Barbara
Keeley MP, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health, commenting on
the EPI report in to Child Mental Health Improvements, said:

“The
Prime Minister said in January that she wanted to ‘transform the way we deal
with mental health problems right across society’ but the findings in this
report show these were just warm words.

“With
nearly three quarters of Clinical Commissioning Groups failing to meet NHS
England’s improvement standards in children’s mental health, and more than two
thirds of these groups without fully-funded crisis care plans, it is clear that
the Prime Minister’s rhetoric on child mental health is not being matched by
reality.

“The
most worrying part of this report is the increase in the number of young people
being treated on adult mental health wards which shows an abject failure of the
Government to grasp the problems in the mental health system.

“The
Government need to make sure that frontline mental health services get the
money they need rather than using it to balance NHS budgets elsewhere.”

22 March 2017

The Domestic Extremism unit run by the Metropolitan Police deleted files in a bid to cover up illegal hacking of campaigners’ emails, a police whistleblower has revealed to Green peer Jenny Jones.

The unit, called the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit (NDEDIU), deleted the files in May 2014 to hide the fact an operative, who was working under orders from a police officer, had been spying on the email accounts of a number of environmental and social justice campaigners. The police officer had been supplied with the campaigners’ passwords by the Covert Human Intelligence Source, the whistleblower revealed.

Lawyers at Bindmans, who are acting on behalf of Jenny Jones and others whose files had been shredded by the NDEDIU approached six of the people on the list to verify that the private email accounts and passwords were theirs. They then presented the letter to senior investigators at the Independent Police Complaints Commission and Baroness Jones had a follow-up meeting with the deputy head of the IPCC (over a week ago) to discuss what progress had been made. Baroness Jones discussed with the IPCC when she intended to publish.

Jenny Jones said:

”This illegal hacking by a police officer along with the collusion of officers within the Domestic Extremism Unit, is one of the worst cases of state snooping that I’ve ever heard. The personal information within the letter is accurate and it could only have been obtained illegally. There is more than enough to justify a full-scale criminal investigation into the activities of these police officers and referral to a public inquiry. I have urged the IPCC to act quickly to secure further evidence and to find out how many people were victims of this nasty practice. These emails could have contained personal information about medical conditions, worries of parents about their kids, family arguments and people’s love lives. It is completely unacceptable that the police can stick their noses into the lives of innocent people without a shred of evidence that they are involved in terrorism or serious crime.

“We need an immediate end to the police surveillance of non-violent campaign groups who have no association with serious crime. By allowing the police to spy on environmentalists and campaigners for social justice, the government invites the security services to intrude on ordinary people’s lives. That invitation to snoop provides cover for some officers to go further and to by-pass the law regulating state surveillance to read private emails about people’s personal lives. Whether it is undercover police forming long-term sexual relationships or these allegations that the police employ foreign hackers to open people’s emails. It all starts with the government giving the green light to spy on innocent people.

“I want to praise the brave whistleblowers within the Met Police who have given me this information. Given the appalling treatment by the Met of whistleblowers acting in the public interest,  I can completely understand why police officers might want to remain anonymous. Officers who care about the professionalism and political neutrality of the police are one of mainstays of a democratic society and deserve our support.”

Notes:

1. The IPCC were notified by phone on the 17th February, after six of the ten personal email accounts and passwords contained in the letter had been checked with the people concerned. The first meeting with them and Jenny’s lawyer took place on the 23rd Feb. IPCC investigators have now requested a formal witness statement from Jenny. 

2. The IPCC previously confirmed that there is evidence which suggests other documents were shredded after the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) was announced, and a specific MPS instruction had been issued that documents should not be destroyed without express permission.

In the IPCC press release Feb 2017, they state that:

Following a referral from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in May 2016, the IPCC has been investigating allegations that documents kept by the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit (NDEDIU) were shredded in May 2014.

The IPCC can confirm that there is evidence which suggests documents were shredded after the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) was announced, and a specific MPS instruction had been issued that documents should not be destroyed without express permission.

IPCC Deputy Chair Sarah Green, said “… investigation is ongoing. While the evidence indicates that a large number of documents were shredded over a period of days in May 2014, the difficult task ahead for our investigators is to determine what the documentation was, why it was destroyed, whether electronic copies were kept and who may have ordered its destruction.

“We are also examining what action the Metropolitan Police took once it was alerted, by a member of staff, to the allegations in December 2014.”

“Separately a complaint by Baroness Jenny Jones, that records held by the Metropolitan Police relating to her were destroyed or deleted in or about June 2014, was referred to the IPCC on 27 January. That complaint is now also subject to independent investigation.”

Tweet

Back to main news page

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

The allotment club at the Elmwood Campus of Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) is springing into action – by celebrating its third year.

Richard Burden MP, Labour’s Shadow Aviation Minister, responding
to the announcement of a cabin baggage ban on laptops on certain direct
passenger flights to the UK from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and
Saudi Arabia, said: 

“The safety
and security of passengers must always be the overriding priority for
Government and for airline operators. If the Government has evidence the level
of security checks on passengers carrying electronic devices is of exceptional
concern in the countries listed then it is right that prompt precautionary
action should be taken.

“This
announcement leaves a number of important questions unanswered and we are seeking
urgent clarification from Ministers. It’s important the Government set out
clearly the precautionary steps they have taken in response to advice from
security services to reassure passengers and the public. The Government must
also work with airline operators to ensure all passengers are given the
necessary information and flights can continue where appropriate with minimal
disruption as possible.”

22 March 2017 – Intercommunal violence in south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, a top United Nations aid official in the country has said, warning that the current response is being outstripped by the needs.

&#8220Unless peaceful coexistence is fully restored between the two communities, humanitarian needs will continue to spiral out of control,&#8221 said the Humanitarian Coordinator in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mamadou Diallo, wrapping up a three-day visit to the region on 20 March.

Some 370,000 people have fled the cascading violence across all six territories that make up the province, in the last nine months, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated.

The insecurity has disrupted aid operations resulting in what Mr. Diallo called &#8220among the most urgent humanitarian hotspots in a country experiencing a worsening humanitarian situation.&#8221

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator led a group that included representatives from UN agencies, donors and non-governmental organizations to Tanganyika’s Kalemie and Manono territories.

In Kalemie, the delegation visited the Kalunga site, home to some 17,000 people, where UN partners are providing emergency water and health care services amidst ongoing shelter concerns.

&#8220Speaking to the delegation, a displaced woman pleaded for education projects for the thousands of children living in the site, to avoid their further marginalization,&#8221 OCHA said.

The group then visited the Kamala site in Manono &#8211 considered &#8220the cradle of the intercommunal conflict&#8221 where &#8220the delegation saw first-hand the burned, destroyed huts&#8221 of people forced to flee.

On behalf of the international humanitarian community, the UN asked for $40 million to cover all the humanitarian needs, including $20 million for the most urgent, life-threatening needs for the displaced families.

The DR Congo Common Humanitarian Fund and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund have recently allocated $5 million each for the response, with the Humanitarian Fund planning an additional allocation of $2 million.

The humanitarian concerns came as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for DRC, Maman Sidikou, briefed the Security Council about the deteriorating security situation and the need to implement the 31 December agreement on the electoral process.

Under the agreement, President Joseph Kabila would stay in office until elections are held by the end of 2017. During this period, a ‘National Council for Overseeing the Electoral Agreement and Process (CNSAP)’ would be set up, and a new prime minister named from opposition ranks.