UK border checks are 'a bad joke', whistleblower claims

 

Under-pressure staff are said to be relying on false data and "massaging" official figures to mask the full extent of the immigration chaos at Britain's borders. The whistleblower, a middle manager who does not want to be identified, said UKBA staff lack the resources to track down asylum seekers. As a result, it is claimed, complicated immigration cases are being abandoned to save time, while detention centres employ a "one in, one out" policy that sees low-risk detainees released to allow more dangerous foreigners to be locked up. The whistleblower said British border checks had become "haphazard" and "a bad joke". "The whole place is a basket case," he told The Sunday Times (£). "Asylum seekers run rings around us and we are virtually powerless to do anything about it. It is depressing."

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn has demanded to be questioned by judges investigating an alleged prostitution ring, after media reports linked him to the case.

 Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images

He is keeping a low profile in Paris, has grown a white beard, and polls show he is the least popular politician in France.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, forced to quit as head of the IMF and shelve aspirations to become the next French president, had hoped to find solace in France after criminal charges were dropped against him in New York over the alleged attempted rape of a hotel cleaner. But he is dominating the front pages again after his name was linked to a high-profile investigation into an alleged prostitution ring at a luxury hotel in Lille.

The Hotel Carlton affair centres on allegations of pimping at top hotels in the northern French city, where women from France and massage parlours in Belgium were allegedly supplied for hotel customers and local officials. Eight people are under formal investigation, including a senior police officer, a local barrister and businessmen. Five have been imprisoned as the inquiry continues.

The investigation raises questions about the links between police and business figures and the underworld of sex work in France and Belgium. Prostitution involving people over the age of 18 is not illegal in France but pimping and living off the benefits of it is.

The affair took a new turn after Strauss-Kahn's name came up in statements made to investigators, according to a series of leaked transcripts published in the French media in recent weeks.

Businessmen were alleged to have paid women to travel to Paris and the US to take part in "soirées" with Strauss-Kahn at his own request, including when he was head of the IMF and tipped to become the next French president. Le Monde reported that one senior French police officer had travelled twice to Washington DC last year with businessmen, including the head of a Lille-based construction firm, to accompany a group of women who worked in massage parlours in Belgium to see Strauss-Kahn. The former head of the IMF was said to have received three visits from the group in Washington. The last visit ended on 13 May, the day before he was arrested over the attempted rape of a hotel maid in New York.

The senior Lille police officer and two businessmen deny involvement in prostitution.

The first evening organised for Strauss-Kahn was said to have taken place at a luxury Paris hotel in 2009. One sex worker, whose testimony was published by the weekly Le Point, described being accompanied by businessmen on the train from Lille to Paris to meet Strauss-Kahn, who was wearing a bathrobe, and others in a duplex hotel apartment with a pool. She said she was paid €900 (£770) by a businessman on the way back to Lille that night. Other alleged encounters took place in 2010.

A Belgian sex worker in her 30s, known as Jade, told the French newspaper, Nord Eclair, she was taken to Washington for an encounter with Strauss-Kahn in a hotel in January 2010 and paid by businessmen on her return to France. She said Strauss-Kahn showed her around the IMF building and posed for a photograph with her in his office the next day.

But the saga took another twist this week when French media, including Liberation and Le Point, published text messages allegedly sent by Strauss-Kahn to a businessman in the case, which are being investigated by police. In one message, Strauss-Kahn, then head of the IMF, asked if the man wanted to accompany him to a "magnificent" swingers club in Madrid, suggesting he bring "material" – thought to mean women. In another, he said he was taking a girl, "une petite", to clubs in Vienna and would the man like to come with a "demoiselle", or "Miss". A few days later he asked if the "suite with pool" had been booked. The text messages do not explicitly refer to prostitution.

Strauss-Kahn issued a statement through his lawyers on Friday demanding to be interviewed by investigative judges in the case as soon as possible, and denouncing a "media lynching". The statement said Strauss-Kahn was ready to "explain himself" not before the tribunal of public opinion but "in front of those running the judicial inquiry". Last month, his lawyers urged judges to interview him so he could answer what he deemed "hasty and malevolent" accusations.

Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Henri Leclerc, told the Guardian he had no comment to make on the case. He said his client had not yet been interviewed by investigators.

If Strauss-Kahn had consenting, paid-for encounters with sex workers aged over 18, it would not be a crime in France. But the publication this week of text messages to one businessman mentioning meetings with other top Socialists, raised questions about whether the men could expect political access or favours in exchange for providing what one had termed "girlfriends, meaning prostitutes" for him.

One businessman in the case said he paid for flights and costs. He is believed to have spent thousands of euros of company money on organising soirées for Strauss-Kahn, putting receipts marked with the initials DSK through his expense accounts. He told investigators Strauss-Kahn had not paid for anything.

The French media questioned Strauss-Kahn's behaviour during a period in which he was tipped to become the next president of France. "The net is tightening around DSK," said the daily Le Parisien on Friday.

