CCTV released from Adass Israel synagogue arson attack in Melbourne
Footage released by the Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team shows those allegedly responsible for last year's Adass Israel Synagogue arson attack in Victoria, while also reiterating their suspicion it was 'politically motivated'. A blue Golf sedan is seen parked outside the main entrance to the synagogue. Three individuals dressed in hoodies and masks emerge and use an axe to damage the entrance before pouring the contents of jerry cans in the building and igniting it
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The Sun
2 hours ago
- The Sun
Harrowing new details revealed in autopsy report after grandma accused of murdering two grandsons in their rural home
TWO children found dead in their rural home were allegedly drugged before being smothered, an autopsy has revealed. Aussie brothers Max, 6, and Sam Johnson, 7, were found dead on May 5 - with their grandma arrested at the scene. 2 2 A post-mortem examination has found traces of prescription drugs in the boys' systems, according to the Daily Telegraph. Police allege their grandma, Kathleen Heggs, 66, gave her grandsons the medications before suffocating them with a pillow. Heggs allegedly sent a text to authorities saying the two boys were dead and that she planned to take her own life. When cops arrived at the scene, they found the boys dead in separate rooms and Heggs with self-inflicted injuries. She was arrested and taken to the mental health unit at Orange Hospital before being transferred into custody. On May 21, Heggs was charged with two counts of domestic violence murder. The siblings were reportedly sleeping when the alleged murders occurred. Heggs, the sole carer for the boys, moved with them over a year ago to a home on the outskirts of Coonabarabran in rural New South Wales. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the move was prompted after the woman "witnessed an incident involving her family too graphic to publish details of, and became known to police as a victim of crime". The boys' dad told the Daily Telegraph that he and his partner had trusted Heggs to care for the children, as they were both struggling with mental health issues. The couple had not seen the children for five years before their deaths. "This is not how we were meant to get them back," he said. "We are completely broken... but those boys deserve a good send off, and that's what we are going to give them." The boys will be buried wearing their karate uniforms, each with a yellow belt they were due to earn the same week their lives were tragically cut short. A family friend, who has a son the same age as the boys, said he would see them at karate lessons, football matches and school. He said there were no clear signs the family was struggling, describing Heggs as a "beautiful lady" and the boys as "cute little kids, full of energy". He said locals have been really hard-hit by the news. "This is a tragedy, and it's affecting so many. Petty crime happens and that, but it's a very safe community, we don't have problems like the cities." It comes as investigators found human remains on Friday in the search for Aussie teen Pheobe Bishop, who vanished three weeks ago. Pheobe's two housemates James Wood and Tanika Bromley were charged with murder on Thursday, along with two counts of interfering with a corpse.
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Bombshell new details revealed after two young boys found dead in their grandmother's house - rocking a regional Aussie community to its core
Two young boys found dead on a country NSW property had allegedly been drugged before they were smothered, an autopsy has revealed. Max and Sam Johnson, aged six and seven, were discovered in their Coonabarabran home, in northwest NSW, on May 5. Their grandmother Kathleen Heggs, 66, was subsequently charged with their murder. Police have now revealed a post-mortem examination carried out on the two boys' bodies found traces of a prescription medication in their systems, according to the Daily Telegraph. Police will allege Ms Heggs gave her young grandsons the medications before suffocating them with a pillow. The brothers were asleep in separate bedrooms of Ms Heggs' rural property when the alleged murders took place. Max and Sam's biological parents Troy and Samantha Johnson are making final plans for their sons' funeral this week, which is to be held in Port Stephens. Ms Heggs was the sole carer for the two boys and they had moved from near Port Stephens to Coonabarabran about a year ago. Mr and Mrs Johnson had not seen the boys for five years prior to their deaths. The boys' father revealed he and his wife decided to let Ms Heggs take care of their sons as they had been struggling with mental health issues. 'This is not how we were meant to get them back,' Mr Johnson said. 'We are completely broken... but those boys deserve a good send off, and that's what we are going to give them.' Mr Johnson said he was grateful to Coonabarabran locals for sharing their happy memories of his sons. The boys will be buried in their karate uniforms, along with the yellow belts they were set to receive the week they were allegedly killed. Last month, police raced to the Coonabarabran property after Ms Heggs allegedly sent a text message to the boys' school to say her the two boys were dead and she intended to take her own life. After arriving at the farm, police forced their way into the home and found the boys' bodies in different rooms and the woman suffering self-inflicted injuries. Ms Heggs was treated in a mental health facility for several days following the boys' death before being charged with two counts of murder. Tragically, the devastated grandfather of the boys told Daily Mail Australia he only discovered that his grandsons were dead when he heard it on the news. 'I had to find out off the news about what happened to them,' he said. He also said he was upset pictures of the boys had been circulated through the media. 'The photos should never have been released - because they were minors - that was wrong and it has been very upsetting.' Ms Heggs has not entered pleas and she will front court on July 10. NSW Police have been contacted for comment.
