Devon and Cornwall whale watchers warned to keep their distance
PC Skinner said people should keep "a safe distance away from whales, seals and other marine wildlife", keep noise noise to a minimum and ensure dogs were on leads.He said people should never touch marine mammals and switch boat engines to neutral if approached by them.The force said it had partnered with the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) for Operation Seabird - a national initiative which aims to tackle marine wildlife disturbance and promote responsible wildlife watching.Anyone who witnesses the disturbance of marine wildlife was asked to report it to police or the MMO.
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Police chief mocked for telling store owners to call 999 if they see a shoplifter - because 'officers don't show up'
A police boss was branded 'out of touch' for telling shopkeepers to report thieves – because officers often fail to show up. Jon Cummins, the Assistant Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Police, advised store owners to dial 999 rather than tackle the offenders themselves. But officers regularly do not attend the scene and instead tell victims to file a report online. These are usually ignored, leaving shopkeepers defenceless to crime. Mr Cummins told the BBC: 'If they see someone shoplifting, my advice to them is they must call us. If they see it, they should immediately call us on 999 and not intervene.' His comments clashed with those of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex, who said that there is no real purpose behind arresting shoplifters as the courts just set them free. Katy Bourne told The Daily Telegraph: 'There is no point arresting shoplifters if there is no effective deterrent.' The lack of clarity from police over how to tackle shoplifting has left many shop owners in despair. Samantha Baker, 31, who owns the gift shop Refine & Design in Yeovil, Somerset, told The Mail on Sunday Mr Cummins 'does not know how bad it is'. She said: 'If you call the police, they are not turning up. It is shocking. I pay my taxes for the police to do their jobs, and they won't.' Grocer who REALLY shames thieves A grocery store boss is shaming suspected shoplifters by posting their CCTV mugshots in his shop window and on social media alongside scathing comments. Suki Athwal, co-owner of Shop Around The Clock in Tenterden, Kent, posted one image of a man who fled the shop after allegedly stealing two crates of Stella Artois, a pizza and a Pukka pie. Mr Athwal, 30, said he found the man at a bus stop but was threatened when he demanded payment. Alongside his Facebook post, he wrote: 'I should be upset about this but the realisation that I'm not needing to drink a lukewarm can of Stella at 8.45am while waiting for a bus made me realise life isn't so bad for me.' Mr Athwal has been asked to take down mugshots due to the 2018 Data Protection Act. But he told The Times he still displays them occasionally as 'a reminder that we're watching'. The row over shoplifting intensified last week when Labour's policing minister Dame Diana Johnson was accused of 'victim blaming' by asking shopkeepers to conceal high-value goods. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'The policing minister's comments were staggering. 'She is saying that law-abiding shopkeepers should have to cover for the explosion of shoplifting which she is presiding over.' Dame Diana's views contrasted with those of Matthew Barber, the Police and Commissioner for Thames Valley, who called on the public to step in when they see a crime. Last night, he said: 'It is disappointing the policing minister of all people does not see the importance of a strong community in preventing crime. 'We have a long tradition of policing by consent in this country. That means the police upholding the law and common values that spring from the community. 'The public should feel empowered to report crimes they see in front of them and be able to call out criminal behaviour knowing the police and courts are on their side.' He was joined by Tim Passmore, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Suffolk, who said: 'I cannot understand the ambivalent attitude that some forces seem to take, as it does nothing to improve confidence in policing.' A grocery store boss is shaming suspected shoplifters by posting their CCTV mugshots in his shop window and on social media alongside scathing comments. Suki Athwal, co-owner of Shop Around The Clock in Tenterden, Kent, posted one image of a man who fled the shop after allegedly stealing two crates of Stella Artois, a pizza and a Pukka pie. Mr Athwal, 30, said he found the man at a bus stop but was threatened when he demanded payment. Alongside his Facebook post, he wrote: 'I should be upset about this but the realisation that I'm not needing to drink a lukewarm can of Stella at 8.45am while waiting for a bus made me realise life isn't so bad for me.' Mr Athwal has been asked to take down mugshots due to the 2018 Data Protection Act. But he told The Times he still displays them occasionally as 'a reminder that we're watching'.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
ALEXANDRA SHULMAN'S NOTEBOOK: Should I step in when the child in a nearby house won't stop crying?
