Thomas Partey: Ex-Arsenal player charged with rape to appear in court today
The 32-year-old, who was charged four days after leaving the north London club when his contract expired back in June, faces five counts of rape and one count of sexual assault.
He is accused of two counts of rape against one woman and three counts against another. The sexual assault allegation relates to a third woman, the Crown Prosecution Service has said.
The alleged offences took place between 2021 and 2022. The Metropolitan Police said it first received reports of an allegation of rape in February 2022.
Partey's lawyer Jenny Wiltshire has previously said the Ghanaian "denies all the charges against him" - and looks forward to the chance to "finally clear his name".
Partey joined Arsenal from Spanish side Atletico Madrid in 2020 and became a regular for manager Mikel Arteta, who last month said he was "100% sure" the club followed the correct protocols.
An Arsenal spokesperson previously said: "The player's contract ended on 30 June. Due to ongoing legal proceedings, the club is unable to comment on the case."
Partey made 35 appearances for the Gunners last season, scoring four goals.
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The Independent
2 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trio of British track cyclists target three new world records
A trio of British Olympians and para-cyclists will be attempting to break three track cycling world records this month. Double Olympic silver medallist Matt Richardson is aiming to break the record for the fastest flying 200m lap and to break the nine-second barrier for the first time, while Paris team pursuit silver medallist Charlie Tanfield is attempting to set a new men's elite Hour Record, which is currently 56.792km. Para-cyclist Will Bjergfelt is targeting the men's C5 Hour Record, which has stood for more than a decade, and is hoping to become the first para-cyclist to ride more than 50km in the process. The current record of 47.569km was set by Andrea Tarlo in 2014. Richardson, who formerly raced for Australia before switching to represent GB last summer, briefly held the 200m record during the Paris Games before his rival Harrie Lavreysen broke it, setting the benchmark of 9.088 seconds. Speaking to media including The Independent before the event, Richardson says his motivation 'is to become the fastest track cyclist of all time.' He and Lavreysen – who picked up three golds in Paris – have developed one of the sport's closest rivalries and the chance to go clear of the Dutchman is a major drive behind the record bid. He says: 'For me, it's a bit of a race between Harrie and I to be the first person to do it. It's been on my radar for the last couple of years. It's going to happen at some point, and once someone goes sub-nine [seconds], they'll be the first person to do that, forever. Records get beaten all the time but barriers stay with that person.' Bjergfelt was a successful road and mountain bike rider before he was hit head-on by a car in 2015 and suffered life-threatening injuries, with his right leg shattered into 25 pieces. He returned to racing in the C5 para-cycling category, winning a world silver medal on the track in 2019 and a world road race title in Glasgow two years ago, and was the first para-cyclist to ride the Tour of Britain. The Bristol native says, 'The Hour Record is iconic. I jumped on it straight away because it's something I've wanted to do for a long time. 'I definitely want to see if I can crack 50km. I would be the first C5 para cyclist to break that barrier, so that would be pretty special. I feel like I've done some pretty incredible things since I became a para-cyclist, so I want to put it out there that if you have an impairment or a disability, there's so many amazing things you can do, and it shouldn't hold anyone back who has aspirations. I want to try and inspire people to get involved.' All three world record attempts will be taking place on 14 August at the Konya Velodrome in Turkey, which hosted a round of the UCI Track Cycling Nations Cup in March. Richardson momentarily thought he had eclipsed Lavreysen's record at the Nations Cup, clocking a time of 9.041 seconds in qualifying, but the UCI voided his time as he strayed beyond the official bounds of the track. But the seeds were sown for future attempts. Bjerfelt says, 'With British Cycling this year being inspired by Matt's ride at the World Cup, everyone got really excited about the velodrome in Konya. That pre-empted the whole [idea], let's go back there and smash a record, and open it up to everyone.' Richardson