King Charles hails London's ‘spirit of unity' on 20th anniversary of 7/7 terror attacks
Four suicide bombers attacked commuters, killing 52 people and injuring 784.
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Charles called the attacks on tube trains and a bus 'senseless acts of evil'.
But he celebrated 'the selfless bravery' of rescue heroes.
He called for Brits to use the 20th anniversary to 'reaffirm our commitment' to 'always standing firm against those who would seek to divide us'.
Survivors of the attack and rescuers remembered the horror of the bombings.
Dan Biddle, 46, lost both legs and his left eye in the Tube blast near Edgware Road station.
He was just yards from bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan.
Dan told The Sun: 'He looked up at me, quickly lowered his eyes, put his right hand through the zip in the top of his bag and exploded himself.'
Met Superintendent Anna Bearman, then 23 and a PC, spoke of the 'pinch in the stomach moment' when she realised what they thought was a fire at King's Cross was 'something more sinister'.
'We walked about a mile on the tracks and then we carried one person out who had lost a lower limb, as there were no stretchers, and we took them out a mile back to Russell Square,' she said.
'Later on, I saw that my trousers and my legs were absolutely blood-stained, and that was when the shock of the whole day set in.'
7/7 survivor Dan Biddle and his rescuer Adrian interview
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The Independent
36 minutes ago
- The Independent
Minehead school bus crash latest: One child killed and 21 injured after coach carrying pupils overturns in Somerset
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Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Luigi Mangione makes shocking claims of misconduct that could alter murder case against CEO alleged assassin
Attorneys representing accused assassin Luigi Mangione have made bombshell accusations of misconduct at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which could have major ramifications in his murder case. Mangione, 27, is facing murder as an act of terrorism charges in New York for the shooting death of 50-year-old United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and has spent the last several months inside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn while his defense attorneys and New York City prosecutors prepare their case for an eventual trial. But Mangione's defense attorneys are now accusing the Manhattan District Attorney's Office of creating a 'fraudulent' subpoena to obtain his confidential medical information from the health insurance giant Aetna. They allege that the DA's Office subpoenaed Aetna without a court order - and received more than 100 pages of 'confidential, private, protected documents' with information about Mangione's medical diagnoses and complaints he made to medical providers. 'At a minimum, the District Attorney has admittedly violated Mr. Mangione's rights under [the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] and has obtained access to confidential privileged information,' attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo writes in the filing submitted to the New York State Supreme Court on Thursday. 'However, the situation is far worst than this,' she continued in the court documents obtained by saying the subpoena was 'false and fraudulent.' She then went on to ask Judge Gregory Carro to 'impose an appropriate sanction after conducting a full evidentiary hearing to uncover the extent and nature of the significant privilege and HIPAA violations.' These include the 'dismissal of all charges,' sanctions precluding prosecutors from accessing the documents 'and/or recusing any member of the District Attorney's staff ... from further involvement in this case.' According to the court documents, Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann drafted a subpoena to Aetna on May 14, telling the insurance company that prosecutors were seeking information about Mangione's account and how long he had been a member. The subpoena allegedly told Aetna that the documents were needed for a court date of May 23, 2025 - and if the insurance company did not provide related to the request by that date it could be found in contempt of court. In such a case, Aetna would be liable to a fine of $1,000 and its officers could face one year in prison, the subpoena reportedly warned. Agnifilo argues that these documents were never warranted in Mangione's trial 'as the People have maintained that this is a straightforward murder case.' She also claims that 'rather than having Aetna give the documents to the Court, as required by the already fraudulent subpoena, the District Attorney told Aetna to provide the documents directly to the District Attorney. Doing so, Agnifilo said, 'intentionally' excluded the Court from the subpoena process and ensured that prosecutors would 'secure these confidential medical records without either the court of Mr. Mangione's counsel knowing or being able to object.' The defense attorney went on to deny that the prosecutors did not know they had received confidential medical information, describing how each of the files sent to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office included in 'large type bold letters "Request for Protected Health Information."' The cover letter from Aetna also stated that the files were provided by the HIPAA Member Rights Teams and advised that the materials were to be kept confidential. 