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Lord Brittan's widow says closure of police misconduct probe ‘undermines trust'

Lord Brittan's widow says closure of police misconduct probe ‘undermines trust'

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said last week it had stopped the investigation into former Met deputy assistant commissioner Steve Rodhouse after a 'large volume of relevant material was recently disclosed to the IOPC by the Metropolitan Police'.
Mr Rodhouse was due to face a disciplinary hearing for potentially breaching police professional standards of behaviour for honesty and integrity and discreditable conduct.
An investigation into former Met deputy assistant commissioner Steve Rodhouse has been dropped by the police watchdog (PA)
The allegations centred around comments made to the media in March 2016 concerning his beliefs about the honesty of two witnesses to Operation Midland – a Met investigation into allegations of non-recent sexual abuse.
They also involved remarks he is alleged to have subsequently made to former High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques, who had been commissioned to carry out an independent review of the handling of Operation Midland in August 2016.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Lady Diana Brittan said she had hoped the investigation would bring a sense of 'closure'.
She said: 'My husband was a high-profile individual, but at every level of society there are people who are falsely accused, and for them (also) it's the ruining of reputation, it's the anxiety that goes with it.
'I feel that it would have at least put a closure, to use that odd word, on the whole episode if somebody had been held to account, either for misconduct, or even for incompetence.'
Operation Midland was launched off the back of lurid and false allegations made by fantasist Carl Beech – later jailed for 18 years for what a judge called 'cruel and callous' lies.
The Metropolitan Police's 16-month investigation into fake claims of a VIP paedophile ring saw raids on the homes of Lord Brittan, as well as D-Day veteran Lord Bramall and ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor.
Operation Midland was launched off the back of lurid and false allegations made by fantasist Carl Beech (CPS/PA)
The probe ended in 2016 without a single arrest after Beech made a series of baseless allegations, including of three murders.
The force was heavily criticised for believing Beech too readily despite inconsistencies in his evidence, including naming witnesses who did not exist.
The IOPC said there was 'no evidence' within the material provided from the Met that there was 'any inappropriate motivation in Mr Rodhouse's comments to the media' or which 'supports that he made those remarks during Sir Richard's review'.
Mr Rodhouse said the allegations made against him were 'ill-founded and incorrect'.
Mr Proctor said he was 'appalled' by the 'disgraceful decision' not to proceed, adding he would be writing to Sir Mark Rowley, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to 'demand a meeting and an explanation'.
Lady Brittan said she felt her husband's legacy had been permanently tarnished by the episode, telling the BBC: 'What I really feel very sorry about is the fact that my husband was a great public servant.
'When he died, his obituaries referred to all of this.'
Leon and Diana Brittan in 2013 (John Stillwell/PA)
In response to Lady Brittan's comments, an IOPC spokesperson said: 'Our recent decision does not change our finding that – by failing to follow Sir Richard Henrique's recommendation to investigate the witnesses in his independent review of the Met's handling of Op Midland – the Met's service was unacceptable and its subsequent reviews concluding no investigation was needed were flawed.
'During our investigation we reported a potential crime to the Met, which is being actively investigated by another force.'

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Married ex-prison officer who had sex with inmate free months after being jailed
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Married ex-prison officer who had sex with inmate free months after being jailed

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Sen. Amy Klobuchar says authorities believe suspect in 'politically motivated assassination' is still in the Midwest
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'Stealing' your OWN car: How Brits can use trackers and even hire private security to get their vehicles back from thieves instead of waiting for overstretched police to act
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'Stealing' your OWN car: How Brits can use trackers and even hire private security to get their vehicles back from thieves instead of waiting for overstretched police to act

