
The moment a Stockport burglar punches open jewellery cabinet
Craig, of Kingfisher Close, left blood on the glass counter and was identified using DNA testing.The attack caused £3,287 in damage to the business, with £2,483 of stock being stolen and £807 of damage being caused, police said. Det Const Peter Viney said: "This was an opportunistic crime that left several staff members at the business traumatised by the ordeal they were put through. "Thankfully, no one was injured during this incident."He said all the stolen items were returned to the business and he hoped the sentencing provided "some comfort that justice has been done".
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The Independent
13 minutes ago
- The Independent
Issuing prison officers with Tasers won't make them safer
If you have read anything on the prison system over the past few years, you will have noticed a few common themes: overcrowding, understaffing, reoffending, crumbling infrastructure, and abject conditions. Our prisons are increasingly places of despair – full of drugs, drones, self-harm, violence and deaths. The recent annual report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons lay testament to the extent of the crisis gripping the prison system. And the government knows this. Its own research sets out that people living in overcrowded cells were 19 per cent more likely to be involved in assault incidents – and 67 out of the 121 adult male prisons in this country are overcrowded. In the context of rising violence across the prison estate, what is the government's solution? To recruit and train more prison officers? To address overcrowding by reducing capacity in particularly troubled jails and across the system? To invest in infrastructure? To increase education and training budgets to give prisoners access to the means to turn their lives around? No. While we wait for bolder action to fix the broken prison system, the government's response is to trumpet the fact that Tasers will now be used behind bars. The introduction of Tasers has been linked to horrific incidents involving attacks on staff at Frankland and Belmarsh – although it is far from clear that access to these weapons would have prevented either incident taking place. Staff in adult male prisons already have access to batons and PAVA spray, which we know undermine positive relationships between staff and those in their care. The escalating use of force brings with it a multitude of concerns. Inspection reports have consistently revealed inappropriate use of force, including against people threatening to self-harm; problems with lack of staff training; inadequate use of body-worn cameras; and disproportionate use of force against people from Black, Black/British, and Muslim backgrounds. While Tasers are being piloted in a limited manner – just the 'operational response and resilience unit' will be authorised to use them – the fear must be that this is the thin edge of the wedge. Indeed, speaking to journalists about Tasers, the secretary of state for justice, Shabana Mahmood, remarked: 'This is very much the beginning'. It seems that the rollout of further weapons in prisons has been foretold. And that would track; two months ago, the secretary of state approved of the use of PAVA spray – an otherwise illegal chemical incapacitant – in prisons holding children, despite evidence that it won't reduce violence and will be disproportionately used against Black and minority ethnic children, Muslim children and children with disabilities. Last week, the Howard League issued legal proceedings to challenge this decision. Almost every week, I visit prisons across the country and speak to people being held in and working in dreadful conditions. Many of this country's jails are filthy, overrun simultaneously with drones and rats. People eat – and go to the toilet – in cramped cells with poor ventilation. There are more than 22,000 people sharing a cell intended for a single person. Facilities have become dilapidated as the maintenance backlog has grown. Restricted regimes, often due to staff shortages, mean that people have little to do but stay locked in their cells. I speak to prison governors doing their very best to keep the people in their care safe, though they are often uncomfortable with the job they are doing, feeling powerless to attract the resources they need to run a better jail. They all want fewer people in their prison, higher staff confidence and capability, and more time to spend with prisoners to help turn their lives around. But there is no money for any of that. And so, prisoners are held in ghastly conditions, and when this leads to unrest and violence, the government is sanctioning yet more use of force against them. There is no question that the government is facing a crisis in its prisons. But this will not be solved with easy, reactionary policies. What is needed is political courage to explain the problems honestly to the public – as Keir Starmer started to do last July – and long-term investment in evidence-based policy that addresses the roots of the overcrowding and reoffending in our prison system. Violence will not be stemmed by more violence. The government must look at its own evidence and acknowledge that, rather than adding to the pressure in our overstretched jails, the best response to rising levels of violence is to reduce the prison population and offer productive and positive regimes for people in custody. We will be waiting until September for legislation to deliver changes proposed in David Gauke's sentencing review, which will hopefully ease some of this pressure. But otherwise, the government's plan seems to be to build more prisons, and weaponise them at pace. Which feels a long way from the promise of the prime minister's first press conference last July.


