Lisa Rose prosecuted a woman after four people died on her paddleboard trip
L isa Rose, a prosecutor with the special crime division at the Crown Prosecution Service, prosecuted Nerys Lloyd, a former police officer, who was jailed for ten and a half years after leading a paddleboarding trip over a dangerous weir that ended in four people's deaths.
Paddleboarding was largely unregulated at the time of this tragedy. It took time to identify a suitably experienced person prepared to provide crucial opinions as an expert on how far below the standard of care the defendant fell.
Making the jump from defence to prosecution work with the CPS, which has led to fantastic opportunities — working on high-profile and complex cases in specialist fraud and crime, but also three years as a liaison prosecutor in France as part
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
The killers got the wrong man - innocent plumber John Versace. Now homicide cop reveals the twisted truth of what's going on inside murderers' heads as they remain on the run
They thought they had pleased their masters by ruthlessly gunning down a young man outside his western Sydney home... but the killer, or killers, actually got it very, very wrong. Innocent plumber John Versace, 23, was shot dead as he got out of his ute at his family's home in Dalton Avenue in Condell Park, in Sydney 's south-west, about 10.30pm on May 19. The shooter unloaded about 10 rounds of bullets, with Mr Versace suffering four gunshot wounds to his chest and stomach. He died at the scene. All evidence shows Mr Versace had done never done anything to spark such a ruthless act of retribution from the underworld. And those responsible - no doubt now aware they have made a big mistake - are still on the run almost a month later. Now a retired homicide detective with decades of experience investigating cases such as Mr Versace's sheds light on the possible motivations of the hitmen responsible and the fallout the killing would have caused in the underworld. Former Victoria Police officer Charlie Bezzina believes the 'hit' on Mr Versace was likely carried out by people on the 'lower end of the criminal sphere'. He said instead of feeling guilt over gunning down an innocent man, they would instead be playing the 'blame game' and claim that they were given flawed information. 'You're not dealing with professional people. You're dealing with low educated people and they accept what they've been told,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'These shooters would be highly strung and their angst will be so high that they shoot and ask questions later. 'They want to do the deeds for their masters and then, bang, bang. Let's go. That was him.... and then they find out later it wasn't him.' He said the shooters were unlikely to face any major repercussions for killing the wrong person, with the shooting only putting the actual target on higher alert - giving them time to flee the country and go into hiding. Mr Bezzina said those responsible for Mr Versace's death were unlikely to have done their due diligence to confirm the identity of their intended target. 'An undercover operative or a private investigator would have parameters of the law where they've got to prove the identity [of the target] but these guys don't, they're just flying by the seat of their pants,' he said. 'Have they got a photograph of them? Have they got a car number? Have they got a car? Have they got a specific address he's been put to? 'They're relying on other people to give them the right information. 'They'll say, "you gave us that information, and that's what we acted upon. So it's your fault. It's not our fault". 'So someone comes out of a particular location nearby that might look a little bit similar to the target... they thought that might be the guy coming out and that'll do.' Mr Bezzina said cases of mistaken identity were some 'of the most difficult' to solve as police rely on people to come forward with information. However, this can prove difficult when organised crime figures are subject to a code of silence and witnesses are too fearful for their own safety to talk. 'You've got to go in with your best case before you arrest people of this type. You don't want to go in half-heartedly, charge someone and then lose at trial,' he said. 'That's the thoroughness of these type of investigations, they would be doing everything within their legal power, to get the evidence, to identify these people. 'The frequencies of these incompetent criminals is a cause of concern for the police, and that's why if they've got the evidence, I can assure you, they'd be very keen to lay charges sooner than later.' Police told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday the investigation was ongoing but no further details could be provided at this time. Harrowing footage from a neighbour's CCTV camera captured Mr Versace's final moments on his parents' doorstep where he lived with his sisters. Security footage showed Mr Versace reversing his ute up the driveway and parking it very close to the garage door. As he exited the ute, a small silver hatchback, believed to be a Toyota Corolla, parked across the driveway of the home. The male gunman, dressed in black and wearing a face covering, got out of the backseat and approached the front of the house. 'Hey, hey, hey, hey, stop, stop,' a man is heard yelling before the gunman raised his right hand and opened fire with a Glock-style weapon. Police later received reports of a car, which police believe was stolen in December, about 12km away in Fairfield Heights. A handgun similar to a Glock-style pistol was found inside the vehicle after firefighters extinguished the flames. 'We believe that this has the hallmarks of a targeted execution. (It is) very brutal, very distressing,' Superintendent Rodney Hart told reporters at the time. Mr Versace's sister Deanne recently paid a heartbreaking tribute to her 'beautiful baby brother' - sharing powerful images and video of highlights of his life on social media.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
School killings leave stunned Austria and France searching for answers
