Muriel McKay: Family of murdered woman claim police jeopardising search for body by ‘spooking’ killer

Published

1 year ago

March 11, 2024

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The family of murdered Muriel McKay have condemned Scotland Yard detectives for the way they interviewed her killer in the continuing search for her remains.

After a renewed campaign to find her body, her relatives now fear police will abandon plans to dig at the Hertfordshire farm where Mrs McKay was held ransom by her kidnappers 55 years ago.

Her family says the killer has already pinpointed the burial site to them.

The British officers collected Nizam Hosein, 76, from his ramshackle home in Trinidad last week and spent three days in a local police station asking him to identify the exact spot where he buried Mrs McKay.

Hosein was deported to the island after serving 20 years for Mrs McKay’s kidnap and murder. It was one of the first murder trials without a body. Until recently he had refused to say what happened to his victim.

After initially telling the family they were making progress in their interviews with Hosein, Detective Superintendent Katherine Goodwin then sent them a message: “He was unable to provide a location with any consistency, which is not what you or we wanted to find.”

Mark Dyer, Mrs McKay’s grandson, confronted the officers on their return to Gatwick Airport early on Saturday.

He told Sky News: “This is most upsetting to us personally, having done so much for this search to find my grandmother who has now been twice failed by the Metropolitan Police.

“We warned the police that going mob-handed and putting him in a police station would spook him and they would never get much out of him. He is terrified of police officers and needs to be carefully handled and encouraged to speak about those days.”

Dianne McKay, Muriel’s daughter, said: “It’s taken us nearly three years to get this guy to really be open and friendly with us, and that’s not what we ever set out to achieve.

“We only wanted information, but we’ve had to work very hard psychologically on his character to gain his confidence, and they walked in and snuffed it.”

Mr Dyer said: “Many times Nizam has told the family the precise burial spot. He hasn’t wavered. He pointed it out on old photographs of the farm we showed him and has offered to return to the UK to show us exactly where we will find my grandmother.”

He also told Sky News that he feels he and his mother “are being played with”.

“It’s not a game,” he added. “My mother’s emotions and health are being played with, this has got to stop.

“Either my grandmother is where Nizam says she is, or she’s not, it’s simple. This is not rocket science.”

Businessman Mr Dyer and his mother Dianne met Hosein in January after flying 4,500 miles to Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago.

Sky News filmed a series of meetings, in which Hosein was shown old and new photographs of the farm and studied computer-generated images to identify the burial site.

He said at the time: “Go through the kitchen door, come through the open land, turn left and it’s two feet from the hedge, that’s where the body is.”

A week later, after studying the Sky News footage, Det Supt Goodwin said she found Hosein’s evidence “compelling”, but wanted to meet him face to face to test his credibility and memory.

She and two colleagues landed on the island on Monday and began interviewing Hosein the next day. They had urged the family not to be there and to let them speak to him alone.

She hoped to gather enough evidence to justify a new search at the farm near the village of Stocking Pelham, or urge the Home Office to lift Hosein’s deportation order and let him return briefly to the farm to show police exactly where to dig.

Her colleagues searched a patch of the farmland two years ago, but found nothing during a five-day excavation. The family said they had dug in the wrong place.

Fifteen months ago, Dianne McKay, 84, made an official complaint about the attitude towards her one by one of the officers involved in the first search.

She accused him of “completely and wholly unacceptable behaviour” by confronting and shouting at her and accusing her of breaching an agreement with the landowner who had allowed the first police search.

She wrote to Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley: “I was gravely surprised and still feel deeply traumatised by his behaviour.”

Scotland Yard spokesperson said: “We can confirm a public complaint has been received and is now being assessed. We will remain in contact with the complainant during this process.”

UK

Yellow warning for thunderstorms issued for large parts of England and Wales

Published

3 hours ago

June 6, 2025

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Yellow warning for thunderstorms issued for large parts of England and Wales

A yellow warning for thunderstorms has been issued for large parts of England and Wales on Saturday.

The Met Office warning covers most of southern England, parts of the Midlands and most of south Wales between 9am until 6pm on Saturday.

People in the affected areas are being warned heavy showers and thunderstorms may lead to some disruption to transport services.

Find out the forecast for your area

Delays to train services are possible and some short-term losses of power are also likely.

The UK’s weather agency said 10 to 15mm of rain could fall in less than an hour, while some places could see 30 to 40mm of rain over several hours from successive showers and thunderstorms.

It has also warned of frequent lightning, hail and strong gusty winds.

Met Office Chief Meteorologist Dan Suri said most places in the warning areas will be hit by showers, although not all will see storms.

“In this case, it’s difficult to predict where exactly thunderstorms will hit because they are small and fast changing,” he said.

The wet weather comes days after the Met Office said the UK had its warmest spring on record – and its driest for 50 years.

Provisional figures showed spring temperatures surpassed the long-term average by 1.4C – with a mean temperature of 9.5C (49.1F). That beat the previous warmest spring recorded in 2024.