'It would be impossible for anyone to view a single page of these records and not immediately see they were private, confidential records within the scope of HIPAA,' Agnifilo writes. 'Yet the District Attorney's Office placed them into a discovery file and reviewed them,' she said, alleging that prosecutors even admitted to reviewing the documents but not doing so 'in their entirety.' 'We need sworn testimony to determine precisely what confidential medical files were reviewed, who reviewed them and when this review was conducted,' the attorney argued. 'We also need the computer forensic information of when these files were opened, by whom and for how long.' The filing concludes by claiming that Assistant District Attorney Zachary Kaplan spoke with a representative from Aetna on June 16, when he was informed that the insurance company 'mistakenly provided the defendant's "entire designated record set."' 'Rater than immediately alerting the Court and counsel, the District Attorney's Office sat on this information for another eight days, before disclosing that it was in possession of over a hundred pages of admittedly confidential, privileged medical information.' In a statement to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office said it will file its own response in court papers. 'As defense counsel knows, the People requested very limited information from Aetna, and Aetna sent us additional materials in error,' the office said. 'We deleted the materials as soon as we became aware of them and brought it to defense and the court's attention.' Prosecutors have claimed Mangione - the heir to a Maryland property fortune - mused about his intent to 'wack' an insurance executive in a notebook and wrote about rebelling against 'the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel. The DA's office quoted extensively from the notebook, highlighting his alleged praise for the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski as they fought to uphold his state charges. They also cited a confession they say he penned 'to the feds,' in which he wrote that 'it had to be done.' Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg even called the ambush 'a killing that was intended to evoke terror.' But Mangione's attorneys have since been fighting to get the charges in New York dropped, arguing that they amount to double jeopardy, as the 27-year-old also faces a federal death penalty prosecution. If that fails, they are looking to have his terrorism charges dropped and prosecutors barred from using evidence collected at his arrest in December - including a 9mm handgun, ammunition inscribed with the words 'delay, deny, and depose' and the alleged manifesto. The defense and prosecutors are now scheduled to discuss any outstanding issues on September 16, according to Thursday's court filing. In the meantime, Mangione is being fiercely backed by a slew of fans who have praised him for his alleged actions and started a GiveSendGo page to raise money for his legal defense. Some have even made art depicting him as a saint, saying he is a hero who has taken a stand against America's broken healthcare system.
Sky News
3 hours ago
- Sky News
Woman handed criminal conviction despite 'unlawful' strip search by police in Greater Manchester
Maria's treatment by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) was so shocking the chief constable described it as "undefendable" and yet a year after a high-profile inquiry found she had been "unlawfully" arrested and strip-searched, Maria now has a criminal conviction for the crime the inquiry said she should never have been arrested for. The Baird Inquiry - named after its lead Dame Vera Baird - into GMP, published a year ago, found that the force made numerous unlawful arrests and unlawful strip searches on vulnerable women. A year on, the review has led to major changes in police processes. Strip searches for welfare purposes, where the person is deemed at risk of harming themselves, are banned, and the mayor's office told Sky News only one woman was intimately strip-searched to look for a concealed item by GMP last year. Women had previously told Sky News the practice was being used by police "as a power trip" or "for the police to get their kicks". However, several women who gave evidence to the Baird Inquiry have told Sky News they feel let down and are still fighting for accountability and to get their complaints through the bureaucracy of a painfully slow system. The case of Maria (not her real name) perhaps best illustrates how despite an inquiry pointing out her "terrible treatment", she continues to face the consequences of what the police did. 