explains, 'What makes this so appealing for a flying 200m is it's a very similar shape to the Paris velodrome [in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines], which is deemed probably one of the fastest sea-level tracks because of how wide and steep it is, but they've basically plonked it at 1200m of altitude. For a flying effort it's pretty optimal.' That steep banking allows riders to pick up more speed as they fly down to the bottom of the track, while the lower air pressure at altitude contributes towards lower air density, which means the riders will face less resistance. As Bjergfelt says, 'with the same power, you travel a lot faster'. Of his brief spell as official world record holder during the Paris Games, Richardson says, 'It was a bit of mixed emotions, because I didn't realise I'd broken it when I had, because you're so locked in to the competition. 'My first thought was 'that was a quick time', and then it dawned on me when I heard them announce that whoever wants to be the fastest qualifier now is going to have to break the world record. I was like, 'I got it, didn't I?!' And then 30 seconds later I watched Harrie go round the track, and was like 'and it's gone'.' Bjergfelt, who has had to balance the rigours of his training schedule alongside his full-time job as an aerospace engineer, says there is more to consider than just riding as hard as possible for an hour. 'We did relative tests in May up in Manchester and the one thing that I found there was that after around 40 minutes my hand became quite numb, so that's going to be interesting, pushing through the different barriers that you get. 'With the Hour Record you have to be really, really conservative in the first 40-45 minutes: you still want to be on pace to beat the record, but you have to be really within yourself, because it's an effort that comes back to bite you. In that last 10-15 minutes, that's where hopefully I'll be on pace, and at the same time I should have enough left in the tank to get the maximum out of myself.' All three riders will be on equipment designed to push them as far and as fast as possible, on the Hope-Lotus Olympic bikes from Paris last year, as well as wearing customised skinsuits. 'It's the fastest bike I've ever ridden on the track,' says Bjergfelt. 'Technology has moved on so far since the Hour Record was set in 2014. It'd be wrong if I didn't really smash the record to bits.' Richardson is similarly confident that history will be made next week. 'Nothing's ever a done deal, ever, but I'm pretty confident that I'm in a really good place to get the job done.'
The Guardian
3 minutes ago
- The Guardian
NWSL says it has ‘no duty of care' for women suing San Diego Wave over assault claims
In a filing last month, the National Women's Soccer League denied all allegations contained in a lawsuit brought by former San Diego Wave employees and called for the suit to be 'dismissed in its entirety,' claiming that the league has 'no duty of care' to the six women suing the club and the league. The 2024 suit contains allegations of sexual assault of an employee by a co-worker while both employed at the club, along with claims of sexual harassment, racial discrimination, disability discrimination, failure to investigate and prevent harassment and discrimination. In the answer to the allegations filed on 8 July to the Superior Court of California in San Diego, the NWSL's legal representatives, Los Angeles firm Arentfox Schiff, deny that the six former Wave employees were 'damaged or harmed' because of any act of the league. The NWSL's lawyers claim 'the doctrine of consent,' inferring that the sexual assault and harassment claims were based on consensual encounters, and also that certain allegations are beyond California's statute of limitations. The NWSL's defense also claims it had no duty of care to San Diego Wave employees as any incidents that occurred were between the individuals and the club – not the league. According to legal experts interviewed by the Guardian, the NWSL's response to the lawsuit is a catch-all answer that aims to cover all possible angles of defense. 'The defendant has simply listed every affirmative defense that could apply to any of the claims,' said Professor David Oppenheimer, clinical professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. 