On your marks! Moment hotel worker is almost trampled as eager tourists are filmed racing to get sunbeds
Footage shows the guard dropping his keycard before retreating to safety as guests stormed the pool area.
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The Independent
16 hours ago
- The Independent
Investigation launched into alleged Oasis ticket scam
An investigation has been launched into reports that up to 200 people gained unauthorised entry to Oasis concerts at Wembley Stadium. Individuals allegedly paid £350 each to be smuggled in through a disabled entrance, using duplicated tickets and receiving VIP wristbands from security. During the Wembley shows, six people were arrested for suspected unauthorised entry, and 24 were ejected from the venue. Wembley Stadium confirmed they are investigating the allegations and will refer evidence to the police if substantiated. The incidents occurred during Oasis's five sold-out Wembley performances, part of their 2025 reunion tour, which also saw high hotel prices in Edinburgh due to clashes with the Fringe festival.
Daily Mail
17 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Truckers at war: British HGV drivers in a fight for survival as violent gangs hit them with targeted 'gas attacks' at UK service stations
Britain's truckers are fighting for survival in a war with dangerous criminals who beat them up on the roadside, gas them in their cabs and steal fuel and cargo on a daily basis. The horrific crimes, which are taking place at UK service stations and lay-bys, are leaving drivers at serious risk and leading some to take drastic measures to protect themselves. With freight crime costing the UK economy £1bn since 2020, a shortage of 11,000 safe lorry parking spaces and a concerning lack of security at service stations, truckers are now pleading with the government to do more to protect them and bring in tougher sentences against the criminals. MailOnline has spoken to several drivers who have lifted the lid on a scandal affecting over 270,000 UK HGV drivers operating in an overlooked yet increasingly dangerous industry, telling us: 'Nowhere is safe.' Richie Lines has been driving HGVs for four years. Having worked as a digger operator on HS2, he moved into transport to follow a family tradition but has been left horrified about the risks drivers are exposed to by criminals on a daily basis. The 33-year-old, from Norwich, said: 'On the A1, if you have your windows ajar, thieves will poke a hosepipe through the window or a vent, they gas you out, you don't know what's going on because you're knocked out and they take your stuff. 'I filled up with diesel on the A1, in nine hours I had the trailer emptied, there was probably £250,000 worth of salmon in there, I had the diesel tank emptied. That load was going to Scotland, that load didn't earn any money. 'I have a little metal bar, if I was to be woken up, I would chase them. But I am not going to get stabbed for diesel or a load. We need more safe parking, 24 hour security, a fence around it. 'HGVs are keeping this country alive, people need to know this is going on. It's about time people wake up and smell the coffee. If you stop the lorries for a week, who is going to put the food in Tesco's?' The haulage industry is one of the most regulated in the country, with strict rules governing how long drivers can be behind the wheel and tight schedules to meet pick-up and drop-off deadlines. Drivers can be fined up to £2,500 on the roadside if caught breaking driving hour limits. Truckers are allowed 15 hour shifts three times a week, this drops to 10 hours for the remaining two days a week. The gruelling schedules can see drivers on the road for up to nine hours a day. But it is at the end of a shift when operators are most at risk. Many try to go to truck stops at service stations but if they are short of driving hours or there is no space, they are often forced to bed down for the night in lay-bys on Britain's darkened A-roads. It is at these truck stops and lay-bys where thieves ranging from sophisticated organised crime groups to petty thieves and fellow truckers are stealing fuel, nicking trailer loads of goods and even entire trucks - and using brutal tactics in the process. While some service stations - which can charge anywhere from £25 to £50 a