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Ex-policeman jailed over VAT fraud

 

former police officer who admitted his part in a £365 million VAT fraud has been jailed for 10 years and three months. The conspiracy that Nigel Cranswick directed has taken the equivalent of 25 years of work to investigate, Judge Brian Forster said. The 47-year-old ex-South Yorkshire Police officer was a director of Ideas 2 Go, and, despite its modest base in a Sheffield business park, he claimed it bought and sold £2 billion worth of goods in just eight months. He has since admitted that the firm's trading, largely in mobile phones and computer software, was fictitious, and the aim was to generate paperwork from fake sales in order to claim back a fortune in VAT from HM Revenue and Customs. Judge Forster, sitting at Newcastle Crown Court, said: "This case concerned planned dishonesty resulting in the loss to the Revenue in the region of £365 million. "There were purported sales of billions of pounds. "The prosecution rightly described the case as an unprecedented attack on the Revenue. "The case has taken 25 man-years to investigate." Cranswick was recruited to play his role in the MTIC (missing Trader intra-community) fraud by others. Also known as carousel fraud, it involves importing goods from other EU states which are then sold through contrived business-to-business transactions. Cranswick, of Danby Road, Kiveton, Sheffield, admitted conspiracy to cheat HMRC at a hearing last month. After the sentencing, Exchequer Secretary David Gauke said: "This Government will not tolerate dishonest people stealing public money. "This sentence shows that those who try to commit fraud need to think again - HMRC will find you and the courts will punish you. "The additional £917m we have invested in HMRC will see more cases like this successfully prosecuted, sending a clear and powerful message." The judge said the sentencing exercise was to punish the offending and deter others. "The figures in this case are astonishing, they reveal the blatant nature of the fraud," he said. Between June 2005 and February 2006, I2G supposedly carried out almost 6,000 deals, with a turnover of £2.4 billion. Sentencing Cranswick, the judge said: "You were immediately before this fraud a serving police officer. Almost unbelievably you retired from the police force and became the organiser of this fraudulent operation. "You set up the company, you clearly accepted the direction of others - the organisers who are not before this court." Outside court, HMRC said Cranswick went "from rags to riches" soon after retiring, having been heavily in debt as a police officer. A spokeswoman said: "He made lavish improvements to his home, rented a luxury apartment in the Spanish town of Marbella and paid for private schooling and tennis lessons for his children. "Cranswick claimed that in the first six weeks of trading Ideas 2 Go had turned over more than £527 million. "The company had traded over £47 million before they even got round to opening a bank account for the business." HMRC assistant director for criminal investigation Paul Rooney said: "As a police officer Cranswick knew full well that he was breaking the law, yet, motivated by greed, he chose to overlook it for the opportunity of making what he wrongly assumed would be easy money. "He now has to pay a very high price for his poor judgment and lack of integrity. "This was a sophisticated fraud designed to steal hundreds of millions of pounds of tax, but it started to unravel when our investigations identified sales for more than 50,000 mobile phones, which the manufacturers hadn't even begun producing in their factories." Cranswick nodded as the judge passed sentence, and gestured to members of his family in the public gallery as he was led away. Also sentenced after admitting conspiracy to cheat the Revenue were Thomas Murphy, 27, of Dinnington, who was jailed for four and a half years; Cranswick's brother-in-law, Darren Smyth, 42, from Beech Road, Maltby, and Brian Olive, 56, from Buttermere Close, Doncaster, who were sentenced to three years and four months each; and former housing officer Andrew Marsh, 28, from Sheffield, who was jailed for two years and eight months. Cranswick's 44-year-old sister, Clare Reid, married to Smyth, was handed a nine-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work after admitting two counts of false accounting. Cranswick styled himself as a singer-songwriter and can be seen on his website strumming a guitar to a song called Hit And Miss with the opening lines: "I'm in trouble, falling down a hole. How I got here, I won't ever know." He was lead singer with an indie band called Not The Police.

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How a Financial Pro Lost His House

 