The Independent
13 minutes ago
- The Independent
Southport's Muslims still plagued by Islamophobic incidents a year on from race riots, imam says
Southport continues to be plagued by Islamophobic incidents a year after the deadly knife attack that sparked race riots last year, the chairman of its mosque has revealed. Imam Ibrahim Hussein, the chairman of Southport Mosque, said members had reported six incidents to the police since last July – a sharp increase from the three he said they had reported over the 30 years since they opened in the town. The mosque in the seaside town found itself at the centre of nationwide riots last July, sparked by misinformation spread online following an attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport that killed three young girls. Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, died, and eight more girls and two adults were left wounded when a knifeman stormed the class before being detained by police. Mr Hussein said the memory of the attack was 'in his head all the time' and he remembers how the community was hoping to support the families in any way possible. 'It doesn't leave me for any one night. Of course, when the awful attack happened, we were devastated... We were hoping we could offer the family any support in any small way we could. Just being there and offering prayers. 'But we very quickly had reports come in saying we would be targeted.' The mosque found itself at the centre of the Islamophobic rioting the evening after the attack, after false reports that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker. 'In the evening, it escalated very quickly into a big mob charging at us. We were trapped in from 8pm to just before 1am in the morning,' he recalled. But the next day, the local community came out 'in droves' to rebuild the mosque's broken wall and offer support. He said: 'The response from the local community was more than great. We always knew we were on good terms with our neighbours, there has been nothing but mutual respect between us and on that morning they all came out in droves to support us and the muslim community.' However, a year on, Mr Hussein said Southport's small Muslim community continues to feel nervous amid rising Islamophobia. He said: 'In the last 30 years, since the mosque has been here, there were about three reported incidents – one every ten years on average. 'But in the last year, there have been six or seven incidents we've had to report. Islamophobia is going through the roof really – even though people now know we had nothing to do with anything.' Incidents targeting Muslims in the area have included objects being thrown at the mosque as well as cars being scratched. In June, it was reported that the back window of a mosque was damaged by an object suspected to have been thrown by a catapult. 'People are apprehensive and are feeling kind of worried. There is an undercurrent of something going on, but we can't put our finger on it. So I've had to warn people to be vigilant and careful.' He added how this had coincided with incidents across the country in recent weeks targeting asylum seekers and other mosques. Last month, a 34-year-old man appeared in court over an attack on the Islamic Centre in Belfast. Police previously said a viable device was thrown through a window of the centre during evening prayer on Friday. Last year, Tell Mama, a charity monitoring Islamophobic incidents, said a survey had found a majority of Muslims felt hate against them had become more widespread since the summer riots. The organisation analysed the opinions of 750 Muslims across the UK eight weeks after the disorder broke out in parts of England and Northern Ireland. Tell Mama said just under three-quarters (71 per cent) felt anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia had become more widespread since the unrest. Almost two-thirds (62 per cent) said the potential risk of harm to Muslim communities had since increased significantly or somewhat.


The Guardian
14 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Child molestation survivor revisits case of his father killing his accused abuser on live TV
A child abuse survivor whose father shot his accused abuser to death in plain view of television news cameras in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the 1980s says he suggests parents whose children are molested 'not to take the law into your own hands and put yourself in a position to be prosecuted'. Instead, 'I would advise [them] … to be there for their child,' Joseph Boyce 'Jody' Plauché remarked in a new interview that was recently published by People. Plauché's comments revisited the slaying of his karate coach Jeff Doucet at the hands of his father, Gary Plauché, which was once one of the US's most sensational criminal cases. Jody was 10 when Doucet became his karate coach and began molesting the boy, as Plauché recounted in a 2019 memoir. In February 1984, Doucet drove an 11-year-old Jody to a relative's home in Port Arthur, Texas, and then they took a bus to the Los Angeles area to visit Disneyland. Doucet and Jody were there for about a week, and authorities found them in a motel room after the man let the boy make a collect call to his mother. The boy was quickly brought home, and tests confirmed he had been sexually assaulted. Two deputies from the sheriff's office in Baton Rouge flew to California to bring Doucet back on charges of kidnapping and child sexual abuse, and Gary Plauché learned from someone at the Louisiana news station WBRZ when the karate coach was arriving at the local airport. Gary Plauché went to the airport in sunglasses and a baseball cap and lay in wait. As officers walked past him with a handcuffed Doucet, Gary Plauché aimed a handgun at the 25-year-old's right ear, fired point-blank and killed him as news cameras filmed. Video recorded one of the deputies who helped arrest Jody's father – and recognized him – as he shouted: 'Gary, why? Why, Gary? Why?' Gary Plauché – who instantly became a vigilante hero to many Americans at the time – eventually pleaded no contest to a manslaughter charge, spent five years on probation and avoided serving any time in prison. He died in 2014 at age 69. Jody, who would go on to title his memoir Why Gary Why?, later told the Associated Press how people constantly approached him to exalt his father long after the case fell out of the news headlines. Well into his adulthood, he would post cooking videos online – and rather than weigh in on his dishes, viewers would write comments commending his father. 'They won't comment: 'That gumbo looks great,'' Jody said to the AP. 'They'll just be like: 'Your dad's a hero.'' But in his recent conversation with People, the 53-year-old Jody Plauché said his father 'got lucky' that he didn't face a harsher sentence which would have taken him away from his son at a crucial time in his recovery from his sexual abuse. He said he even gave his father the silent treatment for a couple of months after Doucet's killing. 'I didn't want Jeff dead – I didn't want daddy to hurt Jeff,' Jody Plauché said to People of his state of mind at the time. 'I just wanted Jeff to stop doing what he was doing, which he never would've, but that was just the hope back then, the prayers I would say at night.' Jody Plauché said he forgave his father after seeing Gary and his mother 'getting along really [well]' in the aftermath of the deadly shooting. He had done that upon accepting that authorities would not come take Gary away at a time when his boy needed him, as Jody told People. During one of the rare conversations they had about Doucet's slaying, Jody recalled, 'I told him … 'I'm not mad at you no more. I understand why you did it.'' Jody said he remembered Gary responding with something to the effect of: 'I love you.' As Jody tells it, he later earned a general studies degree at Louisiana State University with minors in speech, communication and psychology. He worked in Pennsylvania as a sexual assault counselor for seven years, returned to Baton Rouge in 2005 after his father suffered a stroke, and took a job at his brother's transportation company. Jody Plauché has said that the purpose of Why, Gary, Why? is to give hope and knowledge to survivors and their parents, respectively. 'I wanted outsiders to get a general understanding about sexual violence and sexual abuse,' said Jody Plauché, now a vocal advocate for child molestation survivors. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453 or visit their website for more resources and to report child abuse or DM for help. For adult survivors of child abuse, help is available at In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International