'The common term for such an answer is 'boilerplate.' The purpose is to preserve any conceivable defense.' An NWSL spokesperson said the league could not comment on pending litigation. Arentfox Schiff did not respond to requests for comment and clarification. The six women who filed the lawsuit include one who claims she was sexually assaulted by a San Diego Wave co-worker, another who claims she was sexually harassed by the same co-worker, and Brittany Alvarado, a former videographer for the Wave, claiming workplace-related violations. Three other women are named in the suit for similar alleged violations. Alvarado brought attention to the workplace environment at San Diego Wave after she posted on social media in 2024 that the 'NWSL must take immediate action to remove Jill Ellis from both the San Diego Wave and the league entirely.' Ellis, the former USWNT head coach, was Wave president at the time of the events alleged in the lawsuit and had a hands-on role in managing the club. Ellis has since departed San Diego to take a senior role at Fifa as its chief football officer. Ellis is not a defendant in the lawsuit but is named within it, described as having 'set an abusive and toxic workplace culture' and 'once asking random men in Kansas City about their penises'. (Ellis has filed a separate defamation suit against Alvarado based on her social media post.) The Guardian previously revealed that a 2024 investigation by the NWSL into San Diego Wave management found that the club's front office 'could have done more' to address a sexual assault allegation but found no specific issue with how the claim was handled because the alleged victim did not use the term 'sexual' when describing her experience. The San Diego Wave is a co-defendant in the case with the NWSL. As reported by the Guardian, Jane Doe 1 alleges that a night out in San Diego with a co-worker led to 'inappropriate activities including a game of 'Sexy Jenga' that led to him pressuring her into non-consensual sexual acts'. Jane Doe 1 alleges that later at her apartment, while she was drunk, she was pressured into 'sexual activity that she explicitly stated she did not consent to'. The NWSL's defense argues that consent was given. Under California law, consent requires an individual to freely give agreement to engage in sexual activity 'and voluntarily and have knowledge of the nature of the act or transaction involved.' Sign up to Moving the Goalposts No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women's football after newsletter promotion Another woman, 'Jane Doe 2', alleged in the lawsuit she was sexually harassed by the same San Diego Wave employee who this time sent her non-work related messages and images via Snapchat that became increasingly sexual in nature. Jane Doe 2 claims she was terminated by the club after she did not work the minimum number of shifts in her non-full-time role – shifts that were assigned by the alleged harasser. 'In a negligence case, consent is a potential defense when the plaintiff has agreed to participate in an activity knowing that there are significant risks of harm, and willing to subject themselves to them,' Oppenheimer said. 'The best examples come from sports, but for the athletes … In this case, for the statutory claims under the civil rights laws, there is no defense of consent.' Oppenheimer offered a hypothetical scenario for the NWSL to launch a successful defense: '[The] defendant proves that as each employee was hired they were warned, 'You need to know that this is a toxic workplace. We permit emotional and sexual harassment, we retaliate against people who complain, and we fire people in bad faith. If you don't want to subject yourself to this, don't work here.' That might be enough to defend themselves on the negligent hiring and management claim, but it would subject them to liability on the statutory discrimination claims.' The defense also claims the case should be dismissed because the plaintiffs delayed bringing the lawsuit and that a two-year statute of limitations under California law should be enforced. The earliest claims made in the case took place in mid-2022. The suit was filed in October of 2024. The NWSL's lawyers cite a section of California code of civil procedure stipulating that there is a two-year statute of limitations to sue for 'An action for assault, battery, or injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another.' California law stipulates elsewhere that there is a 10-year statute of limitations for criminal sexual assault claims (the NWSL case in question is civil). The NWSL claims it cannot be held accountable for events described in the lawsuit because they fall outside the relationship between the league and the Wave. The league claims it did not know the incidents occurred nor should it have known. The former San Diego Wave employees have requested a trial by jury.
