How an iPad dug up from the Thames solved museum thieves’ murder plot
Buy Now An error occurred. Buy Now An error occurred. Book Novotel Hotel How an iPad dug up from the Thames solved museum thieves’ murder plot Banzai Japan Music Video A Ming vase stolen from a Swiss museum. A shooting at a comedian’s house in Woodford, east London. The robbery of a luxury apartment in Sevenoaks, Kent. These seemingly unconnected events were all part of a web of international organised crime that police untangled after a six-year-long investigation. A key piece of evidence – an iPad, found under an inch of sand on the foreshore of the River Thames just downstream from the O2 Arena. Book Novotel Hotel Its discovery was pivotal to the investigation that has led to three people being found guilty at the Old Bailey of the near-assassination of one of Britain’s most notorious armed robbers. When found by a police officer with a metal detector on a cold November morning last year, the iPad was found caked in mud having been underwater for more than five years. Forensics were able to clean it and open the Sim tray – which still contained a pink Vodafone Sim card. Call data that was subsequently salvaged provided damning evidence on three men – Louis Ahearne, Stewart Ahearne and Daniel Kelly – who were all also involved in a heist at a museum in Switzerland a month earlier. “I’ve questioned this a lot,” Det Supt Matthew Webb ponders. “Is it calamitous blunders tripping them up or was it just they were so blasé they wouldn’t get caught?” Banzai Japan Music Video A ‘meticulously planned’ assassination plot The Ahearne brothers and Kelly first caught the attention of police after gunshots pierced the silence of a late summer evening in an affluent Woodford area on 11 July 2019. Six bullets tore through a glass conservatory at a luxury property owned by comedian Russell Kane that had been rented out to Paul Allen. One severed one of Allen’s fingers, the other went through his throat and became lodged in his spinal cord, leaving him struggling to breathe and bleeding profusely. “He’s been shot, he’s been shot!” Allen’s partner, Jade Bovington, screamed. As she frantically called an ambulance, neighbours and a private security guard heard the cries and rushed to render first aid. One eyewitness described seeing an unidentified man vault a low wall, run between some bushes and get straight into a waiting vehicle which immediately sped off. To this day, Allen relies on a wheelchair, paralysed below his upper chest. Allen gained notoriety as one of the ringleaders of what remains Britain’s biggest ever armed robbery. In 2006, Allen was part of a balaclava-wearing gang toting guns including an AK-47 assault rifle who threatened to kill staff at the Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent. They stole £53m in Bank of England cash notes – leaving behind £154m which would not fit into their lorry. Allen fled to Morocco four days later, but was arrested in Rabat alongside friend and fellow robber Lee Murray, who remains in jail in nearby Tiflet. In January 2008, Allen was extradited to the UK and subsequently sentenced to 18 years in prison. Allen was released in 2016 and moved back to his roots in south-east London. But he relocated to Woodford with his partner and two younger children after a gunman opened fire at him and his pregnant daughter in the doorway of their Woolwich home in September 2018. Ten months later, Allen almost died after those two bullets hit him as he stood in the kitchen of his Woodford haven. Prosecutors argued the Ahearnes and Kelly were equally culpable in the plot to murder Allen – which involved a hired car, surveillance and unregistered pay-as-you-go phones. “This was a meticulously researched and planned assassination attempt by a team of men well versed in the level of criminality to pull it off,” prosecutor Michael Shaw KC said. In discovering how the three knew where to find Allen, police would uncover their criminality stretched into mainland Europe. The Geneva job and the Mayfair hotel sting Just one month before the shooting, the Ahearne brothers and Kelly stood outside the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva equipped with a sledgehammer, angle grinders and crowbars. Within seconds of forcing their way through the front door, they shattered glass casings housing 14th Century Chinese Ming Dynasty antiques. Three items were seized – a rare pomegranate vase; a doucai-style wine cup and a porcelain bowl – and had a combined insured value of £2.8m. In their hurry to flee, Stewart scraped his stomach against the sides of the hole the gang had made in the front wooden door – leaving traces of his DNA. He also hired the getaway car, a Renault Koleos from Avis at Geneva Airport. Louis was