Temperature records were broken in all four nations in the UK – with 1.64C above the long-term average in Northern Ireland, 1.56C above average in Scotland, 1.39C in Wales and 1.35C in England.

In records dating back to 1884, the Met Office said eight of the 10 warmest springs had occurred since 2000 – and the three warmest had been since 2017, in a sign of the changing climate.

Conditions were also incredibly dry this spring, with an average of 128.2mm of rain falling in the UK across March, April and May – the lowest spring total since 1974, which saw 123.2mm.

UK

Body found in wooded area in search for missing teenager Cole Cooper

Published

4 hours ago

June 6, 2025

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Body found in wooded area in search for missing teenager Cole Cooper

A body has been found in the search for a teenager who went missing in early May.

Cole Cooper, 19, was last seen by a school friend on Wednesday 7 May, in the village of Longcroft near Falkirk, in central Scotland.

Mr Cooper was reported missing by his family on Friday 9 May.

Police Scotland said the body was discovered in a wooded area near Kilsyth Road in Banknock on Friday afternoon.

“Formal identification has yet to take place however the family of missing man Cole Cooper, 19, has been informed,” the force said in a statement. “Enquiries remain ongoing to establish the full circumstances.”

Speaking to Sky News Breakfast earlier this week, his brother Connor said their family felt “lost” and described his sibling’s disappearance as “hell… for all of us”.

He described him going missing as “very much out of character” and that “even if his brother wanted some space or alone time” he would have notified family or friends beforehand – and would never “put his younger siblings through this”.

His mother Wendy Stewart described the situation as “total heartache” and was afraid he may have been “picked up by a car” and come to harm.

“Is it actually happening?” she said. “I have been wanting to wake up and it’s just been a big nightmare.”

After police got involved in the search, they visited more than 220 properties and trawled through around 1,000 hours of CCTV footage in a bid to find Mr Cooper.

Specialist resources from across the country were mobilised, including a helicopter and drones from the air support unit, as well as officers from the dive and marine unit.

The force previously indicated there was no suggestion of any criminality.

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UK

Bargain Hunt expert Oghenochuko Ojiri jailed after failing to report sale of artworks to ‘Hezbollah financier’

Published

6 hours ago

June 6, 2025

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Bargain Hunt expert Oghenochuko Ojiri jailed after failing to report sale of artworks to 'Hezbollah financier'

An expert on TV show Bargain Hunt has been jailed for two and a half years after failing to report the sale of artworks to a man suspected of financing Hezbollah.

Oghenochuko Ojiri, who has also appeared on another BBC programme Antiques Road Trip, sold around £140,000 worth of art to Nazem Ahmad over a 14-month period between October 2020 and December 2021, the Old Bailey heard.

Art dealer Ojiri, 53, who is known as Ochuko, admitted eight counts in May of failing to make a disclosure during the course of business within the regulated sector, contrary to section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Lebanese businessman and diamond dealer Ahmad was described in court as a “prominent financier” for Hezbollah, a proscribed terrorist group in the UK.

Prosecutor Lyndon Harris said Ahmad has an extensive art collection worth tens of millions of pounds, including works by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, many of which are displayed in his penthouse in Beirut.

Ojiri, who owned the Ramp Gallery, which was later renamed the Ojiri Gallery, sent a message to a contact saying, “I can’t risk selling directly to him,” after Ahmad was sanctioned in the US, the court heard.

But Mr Harris said “that’s exactly what he did” when he sold artworks, which were sent to Dubai, the UAE and Beirut.

Ojiri’s barrister Kevin Irwin said he was arrested on 18 April 2023 in Wrexham while filming a BBC show and his “humiliation is complete” as he appeared for sentencing.

Ahmad was sanctioned on the same day in the UK and officers later seized artworks held in two warehouses in the country, including a Picasso and a Warhol, valued at almost £1m.

‘Shameful fall from grace’

Sentencing Ojiri to two years and six months in prison, with an additional year on extended licence, the judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, told him: “You knew about Ahmad’s suspected involvement in financing terrorism and the way the art market can be exploited by someone like him”.

She said Ojiri, from Brent, north London, viewed his offences as a “shameful fall from grace of a public personality and role model for those from an ethnic minority, in the arts and antique sector”.

“Your hard work, talent and charisma have brought you a great deal of success,” the judge said.

“You knew you shouldn’t be dealing with this man. I don’t accept you were naive, rather it benefitted you to close your eyes to what you believed he was.

“You knew it was your duty to alert the authorities but you elected to balance the financial profit and commercial success of your business against Ahmad’s dark side.”

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter terrorism command, said the prosecution was the “first of its kind” and should serve as a warning to art dealers.

“Oghenochuko Ojiri wilfully obscured the fact he knew he was selling artwork to Nazem Ahmad, someone who has been sanctioned by the UK and US treasury and described as a funder of the proscribed terrorist group Hezbollah,” he said.