missing persons inquiry was launched.
Ms Marten and Mr Gordon are charged with manslaughter by gross negligence of their baby between 4 January 2023 and 27 February 2023.
Among the other charges they face are concealing the body of their baby between 4 January and 27 February 2023.
The UK would break international law if it ignored emergency orders from the European court of human rights to stop asylum seekers being flown to Rwanda, the head of the court has said.
SÃofra O’Leary, the ECHR president, told a press conference there was a “clear obligation” for member states to take account of rule 39 orders, interim injunctions issued by the Strasbourg-based court.
While the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has not definitively said he would ignore any such orders, he has held open the prospect, saying he has been “crystal clear repeatedly, that I won’t let a foreign court stop us from getting flights off”.
It was such an order from the ECHR – sometimes termed “pyjama injunctions” because of their tendency to be issued late at night – that helped stop initial plans for ministers to deport asylum seekers who arrive in the UK to Rwanda.
O’Leary’s comments mark another setback for Sunak in his efforts to resurrect his flagship immigration policy, one which is yet to see a single flight take off and which prompted a significant rebellion among Conservative MPs last week.
O’Leary said: “There is a clear legal obligation under the [European convention on human rights] for states to comply with rule 39 measures.” Such injunctions, she added, were only issued “in exceptional circumstances where there is a real and imminent risk of irreparable harm”.
She added: “Where states have in the past failed to comply with rule 39 indications, judges have found that the states have violated their obligations under article 34 of the convention.”
Article 34 establishes the right of people or groups to apply to the ECHR for redress if they believe their rights under the convention have been breached by domestic courts.
O’Leary noted the UK had “always complied with rule 39 measures”, and had, in 2021, urged Russia to abide by a ruling connected to the detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a noted opponent of the president, Vladimir Putin.
Sunak’s government is treading a legal tightrope in seeking to get deportation flights started as early as spring despite the ECHR’s doubts and a damning verdict in November by the UK’s supreme court, which ruled that the scheme could not go ahead.
Since the ruling, which was based on concern for the safety of those deported, Sunak has announced plans for an undated treaty with Rwanda that adds safeguards, and for the safety of Rwanda bill, which in effect seeks to set aside the supreme court decision.
Both of these plans have experienced trouble. On Monday, the House of Lords voted to delay ratification of the treaty so that more protections could be added. Peers will soon begin considering the Rwanda bill, and are expected to seek amendments.
The bill passed its third reading in the Commons last week with just 11 Conservative MPs opposing it, but only after more than 60 rebels attempted to secure amendments to toughen up the bill, including measures to completely set aside ECHR injunctions.
Sunak’s official spokesperson said it “would be bizarre” to make a comparison between the treatment of Navalny and the Rwanda deportations.
He said: “We are confident our legislation is compliant with our international obligations. We’re clear the bill and the treaty address the supreme court’s concerns. There should be no need for Strasbourg to intervene to block flights in the way they did in 2022.”
O’Leary declined to comment on the progress of the bill. She said: “I know there’s a very healthy debate in the United Kingdom relating to the content of the bill.
“It’s a country which is blessed with many, many international legal experts and a very active civil society. So I am sure that all of those issues can be fully examined.”
The statements of the parents of the two Nottingham students killed by a paranoid schizophrenic evince a pain that will never leave them. They raise serious questions about how the killer Valdo Calocane was allowed to roam the streets looking for innocent victims.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and was sentenced yesterday to be detained indefinitely in a high-security hospital.
This appalling case has reflected badly on many aspects of the criminal justice and care systems.
Calocane was a ticking time bomb who had been in and out of mental institutions. He should have been sectioned but wasn’t. He should have been arrested for assaulting a police officer but wasn’t. He should have been tried for murder but wasn’t.
The families are rightly angered by the set of circumstances that was allowed to develop to snuff out the lives of two 19-year-olds and 65-year-old school caretaker Ian Coates. It is a wretched story of incompetence and complacency.
The mother of Barnaby Webber, who died with his friend Grace O’Malley-Kumar, said it was not true that the Crown Prosecution Service had brought the families along with their decision to prosecute Calocane for manslaughter, not murder. “We’ve been rushed, hastened and railroaded,” she said.
While she did not dispute he was mentally unwell, the level of premeditation suggested someone who knew what he was doing. Like Peter Sutcliffe 40 years ago, he should have been tried for murder even if the end result is the same.
The police have apologised for failing to follow up an arrest warrant against Calocane for months. Mrs Webber said they had blood on their hands and the entire system had let down those it was supposed to protect. It is a harsh verdict but one that cannot be gainsaid.