night - have security, many have almost no patrols, making truckers and their cargo sitting ducks. In the Midlands, one crime ring is known to hang around truck stops near a Currys distribution centre to pinpoint wagons ferrying TVs, computers and games consoles which are later sold on the black market. Videos shared online reveal trailers ransacked of goods while others show how thieves - some wearing high vis to appear professional - will slit a hole in the trailer's curtain to view the contents inside before raiding. British truckers are claiming to be hit by a series of 'gas attacks' carried out by thieves while they park up for the night at UK services and laybys The practice, known as a 'Smiley', is often irreparable and causes thousands of pounds worth of damage and leads to massive delays, fines and huge insurance claims. A hole in a truck's curtain can keep a lorry off the road for six hours. Others will scope out lorries for diesel before siphoning up to 800 litres of fuel which is either sold on or used to fill up another truck. As most trucks have only forward facing CCTV and lack decent security systems, the thieves, known sarcastically as 'The Diesel Fairies', operate with impunity. Last month a trucker in Northamptonshire found himself in a fist fight with a Romanian lorry driver he caught siphoning fuel. Another video online shows a brave trucker confronting a fuel thief before he scarpers with gallons of fuel and tears off with his car boot open. One trucker added: 'The other day a driver was parked in Crewe truck stop, left, came back in a car to rob trucks and was caught... It's rife and with no prison sentences to take them out it doesn't stop.' Dave Morgan was taking a walk around Dover Truck Stop in Kent after a night shift when he explained how bad the situation is on the ground - and the lengths some drivers are going to just to protect themselves. The 53-year-old, who was in the Army's Royal Corps of Transport for 21 years, said: 'I carry a baseball bat, I know I shouldn't but I do. It's something for your own security. I've never had to confront them but I would do. 'They jump on the top while you're asleep, because the sunroof is open, they'll spray a gas inside, it has knocked you out, smash the window in, you're out of it, and they'll rob your stuff. 'It's not my fuel but it's going to bugger my day up if they pinch it, mine is 500 litres, some of the big ones have 1,000 litres, a tank of fuel is a lot of money. Our company now tends not to lock our fuel caps, if they can't get into it, they'll just put a hole in the side of the tank, losing a tank and the diesel is a lot more than just taking the diesel. 'I understand the police are undermanned but I ring up and all they do is give you a crime number. There must be something the government can do, build their own truck stops, they're going to make money from it but I don't really know what the answer is.' Jason Leake, a trucking influencer from Devon with over 15,000 Instagram followers, has similar concerns. The 37-year-old, who works for Gregory Distribution, told MailOnline: 'There was one driver on the A303, he jumped out his cab during the night just to go toilet, he didn't know what was going on down the side of the wagon, they were trying to syphon his fuel, and he got beaten up. 'Last year I parked in Leigh Delamere just on the M4 near Bristol, stopped at 11pm, I went and paid for my parking, only about five minutes, I come back out and there are two guys at the back of the lorry with high vis on, looking at my trailer. 'You get people that come around and do a recce, then later on when it's a bit quieter, you probably get a little group that come down and maybe a bigger van where they can open the curtains up and easily get off what they want onto their lorry. 'Every night, every day, right across the country, no matter where you are, it is happening. Nowhere is safe, no motorway services are safe, like they should be, they should provide some form of security in the night that is visible, not just one that sits in the car.' Tom, a specialist plant machinery trucker from Hull, was preparing to leave Folkestone Services for Cornwall when he told MailOnline he had been a victim of fuel theft. He said: 'They broke the cap on the diesel tank, stuck in a pipe and took around 100 litres. If the fuel cap is locked and secured, if they really want it, they'll just put a hole in the bottom of the tank, then you've got the cost of the fuel and the tank. Sometimes it's beneficial if they just take the diesel. 