Connect with us

Published

on

The rat man from the council has just turned up. He is back at James and Oscar’s home laying more poison that the rats keep eating.

“I woke up the other night at three in the morning and one was biting my nose,” James says.

It’s the stuff of nightmares but it has become James and Oscar’s everyday struggle. A nearby building has the words “rat city” daubed on one of the walls.

“There was a fire next door,” Oscar explains.

“The rats came out of there and now there’s problems with them in the drains.”

He showed us around their overgrown garden. “It’s like a rats’ playground” he says, thoroughly fed up with it all.

The pair are friends and neighbours – and invited us in to discuss the riots that erupted across the UK in early August, including in their home city of Hull.

More on Hull

They were there on the fringes of the trouble but not, they tell us, directly involved.

It was a “kick back”, James tells us, over the UK’s failed immigration policies.

When Keir Starmer described the riots as “far-right thuggery” James believes he failed to grasp what was happening.

“I have seen people crying in doorways… they are cold, and they are hungry…who is helping the English-born people?” has asks.

“What I am not is a racist person… I just look at the pain in people’s eyes sometimes and you think, ‘What the hell? What is going on?’

“Their (migrants’) problems are getting solved but nobody is solving the problem of the people who are living on the streets.”

Image:
James and Oscar are angry that migrants stay in hotels while people around them struggle

Neither Oscar nor James work due to poor health and spend their days watching YouTube channels dedicated to investigating Britain’s immigration problems.

They are both angry about immigration, really angry.

While they ultimately blame the government they resent the way asylum seekers are put into hotels while their claims are processed.

“Get rid of them, I just think it is wrong,” Oscar says.

“I ain’t got a problem with being in other people’s countries and I haven’t got a problem with them being in mine.

“But when it’s taking away all our necessary needs – hospitals, dentists, hotels… housing. It is just pfft…” He throws his arms up in the air in despair.

Riot police defend a hotel housing migrants in Hull during the disorder this month
Image:
Riot police had to defend a hotel housing migrants in the city

The pair watched as rioters surrounded a hotel next to the station in Hull on 3 August.

It’s currently home to dozens of predominantly young men waiting to hear if they will be allowed to stay.

James acknowledges there was appalling racism that day and says he has sympathy for genuine asylum seekers.

“I don’t think everybody thinks like me and goes, ‘God bless them, they’ve got problems too’,” he says.

“They have been through hell, they have been through warzones but… people felt a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, like, you know, people living on the streets, who are not getting looked after.

Oscar later takes us to meet Donna – who sits outside a nearby shop with a sign that reads “JOB WANTED”.

She used to run her own cleaning business but after the death of her daughter in a car accident her life fell apart. Last November she also lost her partner.

Donna
Image:
Donna used to run a cleaning business but now sleeps in an underpass

For the past two and half years, Donna has been homeless. She purposefully hides herself away under a road bridge most nights so nobody can attack her.

“Where I am it’s so dark that nobody is going to be able to see me,” she says.

“Every time you think you are getting back up… there is something or someone who kicks you back down again.

“England is the place that has got a big sign for people that says ‘Freebies’, come in and we’ll get you in a hotel – that is the way it comes across to people.”

Donna
Image:
Donna says there’s always ‘something or someone who kicks you back down again’

“They (the government) want to sort their own problems out first and this is one of them,” says Donna, gesturing to the gloomy underpass she calls her bedroom.

It’s a problem they see most days at a community interest company called Adapt Resettlement further along Anlaby Road.

Every day, Danny and Lisa lead a small team dedicated to trying to get a roof over people’s heads.

“If you’ve got drug problems, mental health problems, even just living on the street, it’s a war every day for them,” says Danny.

“They can pitch up somewhere when a gang of kids will go and kick the tents, will kick their head in, it is a war daily for them.

Danny and Lisa
Image:
Danny (left) says it’s incorrect to say all those caught up in the trouble are racist

“So, I get what they’re saying, that they (asylum seekers) are fleeing wars, but ours are fighting in a daily war,” adds Danny.

“Not everybody was in that riot for the same reason. There will have been people in that riot because they are homeless, they haven’t had help.

“But that doesn’t make them racist. They just wanted to get their point across.”