Two shocking attacks within two hours of each other, in France and Austria, have left parents and governments reeling and at a loss how to protect school students from random, deadly about 08:15 on Tuesday, a 14-year-old boy from an ordinary family in Nogent, eastern France, drew out a kitchen knife during a school bag check and fatally stabbed a school long afterwards in south-east Austria, a 21-year-old who had dropped out of school three years earlier, walked into Dreierschützengasse high school in Graz at 09:43, and shot dead nine students and a teacher with a Glock 19 handgun and a sawn-off both countries there is a demand for solutions and for a greater focus on young people who resort to such has never seen a school attack on this scale, but the French stabbing took place during a government programme aimed at tackling the growth in knife crime. Austrians ask about gun laws and a failed system The Graz shooter, named by Austrian media as Arthur A, has been described by police as a very introverted person, who had retreated to the virtual "great passion" was online first-person shooter games, and he had social contacts with other gamers over the internet, according to Michael Lohnegger, the criminal investigation chief in Styria, the state where it happened.A former student at the Dreierschützengasse school, Arthur A had failed to complete his at the school, he put on a headset and shooting glasses, before going on a deadly seven-minute shooting spree. He then killed himself in a school owned the two guns legally, had passed a psychological test to own a licence and had several sessions of weapons training earlier this year at a Graz shooting has sparked a big debate in Austria about whether its gun laws need to be tightened – and about the level of care available for troubled young has emerged that the shooter was rejected from the country's compulsory military service in July ministry spokesman Michael Bauer told the BBC that Arthur A was found to be "psychologically unfit" for service after he underwent tests. But he said Austria's legal system prevented the army from passing on the results of such are now calls for that law to be changed. Alex, the mother of a 17-year-old boy who survived the shooting, told the BBC that more should have been done to prevent people like Arthur A from dropping out of school in the first place."We know… that when people shoot each other like this, it's mostly when they feel alone and drop out and be outside. And we don't know how to get them back in, into society, into the groups, into their peer groups," she said."We, as grown-ups, have got the responsibility for that, and we have to take it now."President Alexander Van der Bellen raised the possibility of tightening Austria's gun laws, on a visit to Graz after the attack: "If we come to the conclusion that Austria's gun laws need to be changed to ensure greater safety, then we will do so."Austria has one of the most heavily armed civilian populations in Europe, with an estimated 30 firearms per 100 there have been school shootings here before, they have been far smaller and involved far fewer mayor of Graz, Elke Kahr, believes no private person should be able to have weapons at all. "Weapons licences are issued too quickly," she told Austria's ORF TV. "Only the police should carry weapons, not private individuals."What we know about Austria school shootingGraz in shock and grief after attack French focus on mental health as well as security Armed gendarmes were present at the entrance to the Françoise Dolto middle school in Nogent, 100km (62 miles) east of Paris, when a teenager pulled out a 20cm kitchen knife and repeatedly stabbed Mélanie G, who was 31 and had a four-year-old boy accused of carrying out the murder told police that he had been reprimanded on Friday by another school assistant for kissing his girlfriend. As a result he had a grudge against school assistants in general, and apparently had made up his mind to kill one. Schools were closed on Monday for a bank holiday, and Tuesday was his first day state prosecutor's initial assessment was that the boy, called Quentin, came from a normal functioning family, and had no criminal or mental health record. However, the child also appeared detached and emotionless. Adept at violent video games, he showed a "fascination with death" and an "absence of reference-points relating to the value of human life". The Nogent attack does not fit the template of anti-social youth crime or gang violence seen in France until is there any suggestion of indoctrination over social to the prosecutor, the boy did little of that. He had been violent on two occasions against fellow pupils, and was suspended for a day each time. There is no family breakdown or deprivation and school officials described him as "sociable, a pretty good student, well-integrated into the life of the establishment".This year he had even been named the class "ambassador" on all the calls for greater security at schools, this crime took place literally under the noses of armed gendarmes. As Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau put it, some crimes will happen no matter how many police you more information on the boy's state of mind, we must wait for the full psychologist's report, and it may well be that there were signs missed, or there are family details we do not yet know the face of it, he is perhaps more a middle-class loner, and his apparent normality suggests a crime triggered by internalised mental processes, rather than by peer-driven association or emulation. That is what strikes the chord in France. If an ordinary boy can turn out like this from watching too many violent videos, then who is next?Significantly, the French government had only just approved showing the British Netflix series Adolescence as an aid in schools. There are differences, of course. The boy arrested for the killing of a teenage girl in the TV series yields to evil "toxic male" influences on social media – but there is the same question of teenagers being made vulnerable by isolation the political spectrum, there are calls for action but little agreement on what should be the priority, nor hope that anything can make much the killing, President Emmanuel Macron had angered the right by saying they were too obsessed with crime, and not sufficiently interested in other issues like the environment. The Nogent attack put him on the back foot, and he has repeated his pledge to ban social media to under there are two difficulties. One is the practicality of the measure, which in theory is being dealt with by the EU but is succumbing to endless procrastination. The other is that, according to the prosecutor, the boy was not especially interested in social media. It was violent video games that were his Minister François Bayrou has said that sales of knives to under-15s will be banned. But the boy took his from home. Bayrou says airport-style metal-detectors should be tested at schools, but most heads are populist right wants tougher sentences for teenagers carrying knives, and the exclusion of disruptive pupils from regular classes. But the boy in Nogent was not a problem the only measure everyone says is needed is more provision of school doctors, nurses and psychologists in order to detect early signs of pupils going off the of course will require a lot of money, which is another thing France does not have a lot of.