caught on CCTV filming the inside and outside of the museum the day before the raid. Within days of returning to south-east London with the stolen goods, the trio set about attempting to dispose of the items they had pinched. The brothers flew to Hong Kong with Kelly as they tried to sell one of the stolen items at an auction house. The auction house tipped off police in London, who were able to send undercover officers posing as art dealers to catch some other gang members in a sting operation as two of them tried to sell another plundered item which had been concealed in a JD Sports bag. During a seven-week trial at the Old Bailey, prosecutors argued that international burglary proved the Ahearnes and Kelly were “at the top end” of criminality. But little did police know while pursuing the stolen antiquities, the three would leave behind near-enough similar clues to give away their presence in the Woodford shooting. The hire car and the Oasis purchase In the hours after the shooting, the crime scene in Woodford was forensically examined. Six bullet casings fired from a Glock self-loading handgun were found, as were scuff marks on the
Rogue landlord ‘motivated by greed’ jailed
Buy Now An error occurred. Buy Now An error occurred. Book Novotel Hotel Rogue landlord ‘motivated by greed’ jailed Banzai Japan Music Video A landlord who was among a group of property agents who defrauded and misled flat-hunters on an “unprecedented” scale has been jailed for three years and five months. Mohammed Haque, along with three others, was convicted in October of eight counts of fraudulent trading. A fifth defendant was found guilty of two lesser offences. A trading standards investigation found they posted about 18,000 misleading adverts for rooms in east London, hooking in victims who were pressured into paying deposits to move into “horrible” properties. Some ended up trapped in them while others were evicted without notice. Many victims said their experiences had had a severe financial and psychological impact. Book Novotel Hotel Haque, 47, set up various companies operating across Tower Hamlets, including Citiside Properties Ltd and Flintons, based at the same address in Mile End, and had links with several other firms, trading standards found. Haque, his former wife Fatima Begum, 42, Gonzalo Egea, 43, and Razaur Oli, 51, were convicted at Southwark Crown Court of fraudulent trading, while Haque, Nozir Ahmed, 56, and the two companies Barrons London Ltd and Roomshare Ltd were found guilty of the less serious charge of engaging in unfair commercial practice. Ahmed and Roomshare were also convicted of engaging in aggressive commercial practice. Banzai Japan Music Video ‘Tip of the iceberg’ One man told Southwark Crown Court his life was made “hell” by Flintons and he was left feeling suicidal by the firm, while another tenant said he was treated like a “stray dog”. One victim said she was forced to live in a flat ridden with mice; others said they felt “violated” and were left penniless. Tower Hamlets trading standards investigation team leader Sean Rovai said the case was “virtually unprecedented in its size and complexity”, with more than 200 known victims between 2017 and 2021. However, he said that number was likely to be the “tip of the iceberg”. The defendants appeared to target those unfamiliar with the London rental market, such as foreign workers and students, using popular sites such SpareRoom to post misleading pictures of rooms that were not in fact available, the investigation found. Prospective tenants were tricked into parting with large deposits, pressured into taking out tenancies without being able to view properties first, and many became “stuck” in low-quality accommodation that bore no resemblance to adverts. Some were threatened when they tried to move out while others found themselves trapped, without anywhere else to go, investigators found. When tenants chose to leave at the at the end of their contracts, their deposits were not returned to them. “Almost every area of malpractice in this industry that we see was encapsulated in this one case,” Mr Rovai said. “It was all motivated by greed and profit. And there was very little sympathy for any of these victims.” In some cases, the firms evicted tenants with no notice by removing all their possessions and changing the locks while they were out. Tenants were treated “terribly”, Mr Rovai said. ‘I had nowhere to go’ Fashion worker Julius Agyei, who rented a room from Flintons, said he was “devastated” by what happened to him after he moved to London from Manchester. Arriving home to Mile End from a day out at Winter Wonderland in December 2018, he found his key did not work. “Everything was locked,” he said. When a housemate let him in, Julius found all