
Wombourne man posted threatening messages on social media
He was charged with one count of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred as well as one count of publishing threatening written material intended to stir up religious or sexual orientation hatred.
Officers said they arrested Britton during a pre-planned operation on 26 April 2023.When they searched his address, they recovered weapons, fireworks and terrorism material that matched those in his social media posts.Det Supt Annie Miller, said: "We work hard to stop terrorism. Our absolute priority is to ensure the safety and security of the people who live, work and visit the West Midlands area."
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Watch the confronting moment top jockey racially abuses Aboriginal people on video
High-profile jockey Noel Callow is under investigation after a video surfaced online in which he filmed himself racially abusing Aboriginal people. Queensland Racing Integrity Commission officials confirmed they are reviewing the footage, which was reportedly filmed in Darwin last year. 'A video was recently brought to the attention of the Commission,' a QRIC spokesperson told Racenet. 'It is presently the subject of an investigation.' Callow, 50, is a veteran rider with 1,632 career wins, having won jockeys premierships from Melbourne to Singapore, but has a number of controversial moments in his past. In June he was suspended for three months in Queensland after a post-race jockeys room brawl with a rival hoop. The video shows Callow strike up a conversation with an Aboriginal man he was passing on the street, offering him some pizza before the seemingly friendly conversation turned offensive. 'What's doing crackers,' Callow says, before asking, 'Have you showered? F*** you stink like f***.' The man responds, 'Nah, I haven't got a job [inaudible].' 'You stink like f***. Have some pizza. Take the pizza. Eat. Eat the pizza,' Callow continues. 'I don't want to eat,' the man remonstrated. 'Have a shower then, do me a favour. Have a shower. You stink like f***,' Callow said. 'I sleep on the street,' the man replied. 'So you don't want a pizza … what do you want?' Callow asked. 'I want a beer,' the man replied. 'You want a beer … if you have a shower, I'll buy you a beer,' Callow offered. 'There's no shower in the friggin area,' the man said. 'Well jump in the f***ing creek … for f*** sake man,' Callow responds. Callow then tries to guess the man's name, calling him 'Yothu Yindi' - an indigenous music group - and singing their hit song Treaty. The man replies, 'What's wrong with you?' before the clip ends with Callow saying, 'Good to have you on the show, man.' A second clip, filmed during the day, also contained offensive remarks. It begins with Callow riding a bicycle behind a group of Aboriginal people who are blocking his way on a footpath. 'Look at these co**s,' he says towards nearby pedestrians. After a pedestrian warns him, 'Watch out where you're riding your bike,' Callow responds aggressively. 'Stop walking on the f***ing footpath, you f***ing co**s,' he says. Riding away, the then says 'Get up the co**s.' Both clips have since circulated widely after initially being shared privately. Callow is currently in Darwin preparing to ride Bear Story in Monday's $200,000 Darwin Cup. He finished third on the horse in last year's race. The veteran jockey, who says he has recently given up alcohol to sustain the final stages of his career, is the son of a jockey and is the father to Toowoomba-based apprentice hoop Stacey Callow.


BBC News
4 hours ago
- BBC News
Should teen sex be a crime? Indian woman lawyer mounts challenge
In late July, lawyer Indira Jaising mounted a challenge against the legal age for having sex in India - which is 18 years - in the Supreme Court, renewing conversations around the criminalisation of teen Jaising argued that consensual sex between 16 and 18-year-olds is neither exploitative nor abusive and urged the court to exempt it from criminal prosecution."The purpose of age-based laws is to prevent abuse, not to criminalise consensual, age-appropriate intimacy," Ms Jaising has said in her written submissions to the the federal government has opposed this, saying that introducing such an exemption would jeopardise the safety and protection of children (persons under the age of 18, according to Indian laws), opening them up to abuse and case has re-ignited debate around consent and whether Indian laws, especially the country's main law against child sexual abuse - Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 or Pocso - should be altered to introduce a provision exempting 16 to 18 year-olds having consensual sex from their rights activists say exempting teens protects their autonomy, while opponents warn it could fuel crimes like trafficking and child question whether teens can bear the burden of proof if abused. More importantly, who decides the age of consent laws - and whose interests do they truly serve? Like many countries, India has struggled to set its age of sexual consent. Unlike the US, where it varies by state, India enforces a uniform age legal age for having sex is also much higher than most European countries, or places like UK and Canada, where it is was 10 years when India's criminal code was enacted in 1860 and was increased to 16 in 1940 when the code was introduced the next major change, pushing the "age of consent" to 18 years in 2012. A year later, India's criminal laws were amended to reflect this change and the country's new criminal code, introduced in 2024, has adhered to this revised is consensual teen sex a crime in India?But over the past decade or so, many child rights activists and even courts have taken a critical view of the country's legal age to have sex and have called for it to be lowered to 16 years. They say the law criminalises consensual teen relationships and is often misused by adults to control or block relationships - especially those of remains a taboo topic in the country even though studies have shown that millions of Indian teenagers are sexually active."As a society, we're also divided along caste, class and religious lines, which makes the [age of consent] law even more susceptible to misuse," says Sharmila Raje, co-founder of Foundation for Child Protection-Muskaan, a non-profit working to prevent child sexual abuse for over two decades. In 2022, the Karnataka High court directed India's Law Commission - an executive panel that advices the government on legal reform - to rethink the age of consent under Pocso, "so as to take into consideration the ground realities".It noted several cases where girls over 16 fell in love, eloped, and had sex, only for the boy to be charged with rape and abduction under Pocso and criminal its report the following year, the Law Commission ruled out lowering the age of consent, but recommended "guided judicial discretion" during sentencing in cases involving "tacit approval" from children aged 16 to 18 years, meaning where the relationship has been this is yet to be implemented, courts