ONE night a few years ago, when the value of our home had collapsed, our debt was out of control and my financial planning business was shaky, I went to take out the trash. He wrote a book based in part on lessons learned by losing his Las Vegas home in the housing crisis. There was this enormous window that looked right in on the kitchen table, and through it I could see my wife, Cori, and our four children eating dinner. It was dark outside, so they couldn’t see me, and I just stood there looking at them. After a while, I pulled up a bucket and I sat on it, just watching my children eat. I found myself wishing that I could get back there, connected to the simple ordinary stuff of my family’s life. And as I sat and watched, filled with longing and guilt, two questions kept arising: How did I get here? And how am I going to get out of this? There are many stories these days of people who lost their financial bearings during the housing boom and the crisis that followed, but my story is a bit different from most. I’m a financial adviser. I get paid to help people make smart financial choices, and I speak and write about personal finance issues for this publication and others. My first book comes out in January, “The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things With Money” (Portfolio, a Penguin imprint). The thing that few people know, though, is that I learned a lot of this from experience. I made a bunch of mistakes, the very same ones that I now go around warning people to avoid. So this is the story of how I lost my home, the profound ethical questions that arose along the way, and what my wife and I learned from the mistakes that led us to that point. It made me better at what I do, but it wasn’t much fun getting there. Like most financial stories, this one is personal. It starts with me getting into the financial services industry more or less by accident. I answered an ad in 1995 that I thought was for a job related to “security” (as in security guard) but was in fact related to “securities.” That’s how little I knew about the stock market. A few months later I found myself working a phone at a Fidelity Investments call center. Things went well, and by 1999 I was a Merrill Lynch financial adviser and a certified financial planner. By then, we also owned a house in Salt Lake City. We’d bought it two years earlier, with a $25,000 down payment. A few years later, an opportunity arose to form a partnership with a successful Merrill adviser in Las Vegas. The place was on our top 10 list of never-move-to cities because we had always associated it with the Strip. But Cori and I were looking for an opportunity to have an experience somewhere else, and we met some great people when we visited the city. I took the job, and we moved down there. That was May 2003. Housing prices were already crazy, so we rented. But our neighborhood had zero character and lots of cookie-cutter houses. Within a few weeks, we were looking for a place to buy. I felt we could afford around $350,000. We called a real estate agent named Mitch, who had signs on all the bus stops: Talk to Mitch! He picked us up in a gold Jaguar, and suddenly we were looking at houses that listed at $500,000 or more. It felt a little crazy to be shopping for houses that cost half a million dollars, but my income was growing rapidly. Everywhere I looked, people were being rewarded for buying as much house as they could possibly afford, and then some. There was this excitement in the air, almost like static. I started to think that if I didn’t buy a house right then, I would never be able to afford one. At moments during our house hunt, I felt in my gut that something wasn’t right. We’d go to open houses for $400,000 homes and see lines of couples in their late 20s — younger than we were — waiting to get inside. I kept wondering where all the money was coming from. How did all these people make so much?

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BOTTOM five most hated airports

5. Ninoy Aquino International, Manila, Philippines

 

Wear a helmet -- the first collapsed ceiling in 2006 at Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Beleaguered by ground crew strikes, unkempt conditions, soup kitchen-style lines that feed into more lines and an overall sense of futility, NAIA brings the term “Stuck in the 1970s” to a new level.

 

At Terminal 1 all non-Philippine Airlines remain crammed despite serious overcapacity issues and a new and underused Terminal 3 is occupied by a few minor carriers. 

A rash of bad press this year (including a “Worst in the World” ribbon from Sleeping in Airports) was capped by a collapsed ceiling in T1, a paralyzing ground service strike at T2, and the usual charges of tampered luggage, filthy restrooms, seat shortages at gates, re-sealed water bottles sold in retail shops and an Amazing Race-style check-in routine spiked with bureaucracy, broken escalators, lengthy Dot Matrix passenger lists and creative airport departure fees. 

Read more on CNNGo: World's busiest airports announced

4. Toncontín International, Tegucigalpa, Honduras

 

Over-priced corn chips will be the least of your worries.

When do the most common airport gripes about inefficiency, uncomfortable gate chairs, dirty floors and lousy dining options suddenly become irrelevant? When you’re preoccupied about whether your 757 will actually be able to stop before the runway does. 

 

Nestled in a bowl-shaped valley at 957 meters above sea level, Toncontín’s notoriously stubby, mountain-cloaked landing strip was recently lengthened another 300 meters following a fatal TACA aircraft overshoot in 2008.

Not enough though to avoid being named the “second most dangerous airport in the world” by the History Channel. 

Nepal’s hair-raising Tenzing-Hillary Airport in the Himalayas is the top seed, but receives fewer gripes from its thrill-seeking Everest-bound clientele.

Read more on CNNGo: Shanghai Pudong International Airport: Fifth best in the world

3. London Heathrow, London, England

 

"You'll fly through departures -- at the speed of a penguin."

Depending on which of Heathrow’s five terminals one is funneled through, the average experience at the world’s third-busiest airport ranges from mildly tedious to "Fawlty Towers" ridiculous. 

 

With its rash of -- as they were politely called -- “teething problems” in bright and airy T5 (remember that riotous grand opening with 34 canceled flights?) and nicely matured problems in Ts 1, 2 and 3, the issues passengers are beset with run the gamut.

Parking messes. Busted baggage carousels. Deadlocked security lines. Long walks (or, more commonly, runs) between gates to a frenzied soundtrack of “last call” announcements. Realizations that getting out of Heathrow took longer than actually flying here from Madrid. 

In the airport “where the world changes planes,” it all boils down to a chronic inability to cope with this many people. Plans for a sixth terminal should help sever even more nerves.

2. Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, United States

 

It's not even a good spot for celebrity sightings.

If the world’s seventh-busiest flight hub was an old ballpark resting on the stale reputation of its Dodger Dogs and that great 1959 series, LAX might have some endearment value. 