Danny has served time for violent offences in the past – and has also been homeless himself. He pins the blame for the riots squarely at the door of politicians.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Aftermath of unrest and looting in Hull

“The government laid the bomb. And it’s just exploded,” he says.

“It is down to the government to sort it… The only way that they will do it, in my eyes, is that they give them equal opportunities.

“If they’re going to allow them in then so be it. But please look after ours as well. Otherwise, it’ll just continue, and it will.”

Read more:
Man apologises to mosque worshipper after Hull demo led to riot
Mum-of-six jailed for ‘truly disgraceful’ behaviour in riots

We joined Danny’s final home visit of the day, where we meet Carl.

Carl
Image:
‘There’s a lot of tension in the air, there is a lot of aggression,’ says Carl

He’s trying to stabilise his life, improve his health and eat better, but needs ongoing support.

He’s finally got a roof over his head thanks to the project.

“You can shout so loud can’t you and they don’t listen,” Carl tells us.

“It is just one of those things it boils over sometimes.

“There’s a lot of tension in the air, there is a lot of aggression and a lot of animosity.”

The police and courts have clamped down hard on those who were involved in the riots on 3 August. Earlier this month the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “There is no place for such appalling, senseless violence on our streets, and this government is determined to stamp out the scourge of serious violence wherever it is found.”

Meanwhile, the anger, animosity, and jealousy that helped fuel them still exists.

The roots of the riots run deep.

Continue Reading

UK

At least 13 people may have taken their own lives linked to Post Office scandal, public inquiry finds

Published

on

By

At least 13 people may have taken their own lives linked to Post Office scandal, public inquiry finds

At least 13 people may have taken their own lives after being accused of wrongdoing based on evidence from the Horizon IT system that the Post Office and developers Fujitsu knew could be false, the public inquiry has found.

A further 59 people told the inquiry they considered ending their lives, 10 of whom tried on at least one occasion, while other postmasters and family members recount suffering from alcoholism and mental health disorders including anorexia and depression, family breakup, divorce, bankruptcy and personal abuse.

Follow latest on public inquiry into Post Office scandal

Writing in the first volume of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry report, chairman Sir Wyn Williams concludes that this enormous personal toll came despite senior employees at the Post Office knowing the Horizon IT system could produce accounts “which were illusory rather than real” even before it was rolled out to branches.

Sir Wyn said: “I am satisfied from the evidence that I have heard that a number of senior, and not so senior, employees of the Post Office knew or, at the very least, should have known that Legacy Horizon was capable of error… Yet, for all practical purposes, throughout the lifetime of Legacy Horizon, the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate.”

Referring to the updated version of Horizon, known as Horizon Online, which also had “bugs errors and defects” that could create illusory accounts, he said: “I am satisfied that a number of employees of Fujitsu and the Post Office knew that this was so.”

The first volume of the report focuses on what Sir Wyn calls the “disastrous” impact of false accusations made against at least 1,000 postmasters, and the various redress schemes the Post Office and government has established since miscarriages of justice were identified and proven.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

‘It stole a lot from me’

Recommendations regarding the conduct of senior management of the Post Office, Fujitsu and ministers will come in a subsequent report, but Sir Wyn is clear that unjust and flawed prosecutions were knowingly pursued.

“All of these people are properly to be regarded as victims of wholly unacceptable behaviour perpetrated by a number of individuals employed by and/or associated with the Post Office and Fujitsu from time to time and by the Post Office and Fujitsu as institutions,” he says.

What are the inquiry’s recommendations?

Calling for urgent action from government and the Post Office to ensure “full and fair compensation”, he makes 19 recommendations including:

• Government and the Post Office to agree a definition of “full and fair” compensation to be used when agreeing payouts
• Ending “unnecessarily adversarial attitude” to initial offers that have depressed the value of payouts, ⁠and ensuring consistency across all four compensation schemes
• The creation of a standing body to administer financial redress to people wronged by public bodies
• Compensation to be extended to close family members of those affected who have suffered “serious negative consequences”
• The Post Office, Fujitsu and government agreeing a programme for “restorative justice”, a process that brings together those that have suffered harm with those that have caused it

Regarding the human impact of the Post Office’s pursuit of postmasters, including its use of unique powers of prosecution, Sir Wyn writes: “I do not think it is easy to exaggerate the trauma which persons are likely to suffer when they are the subject of criminal investigation, prosecution, conviction and sentence.”