'We had people broke into our depit and steal a whole load of pharmaceuticals. Some drivers at Thurrock have had their entire curtain slashed open, see what's there, if they can't get to what they want they'll go to the next. 'We are struggling for places to park, things like lay-bys, you're looking in the mirrors thinking there is something going on. Sometimes they're unavoidable if you're running out of hours or trying to get a delivery done.' One Belarussian trucker called Andriy said he has seen 800 litres sucked out of a 1000 litre tank on UK roads and that he always avoids lay-bys. He showed a video taken in Scotland where two lorries in a lay-by had been drained of fuel and stranded. The crimewave has left truckers taking to Facebook where theft focus groups share crime hotspot locations, pictures and videos of incidents to warn fellow drivers. At the Airport Cafe truck stop on the A12 outside Folkestone, Kent, a secure parking lot, Pedro Pinheiro, a Portuguese truck driver said it is crucial drivers choose secure sites to park up for the night. The 45-year-old, who has been driving trucks since 2001, said: 'My company, since 2014, says never to stop outside of secure parking. Even if we stop at the petrol station which has parking, if it's not secure, we won't take it.' The stop is owned by David Morgan who has been forced to install dozens of cameras across his concourse - which has capacity for 32 wagons and costs £35 a night. The 60-year-old, who also works as a builder, told MailOnline: 'I've got floodlights, cameras... I have alarms on the entrances which go off if anything does happen. When someone comes onto your property, not only are they on camera but there is a light that comes on and that is a sort of double deterrent. 'There are laybys on the opposite side of Canterbury, they are your areas where your fuel gets stolen. There is a large community of gypsies there, they like to syphon their fuel. It's pretty bad. 'There is a Ukrainian guy who confronted some men who cut his curtains [trailer cover], he got out and told them "what the f*** are you doing" and started fighting them. He's a big guy but he was limping when I next saw him. It's a bad job. 'The guys I had problems with cut curtains, had a little look but all the cameras were there, it's too risky for them.' At the Port of Dover, German trucker Stefan Vuerman told MailOnline he had been working on Drake's UK tour and had just arrived from Manchester following the rapper's concert at Co-Op Live on Tuesday. Heading to Belgium, the 55-year-old admitted he has felt safe in the UK moving in convoy adding how he thinks the real dangers are in Europe, explaining: 'In the South of Europe, Italy, Spain, France, they put the door open, put gas in it then you fall asleep. You wake up the next morning and all your stuff is gone.' Efforts are being made by the Road Haulage Association (RHA), the HGV industry trade body, who are calling on MPs to back measures to tackle freight crime. It includes lobbying ahead of the second reading of the Freight Crime Bill on 12 September. Rachel Taylor, the Labour MP for North Warwickshire and Bedworth, proposes freight crime should have its own crime code to help police target hotspots. Last month, the RHA urged MPs to push for stricter freight crime-related sentences and for £6m annual funding to boost the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NaVCIS) in the Autumn Budget. Richard Smith, Managing Director of the RHA, said: 'There's already a shortage of 11,000 safe and secure lorry parking spaces across the country as freight crime continues to thrive. More than £110m of goods were stolen last year alone, as the total cost of freight crime to the economy has topped £1bn since 2020. 'Lorry drivers deserve to feel safe at work, yet they remain easy targets for gangs looking to make good money from stealing goods and fuel. 'With a dearth of parking in many parts of the country, drivers are left parked in isolated, insecure spots like laybys and industrial estates, making them a low-risk, high-reward option for these criminals.'