BBC News
3 minutes ago
- BBC News
Cross-channel migrant-smuggling gang exposed by BBC undercover filming
A BBC investigation has exposed the French and UK operations of a powerful and violent smuggling gang taking people across the English Channel in small boats.A reporter, posing as a migrant wanting to cross, helped us gain unprecedented access to the smugglers' notorious forest hideout in northern France - an area plagued by armed battles between rival filming at a major UK railway station also captured associates of the gang collecting cash payments to secure migrant places on illegal Channel men met us on separate occasions on the busy concourse at Birmingham's New Street Station to collect envelopes containing hundreds of pounds. Multiple sources have described how gang leaders, who keep one step ahead of the authorities by changing mobile phone numbers and the gang's name, subjected their henchmen and migrants to violent have managed to identify three men - Jabal, Aram and al-Millah - all Iraqi-Kurds, who are believed to lead the outfit, which is one of the main groups in northern France transporting people to the UK by small have also came across other senior figures, including a man called Abdullah, whom we witnessed shepherding groups of migrants towards boats. Another gang member, Besha, who had escorted migrants in France, took a small boat to the UK himself, we learned, ending up in a migrant hostel in West Yorkshire having claimed findings are the culmination of months of undercover fieldwork and the creation of multiple fake identities to engage with the smugglers. We have been able to build a detailed picture of the gang's tentacle-like structure and the ways it has successfully evaded the investigation began in April 2024, after we witnessed French police trying to stop the gang from launching an inflatable boat into the Channel. In the chaos, five people were trampled to death onboard, including a 7-year-old girl named Sarah. "There's no danger," said smuggler Abdullah last week, as he spoke to our undercover colleague and gestured towards a cluster of tents hidden deep within a forest outside the French port of Dunkirk."You are welcome to stay here. We'll get a boat ready nearby and set to sea. We need to move early to avoid the police - it's a cat and mouse game," Abdullah continued, with the reassuring smile of an airline official at a check-in counter. "God willing, the weather will be on our side."The trip across the Channel would be with "a mixture of Somalis, Sudanese, Kurds and so on", he explained, boasting about two successful launches the previous week, with 55 people on each."Should I bring a lifejacket?" asked our colleague, an Arabic-speaking BBC reporter, posing as a Syrian migrant and wearing a hidden camera."That's really up to you," the smuggler replied. Criss-crossed by narrow sandy paths, the forest is beside a main road, a huge canal and a train line, some 4km (2.5 miles) from the French coast. For years, rival gangs and their customers have hidden from the French police here - the gangs' spotters carefully guarding every possible gun battles and stabbings are not uncommon here, particularly during the summer, as gangs settle scores and compete over the lucrative and highly competitive small-boat people-smuggling industry. The day after our encounter, we heard of another fatal was, we knew, an increasingly powerful and trusted figure in a gang that has emerged as one of the key players in northern is one of perhaps four gangs now managing crossings and specific launch areas themselves - rather than simply supplying passengers like many of the smaller was, we suspected, a close relative of a more senior figure. Well-dressed, friendly, and constantly on the phone with clients, he seemed entirely at ease in the forest."No worries," he smiled, as our undercover colleague declined the offer of an overnight stay in the camp and left.A few days later we would be following the gang and its paying clients towards the coast, as they tried to hide from the police, through the night, in a different wooded would even try to convince our reporting team that he was just another desperate person trying to reach the UK, rather than a smuggler making hundreds of thousands of pounds by risking people's lives in the Channel. When we first began to investigate the gang, it was known to those using its services as The Mountain (or Jabal, in Arabic). That was the word customers would use when making payments - and the word we had heard from those who had been on Sarah's ill-fated soon learned that Jabal was also the name of one of the gang's three leaders, all from the same area of Iraqi Kurdistan, near the city of controlled logistics from Belgium and France. Another man, Aram, had spent time in Europe but now appeared to be back in Iraq, possibly more involved in drumming up new customers. The third leader, even more shadowy than the others, was known as al-Millah (The Chief in English). He appeared to take a lead on the gang's financial June 2024, we tracked down Jabal to a migrant reception centre in Luxembourg and confronted him on the street. He denied any involvement and, although we promptly informed the French police, quickly disappeared."He fled after your intervention in Luxembourg, and he changed his phone and probably fled abroad," said Xavier Delrieu, who heads the French police's anti-smuggling unit. "His whereabouts