his possessions had been removed from his room. “It was empty, there was literally nothing; I was devastated. All my clothes, shoes, my passport, lots of meaningful items… I never got them back.” Julius spent the night on the street before seeking help at a homeless hostel the following day. “I had nowhere to go… I had nothing so I literally had to start from scratch… it took me a while, it was very challenging.” Julius said in the years that followed, he suffered panic attacks, a breakdown and flashbacks. “I was traumatised by it… it wasn’t just shoes and clothes, it was deeper than that.” Usually, landlords must obtain a court order to evict tenants. But these companies tricked people into signing what are known as licence-to-occupy agreements – usually used for holiday accommodation – which effectively enabled them to throw people out on the street. The firms were “not averse” to getting rid of those who complained, Mr Rovai said. “There was always a queue of people desperate for housing so they can afford to kick them out.” Many victims took out tenancies after being lured in with “bait-and-switch” advertising. The firms used photos of high-quality accommodation that was not actually available, in order to generate interest. Yan Liu was hooked in by one such advert on SpareRoom for a room in a property near the Bow Road in Mile End, when she was studying medicine nearby. “It was pristine and £600 per month.” She went to the Citiside Properties office an hour later but was told the room was no longer available. “I was about to leave but they insisted to show me other properties.” She was then pressured into paying £300 just to view an alternative room. However, the firm did not show her the room and refused to refund her money. She was told the only way to get her money back was to redeem it indirectly by taking out a tenancy agreement. “£300 is is not a small amount of money,” Yan said. “I felt that because I paid that deposit with them, I didn’t have any other choice: if I want to get the money back, I have to rent with them.” The room Yan eventually moved into was more expensive and “much crappier” than the one she saw advertised, she said. It had no heating and a faulty electricity supply, meaning she could not cook. ‘Humiliated and embarrassed’ Israel Kujore went
Cladding tax on new homes delayed for a year
Buy Now An error occurred. Buy Now An error occurred. Book Novotel Hotel Cladding tax on new homes delayed for a year Banzai Japan Music Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPElmgQJGBo Ministers have delayed a tax to fund the removal of unsafe cladding from homes after developers warned it could hamper the government’s housebuilding plans. The Ministry for Housing said on Monday the Building Safety Levy would be introduced from autumn 2026, rather than this year. The tax on new homes is expected to raise £3.4bn to be spent on building safety, including efforts to take down dangerous cladding. The delay comes after developers said the tax could increase building costs and result in the government missing its target to build 1.5 million homes by 2030. Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook told LBC the government was still committed to the tax and insisted the delay would not slow down the pace of improving building safety. “The previous government left us with an unpalatable inheritance in that respect,” Pennycook said. Book Novotel Hotel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJsGZL-zb54 “We’ve got to increase ther pace of works being done. Leaseholders are still trapped in these buildings.” Neil Jefferson, chief executive of the Home Builders Federation, welcomed the delay as “recognition from government that these additional costs will inevitably constrain housing supply”. But he suggested the “grossly unfair” tax on housing developers should be scrapped altogether. He said: “As proposed it will add thousands of pounds to the cost of new homes, threatening the viability of sites across swathes of the country at a time when industry is striving to reverse the decline in homebuilding numbers that we have seen in recent years.” Banzai Japan Music Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3syHHGzkF_s The tax was first announced in 2021 by the then-Conservative government. Some of the money raised from the tax will go towards the removal of dangerous cladding from buildings, following the deadly fire at Grenfell Tower. Ministers have set aside £5.1bn to resolve the cladding crisis, expecting developers, building owners and social housing providers to pay the rest. Thousands of homes have been made safe, but as of December last year, work had yet to start on a quarter of the 1,323 tall buildings requiring attention. Up to 12,000 buildings and three million