London in the heat is a city of open doors and windows. Recently we've woken not to the cheerful clatter of a kitchen nor boys bouncing balls in the garden, but to a toddler crying uncontrollably in a nearby house. Everyone knows children cry for various reasons, but even so, when you hear one wailing for hours on end, it becomes not just an intrusion, but an unsettling worry. Could it be something more disturbing? Is it right to intervene? The trend seems to be for communities to take more responsibility for what's going on around them. Last week Matthew Barber, the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley, said we should all be have-a-go vigilantes and apprehend shoplifters ourselves, and that numbers of community police officers were being increased so we could report local 'causes of concern'. So that crying? Is it a cause of concern that should be investigated, or is it simply a tantrum-inclined infant? Living in a middle-class neighbourhood, we assume we are among people who are generally good sorts and would never mistreat their children. It's not an easy decision to bang on the door of neighbours one doesn't know and tell them you are worried about their crying child. Likely as not, they're simply dealing with a child they can't manage to soothe. And if so, they would understandably be both furious and horrified, and regard the interference as the work of an appalling busybody. The option of reporting any concerns to the police and letting them approach the parents citing 'a neighbours complaint' wouldn't be much better. It wouldn't be too long before they discovered who had reported them. Yet what if the likely scenario is not the case? What if there really is a neglected child crying in a house near us? Ill-treatment of children is not confined to the less well off. Indeed, there are numerous cases of child neglect among the wealthy. What if perfectly well-intentioned parents have left their baby in the hands of somebody who is not taking care of them? What if a toddler is in danger and nobody around thinks they should get involved because, well, people like us don't mistreat their children? As a nation, we are far more likely to report worries about pet welfare than fears about children. And although I'm pretty sure the crying toddler is not in any kind of danger, there remains a nagging worry. After all, whenever there's a high-profile case of a neglected child, so many of us think: 'Why on earth didn't anybody say something?' Martha, a beauty mogul aged 84 In September, Martha Stewart, the original lifestyle guru who was famously sentenced to prison for insider trading, is launching her own skincare range Elm Biosciences. She is 84. I can't recall any other woman becoming a beauty entrepreneur in their 80s, and it will be interesting to see whether her age is, in fact, a successful sales driver. Stewart is in partnership with Dr Dhaval Bhanusali, a notable New York dermatologist, so the product is likely to be as good as any skincare can be. I'm a bit of a skincare denier and remain unconvinced it delivers significant results, but if Stewart manages to capture the beauty-conscious 70-plus market, she could be on to a good thing. JD's favourite theme park? CotsWorld. The most exclusive theme park in the country? CotsWorld. It provides just enough countryside to make wealthy American visitors, such as US Vice President JD Vance and his family, feel they are taking part in rural life, while ensuring they don't have to experience anything too real. The CotsWorld stone villages are rarely tarred by any off-theme council housing, and even the fields are neat and tidy. At the sumptuous Daylesford Organic farm shop, where Vance lunched, the vegetables are chosen for their looks – no wonky carrots here – and the beautiful creamy-white homeware in the gift shop will fit in perfectly back home in Washington DC. Unfortunately, though, the perfection is somewhat marred if you turn up in convoys of SUVs and gun-toting security. That's not quite the look anybody visiting CotsWorld wants to see. Take Dua dining tips with a pinch of salt I'd rather live in Dua Lipa world. Rarely a day goes by when there isn't a picture of the pop star looking gorgeous somewhere or other. Not only is she a terrific performer, but she also has a book club which offers surprisingly good recommendations and she frequently shares her favourite restaurants. The other day a friend suggested we lunch at a Dua Lipa recommendation in London. Sadly, it was an indifferent place where, despite the fact we ordered two courses in the old-fashioned way, the waiter insisted on bringing everything at the same time as sharing plates. Then, after two hours and a £70-a-head bill, they asked for our table back. Somehow I doubt Dua was chucked out of her seat when she visited. Illegal migrants not always the bad guys In the inflammatory debate about whether illegal migrants are a danger to the UK's women and children, it's worth remembering that no recent high-profile murder has involved an illegal immigrant. Sarah Everard, John Hunt's wife and two daughters, Anita Rose walking her dog in Suffolk and sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry – none of them were attacked by men arriving on small boats. Just saying. Claire's farewell puts High St in more peril It's sad to see the end of Claire's. The accessories shop was a familiar tentpole of the High Street and its removal makes real-life shopping even more endangered. The British High Street needs to be revived, not left to decay.