He says that even the process of being interviewed under caution by Post Office investigators “will have been troubling at best and harrowing at worst”.

Read more:
Post Office inquiry lays bare heart-breaking legacy – analysis

‘Hostile and abusive behaviour’

The report finds that those wrongfully convicted were “subject to hostile and abusive behaviour” in their local communities, felt shame and embarrassment, with some feeling forced to move.

Detailing the impact on close family members of those prosecuted, Sir Wyn writes: “Wives, husbands, children and parents endured very significant suffering in the form of distress, worry and disruption to home life, in employment and education.

“In a number of cases, relationships with spouses broke down and ended in divorce or separation.

“In the most egregious cases, family members themselves suffered psychiatric illnesses or psychological problems and very significant financial losses… their suffering has been acute.”

The report includes 17 case studies of those affected by the scandal including some who have never spoken publicly before. They include Millie Castleton, daughter of Lee Castleton, one of the first postmasters prosecuted.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Three things you need to know about Post Office report

She told the inquiry how her family being “branded thieves and liars” affected her mental health, and contributed to a diagnosis of anorexia that forced her to drop out of university.

Her account concludes: “Even now as I go into my career, I still find it so incredibly hard to trust anyone, even subconsciously. I sabotage myself by not asking for help with anything.

“I’m trying hard to break this cycle but I’m 26 and am very conscious that I may never be able to fully commit to natural trust. But my family is still fighting. I’m still fighting, as are many hundreds involved in the Post Office trial.”

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the inquiry’s report “marks an important milestone for sub-postmasters and their families”.

He added that he was “committed to ensuring wronged sub-postmasters are given full, fair, and prompt redress”.

“The recommendations contained in Sir Wyn’s report require careful reflection, including on further action to complete the redress schemes,” Mr Reynolds said.

“Government will promptly respond to the recommendations in full in parliament.”

Continue Reading

UK

Post Office scandal inquiry lays bare a second injustice

Published

on

By

Post Office scandal inquiry lays bare a second injustice

The long-awaited first report from the Post Office Horizon scandal inquiry lays bare not just the devastating personal toll of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history, but also the slow-motion failure of the government and the Post Office to deliver meaningful redress.

Sir Wyn Williams’s first report documents with stark clarity how hundreds of sub-postmasters, wrongly accused of theft and fraud due to the faulty Horizon IT system, lost their livelihoods, homes, reputations – and in some cases, their lives.

Follow Post Office inquiry latest

Thirteen people are believed to have taken their lives as a result of the scandal.

Fifty-nine contemplated it.

It talks of alcohol addiction, serious mental illness, and bankruptcy – all tearing families apart and leaving behind a heartbreaking legacy.

But if the scandal was a failure of justice, the response to it has become a second injustice.

More on Post Office Scandal

Critical on a technical level

The report is critical, on a fairly technical level, about the complexity, delays, and bureaucracy of redress schemes that have left victims still waiting years for full compensation.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

‘It stole a lot from me’

Hundreds of whom have died before seeing “full and fair redress”.

While Sir Wyn is fair to the government and the Post Office in stating that he believes their commitment to delivering the above has been in “good faith”, he concludes this has not been achieved for every victim, describing “formidable” difficulties.

There are 19 recommendations – including a push to ensure consistency across all four redress schemes, with an agreed and public definition of “full and fair redress”.

Compensation

Among them, that family members of victims should be compensated, and a permanent public body established to manage future redress schemes in future.

Additionally, Fujitsu, the Post Office, and the government should engage in formal restorative justice programmes.

There was also a flavour of what is to come in the final report later this year or next.

The report has found that both Fujitsu and Post Office staff knew Horizon could produce false data but concealed this, maintaining a false narrative of accuracy.

One of the most important things now, though, is how and when the government, Post Office, and Fujitsu respond officially.

Sir Wyn has also set a deadline of 10 October 2025 for that.

The victims of this scandal have waited long enough.

Continue Reading

UK

‘Wholesale failure’ to address risks posed by Southport attacker before murders, says public inquiry chairman

Published

on

By

'Wholesale failure' to address risks posed by Southport attacker before murders, says public inquiry chairman

There was a “wholesale and general failure” to address the risks posed by Axel Rudakubana before the Southport attack, the chairman of the public inquiry into the murders has said.

