Latest news with #StLawrenceCollege
Time of India
30-05-2025
- Time of India
Human smuggler ‘Dirty Harry' arranged at least 35 illegal trips for Indians
Ahmedabad: Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, better known by the alias 'Dirty Harry', began operating a human smuggling network from Indrad village in Kalol taluka of Gandhinagar in May 2021. The village is 17km from Dingucha, the hometown of the Patel family, four members of which died while crossing the Canada-US border on Jan 19, 2022. Sources said 'Dirty Harry' began reading about smuggling routes and methods in 2014, gradually moving into active operations during the Covid pandemic. By 2021, he established connections with other accused, including Fenil Patel from Surat and Bhavesh Patel from Kalol. All three reportedly worked for a Punjab-based human smuggler. Harry's first major human smuggling assignment involved Jagdish Patel, whose family approached him seeking to enter the US. Patel, operating from Chicago, entered the United States on a visitor visa and was engaged to a US citizen. He stayed with his in-laws and was reportedly trying to obtain citizenship. He hired a driver, Steve Shand from Deltona, Florida, to pick up migrants on the Minnesota side of the border and transport them to the Chicago area. Sources in Indian police said Harry arranged at least 35 illegal trips for Indian nationals, most of them from Mehsana district. According to sources, Harry studied in Canada and lived in New York and Chicago since 2018, before re-entering the US illegally. Before that, Harry had a long record of failed US visa applications. In 2014, his student visa was denied twice. In 2016, he applied for a tourist visa from St Lawrence College in Kingston, Ontario, which was also denied. Three months after the rejection, he entered the US without documentation but returned when enforcement increased. His final entry into the US was in 2018, where he stayed until Feb 2021. Harry then shifted to planning and managing illegal border crossings, allegedly charging high fees for his services. Harry was arrested at the Chicago airport on Feb 20, 2024, by US authorities in connection with the Dingucha family deaths. He was convicted in Nov 2024 and sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison for his role in the human smuggling operation that resulted in the deaths of the four Indian migrants.
The Guardian
19-03-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Michael Hession obituary
My friend Michael Hession, who has died aged 85 of cancer, wrote a short biographical account in 2023 called A Sort of Life. He said that he had never aspired to be a Renaissance man, but he had been an individual of many parts: medical and political activist, publisher, photographer, light aircraft pilot, skier, cellist, farmer, concert promoter and more. The title was a homage to the novelist Graham Greene, who used it to describe his painful, traumatic childhood. Michael's anger and hurt at his own childhood remained with him throughout his life. Born in Blackheath, south-east London, he was the only child of Roy Hession, who described himself as a Christian evangelist, and Revel (nee Williams). He was educated at St Lawrence College, in Ramsgate, Kent, where he had been sent to board at the age of six; he said that he was beaten there. After studying medicine at Christ's College, Cambridge, Michael went on to Barts hospital, London, and qualified as a junior hospital doctor in 1964. He was paid £28 a month for working more than 120 hours a week, and found this unbearable. He and a few others formed the Junior Hospital Doctors Action Committee. He organised the first NHS protest against abysmal pay and working conditions in 1964-65. Perhaps enjoying representing doctors more than practising medicine, in 1966 he founded what became the British Journal of Hospital Medicine, an independent magazine funded by advertisements from pharmaceutical companies, to enable clinical doctors to keep up with research. This became a money earner, with a staff of 20, and Michael was persuaded in 1969 to sell up to the Thomson Press, who offered him more than 100 times the annual salary he paid himself. The BJHM is still published. Making up for lost time, he and his wife, Mary (nee Coope), a solicitor whom he had met at a student 'hop' in 1960 and married the following year, enjoyed the money in spectacular fashion. He bought a Rolls-Royce. Then he learnt to fly, bought a Piper Aztec light aircraft and, in 1969, completed the BP England-Australia air race. He became involved with politics and stood for Labour in the Bromley constituency of Ravensbourne in the February 1974 general election. Continuing to lobby government, he campaigned successfully for changes to the proposed legislation that became the Mental Health Act 1983, improving the rights of patients who had been sectioned. In 1978 Michael and Mary, with their young family of three, moved to Dorstone House, in the Golden Valley, Herefordshire, on the Welsh border. They bought a 114-acre farm and Michael applied successfully for a senior post at the Mid Wales psychiatric hospital above Talgarth. He was a first-class photographer, commissioned by the Hay festival to photograph celebrity speakers, one of whom was Lauren Bacall. Allegedly, the famous film star was tardy coming for her shoot, so the manager rang her room and announced that a psychiatrist was waiting to see her. This had the desired result. Michael and Mary were self-confessed ski nuts. Tiring of the Alps, they took up heli-skiing in the Canadian Rockies. He is survived by Mary, three children, Lloyd, Rowena and Ruth, and seven grandchildren.
BBC News
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Kent: Charity police pantomime to return to the stage in Ramsgate
A police pantomime is returning to Kent to help raise money for three local annual Police Panto is preparing for its 26th show, where the group will be performing Ali Baba And The Four-and-a-Half Thieves at St Lawrence College in Ramsgate from Thursday to group is raising money for the county's Prostate Cancer Support Association, Thanet Community First Responders and mental health group Watson, who is a special chief inspector and secretary for the show, said: "I think its really important that we are able to show the human side of policing or who we are and what we are about." Mr Watson said the group, which is made up of active or retired officers along with friends of the force, tries to add a "policey element" to the show every year."This is a good way of having a little bit of positivity to help with mental health," he inspector explained that the active members of the force would take annual leave for the performances and there would not be any expense to Kent its first show in 1999, the group says it has raised more than £225,000 for Watson told BBC Radio Kent: "It makes us feel really, really proud of what we're doing. "It's a bonus for them, and it's a bonus for us".