The Sun
2 hours ago
- The Sun
Trolls said I was a sociopath after conman lover stole $2m from my celeb-loved restaurant, but he hijacked my brain
She was the vegan queen of New York who ended up behind bars after looting her own restaurant of millions of dollars and going on the run with her husband. In this exclusive interview, Sarma Melngailis reveals the truth behind her spectacular downfall. 11 11 11 Opening her hotel room door to investigate the noise coming from the hallway, Sarma Melngailis immediately realised it was full of police officers and detectives. 'It's her!' one shouted, before a detective marched into her room, clutching a mobile phone with a photo of Sarma on the screen and the word 'Wanted' across it. It was May 10, 2016, and after almost a year on the run with her husband Anthony Strangis, now 45, the authorities had finally caught up with Sarma in the rural tourist town of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, over 700 miles from New York, where she'd been celebrated as a groundbreaking vegan chef and restaurateur. The chef, now 52, was wanted for grand larceny and fraud, after siphoning money out of her business account and defrauding money from employees and investors in the restaurant. According to the indictment that led to her arrest, from January 2014 to January 2015 Sarma transferred more than $1.6million from her restaurant's accounts to her personal account, leaving employees unpaid and the restaurant forced to close. She then convinced four people to invest a further $844,000 to re-open the restaurant, before going on to transfer $400,000 to her personal account. Following her arrest, she pleaded guilty to the charges and spent four months in jail. Sarma's story was documented in hit Netflix show Bad Vegan, released in 2022 and watched for nearly 30 million hours in its first five days. She has now published her memoir The Girl With The Duck Tattoo, which she hopes will help people to understand exactly what happened from the moment Anthony Strangis walked into her life in 2011. It is, according to Sarma, a twisted tale of brainwashing, gaslighting, coercive control and exploitation, orchestrated by Strangis, a gambler and conman, who had used Sarma as his personal cash machine. 'By the time we were arrested, I had handed around $2million to him,' says Sarma. 'I've been called a grifter, a sociopath, stupid, and told repeatedly that I should have gotten more time in jail.' 'Him owing me money was a reason for me not to cut loose from him' Sarma and Strangis met on Twitter in late 2011. At that time, Sarma – a trained chef originally from Newton, Massachusetts – was preparing to take her wildly successful Manhattan restaurant, Pure Food And Wine, serving up raw vegan food, global. An Ivy League graduate, Sarma had a successful career as an investment banker, before deciding to give it all up and follow her dream to become a chef. Her head for figures and passion for cooking is what attracted one investor to lend her $2.1million to buy the restaurant outright. It was a success from the moment it opened its doors in the summer of 2004, with A-listers including Gisele Bündchen, Bill Clinton, Woody Harrelson and Emma Stone, flocking to enjoy her dishes. When Sarma first started exchanging messages with Strangis, he said his name was Shane Fox. 'He called himself Mr Fox. He probably recognised I was an ideal target. I had a thriving business, bringing in a lot of money, and I'd just been through a break-up, so was personally vulnerable,' she says. Online, Strangis had given Sarma the impression that he was well-travelled and successful, but never revealed what he did for a living. However, she says their first date was a let-down. 'Once I met him in person, I felt like something wasn't right, and when he left, I figured that was it – I wouldn't be seeing him again.' But Strangis wasn't going to let her go that easily, and told Sarma that he could help her financially, implying that he had huge sums stashed away in other countries. Strangis' money was tied into his employment, which he implied was working for a shadowy governmental organisation. He told Sarma he couldn't tell her what he did for a living, but kept emailing her links to US special forces operations around the world. 'There was a lot of hinting and partial information, which allowed me to make assumptions,' explains Sarma. 'If I did call him out on something, he denied it so confidently that I'd question myself. So gaslighting was definitely part of his mindf**kery.' 11 11 It was early 2012, two months after their first date, when Strangis first asked to borrow $5,000 from Sarma. 'He was never clear why he needed it, but in the beginning, he would say it was urgent, as if a matter of life and death, and that if I turned him down, something bad would happen to him. 'And so it began. He just kept borrowing. Sometimes he paid me back, but never in full – just enough to give me some degree of confidence that I'd get the rest. "But from that first time onwards, he always owed me money. I know now that his owing me money was a reason for me not to cut loose from him – he already had his hooks in me, which was exactly what he wanted.' Every time Sarma lent him money, she would transfer it from her restaurant's business account to her personal account. She says: 'He always implied that he had huge sums stashed away, but that it would take time to get to, which is why he needed to borrow from me. "At the beginning, I often asked how he acquired it. He would just tell me: 'It's better you don't know,' but assured me it was legitimate.' The pair married in late 2012. 'It was something he told me we needed to do, and he badgered me about it until I finally agreed,' Sarma remembers. I was making my way on Wall Street before I decided to go to culinary school. I'm an intelligent woman, but at this point, he had 'hijacked' my brain Sarma Melngailis By then, she had noticed a change in Strangis. He seemed to exude confidence and no longer seemed uncomfortable in New York, like he had on their first date. And he had also put on a lot of weight. 