are now unknown. The investigation is continuing."Delrieu later told us there had been "one arrest [of an Iraqi] linked to Sarah's death", but declined to give any further information, citing operational secrecy. We do not believe Jabal has been arrested."As long as it is profitable, they're going to continue," said Marconville, lead prosecutor at the regional Court of Appeal for northern France, agreed: "It's like chess. And they have [the advantage] on the board. So, they're always one step ahead of us." It is a gloomy assessment, backed up by some of our own findings during this investigation, and it shows how difficult it may be for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to deliver on his promise to "smash the gangs".The UK-French "one-in, one-out" pilot scheme, now in force, will "deliver real results", says Mr Starmer. The deal will see some of those arriving in small boats detained and returned to France. 'Small hands' After Jabal's disappearance in Luxembourg, we returned to northern France to continue our investigation. We spoke to more than a dozen people who had used the gang to reach - or to try to reach - the UK by small their help, and with other footage we had filmed the night of Sarah's death, we identified several junior gang members - known as "small hands", or simply "guides" in Kurdish, including some who had helped launch Sarah's tracked the small hands on their social media accounts as they moved around Europe, often seeming to flaunt their middle-ranking smuggler, known as Besha - we learned - had left on a small boat with his Iranian girlfriend to claim asylum in the UK. We had first begun following him, undercover, as he escorted groups of migrants from Calais to Boulogne train station, ahead of attempts to cross the later, we tracked him and his girlfriend to a migrant hostel in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. We staked it out for three days but lost track of them when they left Sarah's death, and extensive publicity it attracted, the gang changed its name from The Mountain, to Ghali Ghali. It is an unusual Arabic and Kurdish phrase that may perhaps be best translated as "Exclusive". For a time, we heard lots of talk of Ghali Ghali, both online and at the train and bus stations in Calais and beyond. The gang was known to be cheap and relatively reliable. Some people who had failed to cross the Channel with the group said they had been reimbursed promptly. For plenty of migrants, the gangs are seen primarily not as dangerous criminals but as entrepreneurs offering a valuable the gang changed its name twice more - firstly to al-Millah, the nickname of the shadowy third gang leader, and then to Kaka, which means Brother but is also, we believe, another of his nicknames. More recently at least two other names have been many other gangs, who advertise prominently online, particularly on TikTok, using videos of crossings and other scenes, and seeking to appeal to particular ethnic groups, our gang has kept a low profile, working with a wide range of nationalities, particularly from Iraq and Africa, and seeming to rely for business on reputation and word of that reputation has continued to be affected by news of more deaths in the Channel. We discovered at least seven more people - after the initial five on Sarah's boat - had died in two separate incidents while attempting to cross with the land, disturbing evidence of the gang's violence has also emerged. Earlier this year, two sources told us the shadowy figure, al-Millah, was running the gang's operations in the forest near Dunkirk. Independently, our sources both described a scene, one winter's day, when he ordered his small hands to stand in a line, before tying one of them to a tree and beating him severely. It seems the boss suspected the man of stealing is "the leader" a young Somali woman told us, separately, by text. "No [migrants] meet him. They are all family… they are also theifs [sic]."We had met the woman, who gave her name as Luna, at a food distribution point run by local charities outside Dunkirk. She had paid the gang for a crossing, she said, but had waited for two months in the forest camp and been disturbed by the abuse she had her texts, she described how she feared one of al-Millah's henchmen, whom she called "Abdulah"."He put a gun in [sic] my head one night. He is a very dangerous guy he slap me so many times," she wrote - before sharing a brief video she had secretly filmed of on that video, and on other details, we believe this is the same Abdullah our undercover reporter would go on to meet in the forests around Dunkirk.A few days later, on what she said was her 13th attempt, Luna crossed to the UK with a different gang. She has since broken off contact with us. Mobile phone number It was at this point that we stepped up our investigation - trying to engage more directly with the gang and penetrate its its leaders had repeatedly changed phone numbers, we managed to confirm, that one mobile number belonging to al Millah remained in later learned the phone had been handed over to Abdullah, who had apparently taken over the running of operations in weeks ago, we made a strategic visit to Brussels - a common transit point for migrants heading to the coast of northern France. Having already used multiple fake identities to contact Abdullah on his mobile, we now rang him knew it was important to be careful when making