people could be affected. The lengthy process of identifying what work needs to be done and who should pay for it has left many residents living in fear of fires or with worries over costly repair bills. In its general election manifesto, Labour pledged to “take decisive action to improve building safety” and to “put a renewed focus on ensuring those responsible for the building safety crisis pay to put it right”. Last year, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said the government was planning to introduce the Building Safety Levy in September this year. But in a letter to Rayner, external, dozens of developers said “the ability of the industry to invest in increasing the supply of new homes to meet the government’s 1.5 million target is being threatened by the imposition of new taxes”. Housebuilders say they are already paying £6.5bn towards improving building safety through corporation tax and argue makers of unsafe cladding should bear more of the costs. Home Builders Federation estimates, external the tax could add £1,580 to the cost of building a home and lead to the loss of about 70,000 affordable homes over 10 years. A Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “This government is determined to make Britain’s homes safer by making developers pay their fair share to fix unsafe buildings through the Building Safety Levy. “We have extended the timeline to give developers more time to factor levy costs into their plans while continuing to support them to build safe homes, and at the same time we are continuing to work quickly to fix buildings with unsafe cladding through our Remediation Acceleration Plan.” Book Novotel Hotel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR8YYeb4PMk Banzai Japan Social Media Fumi Fujisaki Idol Riko Ueno Idol Rino Ibusuki Idol Yunagi Nino Idol Shiori Fujisaki Idol Kana Ichinose Idol Hoshino Arice Idol Sasa Sasagawa Idol Kosaka Yuu Idol Tsukumo Aira Idol Maika Ando Idol Yuuki Mochimaru Idol
Landlord licences to stamp out ‘dangerous’ HMOs
Buy Now An error occurred. Buy Now An error occurred. Book Novotel Hotel Landlord licences to stamp out ‘dangerous’ HMOs Banzai Japan Music Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPElmgQJGBo A council in north London has said it needs to bring back tougher rules to deal with “rogue landlords” of houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs). Brent Council says there is currently a “significant number” of such homes in the borough that are “substandard and potentially dangerous” and which pose a risk to residents. The council plans to restart a licensing scheme which saw 2,500 HMOs licensed and helped the council “improve standards and management practices”. It is now consulting on the plans and hopes to bring them in this autumn. Brent council says HMO licensing makes sure that houses are ‘safe, well-managed, and provide basic facilities for tenants’, and says it gives powers to officers to inspect licensed properties to ensure they meet the required standards. The consultation states: “It is important that the council uses all available tools to improve conditions for tenants in this sector. Licensing is one of the tools and plays a key role in this effort.” Book Novotel Hotel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJsGZL-zb54 A mandatory licence is already needed for HMOs with five or more people from two or more households. The additional rules would cover typically smaller HMOs with three or more people from two or more different households. Licensing imposes specific obligations on the landlord to demonstrate that their property is safe while enabling the council to enforce rules. The licence would cost landlords around £1,040 for the application, processing and inspection of up to five habitable rooms – and a further £25 per additional room. Banzai Japan Music Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3syHHGzkF_s Opinions wanted Councillor Fleur Donnelly-Jackson, said: “Over the past 20 years, the number of privately rented homes in Brent has grown, and now makes up almost half of all homes in the borough. “We want to make sure these homes are safe and good quality for tenants.” She added: “While we have seen significant improvements, we believe that another additional HMO licensing scheme is necessary to maintain and improve the management of HMOs in Brent. “We want to encourage residents to give their opinions on these new proposals for HMOs.” Book Novotel Hotel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR8YYeb4PMk Banzai Japan Social Media Fumi Fujisaki Idol Riko Ueno Idol Rino Ibusuki Idol Yunagi Nino Idol Shiori Fujisaki Idol Kana Ichinose Idol Hoshino Arice Idol Sasa Sasagawa Idol Kosaka Yuu Idol Tsukumo Aira Idol Maika Ando Idol Yuuki Mochimaru Idol