A man who threatened to share intimate videos of a teenage boy unless he performed sexual acts has had his sentence increased after the Attorney General’s Office referred the sentence to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient.

Jamie Pickering, 23, persistently threatened to falsely tell the 18 year old victim’s girlfriend that the victim had engaged in sexual activity with him. After several threats, the offender coerced the victim to his house, where he sexually assaulted the victim. Pickering then threatened to show photographs to the victim’s girlfriend unless he agreed to have full sexual intercourse. When he refused, Pickering set up a fake Facebook account and sent a nude photograph of the victim to the victim’s girlfriend.

Using a different fake social media account, to give the victim the impression that his friends had seen the video, Pickering threatened to distribute the video more widely within a fortnight, unless the victim paid him £1,000.

Pickering was arrested and convicted of 2 counts of sexual assault and one count of blackmail. On 21 March at Leeds Crown Court he was given a sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 2 years. His sentence was today increased to an immediate custodial sentence of 3 years.

Speaking after the hearing, the Solicitor General, Lucy Frazer QC MP, said:

“Pickering’s actions were callous and calculating, using blackmail to facilitate sexual assaults and a financial gain. The sustained nature of the offence and anguish inflicted on the victim means it is important he sees justice is done.”

The Omani Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs His Excellency Yousef bin Alawi and the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom Jeremy Hunt met on 22 May in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to sign the UK-Oman Comprehensive Agreement which demonstrates the two countries’ shared commitment to working together in a number of sectors including science, health, technology and innovation.

The Conference has been held every year since 1997, when the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force, banning chemical weapons and requiring states to destroy any existing stockpiles. The Convention has succeeded in achieving the destruction of over 96% of the world’s declared chemical weapon stocks – amounting to some 70,000 tonnes of chemical weapon agent and millions of bombs, rocket warheads and artillery shells. The Conference provides an opportunity for experts from all over the world to discuss their progress and co-operation in eliminating chemical weapons, and the technical challenges that remain, and to share experiences and lessons.

Although there has been considerable progress with the destruction of former stockpiles, the Chemical Weapons Convention continues to face serious challenges. These were illustrated all too recently by the chemical weapon attack in Salisbury in March 2018, and the chemical weapon attack by the Asad regime in Douma in April 2018. Following these shocking events, the UK took the international lead in securing agreement that the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international body which implements the Chemical Weapons Convention, should take steps to identify those responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria, so that the international community could hold them to account.

Defence Minister Lord Howe commended the vital work of scientific and technical experts to make the world safe from chemical weapons, while acknowledging the shocking events of the past year, including the chemical weapon attacks in Salisbury and Syria.

Defence Minister Lord Howe said:

This Conference plays a unique role in bringing together international experts so that they can work together to solve problems relating to the destruction of chemical weapons. Their scientific and technical expertise is fundamental to meeting our objective of a world free of chemical weapons.

The use of chemical weapons in Salisbury, here in the UK, and in Syria shows that there is still much to do before we reach our goal. In an increasingly dangerous world, the international community cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to become accepted as “normal” and it is important that states take action when required. The UK is determined to uphold the international norm against the use of chemical weapons. We remain firm in our resolve to respond appropriately to any use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.

Over the past year the UK has successfully worked with our international partners across the world to strengthen the Chemical Weapons Convention: we have agreed measures to identify those responsible for using chemical weapons in Syria and elsewhere so that we can hold them to account. This is a complex but crucial task. I look forward to progress over the coming months by the independent experts of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Lord Howe welcomed to the Conference Ambassador Fernando Arias, Director General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, who bears unique responsibilities, on behalf of the international community, for achieving the objectives of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Ambassador Fernando Arias said:

The goal of the Chemical Weapons Convention is, ”for the sake of all mankind, to exclude completely the possibility of the use of chemical weapons”. Completing the destruction of all chemical weapons is, therefore, a key priority for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We rely on the political commitment of governments and the scientific and technical skills of government experts and industry.

I am delighted to address this unique conference and meet some of the experts who are helping to make the world safer for all of us. The continuing use of chemical weapons in recent years underlines the importance of our shared mission and the challenges that we face in completing it, having always in mind that the goal is the complete destruction and the guarantee against any kind of re-emergence of chemical weapons all over the world and forever.

LLW Repository Ltd raised a record £9,339 for Charity of the Year, Give Us A Break 2010, after a magnificent response from the workforce.

The charity is raising money to fund a short stay centre in West Cumbria for disabled children and their families, and employees voted to support it as their charity in 2018/19.

A string of fundraising events were initiated and organised by the workforce including a book sale, baking competition, sponsored car wash, Christmas Jumper Day and numerous raffles. LLWR’s Lead Team also agreed to match-fund £2,000 for the charity.

Cath Giel, LLWR’s Head of Public Affairs, said: “We have a fresh chosen charity every year, and the enthusiasm for giving, and for coming up with new ways of fund-raising, shows no sign of diminishing. In fact, the opposite is true.

“Many members of our workforce helped to raise funds for Give Us A Break, and we are grateful to them all, not least our apprentices, whose Christmas Food Market initiative proved a tasty new addition to our fundraising efforts, adding almost £700 to our tally, and a few inches to waistlines!”

The new Airline Insolvency Review: final report has been published, providing recommendations on how to protect consumers in the event of an airline or travel company failure. Experts in the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) supplied advice and analysis to the review team, including the complex task of calculating the cost of protection which the report recommends charging to airlines.

The review draws on lessons from the collapse of Monarch Airlines in October 2017. This was when 85,000 passengers were repatriated – in the UK’s largest peacetime repatriation operation – by the Civil Aviation Authority.

Repatriation costs

GAD played an integral part in the preparation of the report by analysing the cost implications of financial options. Actuaries and analysts examined the likely losses that occur when airlines become insolvent and assessed the cost of the different financial options. Analysis from GAD estimated repatriation costs and looked at the cost of setting up a system which would pay for passenger protection.

The report’s key recommendations include:

• proposals for a new Flight Protection Scheme amounting to less than 50 pence per person, which would protect passengers if an airline became insolvent while they were abroad
• reforms to the UK’s airline insolvency regimes so an airline’s own aircraft can be used to repatriate its passengers should it fail
• plans to improve awareness, and the take up, of safeguards which protect customers with future bookings, should airlines collapse

Key partners

As one of the authors of GAD’s Airline Insolvency Review – Risk Analysis Phase 2 report, Chris Paterson, commented: “The analysis carried out by our team is an integral part of a suite of publications and data produced for the review.

“We provided estimates of the cost of protecting passengers in the case of an airline insolvency, which were used in the report’s recommendations.”

GAD’s full report is Annex D of the supporting evidence research reports.