Ukrainian man charged over fires at properties and car linked to Sir Keir Starmer
A 21-year-old man has been charged with three counts of arson with intent to endanger life after fires at two properties and a car linked to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Roman Lavrynovych, 21, a Ukrainian national from Sydenham, southeast London, is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday, the Metropolitan Police said.
The force said officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command led the investigation because of the connections to the prime minister.
Pic: LNP
Emergency services were called to a fire in the early hours of Monday at a house in Kentish Town, north London, where Sir Keir lived with his family before becoming prime minister.
Damage was caused to the property’s entrance but nobody was hurt.
A car was also set alight in the same street last Thursday.
Forensic workers at a house in Kentish Town owned by the prime minister. Pic: PA
There was another blaze at the front door of a house converted into flats in Islington, also linked to the prime minister, on Sunday.
One person was taken to safety via an internal staircase by crews wearing breathing apparatus, London Fire Brigade said.
The head of the Crown Prosecution Service counter terrorism division, Bethan David, said: “These charges relate to two fires at residential addresses in Islington on Sunday May 11 and in Kentish Town on Monday May 12, as well as a car fire in Kentish Town on Thursday May 8.
“The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are now active and that he has the right to a fair trial.”
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The Conservative Party will leave a key human rights treaty if it wins the election, its leader Kemi Badenoch has said.
Ms Badenoch announced the policy to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) ahead of the Conservative Party’s conference next week.
Despite many Tory MPs having expressed displeasure with the treaty, and the court that upholds treaty rights in recent years, it had not been party policy for the UK to exit it.
The move follows a review on the impact of the UK’s ECHR membership conducted by shadow attorney general Baron Wolfson.
Lord Wolfson’s nearly 200-page report said the ECHR had impacted government policy in numerous areas.
The report said this includes limiting government’s ability to address immigration issues, potentially hampering restrictions on climate change policy, and impacting government ability to prioritise British citizens for social housing and public services.
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But leaving the ECHR would “not be a panacea to all the issues that have arisen in recent years”, Lord Wolfson said.
It comes after the Reform Party in August said they would take the UK out of the ECHR if elected.
The Conservatives have increasingly come under threat from Reform and are being trailed in the polls by them.
What is the ECHR?
The ECHR was established in the 1950s, drafted in the aftermath of the Second World War and the Holocaust, to protect people from serious human rights violations, with Sir Winston Churchill as a driving force.
It’s 18 sections guarantee rights such as the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the right to a fair trial, the right to private and family life and the right to freedom of expression.
It has been used to halt the deportation of migrants in 13 out of 29 UK cases since 1980.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch. Pic: PA
A political issue
Leaving the ECHR would breach the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the peace settlement deal between the British and Irish governments on how Northern Ireland should be governed.
Labour has in recent days said it was considering how Article 3, the prohibition on torture, and Article 8,
the right to respect for private and family life, are interpreted. The sections have been used to halt deportation attempts.
The Liberal Democrats and Greens are in favour of the ECHR.
A general election is not expected until 2029.
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