 

But it’s an airport -- a dramatically undersized and moribund one with the architectural élan of a 1960s correctional facility and several publicized concerns about how its 1,700 takeoffs and landings a day can be sustained in a facility a fifth the size of healthier cousins like Dallas/Fort Worth. 

The unsupportive donut-shaped design -- it’s been called “eight terminals connected by a traffic jam” -- makes dashing between airlines feel like a diesel-scented cardio test. 

Plunked in the middle is the airport’s landmark Jetsons-style restaurant and only mentionable amenity, Encounter, but how does one actually get inside this place -- at least before being nailed for a petty traffic violation by some of the most ticket-hungry airport cops west of the Mississippi?

Read more on CNNGo: World's most terrifying airports

1. Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France

 

Don't expect to make friends during a storm closure.

“A great country worthy of the name,” President Charles de Gaulle once opined, “does not have any friends.” 

 

True or not, it’s this sort of attitude that has helped CDG become the most maligned major airport on earth. What’s fueling it? 

Grimy washrooms with missing toilet seats don’t help. Nor do broken scanning machines and an overall lack of signage, gate information screens and Paris-worthy bars, restaurants or cafés.

The baffling circular layout is worsened by warrens of tunnel-like structures, dismissive staff and seething travelers waiting forever in the wrong queue. 

The worst part may be this airport’s aura of indifference to it all. “Waiting for a connection here,” notes one commuter, “is like being in custody.”  

If you’re actually staying in Paris, you may be okay. If you have the gall to just be passing through between Malaga and Montreal, you can cut the spite of this place with a cheese knife.

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Top five most hated Airports

10. São Paulo-Guarulhos International, São Paulo, Brazil

 

Whether it's 9 a.m. or 9 p.m. this airport experiences round-the-clock rush hour.

Why is this place on our list after scoring third best airport in South America at the 2011 World Airport Awards? 

 

Because, shockingly enough, it turns out that corporate medal ceremonies aren’t always in sync with what people are thinking when they're standing in two-hour immigration lines, suffering routinely unannounced gate changes and paying through the teeth for a stale Brazilian cheese roll and beer inside an understaffed and over-aged aviation facility. 

In a country where flight delays (departing or arriving) are just part of the deal, some recent numbers would give pause to the most unflappable traveler at Brazil’s largest airport.

Just 41 percent of all flights leave on time. Only 59 percent of flights arrive on schedule, according to Forbes.  

São Paulo-Guarulhos has announced plans to add runways and terminals -- what airport hasn’t? -- but with nearly 30 million passengers traipsing through every year (the figure has reportedly doubled in under a decade) the urgency is palpable and, sadly enough, unsolved by upping prices at musty duty-free shops.

But does this really constitute bronze medal status? When the best unofficial advice for surviving Brazil’s pin-up airport is to try and learn a little Portuguese and not lose your temper, something’s gotta give. 

Read more on CNNGo: World's biggest airport planned

9. Perth Airport, Perth, Australia

 

Kick a dog while it's down: The Qantas strike didn't help PER's reputation.

If there’s one thing Australians love, it’s hating their airports.

 

But while the big guns in Sydney, Melbourne and also-rans in Darwin, Cairns and Hobart get routinely lambasted for various inefficiencies and rip-off tactics, passengers in Western Australia have a special place in their spleens for Perth. 

“The only advantage over some other airports is the lack of nearby combat,” notes one of several miffed passengers on airportquality.com. 

With a reviled pair of domestic terminals (home of two-hour taxi-line queues, atrocious check-in lines, overpopulated gates and meager lounges) and a slightly more palatable international terminal five kilometers away, Perth’s brittle facilities can be overwhelmed just by a trio of aircraft arriving within 20 minutes of each other. 

Now that an ambitious “billion-dollar” redevelopment project has been significantly scaled back, who would ever want to leave Changi for this place? 

Read more on CNNGo: Transit hotels: How to get to sleep during your stopover

8. Tribhuvan International, Kathmandu, Nepal

 

Don't look the officers -- or the dogs -- in the eye.

For a small airport in a pretty country, Tribhuvan has it all: the interminable weather delays of Boston Logan, the shoddy restroom maintenance of a Glasgow sports bar, the departure board sparsity of McMurdo Airfield and the chronic chaos of a kids' soccer match. 

 

Some airport improvements have been underway for the Visit Nepal 2011 tourism campaign, including things most passengers don’t much care about (e.g., the new helicopter base). 

The most serious beefs with Nepal’s only international airport revolve around its primitive yet officious check-in procedure, starring a roulette wheel of underpaid security agents. 

“Departure is an endless game of body searches and silly questions,” notes one passenger.

“Those who didn’t have their e-tickets printed out had to argue their way in,” says another, who was checked seven times and scolded for not having a baggage tag on a carry-on before eventually boarding. 

Never mind. The city’s markets and surrounding mountains are lovely.

7. John F. Kennedy International, New York, United States

 

Fans flooded the airport to welcome the 1964 British Invasion, but it seems they never left.