Daily Mail
19 hours ago
- Daily Mail
As Keir Starmer's UK government loses grip of the small boats crisis, here's how one Spanish resort deals with migrants
When 13 Moroccan men jumped from a speedboat into the sea and ran onto Sotillo beach in the southern Spanish resort of Castell de Ferro, video footage of them arriving seemed pretty unremarkable. What happened next, however, was extraordinary. For, as the unwelcome visitors from north Africa tried to make a run for it, they were rugby tackled to the ground by ordinary holidaymakers in swimming trunks – and held until police arrived to arrest them. Now the Daily Mail can reveal that the nine men who were detained by irate beach goers were immediately whisked off to a police station before being moved to a notoriously inhospitable secure unit. In stark contrast to how migrants are welcomed to UK shores with four-star hotel stays at taxpayers' expense, the no-nonsense Spanish approach to illegal immigration means the men face being returned to Morocco within a matter of weeks. Unlike British arrivals who are free to come and go from their accommodation, the group in Spain are effectively being held behind ten-foot fences surrounded by floodlights and security cameras in the Centre for Migration and Repatriation, known as a CATE, which opened in April this year in the port of the nearby coastal city of Motril. The Daily Mail has also been told that at least some of the bathers who were filmed detaining the men were off duty police officers who were enjoying a quiet Sunday on the beach with their families. The CATE facility replaced an older one which had rows of tents to accommodate seized migrants when many more were crossing the Mediterranean and arriving in southern Spain. The Daily Mail has also been told that at least some of the bathers who were filmed detaining the men were off duty police officers who were enjoying a quiet Sunday on the beach But Spain's tougher approach has paid off with the number making the perilous voyage to the Granada area slumping in recent years, meaning that so far only 29 migrants have been housed in the unit since it opened, including the most recent nine. The boat which carried them on Sunday is only the second this year to have reached the 47-mile-long Costa Granadina, known as Costa Tropical, and famed for its glorious beaches. José Antonio Montilla Martos, the Spanish Government's sub-delegate in Granada, confirmed the nine migrants would remain at the CATE 'while their expulsion order from the national territory is processed.' Their return to Morocco means that they will potentially be left thousands of euros out of pocket after paying the people smugglers who transported them on their doomed trip to Europe. The Spanish authorities are known to regard Morocco as a safe country, meaning any asylum applications made by the men are likely to fail unless they can prove they have suffered political persecution or discrimination on LGBT grounds. A port worker at Motril who asked not to be named said: 'They deserve to be locked up until theycan be sent home. They are men who we know nothing about, and they should not be allowed to walk around our streets. A port worker at Motril who asked not to be named said: 'They deserve to be locked up until they can be sent home. They are men who we know nothing about, and they should not be allowed to walk around our streets. 'They are being well fed and looked after in the CATE. It is proper that they remain there until they get home. Hopefully, they will tell others that it is a waste of time and money trying to get into Spain illegally.' When told of the system in the UK where asylum seekers can walk freely around towns and cities while staying in hotels, the worker said: 'That is crazy. They should be kept in a secure place.' The opinion was echoed by locals in Castell de Ferro who witnessed the high-powered boat bringing the migrants ashore at around 1.30pm last Sunday when the beach was full of mainly Spanish families sheltering under umbrellas from the fierce midday sun. Shocked witnesses described a 'surreal' scene as the boat approach at high speed, and stopped just a few metres from the shore before the migrants jumped off and swam to dry land. Alberto Garcia, who owns the beachfront Mare Nostrum restaurant, told the Daily Mail: 'It was a normal day, and we were providing service as usual when we suddenly saw the smuggling boat arrive and people jumping into the sea. 'The police arrived quickly on the beach and there were swimmers who helped to catch the people on the boat. I think it is right that they should be detained. My opinion is that they should be deported once they step on Spanish territory illegally.' Describing the scene as the boat arrived, he added: 'We thought it was a recreational boat, but when we saw them starting to throw objects into the water and people getting out, we realised it wasn't normal. 'What surprised us most was that the boat was moving very slowly, as if they weren't in a hurry or afraid. 'They went in where there were most people, as if nothing had happened, and stopped close to the shore. Then they jumped off one by one, and the four remaining on board, some of them hooded, calmly turned around and left.' Juan Manuel Peragon, 20, who is a lifeguard on the beach, said: 'I have seen three migrant boats arrive in the four years I have worked here – but this was the first for a long time. 