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
Why did Ballymena become the latest site of anti-immigration riots?
There have now been five consecutive nights of ongoing violence and disorder on the streets of Northern Ireland, with Ballymena at the focus of the unrest following a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in the town on 7 June. Two 14-year-old boys were arrested and charged after the incident, and police in Northern Ireland said the pair used a Romanian interpreter to plead not guilty in court. After that, calls for "peaceful protest" from the victim's father were amplified online. Those protests took on an anti-immigration angle and erupted into riots and clashes with police. Analysis of social media messaging has shown there were already rising tensions in the town before the latest incident, following a decade of rapid demographic change. Before the protests On 30 May, eight days before the 7 June incident in the Clonavon Terrace area that triggered this week's violence, police released a statement regarding a different sexual assault in Ballymena, this time of a 13-year-old girl. The offence was alleged to have taken place on a public footpath near the Ballykeel housing estates, during daylight hours on Saturday 24 May. Local media at the time reported the suspect as having "dark-coloured skin, dark brown eyes, and speaking in a foreign language". On 31 May, a far-right news aggregator on messaging platform Telegram was already sharing information related to this incident, saying "Ballymena said to be at boiling point". But the online chatter remained relatively contained until after the police announcement on the evening of Sunday 8 June, that they had arrested the two 14-year-olds charged with the Clonavon Terrace incident. Analysis of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, shows that there were 114 mentions of Ballymena per day from 3-7 June. It was mentioned 142 times on 8 June, then surged up to 10,300 on 9 June and 78,300 the following day. The majority of posts originated outside of Northern Ireland. Rapid demographic change The descriptions of the alleged perpetrators of the two incidents have contributed to the anti-immigrant sentiment of the violence. Sky News has seen Union flags and signs saying "British household" or "Locals live here" left outside homes of people keen to avoid being targeted, and has also spoken to Bulgarian nationals in Ballymena who say that they are "terrified" and "scared to get out of the house". Speaking in the House of Commons, Jim Allister, MP for North Antrim, which includes Ballymena, said he was "appalled" by the violence. "However", he said, "the government must be aware of underlying tensions produced by uncontrolled and often undocumented immigration. "None of that excuses violence, but it is a matter of concern to many." Analysis of census data shows there has been rapid demographic change in the town since 2011. No other part of Northern Ireland has seen a bigger increase in people who don't speak English/Irish as a first language. At the time of the 2021 census, three in 10 residents of central Ballymena said their first language was something other than English or Irish. One in eight listed Romanian, with a similar number listing other Eastern European languages like Bulgarian, Polish and Slovak. That figure is almost seven times higher than the average across Northern Ireland, and amounts to a trebling over the course of the decade. Almost three-quarters of the total foreign-born population of central Ballymena arrived in the country since 2011. The average is significantly lower for Northern Ireland as a whole, and England and Wales, where the rate of change has been more gradual. Of 621 primary schools in Northern Ireland where data is available, Ballymena Primary and Harryville Primary, both in central Ballymena, had the 7th and 8th highest share of "newcomer pupils". "Newcomer" is the term used by the Northern Irish Department for Education to refer to pupils who don't have satisfactory language skills to participate fully in the school curriculum. How, and when, will the violence end? Sky's Connor Gillies, who has been in Ballymena reporting on the violence and talking to locals for the past few days, said on Wednesday that " the talk here is that this unrest is only just beginning," adding that "it could go on for weeks". Meanwhile, locals have expressed that they don't like the talk from police and politicians that taking to the streets following an alleged sex attack on a teenage girl equates to them being "racist thugs". Police have responded to rioters' petrol bombs and bricks with rubber bullets and water cannon onslaughts of their own. There have been tens of arrests, as well as injuries to more than 50 police officers since Monday evening. Violence and disorder in Ballymena raged across Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, appearing to have largely abated in the town by Thursday. However, the unrest has spread to other areas including Larne, Coleraine, Portadown and Belfast. A senior police officer insisted to Sky News that he did have "a grip" on the unravelling situation when questioned by Sky News, but officers from Scotland, Wales and England have been sent to bolster the forces of their Northern Irish colleagues. Anti-migrant rhetoric From 7-12 June, 39,000 Ballymena-related posts on X mentioned "migrants", with around 95% of them deemed to be negative by social media analysis tool Talkwalker. Well-known far-right activist Tommy Robinson, who thanked X-owner Elon Musk for his support when he was released from prison four months early on 27 May, was the most influential poster. His 14 X posts about Ballymena between 7-12 June reached an average of 1.3 million accounts each.
