King ‘riveted' by story of Royal Marine boxer who was stabbed
'I was a victim of knife crime myself at the age of 17,' the 23-year-old said.
'After getting stabbed, I really turned my life around, mainly because of my boxing coach. He was a great mentor for me.
'But boxing was so important because it meant six nights a week I weren't on the streets, I knew where I'd be.
'I'd always be in the gym, especially Friday night. He always called it naughty night. So I would be in the boxing gym.
'I'm not able to mess about – I'd be too tired to do anything else.'
Charles said he was 'riveted' by Mr Shaw-Tullin's story, adding that it was 'quite a good point' about 'being too exhausted to get into trouble'.
The King also invited Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who had come straight from chairing a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy in attendance too.
Charles spoke to Michael Gilroy, a fight promoter from Newcastle, who went on the King's Trust's enterprise programme.
Mr Gilroy struggled with his mental health and took up Muay Thai to help him with discipline, which led him to start his business Evol Promotions.
He told the PA news agency: '(The King is) a really funny character, he's got a great sense of humour.
'As soon as he found out I was part of the King's Trust and I'm an ambassador, he said he's proud of me.'
The 27-year-old launched his business in June 2021 but said the first year was difficult.
'I learned more in the three-day enterprise course with the King's Trust than I did in a year in business,' Mr Gilroy said.
He said he hopes to inspire people in his role as a young ambassador after 'graduating' from the programme.
There were also discussions about other issues young people face in 2025.
Families of victims of knife crime were there, including Martin and Tara Cosser, the parents of Charlie Cosser, a 17-year-old who was stabbed at an end-of-term party nearly two years ago in Warnham, West Sussex.
'You are inspirational,' the Prime Minister told the campaigners.
'I find it really humbling that people that you have been through some of the most horrendous ordeals are able then somehow to turn that around and channel it into work to help other people that they will probably never meet and never know.
'I often ask myself, because we've got a 17-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl, I often ask myself, how would I react? And I'm not sure I would have the courage and resilience that you have to do what you do for other people.'
Sir Keir also lauded Elba's 'brilliant' campaign against knife crime, called Don't Stop Your Future.
Meanwhile, the Luther star said there had been some 'milestones' in knife crime campaigning, but added 'we can't take our foot off the pedal'.
The 52-year-old said: 'We've seen some things happen, and that's great.
'There's also been a small rise in knife crime at the same time, OK?
'And compared to the year before that rising knife crime might be less than the year before, but it was still a rise.
'So we can't take our foot off the pedal.
'We have to stay focused.'
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Telegraph
9 hours ago
- Telegraph
‘Taliban fighters came to my house. I escaped just in time'
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'I'm not alone, there are many people like me here and in Afghanistan who have been living in fear and waiting when death would knock on the door.' Britain has secretly offered asylum to nearly 24,000 Afghan soldiers and their families caught up in the most serious data breach in history. The leak, involving the details of 18,800 soldiers, along with about 6,000 of their family members, was revealed on Tuesday after a two-year super-injunction was lifted by the High Court in London. However, the former member of the Afghan special forces said many of those who were taken to Britain were neither high-ranking nor facing serious threats to their lives. ' People like base gardeners or low-ranking soldiers were taken to Britain, but many high-ranking colonels whose lives are truly at risk were left behind, just waiting for death to come,' he said. 'It's deeply disappointing. This isn't justice. I don't understand how they prioritised the evacuations – they even took the guy who used to polish shoes, or a base's barber, but left behind many colonels.' The Home Office regularly declines to comment on the specific categories of individuals brought to the UK. The man served with the British Army's special forces, his skills and courage earning him respect among his international colleagues. His nephew told The Telegraph from Afghanistan: 'He was too courageous and everyone in his unit knew that, but England left him behind after their forces left. 'For months he was living in different homes of relatives and in villages and towns around Herat.' When Western forces withdrew in 2021, the man applied for asylum in the UK, submitting documents that included his service record and his family's details. It was supposed to be his pathway to safety. Instead, it became his death warrant. The Taliban claims they obtained the list from the internet during the first days after it was leaked. While the Government spent £7 billion on a covert operation to relocate thousands of affected Afghans to the UK, the man and his family remained trapped in limbo, their names circulating among Taliban units with orders to find them. 'They keep pressuring us to reveal his whereabouts,' his nephew said. 'They once arrested me and beat me for a day. My uncle served with the special forces. The Taliban keep saying he must come with them for questioning.' Taliban fighters don't just visit once and leave. They return regularly, methodically working through extended family networks, applying pressure with each visit. They know intimate details. Information that could only have come from the leaked asylum applications. 'It's putting everyone in the family at risk,' the nephew explains. 'Being related to someone on a Taliban kill list is a death sentence. 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For the man hiding in Iran, the news grows more desperate by the day. The Islamic Republic is now deporting hundreds of thousands of Afghans back into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Iran is using espionage allegations against Afghans as a pretext for the mass arrests and deportations following the recent conflict with Israel. The Telegraph spoke to Afghans in Iran, at the border, and in Afghanistan who said the regime in Tehran was targeting them to divert public attention from its 'humiliation' by Israel in last month's 12-day war. During the conflict, daily deportations jumped from 2,000 to over 30,000 as Iranian authorities turned public anger toward the vulnerable minority. Those persecuted by the regime also reported suffering widespread abuses including beatings, arbitrary detention. Since early June, nearly 450,000 Afghan refugees, many who arrived after the Taliban returned to power in 2021, have been deported and 5,000 children separated from their parents, according to UN agencies. 'The situation in Iran isn't good,' the former special forces member said. 'I emailed them [British officials], but all I got was an automatic reply saying they'd get back to me.'