You’d think it would be one of the greatest humiliations any major airport would never allow itself to live down -- getting routinely abandoned by fed-up folks opting to fly out of Newark (Newark!) instead, where at least the ground staff cop less attitude and fewer people outside are pretending to be cab drivers.  

 

But, nah, JFK really couldn’t really care less.

Every year, more than 21 million passengers stumble through worn, mid-century terminals that peaked when The Beatles arrived in the United States and rooftop parking was all the rage; JFK proudly remains the world’s busiest international air gateway.

So if you’re not into a dim, surly, unbearably congested airport reeking with attitude and unapologetically long immigration lines -- good riddance. 

“JFK had a piece of my luggage sitting in a little detention room for bags -- for over a year,” notes one passenger. “No one noticed it was there, until finally an observant Air France employee wondered what the dusty little green bag in the corner was.” 

Read more on CNNGo: Secret Report: Singapore's Chiangi Airport world's favorite 

6. Jomo Kenyatta International, Nairobi, Kenya

 

Can't be disappointed if you're not expecting much.

“As African airports go, it’s not that bad -- but as an international hub, it may be one of the worst out there.” 

 

This is the common refrain among travelers through JKIA, who either don’t have the heart or the expectations to give this dated aviation facility the kind of pounding reserved for the JFKs and Charles de Gaulles of the world. 

Saddled with a 1958 blueprint designed for 2.5 million passengers, JKIA receives close to twice that many. Hence the airport’s 2005, Three Phase, US$100 million expansion project which has seen long delays (something about the rain) and has been spinning its tires somewhere in Phase Two for the last few years. 

For now, that means business as usual: cramped spaces; long lines; inadequate seating; frequent power outages; tiny washrooms hiding up several flights of stairs; shabby duty free shops; overpriced food outlets; and business class lounges worthy of a shelter in mid-city Los Angeles.

Sure, it’s a breeze compared to Lagos. But it could be so much better. The confusing result: grateful disappointment?

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Murdochs are not a mafia – but the family firm is in meltdown

 

There are times to push fine detail and finely timed memory losses aside and ask: what makes sense? And thus the fall and fall of the House of Murdoch continues. Young James is so smart, so smooth, such a master of dead bats and – yes! – detail. He's a clever lad. Why, then, did he act so stupidly? And why did those who were supposed to protect him, in loco parentis, do such a lousy job? We're not talking corporate governance here: we're talking family. Tom Watson may have pushed his mafia metaphor a tad too far at the committee grilling last week, but the family and its faithful, well-remunerated retainers are what matter most. See everything that Rupert has done over the last 20 years as family first and it all begins to fall into place. Take Les Hinton, the head butler at Wapping Abbey at the time. Did he brief Rupert Murdoch as Clive Goodman went to prison? How could he not have? Murdoch senior is always on the phone. He'd be chatting to editor Andy Coulson just as he'd chatted to News of the World editors down the years. Would Rupert have left his de facto heir to sink or swim in this rancid pool without full briefings and full protection? Of course not. Take Rebekah Brooks, the tabloid queen waiting to climb the management ladder when young James arrived. She'd been editor of the News of the World; she was editor of the Sun, just a few corridor yards away; Andy Coulson was her former deputy, her pick for the top, her boy. Didn't she see the perils post-hacking? Surely she wouldn't let James fall into the mire. Or take Colin Myler, the last editor of the News of the World, the Mr Clean chosen to clear up the whole damned mess. Hugely experienced, a previous editor of the Sunday and daily Mirror; an honourable guy who took the fall when a high-profile trial was stopped because people on his staff made mistakes. How did Myler come to Wapping, then? Because, after almost seven years' exile on Murdoch's New York Post, he was the safe pair of hands Rupert chose personally to put things back on track. And today? Les Hinton is history, dumped from Dow Jones as the family scrabbles after a safe haven. Rebekah is history, too, left with an office, a chauffeur and £1.7m to keep her warm. While Myler is suddenly the enemy, the loyalist inexplicably contradicting James about what James was told and siding with Tom Crone, the paper's equally suddenly reviled lawyer. Does any of this make the remotest human sense? If some revered TV scriptwriter (say Peter Morgan) wrote a series about newspaper life in which nobody gossiped, nobody got drunk, nobody told anyone anything, he'd be laughed out of the studio. The entire farrago doesn't hold for a second. With Scotland Yard knee-deep in unread emails, there's nil chance of that unsteady state ending any decade soon. Proof – in any bewigged form – will probably only emerge much later: but proof, in a thumbs-up or -down way, is commodiously available already. An over-protected fool or a desperate man cornered? It's a sad, sad choice, but amounts to much the same thing either way. Protectors didn't protect. Instead, they were jettisoned one by one. And perhaps the saddest – nay, tragic – explanation of what went on is also the most benign. James wasn't interested in tabloid blunders, or even playing executive chairman to them. He loved digital, TV, the future. He was bored, bored, bored by lawyers and their letters. His father, the dad who must be obeyed, had made him serve his time; but his mind kept wandering away to the fields he loved. There's the tragedy for the son and the family, but worst of all for Rupert. Those who didn't quite believe it in the summer must surely acknowledge it now: James Murdoch can never sit at his father's desk. The whole succession scenario is bust. The Murdoch hegemony stops here. No sentient shareholder is going to let the family run things hands-on any longer. Just sit back and cash the dividends. There may be more rumours about a Sun on Sunday come the dawn of 2012, but forget them. We can't even be sure there'll be a Sun if James's readiness to shut it (should more hacking be discovered) is tested. There won't be any clear, calm, imminent moment when, all passion spent, the Bun seems wholesome again. Trinity Mirror, its profits bulwarked by the greatest ever stroke of luck, can carry on smiling. The murk of 2011 will just linger on (oozing into view every time Tom Watson mentions a new private eye). Those who like strong medicine and stronger penalties against malfeasance may care to count the payback thus far. For Murdoch: no heir, no News of the World, some $90m (£56m) gone, a reputation and an influence lost, a family at war. For James: no glowing future. For many of the rest of the gang: no jobs and possibly no freedom either. Retribution doesn't come crueller than this. Hacking can damage your health, wealth, your nearest and dearest. Hacking has sundered the biggest media empire in the globe: and many things, including Wapping and, less joyously, the papers that remain, can never be quite the same again. ■ The News of the World may be dead and buried, but a dogged Max Mosley is still trying to drive a stake through its heart. About 3,000 copies of the Nazi orgy story that incensed him circulated in France so, three years after the event, he went to Paris, launched another privacy case and (last week) won. Triumph? Only up to a point. The court awarded €32,000 in all (€10,000 as a state fine, €7,000 (£27,000) as Max's damages and the rest as costs). That doesn't sound much, sniffed Britain's finest media eagles, barely worth putting on a wig and gown for in the Strand. His French lawyer thought Max had done pretty well – but the tariff, by Strand standards, is low, low, low. Whether it's under French law or the European Convention on Human Rights, you can make a point over the Channel, if you must: but you won't make a mint.