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
How did you get my number? Inside the shadowy world of data brokers
Priya Dev has a clue on how political spam ended up in her inbox during the 2025 federal election campaign. Like many Australians, Dev endured an unwanted flood of Trumpet of Patriots text messages – Clive Palmer has admitted to sending 17m of them. But it was email spam from one of the major political parties that she thought she could do something about. Political parties are exempt from privacy law, so they have no obligation to tell individuals how they find your data, and there is no way to opt out. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email But the Australian National University data science academic had a clue: the emails were addressed to a fake name she had used for online purchases years ago – a name also used when she received spam from one of the minor political parties in 2020. 'It looks like it's come from a transaction,' she says. 'It would likely be some sort of online e-commerce transaction, or energy transaction or something like that.' Tracking down how organisations gain access to individual contact information is 'really hard with political parties because they just ignore you,' Dev says. 'If I can find out the origin of my data from this mission, it would be really amazing.' It's the second time Dev has attempted to track how someone got her data, working through the labyrinthine web of data brokers who – often without our awareness – buy and sell information on the public to advertisers or others who want to know more about us. Last year, after receiving dozens of unwanted calls, Dev was able to track who held her phone number back to real estate giant CoreLogic Australia, who told her they had been able to legitimately buy her data from another data broker firm in 2023, who had bought her data from another data broker in 2016. That company told her it obtained her data through a 2014 marketing campaign and had probably passed on her information to at least 50 other companies. Dev's experience is not an isolated one. Crikey reported in April that a child's email address that was signed up for a charity fundraiser more than a decade ago received Liberal party political spam at the most recent election. The answer to how marketers and others find out your contact details and other personal information is a complicated one. Katharine Kemp, an associate professor who leads the public interest law and tech initiative at the University of New South Wales, says it often occurs through a data-matching service that joins up your personal information across different service providers who then sell that via data brokers. Kemp said she had the experience where a mortgage broker had called her asking if she was in the market for a mortgage – she suspects they got her information from a real estate agent during an open house visit. But finding out how they got that information can often be hard, Kemp says. When she asks those who contact her where they got her details, 'they will obfuscate or sometimes just immediately hang up or … give a silly answer, and then when you press them, they very quickly end the call.' The federal privacy commissioner, Carly Kind, describes the data broking industry in general terms as 'very opaque', with 'a very complex value chain of personal information'. 'So because people don't really know what's going on, they're not really empowered to complain about it,' she says. 'I think people find it creepy, the way in which their personal information has been passed around through data brokers and ends up in places that they don't expect.' One global data broker organisation has described its work as 'enabling the exchange of information between businesses in the consumer interest and in the support of Australian corporates and small businesses,' according to a 2023 submission to the Australian consumer watchdog's inquiry into data brokering. The kinds of information collected includes names, addresses, age, browsing behaviour, purchasing behaviour, financial status, employment, qualification, tenancy history and other socioeconomic and demographic information. A Australia report last year found the types of data bought and sold by brokers could include location and movements over time, sexual interests, financial concerns, banking and utility providers, personal problems, gambling or drinking habits, and recent online purchases. Data broker companies include credit reporting companies, fraud and identity verification companies, news corporations, property companies, tenancy data brokers, marketers, loyalty programs, and social media platforms. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found in its report last year on data brokering that privacy policies used by companies to allow the sharing of data can use 'ambiguous language', making it hard for consumers to identify who their data is being shared with and for what purposes. They also make it harder, the report found, for people to figure out who holds their data and to opt out of its collection. The average number of words in a typical privacy policy is 6,876 and it would take 29 minutes to read, the report found. Research conducted as part of the report found 74% of Australians are uncomfortable with the idea of their personal information being shared or sold. Some companies seek to downplay concern and privacy obligations – such as providing data held on a person by request – by de-identifying the data collected on consumers. Consumer group Choice found last year data brokers claimed to not hold data on consumers who were members of their loyalty programs, with names taken off the data held. Kind, the privacy commissioner, says the assertion that de-identified data may not be considered personal information under the Privacy Act could be 'creative interpretation' of the law by the companies collecting such data. The ACCC said de-identified data still carries risks of consumers being identified when combined with data points from other sources. Kind, speaking generally and without naming any companies in particular, said many Australians would find some of the practices of some data brokers to be 'quite uncomfortable to say the least, and often veering on affronting or outrageous'. 'The data is changing hands numerous times. So it is a very complex space, and I think undoubtedly, a big chunk of it is legitimate and in compliance with the [privacy] act. But that's quite fuzzy – where that stops and where less legitimate activity starts.' The ACCC report did not make any recommendations, but supported the implementation of strengthened privacy laws in Australia. Kind says the ACCC's work has cleared the way for her office to begin looking into the practices of the sector, saying the Privacy Act today 'has many elements which could be applied to data brokers to rein in their practices'. 'It's an issue that I'm keen to prioritise and my regulatory team is currently looking into potentially using our powers in this space,' Kind says. Dev says there needs to be a debate about extending the privacy obligations to political parties, which would force them to be transparent with the public about how they acquire personal data. The exemption means that political parties do not have to respond to her requests about what data they hold on her, Dev says. Kemp says she thinks there is some prospect of tighter rules around data brokering, but there will be no appetite from politicians to change the law on political party obligations. 'But I don't think we should give up on it as an issue in an area that requires reform.'