'Treated like a piece of meat' The story begins with an act of poor service. A victim of domestic violence, Maria went to the police to get keys off her arrested partner but was made to wait outside for five-and-a-half hours. The Baird Inquiry said: "This domestic abuse victim, alone in a strange city, made 14 calls for police to help her. "She was repeatedly told that someone would contact her, but nobody did. The pattern didn't change, hour after hour, until eventually she rang, sobbing and angry." The police then arrested her for malicious communications, saying she'd sworn at staff on the phone. Inside the police station, officers strip-searched her because they thought she was concealing a vape. Maria told Sky News she was "treated like a piece of meat". The Baird Inquiry says of the demeaning humiliation: "Maria describes being told to take all her clothes off and, when completely naked, to open the lips of her vagina so the police could see inside and to bend over and open her anal area similarly." After the inquiry found all this not only "terrible" but "unlawful", Chief Constable Stephen Watson described the actions of his officers towards Maria as "an inexplicable and undefendable exercise of police power". He added: "We've done the wrong thing, in the wrong way and we've created harm where harm already existed." Despite all of this, the charges of malicious communication were not dropped. They hung over Maria since her arrest in May 2023. Then in March this year, magistrates convicted her of the offence, and she was fined. Dame Vera's report describes the arrest for malicious communications as "pointless", "unlawful", "not in the public interest" and questions whether the officer had taken "a dislike to Maria". Yet, while Maria gained a criminal record, no officer has been disciplined over her treatment. A GMP spokesperson said: "The court has tested the evidence for the matter that Maria was arrested for, and we note the outcome by the magistrate. We have a separate investigation into complaints made about the defendant's arrest and her treatment whilst in police custody." The complaint was referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in August 2023 and Maria was told several months ago the report was completed, but she has not heard anything since. 'There's been no accountability' Dame Vera's report also catalogues the "unlawful" arrest and strip search of Dannika Stewart in October 2023 at the same police station. Dannika is still grinding through the police complaints service to get a formal acknowledgement of their failings. She told Sky News: "Everyone involved in it is still in the same position. There's been no accountability from the police. We're still fighting the complaint system, we're still trying to prove something which has already been proved by an independent inquiry." Asked if anyone had been disciplined, Chief Constable Watson told Sky News: "There are ongoing investigations into individual failings, but for the most part the Baird review talked about systemic failings of leadership, it talked of failings in policy and failings of systems. "In some cases, those people who may have misconducted themselves at the level of professional standards have retired. There are no criminal proceedings in respect of any individual." He added: "Every single element of the Baird inquiry has been taken on board - every single one of those recommendations has been implemented - we believe ourselves to be at the forefront of practice." 'It's been three years' Mark Dove who was also found by the inquiry to have been unlawfully arrested three times and twice unlawfully stripped-searched says he's been in the complaints system for three years now. He told Sky News: "There have been improvements in that I'm being informed more, but ultimately there's no timeline. It's been three years, and I have to keep pushing them. And I've not heard of anyone being suspended." Sophie (not her real name), a domestic violence victim who was also found by the review team to have been unlawfully arrested by GMP, told Sky News that although most of her complaints were eventually upheld they had originally been dismissed and no officer has faced any consequences. She said: "They put on record that I'd accepted a caution when I hadn't - and then tried to prosecute me. Why has no one been disciplined? These are people's lives. I could have lost my job. Where is the accountability?" Since the Baird Inquiry, every strip search by GMP is now reviewed by a compliance team. GMP also provides all female suspects in custody with dignity packs including sanitary products, and they work with the College of Policing to ensure all officers are trained to recognise and respond to the effects of domestic and sexual trauma on survivors. The deputy mayor for Greater Manchester for policing and crime, Kate Green, says the lessons of the Baird Inquiry should reach all police forces. She said: "I would strongly recommend that other forces, if they don't already follow GMP's practise in not conducting so-called welfare strip searches, similarly cease to carry out those searches. It's very difficult to see how a traumatising search can be good for anybody's welfare, either the officers or the detainees. We've managed to do that now for well over a year." Ms Green also suggests a national review of the police complaints system. Deputy Chief Constable Terry Woods, of GMP, said: "Our reformed Professional Standards Directorate (PSD) has increased the quality of complaints handling and improved timeliness. "Where officers have been found to breach our standards then we have not hesitated to remove them from GMP, with more than 100 officers being dismissed on the chief constable's watch. "Out of 14 complaints relating to Dame Vera's report, four have been completed. Our PSD continues to review and investigate the other complaints. "We're committed to being held to account for our use of arrests and our performance in custody. "By its nature, custody has - and always will be - a challenging environment. "However, basic provisions and processes must always be met and, while we're confident our progress is being recognised across policing, we stand ready to act on feedback."