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Two former News of the World executives have hit back at their 'disingenuous' former boss James Murdoch

Two former News of the World executives have hit back at their 'disingenuous' former boss James Murdoch as a bitter war of words engulfs the media empire.

The paper's former editor Colin Myler and ex-legal manager Tom Crone claim that they made Mr Murdoch aware of widespread hacking within the organisation as long ago as 2008.

But Mr Murdoch told MPs yesterday he 'disputed vigorously' the claims from Mr Myler and Mr Crone that they revealed the significance of an email indicating the practice was widespread.

The meeting in June 2008 centres on the 'For Neville' email which contained transcripts of hacked messages from the mobile phone of Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association. This email was apparently intended for chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck.

Coming out fighting: Former News of the World editor Colin Myler, left, and Tom Crone, former legal manager of News International say James Murdoch was told in 2008 about widespread hacking 

 

Denials: News Corp executive James Murdoch protests his innocence to MPs during a second round of questioning in front of the Commons Culture Committee yesterday

Had Mr Murdoch been fully briefed about the contents of the message it would have been clear to him that hacking was not limited to the single 'rogue' reporter, Clive Goodman, who was jailed in 2007.

Mr Myler and Mr Crone say he knew about the contents of the email. Mr Murdoch says he did not.

After the meeting, a payment of  £425,000 was made to Mr Taylor in return for a confidentiality agreement that prevents him from discussing the matter.

TIMELINE OF THE EVIDENCE

• Royal reporter Clive Goodman is jailed for hacking in 2007
  
• News of the World insists the activity was limited to one 'rogue' reporter
  
•  The 'For Neville' email is discussed with James Murdoch at meeting on June 10 2008
• £425,000 is payed in an out-of-court settlement to PFA boss Gordon Taylor
• James Murdoch continues to insist hacking was not widespread
• Further revelations emerge in May 2011 that force the News of the World paper to close
• Colin Myler and Tom Crone say that Mr Murdoch knew about hacking in 2008
• Mr Murdoch says he was not told about the full extent of For Neville email
• Commons Culture Committee chairman John Whittingdale says 'one of them is not telling the truth' 
  

It is not known how such a significant payment could have been made without the full reasons being known by those at the top of the organisations.

Parliament was later told in July 2009 that hacking was restricted to a single reporter.

Mr Murdoch has repeatedly insisted to MPs that he had no knowledge of hacking.

The bitter row erupted yesterday after Mr Murdoch's bruising second appearance before the House of Commons Culture Committee's inquiry into the scandal.

The 'For Neville' email and the payment to Gordon Taylor were two of the main lines of questioning that MPs used to interrogate Mr Murdoch.

Mr Murdoch insisted he had not learned until recently that the practice of illegally eavesdropping on private phone messages was widely used at the newspaper.