such a call. The gang would often ask customers to send a pin to confirm their location, and then to make a video call to back that up and to ensure they were on a street near Brussels' Gare Du Midi, our Arab-speaking colleague, posing as a migrant called "Abu Ahmed", came straight to the point."Hello. Brother, I'm travelling alone. I want to leave quickly, please. Do you have a departure tomorrow, the day after, or this week?""Tomorrow, God willing," Abdullah replied."I prefer to pay in the UK if possible. My money is in a safe place there."This was not an unusual or suspicious request for us to make. Although some people carry cash with them, many others arrange to pay the smugglers through bank transfers or via intermediaries in a range of countries including Turkey, Germany, Belgium and the UK. The money sometimes goes directly to the gang, or it can be held "in trust" to be handed over only after a successful crossing. Birmingham New Street concourse We wanted to expose the gang's links in the UK, having already tracked one member to Wakefield."OK. The price is €1,400," said Abdullah - over £1,200. He seemed in a rush.A few hours later in a text, he sent us a UK mobile phone number and indicated his own name "Abdullah" should be used as a payment reference, along with the single word "Birmingham".Leaving our colleague Abu Ahmed to make his own way to the French coast, we rushed to Birmingham to arrange payment. Handing money over to criminals is not something we do lightly - but in this instance we decided there was a public interest in doing so as it was the only way we could further expose the gang and its wider network.A few hours later, having arranged for a separate BBC colleague, who also speaks Arabic, to pose as one of Abu Ahmed's relatives in the UK and to hand over an envelope containing the cash, we staked out a meeting place in the centre of Birmingham's New Street. Abdullah had given us a UK phone number for his contact, and we arranged to meet the man beside a giant metal sculpture of a colleague stood, silently, as the crowds flowed around him. We sat on benches nearby, scanning each face, waiting to see if someone would show up, or if the gang had become suspicious of our minutes later, and on time, someone showed up."Greetings, brother.""It's all here," said our colleague, holding up the money to show to a bearded man with a glass eye. The man said his name was Bahman, and that he had been sent by his uncle. Bahman appeared relaxed and unsuspecting as the two men briefly chatted in the middle of the busy concourse, as we secretly filmed their encounter."Cash is a problem. I swear, it's a problem," said Bahman, implying that he was not simply a "runner" sent to collect the cash, but someone with at least a passing knowledge of the broader operation. He did not explain why cash was a "problem" but took the money - an agreed payment of £900, about three-quarters of the total smugglers' bill - and boat passengers can deposit money for their crossing in holding accounts in the UK and elsewhere using "hawala" brokers. It is a global honour system, widely used in the Middle East, in particular, that enables the transfer of money via mutually trusted third there is a fee payable to businesses offering such a service. The fact that Bahman did not ask for any extra money strongly suggested he was not simply an agent or middleman, but directly linked to our gang in France. Final downpayment We then travelled back to Dunkirk, where our colleague Abu Ahmed was finally in a credible position to make direct contact with Abdullah in the told us he had received confirmation from Birmingham that most of the money for a crossing had been handed over. We had deliberately left a sum unpaid to give our colleague a good reason to meet Abdullah in his camp, rather than joining the group later as it headed south along the coast to attempt a two undercover security guards watching his back from a distance, Abu Ahmed walked towards the forest, following the directions that Abdullah handed out, one texted detail at a time, until he was told to leave the road and clamber down a steep bank. There, he handed over another €400 (£348) to Abdullah, as agreed, before making his excuses, explaining he was staying with other friends in Calais who were also seeking to cross to England. Two days later, our undercover reporter received confirmation from Abdullah that an attempted crossing would be made early the next morning."We are waiting for you near the main station in Boulogne," Abdullah said in one of several brief voice weather forecast in the Channel was ideal. Hardly a breath of wind. As we had often observed, French police were already positioned outside the bus and train stations in Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne - the main gathering points for migrants moving to the beaches. But they made no attempt to stop anyone their aim appeared to be to gather information about numbers of people and locations, to help work out where they might later have the best chance of intercepting and destroying the inflatable boats the gangs would, inevitably, head the inflatable boats with knives before they reach the sea has become the police's main method to prevent launches. As a result, the gangs have begun to change tactics. Roughly half all the small boats crossing the Channel are now so-called "taxi-boats" - a police source told us - launched with few or no passengers and in secret. The craft then cruise along the coastline to pick up people waiting in the shallows."Forty-three tickets," said one of the small hands, addressing a bus driver, as he and a crowd of mostly African men and women clustered at the door, alongside our undercover colleague. It was a familiar scene, with different smuggling gangs all arranging for their customers to gather and to travel along the French coastline on public transport towards different launch colleague, Abu Ahmed, initially travelled with the migrants, but - for his own safety - we had agreed he would slip away from the group before nightfall, and before they got close to the beaches. 