across the country have been using this principle to allow for appeals, grant bail, make acquittals and even quash cases after taking into consideration the facts of the case and the victim's testimony. Many child rights activists, including Ms Raje, urge this provision be codified to standardise enforcement; left as a suggestion, courts may ignore April, the Madras High Court overturned the acquittal in a case where the 17-year-old victim was in a relationship with the 23-year-old accused and the two eloped after the victim's parents arranged her marriage to another man. The accused was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment."The court adopted a literal interpretation of the Pocso Act," Shruthi Ramakrishnan, a researcher at Enfold Proactive Health Trust - a child rights charity - noted in her column in The Indian Express newspaper, calling it a "grave miscarriage of justice". Ms Jaising argues that judicial discretion at sentencing isn't enough, as the accused still faces lengthy investigations and judicial system is infamously slow with millions of cases pending across all court levels. A research paper by India Child Protection Fund found that as of January 2023, nearly 250,000 Pocso cases were pending in special courts set up to try these cases."The process is the punishment for many," Ms Jaising notes. "A case-by-case approach leaving it to the discretion of judges is also not the best solution as it can result in uneven results and does not take into account the possibility of bias," she urges the court to add a "close-in-age exception" for consensual sex between 16- and 18-year-olds in Pocso and related laws. This "close-in-age exception" would prevent consensual acts between peers in that age group from being treated as and child rights activist Bhuwan Ribhu warns that a blanket exception could be misused in cases of kidnapping, trafficking, and child marriage. He advocates judicial discretion paired with a justice system overhaul."We need faster processes so that cases are disposed off in a time-bound manner. We also need better rehabilitation facilities and compensation for victims," he Ganguly, co-founder of HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, however, agrees with Ms Jaising. "We can't shy away from making changes because we're afraid of the law being misused," she says, adding that Ms Jaising's argument is not new as over the years, many activists and experts have made similar recommendations."Laws need to keep pace with changes in society if they are to remain effective and relevant," she BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.


The Independent
6 hours ago
- The Independent
Knife-related robberies in high-risk areas have reduced, data shows
Robberies involving a knife, or the threat of one, have reduced in most of the UK's high-risk areas. According to Home Office data, knife-related robberies are down 6 per cent. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said this is a direct result of targeted police action. A dedicated police taskforce was set up in October last year focused on seven forces – Metropolitan Police Service, West Midlands, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Avon and Sommerset and British Transport Police. These areas had seen a steep rise in incidents between July 2023 and June 2024, accounting for 70 per cent of knife-enabled robbery at the time. Drones, knife arches and detection dogs are among the tactics being used in an attempt to bring down the number of incidents, with the forces also increasing visible patrols and the number of plain clothes officers on the streets. The West Midlands saw the largest drop, with a 25 per cent reduction in incidents in the past year. Meanwhile, Greater Manchester saw a 4 per cent increase in incidents in comparison to last year. Ms Cooper said: 'Since day one, we have acted with urgency to turn the tide on knife crime, which destroys lives and devastates communities. 'When we came to office, knife-enabled robbery was increasing at a concerning rate, but we have now started to drive numbers of those offences down through the work of our dedicated taskforces, and as a result, we have also seen the first small reduction in overall knife crime for four years. 'The drop in knife-enabled robbery in key problem areas shows the impact that our strong new action on knife crime is having, but we now need to supercharge these efforts through more smart and targeted interventions. 'Anyone can be a victim of knife crime, but new 'hex mapping' technology shows that the vast majority of knife crime is concentrated in a relatively small, hyper-concentrated number of areas. 'As part of the plan for change, we will use that new technology to support our mission to halve knife crime over the next decade. In the 2020s, the way to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime is also to be smart on crime, using the latest technology to target criminals and problem areas, and keep the country safe.' A ban on ninja swords also comes into force on Friday, as part of the government's commitment to halve knife crime in the next decade. At least a thousand of the weapons have been handed in as part of a surrender scheme. The government has also pledged to tackle the sale of weapons online, as part of Ronan's Law, which was introduced following the death of 16-year-old Ronan Kanda, who was murdered with a ninja sword bought online. This would require retailers to report bulk or suspicious knife orders to the police, put in place more stringent age-verification checks and impose significant fines on tech executives whose platforms fail to prevent illegal sales. Mother of Ronan, Pooja Kanda, said: 'Ronan was just 16 years old when his life was stolen by a 22-inch ninja sword that should never have been so easy to buy. Ronan's Law is not only a step towards justice for my son, but for every parent who wants to see their child come home safely. 'This law is about saving lives, closing dangerous loopholes, and holding those responsible to account. 'The government's knife surrender scheme has been a sign of commitment to tackling the scourge of knife crime. While there is still much more to do, these are significant steps in the right direction.' The Home Office has also said a 'surrender van' will be deployed at this year's Notting Hill Carnival. Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said knife crime was 'spiralling out of control' and accused Labour of not wanting to talk about London and the 'utter failure of Sadiq Khan to tackle crime'. He said: 'Under Labour's Mayor, the capital has become Britain's knife crime capital, accounting for over 32 per cent of all knife crime and over 45 per cent of knife-point robberies in England. Stop and search has collapsed, yet Sadiq Khan spends more time pontificating than trying to make London safe. 'Labour are weak on crime, soft on criminals, and too scared to confront the reality on our streets. It's time for the Labour government and Labour Mayor to wake up and get a grip, or get out of the way.'