'Now, I realise that's because when he wasn't with me, he was spending most of his time sitting at casino tables or in a hotel room eating pizza and playing Call Of Duty,' says Sarma. Strangis also revealed that she was being 'tested', and if she passed the tests – which included tolerating his weight gain and giving him more money – they would be rewarded with unlimited money and immortality. Sarma realises people are amazed that she could believe such wild stories. 'I was making my way on Wall Street before I decided to go to culinary school. I'm an intelligent woman, but at this point, he had 'hijacked' my brain,' she says. Throughout 2014, Strangis continued to test Sarma by asking her to wire him more and more money. 'I transferred it from the restaurant account or even high-interest cash-advance companies to my personal account, then on to him,' she says. Between January 2014 and January 2015, Sarma transferred over $1.6million from the business accounts, but she had no idea that Strangis spent nearly $1million of it at casinos in Connecticut. He also spent $80,000 at luxury watch retailers, including Rolex and Beyer, over $70,000 at hotels in Europe and New York and over $10,000 on Uber, plus withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. 'It was claimed that we fled on some romantic escapade with loads of money' Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, in January 2015, cheques bounced, leaving 98 workers without pay. With the staff refusing to work for free, the business closed for the first time. The following month, Sarma persuaded four new investors to plough $844,000 into the business. She used some of the money to pay back employees and settle other outstanding business costs, and the restaurant reopened in early April. According to the indictment, by that June, Sarma had transferred another $400,000 to her personal account – $100,000 she had withdrawn, while the remaining $300,000 was sent on to Foxwoods Resort Casino in Strangis' name. 11 11 11 In July, payroll was missed again, leaving 84 workers owed up to $3,500 each. The restaurant closed for a second time, and the staff picketed the location to draw attention to what was going on. With no more money from the business to plunder and now owing an additional $409,987 in sales tax, Sarma says Strangis made her leave New York. 'When he first took me away, I can recall just screaming in the car,' she reveals. 'I realise now that I was in a dissociated state. I wasn't fully there. I don't remember where we first drove to or what happened next.' Strangis drove them towards Las Vegas, via extended stays in Texas, Arizona and Missouri, where they stayed for six months, before moving on to Louisiana and ending up in Tennessee. 'The tabloids claimed that I fled on some romantic escapade and that we ran off with loads of money, but that just wasn't true. "By then, he must have blown through almost all the money,' says Sarma. 'He had bled me dry.' With very little left, the couple were relying on cash and credit cards, which is what led the police to them in Tennessee, after Strangis ordered a Domino's pizza and paid with his credit card. After their arrest, they were convicted as co-conspirators, with Strangis sentenced to a year for grand larceny, criminal tax fraud and scheming to defraud. The prosecution recommended one to three years for Sarma. However, the judge passed a sentence of nearly four months, commentating that there was plenty of evidence that she had 'tried to run her business in good faith'. It was a cult of one. The dynamics of what happened and the steps he took to lure me in and take control are essentially the same as those of an abusive cult Sarma Melngailis on Anthony Strangis In October 2017, Sarma walked free from Rikers Island prison, still jointly liable with Strangis for most of the financial damages, including just over $65,000 in unpaid wages. Sarma filed for divorce from her estranged husband in May 2018 and set about rebuilding her life. She says the opportunity to pay back wages was partly what motivated her to agree to the Netflix documentary, and when Bad Vegan was released, Sarma ensured her $75,000 fee went directly to help her out-of-pocket staff. 'My dream is to reopen Pure Food And Wine, and I'm lucky that many of my former employees want to help bring it back,' she says. Strangis has recently been the subject of Investigation Discovery show Toxic, which tracked him to Arizona. 'He conned and manipulated other people, and married a woman with the last name Knight,' says Sarma. 'I'm glad that show was made, his new name revealed and his face shown again, so people may recognise him.' 'Lure me in' Sarma still struggles to make sense of it all, but found writing her memoir cathartic to finally rid herself of 'Mr Fox'. 'I had to think about him a lot writing the book, which felt extremely uncomfortable,' she says. 'It was a cult of one. The dynamics of what happened and the steps he took to lure me in and take control are essentially the same as those of an abusive cult.' However, she is fully aware of the role she played. 'There are things about me that made it possible. "I allowed him to hurt people, but the characteristics that make us vulnerable to the Mr Foxes of this world can be positive ones. "I tend to think the best of people, and I'm trusting. I'm an introvert, so it's easier to isolate me.' Something else that has helped Sarma make sense of what happened is a journal she wrote during 2014 and 2015 that was recovered from Strangis' possessions when he was arrested. 'It helped me have more compassion for myself. I remind myself that people believe in crazy things, from alien abductions to the Loch Ness monster. "And for some reason, for me, believing in Mr Fox was a better alternative than believing a human could be capable of such cruelty. But I paid a very high price for doing so.' The Girl With The Duck Tattoo by Sarma Melngailis (Lioncrest Publishing) is out now 11 11