'The boat had three big outboard engines so it could go really fast. It stopped around 20m from the shore and around a dozen people jumped off. The boat left again after just ten seconds and was never caught. 'Unfortunately for the immigrants, they came ashore right beside the police station which is beside the beach. 'As it was a Sunday, there were a lot of police on a day off who had gone down to the beach at that spot with their families. At least one of the guys who grabbed the men was an off-duty policeman. 'We ran to help, but police in uniforms quickly arrived and detained everyone. It looks like the immigrants came here to work. They can get jobs on farms growing vegetables because they are prepared to work hard for less money. 'But they are coming here illegally and there should be a tough system to deal with them and send them back. More needs to be done to tackle the Mafia gangs who operate the boats.' Human resources student Fabiola Escolano, 20, from Granada who was also on the beach said: 'People were running after the men and trying to catch them when they arrived. They did not want them to disappear. 'Those who were detained were all taken to the Red Cross and are being dealt with in the correct way. There have been boats arriving here before – but they are not so common now. There were three which arrived at the same time early in the morning on December 21, 2023.' Others on the beach felt more pity for the migrants including one filmed lying face down in the sand as he was subdued by a man in orange swimming shorts kneeling on his back. One video clip featured a woman shouting: 'Leave the kid alone! How shameless!' The left leaning El Pais newspaper also criticised members of the public who had tried to detain the men, describing their actions as playing into the hands of the far right who had demonised migrants and others living legitimately in Spain. Official figures reveal that more than 61,000 illegal migrants or asylum seekers entered Spain last year, slightly more than the previous year, with the majority heading by boat on the highly dangerous route from west Africa to the Canary Islands. But the numbers leaving from Morocco for mainland Spain have fallen, in part due to the Moroccan authorities trying to keep would-be migrants away from coastal areas. There has also been greater security around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, on the northern coast of Morocco which migrants try and enter to get a foothold in Europe. A further deterrent has been a clampdown on people smuggling gangs intent on bringing migrants and drugs into Spain. Eight Spanish and Moroccan citizens in a 'highly organised network' which had allegedly used children to skipper boats to transport migrants from Morocco were arrested in June this year in Algeciras near Cadiz, Ibiza and Ceuta. The gang is suspected of making about 2.8 million euros from charging more than 200 people 14,000 euros each to make the journey, although other sources suggested that the going rate was closer to 2,000 euros. A statement by Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency, said: 'The network used minors as skippers in maritime smuggling operations, often recruited and trained by the organisation itself. 'This fact not only highlights and amplifies the risk of accidents and fatalities, but also exposes vulnerable youngsters to exploitation and coercion. This practice illustrates the ruthlessness and dehumanising nature of criminal networks which priorities profits over human life.' The gang is also suspected of simultaneously trafficking large amounts of cannabis into Spain. As well as arresting the eight people, authorities seized 22kgs of cannabis, 50,000 euros in cash, five vehicles, two boats, weapons, electronic devices and navigation equipment. Last year Spanish police also smashed a ring taking Syrian migrants through Lebanon to Algeria where they crossed the Mediterranean in overcrowded boats before being taken to unsanitary safe houses in Spain. But right wing politicians in Spain demanded even tougher action to protect Spain's borders following the beach landing this week. Carlos Rojas Garcia, a former mayor of Motril and a People's Party member of Spain's Congress of Deputies since 2016, called for greater surveillance and security measures 'to decisively combat the gangs that traffic in human beings' He said: 'The Spanish government cannot continue to look the other way while mafias operate with impunity on our coasts. 'Images like those seen in Castell de Ferro are sad and worrying; they reflect how there are organisations that take advantage of desperate people who risk everything, even at the risk of losing their lives.' The Granada MP called on the Spanish government to 'urgently strengthen border control, provide more human and material resources for the State Security Forces and Corps, and intensify cooperation with the European Union.' An organisation called Caminando Fronteras said it had recorded the suspected deaths of 1,865 migrants in 38 boats, including 112 women and 342 children, trying to reach Spain by sea from Africa in the first five months of this year. The vast majority of those who died were trying to cross the Atlantic to the Canary Islands although 52 allegedly died while trying to cross the Strait of Gibraltar.