The evidence given to the committee by Mr Crone and Mr Myler in September was 'inconsistent and not right', he said, adding: 'I believe their testimony was misleading and I dispute it.'

Committee chairman John Whittingdale said it was clear that of the two accounts MPs had heard about the June 2008 meeting to discuss settling a legal claim brought by Professional Footballers' Association chief executive Gordon Taylor 'one of them cannot be true'.

Mr Murdoch admitted that he was made aware by Mr Crone and Mr Myler at that meeting of the existence of the 'For Neville' email.

But he insisted he was not shown it or told its full contents or significance.

Mr Watson told the hearing that he had spoken to Mr Thurlbeck, who claimed he was told by Mr Crone that he had shown the email to Mr Murdoch.

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Foreign Office is urging Britons to remember that its services are reserved for people in real difficultly

 

Foreign Office is urging Britons to remember that its services are reserved for people in real difficultly, and not for finding out Prince Charles' shoe size The Foreign Office has issued a reminder to Britons travelling and living abroad that embassies, high commissions and consulates exist to offer assistance to those in real difficultly, and are not 'concierge services'. To demonstrate their point the Foreign Office decided to reveal some of the odd requests they have received over the last six months. One man in Sofia asked if the Consulate would sell his house for him, whilst another rang the Consulate in Sydney to find out what he should pack for his holiday. A lady in Moscow called the embassy complaining about a buzzing noise in her apartment, a caller in Spain wondered the shoe size of Prince Charles, and a man stranded in an airport asked the Foreign Office to contact his dominatrix. With around two million consular inquires every year, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) needs to dedicate its time to helping British citizens abroad in the case of hospitalisation, death, arrest, forced marriage and child abduction. Jeremy Browne, Minister for Consular Affairs, said: “It is important that people understand the level of help we can offer. Our priority is to help people in real difficulty abroad and we cannot do this if our time is diverted by people trying to use us as a concierge service. We need to be able to focus primarily on helping victims of serious crimes, supporting people who have been detained or assisting people who have lost a loved one abroad.”  The Foreign Office has recently set up a call centre in Malaga to filter out some of the non-consular inquires from Spain, Portugal, Italy and Andorra, allowing embassy and consulate staff to focus their time on more important issues at hand. So just remember, there are simply some things the Foreign Office cannot help with, and where to get a Christmas lunch in Malaga, the location of the best fishing spots in Greece and meeting pets in customs in Dubai are some of them.

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Holiday villa belonging to a Sevilla family was left in a heap of rubble after thieves stole it brick by brick

 

holiday villa belonging to a Sevilla family was left in a heap of rubble after thieves stole it brick by brick. Gloria Moreno had a villa in the urbanization of Boticaria (Sevilla), near a luxury. Now he has nothing. They have stolen the building brick by brick. When the rafters were taken the ceiling came down and what was supposed to be a beautiful holiday home has become a pile of rubble. Her family bought the home ten years ago as a second home in an area that promised to become a luxurious area. He family lives in Sevilla and thought this place could be good to spend weekends and days off. It was close to the pine forests and was a newly established residential area in quiet environment. However, the construction of the urbanization stopped leaving the villa isolated. For a time they had rented it out, but upon the departure of the tenants, it was targeted by vandals and thieves. These could operate at night with peace of mind they would not be seen by anyone. Inside the house began a process of selective demolition. First, they took doors and windows. They also dismantled the mechanism of purification of the pool. On one visit she saw various holes in the roof, dismissing it as pure vandalism. What she did not know was that vandals were trying to determinte the material of the roof beams. When  iron was found they proceeded to disassemble them one by one to take them and sell them as scrap. By removing the beams the roof collapsed leaving only the walls. But there was something else to steal. In one of the last visits the son of the family saw how someonehad been removing bricks one by one, cleaning and stealing them. What was once a beautiful holiday home is now only a heap of rubble and a hazard.

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Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One chief executive, has revealed that his ex-wife spent more than £12 million on their youngest daughter’s wedding without telling him.

Bernie Ecclestone and ex-wife Slavica (left) and Petra with her new husband art dealer James Stunt Photo: REX FEATURES

Mr Ecclestone, who is estimated to be worth about £2.5billion, gave a rare insight into his family’s billionaire lifestyle when he told a German court of the wedding bill.

He explained that he had no idea what the cost was be until after his daughter Petra’s wedding because he had argued with his former wife Slavica Ecclestone over the cost shortly before the ceremony.

He said although he had offered, as the father of the bride, to pay, he had fallen out with Mrs Ecclestone over the proposed cost of the drinks, which are said to have included Chateau Petrus wine at £4,000 a bottle.

As a result, his ex-wife, who with a fortune of £750 million is one of the country’s wealthiest millionaires as the result of a divorce, ran up the huge bill without telling him.

Mr Ecclestone was giving evidence at the trial of Germany’s biggest post-war fraud trial against a German banker.