Having a car stolen can be a nightmare ordeal for any driver, prompting months of misery and legal headaches. It's a woe thousands have to endure annually, with one car snatched by thieves every nine minutes across the UK last year - with a total of 61,343 vehicles reported stolen. In London, one of the hardest hit areas plagued by carjackers, the blight has become so extreme it's led to claims car theft has been virtually 'decriminalised', with nine out of 10 thefts reported to the Metropolitan Police going unsolved. Gangs of thieves are seemingly acting with impunity across the capital, brazenly snatching luxury motors or rare vehicles from driveways, garages and off the street. Victims, exasperated by the crimewave, now appear to be taking the law into their own hands by hunting down and 'stealing back' their pinched motors. 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'I could see in the intervening couple of months, the car had gone through the Suez Canal, down the Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean, crossing the Equator and ending up at the docks in [Tanzanian capital] Dar-Es-Salam. 'I called my wife Claire and said "you remember when you climbed Mount Kilimanjaro? Well, my car's pretty much ended up there".' Mia Forbes Pirie and Mark Simpson were more fortunate, and managed to recover their stolen Jaguar E-Pace with their help of their AirTags. The couple discovered their £46,000 motor had been snatched from near their west London home in Brook Green on Wednesday morning. The pair tracked the vehicle to a quiet back street about four miles away, with its interior and carpets ripped apart by thieves who had attempted to access its wiring. In a post to LinkedIn, Ms Forbes Pirie admitted it was 'kind of fun' stealing back the car but questioned 'why we should have had to do that'. She added: 'The police are under-resourced and it's a shame. But if there aren't any consequences to people stealing cars or a lot of the other crimes where there aren't any consequences, then I don't really see what the deterrent is to stop people from doing it more.' However, other high-end trackers emit a radio signal that is picked up by receivers - which are often installed in police cruisers and can alert officers to the location of a nearby stolen car. What if you're car's stolen without a tracker in? This is when it can become a real headache for motorists. Organised crime gangs often steal high-end, luxury cars to order before stashing them in a street on false number plates for several days. The tactic, known by crooks as 'soaking', is to see if the cars have hidden trackers inside. If the cars aren't recovered within a couple of days, the motors are then either taken to a 'chop shop' and ripped apart or smuggled into shipping containers and sent abroad. 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Lisa Smart, Liberal Democrat MP for Hazel Grove, called the figures 'staggering' and said that while the statistics applied to the period when the Conservatives were in power, Labour had not done enough to rectify the problem since coming to power. 'These shocking figures will leave people wondering if car theft has been decriminalised in this country,' Ms Smart. 'Tens of thousands of victims across England and Wales are being left without the justice they deserve, with a staggeringly high number of car thefts going unsolved, and thieves getting away scot free.' Stolen cars that are recovered, are normally taken to a secure police impound where they are kept until the rightful owners can collect them. The firms who will help 'steal' your car back for you There are companies out there who specialise in recovering stolen vehicles for victims. Among them is Tracker. The firm, which has been operating for more than 30 years, uses sophisticated VHF radios hidden in cars to help locate them. The tech is immune to GPS jamming kits used by sophisticated car crime crooks, which can block satellite signals, effectively hiding the vehicle. The tracking devices are reportedly visible even when cars are parked underground, in shipping containers or overseas in Europe. They can also be seen by police forces, who can then recover them. So far the company has boasted of recovering almost 29,700 with the tech leading to more than 3,150 arrests. Its latest set of figures show that in April, 150 vehicles were recovered - including a £28,000 Lexus that had been hidden in a shipping container at Felixstowe Port. And a £22,000 Toyota Rav4, fitted with the kit, was reportedly found in a Salford 'chop shop' garage on false plates just five hours after being stolen. All in all, a staggering £3.36m of vehicles were recovered in April alone. Glen Campbell, director of Preston Caravans and Motorhomes, had one of his Tracker-fitted vehicles stolen. 'It was a huge relief when the caravan was found and back at the dealership within five hours. If it wasn't for the Tracker unit, that caravan could have been lost for good,' he claimed in a testimonial on the tracking company's website. What the law says you're allowed to do Police and authorities insist they should be the first port of call for anyone who has been a victim of crime. Experts say those seeking to go out and hunt for their missing motors, for instance, could be putting themselves at risk. However, there is nothing in the law technically stopping someone from searching for their stolen goods. But should someone use force and assault a person, then they could be at risk of facing a criminal charge. What do the experts have to say? Leading vehicle crime experts have insisted police are doing all they can to tackle the gangs. However, they last night warned that sophisticated organised gangs of crooks were likely behind many of the thefts. Steve Whittaker works at vehicle recovery firm Tracker as the company's police liaison manager and said the scale of the thefts was alarming. 'Vehicle crime has moved on from the youths who would steal a car from the estate and then dump it... it's organised crime at an industrial level,' he warned. 'Lots of vehicles are taken to chop shops or hidden in containers and being shipped abroad.' Former police officer Mr Whittaker insisted it was incredibly rare for victims of crime to have to recover their own vehicles without police support. 'This is very few and far between, it's extremely rare,' he added. 'I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but at Tracker we have a 95 per cent recovery rate. 'I'm not saying police don't send them them out. But police know the risks of that. You could be sending someone to the deepest darkest south London at the middle of the night. There's all sorts of risks with that. 'What members of the public have to be aware of is that there are a lot of competing demands facing the police. 'If there are 20 phone calls about a firearms incident, collecting your own car will be bottom of the list.' Many vehicles are snatched and shipped out of the country before the owners even wake up, with Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East common final destinations. Since the war in Ukraine, Russia has also been flooded with Western cars as the country battles with strict sanctions. Mike Briggs, an insurance industry veteran who is now UK executive director of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators (IAATI), said: 'The organised crime gangs are pushing ahead here in the UK. Not just here in the UK, it's now a global phenomena. 'Everything is being shipped wherever money can be made or the vehicles can be exchanged for drugs, weapons or used in human trafficking and things of that nature. 'It's really increased and the more we get into this century, the bigger the change to organised crime and the more developed they're becoming.'

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