Scottish Sun
10 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Taliban warns thousands of Afghans secretly airlifted to UK ‘we will HUNT you down' after MoD leaked ‘kill list'
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The Sun
10 hours ago
- The Sun
Taliban warns thousands of Afghans secretly airlifted to UK ‘we will HUNT you down' after MoD leaked ‘kill list'
THE Taliban has chillingly warned it will hunt down thousands of Afghan refugees on a 'kill list' after the UK's huge data breach. Details of almost 20,000 refugees fleeing the terrorist organisation were leaked after a Royal Marine mistakenly sent a top secret email to the wrong people. 6 6 6 Thousands of the refugees had to be secretly relocated to the UK after the blunder, which was covered up by the Ministry of Defence and is set to cost Britain up to £7 billion. The majority of those on the secret list were flown into Stansted airport via unmarked planes. But now Taliban officials have claimed the details of all the refugees have been known to them since 2022, after they allegedly sourced the information from the internet. Speaking to The Telegraph, they said: 'A special unit has been launched to find them and make sure they do not work with Britain. 'We've been calling and visiting their family members to track them down. 'They believe these individuals are still working with the British, and say the problem must be dealt with. 'These people are seen as traitors, and the plan has been to find as many of them as possible. 'Whoever leaked that file is actually helping us. There may be a general amnesty in place, but spies cannot escape justice.' It means that the clumsy click and the subsequent cover-up - which has now proven to be ineffective - has potential to be the most expensive data breach in history. The list also included names of their individual UK sponsors including SAS and MI6 spies and at least one Royal Marine Major General. Although Defence Secretary John Healey has said that the cost of relocating the Afghans and their families will total £400 million, the final cost could be even higher. Defence Secretary Healey's figure includes £100 million in compensation for the data breach and £300 million to relocate them to Britain. Taliban launches warped Afghan TOURISM campaign with vid of brutes posing beside 'hostage' in ISIS-style mock execution Mr Healey offered a "sincere apology" in the face of the huge error and added that "no government wishes to withhold information from the British public". He later said: "The full number of Afghan arrivals under all schemes have been reported in the regular Home Office statistics, meaning that they are already counted in the existing migration figures." However, government sources have estimated that the lifetime cost of supporting the 20,000 individuals and their families could hit £7 billion - if the rescued Afghans decide to sue the government for leaking their data. Only around 10 to 15 per cent of the individuals on the list would have qualified for relocation under the emergency Afghan Relocation and Assistance Programme, known as ARAP, opened as Kabul fell to the Taliban. Many of the Afghans who were flown into the country as part of Operation Rubific were initially housed at MoD homes or hotels until permanent accomodation was found. The leak put countless of people left in Afghanistan at risk, as the country's ruthless Taliban rulers tried to hunt and kill anyone who had helped UK forces. A number of named individuals have been killed since the leak. Others were tortured and beaten. But sources insisted it was impossible to prove conclusively whether it was a direct result of the data breach. The epic MoD blunder was kept Top Secret for almost three years by a legal super injunction but can finally be made public today. A source said: 'The MoD kept this secret and denied these people the chance to change their numbers, emails, locations or take any measures to protect themselves.' And the MoD only wrote to those affected to warn them today. An MoD source said it was 'human error and not a cyber hack or hostile state actor'. 6 6 6