In his opening statement at Liverpool Town Hall, Sir Adrian Fulford said the teenager’s “known predilection for knife crime” suggests it was “far from an unforeseeable catastrophic event”.

The former vice president of the Court of Appeal said Rudakubana’s actions “impose the heaviest of burdens” to investigate how it was possible for him to cause “such devastation”.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

‘We need to understand what went wrong’

The 18-year-old murdered Elsie Dot Stancomb, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, at a Taylor Swift-themed class on 29 July last year.

He also injured eight other children and two adults at the Hart Space in the Merseyside seaside town, with Sir Adrian describing the attack as “one of the most egregious crimes in our country’s history”.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

‘We don’t want Elsie forgotten’

The public inquiry, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in January, will look into whether the attack could or should have been prevented, given what was known about the killer.

Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, had been referred to the government’s anti-extremism Prevent scheme three times before the murders, including over research into school shootings and the London Bridge terror attack.

He had also accessed online material about explosives, warfare, knives, assassination and an al Qaeda training manual.

A rapid review into his contact with Prevent found his case should have been kept open and that he should have been referred to Channel, another anti-terror scheme.

Read more:
‘She had a wonderful impact – we don’t want her to be forgotten’

What is the anti-terrorism programme Prevent?

Rudakubana was twice caught with a knife and managed to hoard other blades, as well as a bow and arrow, machetes, a sledgehammer and the deadly toxin ricin at his home.

He bought the 20cm chef’s knife used to carry out the attack using a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

Sir Adrian said he did not want to pre-judge the outcome of the inquiry.

But he added: “These factors, if correct and when taken together, tend to suggest that far from being an unforeseeable catastrophic event, the perpetrator posed a very serious and significant risk of violent harm, over a number of years, with a particular and known predilection for knife crime.

“Furthermore, his ability, unhindered, to access gravely violent material on the internet, to order knives online when underage, and then to leave home unsupervised to commit the present attack, speaks to a wholesale and general failure to intervene effectively, or indeed at all, to address the risks that he posed.”

Sir Adrian said the inquiry will examine decisions taken in light of Rudakubana’s “deteriorating and deeply troubling behaviour” to identify “without fear or favour” all of the relevant failings.

He said he aims to make recommendations to ensure the best chance of stopping others “who may be drawn to treating their fellow human beings in such a cruel and inhuman way”.

Rudakubana, 18, was jailed for a minimum of 52 years in January and is being investigated over an alleged attack on a prison officer at Belmarsh prison in May.

Sir Adrian said he would be referred to by his initials or as “the perpetrator” during the inquiry and asked the media not to show his “terrifying and singularly distressing” police mugshot to avoid causing distress to the survivors and their families, who have been granted anonymity.

The surviving children, many whom were under the age of 10, are “bravely trying to cope with school life in the face of what they have suffered,” he added.

Sir Adrian asked those in the room to stand for a minute’s silence for the victims.

Some of those whose children were injured will speak at a hearing on Wednesday before the inquiry is adjourned to 8 September, with the first phase expected to last until November.

It will then move on to a second phase next year to “consider the wider issues of children and young people being drawn into extreme violence”.

Rachael Wong, director at law firm Bond Turner, representing the three bereaved families, said: “We know that nothing the inquiry reveals or subsequently recommends will change the unimaginable loss felt by the families of Elsie, Alice and Bebe, but we all now have a responsibility to ensure that something like this never happens again.

“We will be doing all we can to assist the chair through the inquiry and uncover the truth.

“It is only through intense public scrutiny that real change can be effected.”

Sefton Council is asking people not to leave flowers near schools or the scene of the attack to mark the anniversary later this month, but to donate to local charitable causes instead.

There will be a three-minute silence and flags will be lowered to half-mast on public buildings around the Liverpool city region.

“We fully understand that many of us still need to grieve and to mark the day,” the council said in an open letter.

“Our colleagues have been working with faith and community leaders to identify local spaces where you can go, within your neighbourhood, to pay tribute, whether this be to say a prayer, light a candle, speak to someone or quietly reflect in a way that feels right for you.”

Continue Reading

Trending