'Fifteen women. Forty people in all' From a distance, we watched Abdullah walk across a street in Boulogne, having accompanied some of his passengers there from Dunkirk and Calais. He wore black and carried a large backpack. More people arrived, and sat or lay near him, behind some bushes at a bus stop. They waited for several hours, until early evening, before getting on a local bus heading south towards Ecault beach, an area we knew was a favourite launch spot for the seven that evening, with our cameras in plain sight, we were openly following Abdullah and perhaps 40 other people, as they walked down a sandy path through the woods and towards the long straight expanse of Ecault beach. Many in the group hid their faces from us but made no move to discourage us from filming, as they moved, suddenly, away from the path and then sat down in a wooded one person in the group agreed to talk to us. It was Abdullah quiet, halting English, he told us he was an Iranian migrant, that his name was Ahmed, and that this was his second, or possibly third, attempt to Abdullah thought that by telling journalists this story, he was building a useful public alias that he might use later - like others in the gang have done - if he ever sought to claim asylum in the UK. Abruptly, the sound of police radios in the distance brought all conversation to an end. The group of migrants - including many Somalis, some Sudanese, and possibly some Iranian families - sat in total silence for perhaps an two French gendarmes spotted them through the undergrowth and walked, slowly, forwards. The younger officer held a canister of pepper spray in his right hand, and it seemed as if all eyes in the group were fixed on it."Women?" asked the older office in English."Babies?" he continued and walked around the group counting heads. We had heard the police tend to intervene more often when there are babies involved. The officers also checked our team's press cards as we sat nearby."Fifteen women. Forty people in all," the officer concluded, and then, affably enough, he offered a parting, "good luck".A few hours later, as darkness fell, one sombre-looking family left. Their child, a boy of perhaps 10 years old, was coughing heavily. A single policeman remained, leaning on a nearby tree and occasionally shining a torch towards the rest of the group, until about 23:00, when he tension quickly melted away. Grins flashed in the darkness. For all the weariness and the risk, the younger men in the group seemed buoyed by a collective sense of adventure. By 02:00, the last muttered conversations faded away. It was now a cold, silent night, broken only by snores, the occasional yelp of someone dreaming, and the hoot of a single owl. At about 06:30 the following morning, word spread through the group. The police had found whatever boat the gang had prepared for them overnight - we had seen Abdullah disappear into the darkness for at least an hour at one point - and destroyed people stood up, gathered their lifejackets and blankets and, following Abdullah and his team, began to walk back up the path towards the closest bus stop to head back to their camps and wait for another chance to we had another journey to make, and a confrontation. Back to Birmingham We had considered seeing if we could get a reimbursement from Abdullah by claiming that our colleague, Abu Ahmed, had changed his mind about the crossing. Instead, we decided it was more important to try to challenge the gang's UK-based associates. And so, later that same day, our undercover reporter called Abdullah one more Ahmed said his two friends in Calais also wanted to cross, and that he had left Abdullah's group on the bus because he preferred to travel with his friends. Could they pay in Birmingham too? Just like the last time?The next day, we were back at New Street Station again. It was a near identical repeat of our earlier visit there, except this time, when a different unnamed man - also young, and bearded - arrived beside the bull sculpture to collect yet more cash for the smuggling gang, we broke cover and walked straight up to him, our cameras rolling."We're from BBC News. We know you're linked to a people smuggling gang…"The man looked around, momentarily confused, his eyes darting. Then he turned and broke into a frantic sprint, heading to the station exit and across the street beyond before vanishing into the city.A few days later, we called Abdullah and by phone and asked him about his smuggling activities. At first, he denied any wrongdoing. Then offered us money. Then he said he needed to call his boss. Then he hung up. With additional reporting by our unnamed undercover reporters, Kathy Long, Paul Pradier, Marianne Baisnee, and Lea Guedj