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Police raid Perth bikie properties

 

42-year-old Rebels motorcycle gang member is one of three people being questioned by police after a search of his home in Calista, south of Perth. Police say they found a 22 calibre, self-loading handgun, cash, cannabis and a trafficable quantity of what they believe to be methamphetamine during this morning's search of the Edmund Road house. No charges have been laid at this stage. Gang Crime Squad detectives have also raided a home linked to a bikie gang in Morley this afternoon. They say they were searching for stolen motorcycles, firearms and drugs. The raids are part of a continued effort by police to disrupt the activities of motorcycle gangs.

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Joseph Patrick John Lagrue handed himself in at Solihull police station in September after the brawl between members of the Hell’s Angels and Outlaws biker gangs

One of Birmingham’s ‘Most Wanted’ crooks is facing justice over a battle between rival bikers at the airport in which one man nearly died.

Joseph Patrick John Lagrue handed himself in at Solihull police station in September after the brawl between members of the Hell’s Angels and Outlaws biker gangs in January 2008.

Up to 30 people, some armed with hammers, machetes, knuckledusters, knives and a meat cleaver, were involved in the fight following a trip to Spain.

Families of holidaymakers were forced to dive for cover as the violence swept through the terminal.

A police source said Lagrue, 43, understood to be a member of the Outlaws, had played a “key role" in the violence.

But he was not tracked down following the incident and, in January last year, detectives named him as ‘wanted’ and added his face to their website.

A West Midlands Police spokesman said that following his arrest on September 27 he appeared before magistrates in Solihull charged with rioting.

He has pleaded guilty to the offence and will be sentenced later this month.

“Joseph Lagrue was wanted by police in connection since the investigation commenced and our efforts to track him down never ceased,” the spokesman said.

“This was a significant disturbance played out in the full glare of a busy international airport terminal.

"Families returning to Birmingham from their holidays were forced to take cover as two groups attacked each other with gratuitous violence.

“Weapons were produced and used and there were a number of injuries.

“The arrest of Joseph Lagrue brings this significant investigation to a close.”

The mob violence exploded near the arrivals hall of the airport after rival members discovered they were on the same flight from Alicante, in Spain.

Members of both gangs were met by associates, who provided them with weapons, as they arrived at the airport and began brawling in front of terrified families.

Several men were injured and one almost lost his life after suffering a serious head injury.

In July 2009, Neil Harrison, then aged 46, of Bell Green Road, Coventry; Paul Arlett, then 35, of Cradley Road, Dudley; Mark Price, then 50, of Westbury Road, Nuneaton, Warwickshire; Sean Timmins, then 38, of Brewood Road in Coven, Staffordshire; Leonard Hawthorne, then 52, of Penn Road, Wolverhampton; Mark Moseley, then 46, of Orchard Rise, in Birmingham, and Jeremy Ball, then 46, of Plant Street, Cheadle, Staffordshire, were each jailed for six years after being convicted of rioting.

Another man, Mark Larner, then aged 47, of Tudor Road, Upper Gornal in the Black Country, fled to South Africa “with a substantial amount of money” before being sentenced. He later handed himself in to police in Bristol and was jailed in November 2009 for six years.

A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said Lagrue had pleaded guilty and was remanded in custody until later this month when he is due to be sentenced at Warwick Crown Court.

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The King of Spain’s son-in-law was at the centre of a corruption storm today as he came under investigation for siphoning off public money.

Inaki Urdangarin - the husband of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia's youngest daughter Infanta Cristina - is suspected of misappropriating cash paid into an NGO.

The former handball player now faces a possible interrogation by investigating judge Jose Castro  and risks causing huge embarrassment for the royals.

It is claimed that his non-profit company, Instituto Noos, was given an enormous 2.3million euros (just under £2million) by the Balearic Islands’ regional government to organise two conferences on tourism and sport in 2005 and 2006. 

The judicial investigation is looking into whether the bills for the events were inflated and if the money ended up in private companies run by Urdangarin, who is Duke of Palma, the capital of Majorca.

Urdangarin, 43, left Instituto Noos in 2006, months after the exorbitant sums paid by the Balearic government were revealed by the Socialist Party.

 

 

He said today: 'I cannot comment about on-going judicial proceedings.'

The prosecution claims Urdangarin and his associate Diego Torres created a network of societies with which they diverted public and private funds received by Instituto Noos.

Under suspicion: The former handball star is charged with creating a network of societies into which he diverted private and public funds

Regal scandal: Princess Cristina and Urdangarin (far right) pose with Spain's royal family King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia, Crown Prince Felipe and wife Princess Letizia and Princess Elena

They are under investigation for document falsification, corruption, fraud and embezzlement, and Torres’s home has been searched.

The Royal Household expressed its 'absolute respect' for the legal decisions and added that it has 'nothing to say at this moment' as this is 'an investigation which must follow its course'.

The Duke and Duchess, who married in 1997, now live in Washington, DC. The couple have four children. 

Urdangarin played in Spain’s national handball team at three Olympic Games, captaining the side for Sydney 2000.

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