Latest news with #emergencyworkers
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Hundreds living in taxpayer-funded hotels across the UK accused of offences including rape, sex attacks, robbery, theft and violence
The shocking scale of serious crime committed by migrants living in hotels in communities across Britain can be revealed by The Mail on Sunday today. An investigation by this newspaper has revealed that at least 312 asylum seekers have been charged with an astonishing 708 alleged criminal offences in just three years – including rape, sexual assault, attacking emergency workers and theft. The MoS probe exposes how among the thousands of asylum seekers who have arrived in recent years – including those who have crossed the Channel in small boats – are dangerous predators and criminals who have repaid the generosity of British taxpayers by committing serious offences. Our research, based on an analysis of court records, provides a snapshot of crimes recorded at 70 of the 220 taxpayer-funded hotels being used to house migrants. The alleged offences committed by asylum seekers who gave their addresses in court as one of those hotels include 18 charges of rape, five of attempted rape, 35 of sexual assault and 51 of theft. The research also exposes 89 charges of assault – 27 of which allegedly targeted police officers or other emergency workers – 43 of drug offences, 18 of burglary and 16 of robbery. The revelations come amid Britain's worsening small-boats crisis and will raise new questions about housing around 32,000 asylum seekers in hotels at a cost of £3billion per year. The MoS investigation reveals: A migrant who committed a horrific sex attack on an 'extremely vulnerable' teenage girl in a park in broad daylight was sentenced to 14 months in prison on Friday. A woman, 20, was dragged into the grounds of a church in Oxford and raped by a migrant housed at a hotel in the city. More than 90 criminal charges have been brought against migrants staying at just one hotel in central London – including a migrant convicted of an arson attack against the hotel. In Bournemouth, 116 charges have been brought against 51 asylum seekers living across three hotels near the seafront. A migrant staying in a hotel in London's affluent Primrose Hill was convicted of vicious assaults on two female police officers and one male officer. Last night Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'This shocking Mail investigation lays bare the risk posed by these illegal immigrants to the British public. We just need to deport all illegal immigrants immediately upon arrival, with no judicial process, either to Rwanda or elsewhere.' Our findings come days after it emerged that the Government has been running a secretive operation to smuggle 18,500 Afghan migrants to Britain as part of a scheme projected to cost £7 billion. A 'super-injunction' was used to keep Parliament and the public in the dark for nearly two years after a British military official inadvertently leaked the data of thousands of Afghans, prompting one of the biggest peacetime evacuation missions in modern British history. Several of the Afghans on the list previously had their asylum claims rejected for violent or sexual assaults. The Government does not publish statistics on crimes committed by asylum seekers – and police reports rarely give the immigration status of defendants – meaning the scale of the migrant crime wave has, until now, been unknown. But an MoS probe scoured thousands of magistrate courts records and cross-referenced defendants' addresses with those of 70 taxpayer-funded hotels housing asylum seekers to compile a dossier of the 708 criminal charges. Our database includes migrants who have been convicted of offences, those who have been acquitted and those involved in ongoing court cases. Astonishingly, this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg because court records are often incomplete or missing and the number of hotels examined by our audit represent less than one third of the hotels being used to house migrants across the UK. In one shocking case, an asylum seeker strangled and tried to rape a woman in the female toilets at a nightclub in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. Sudanese asylum seeker Ayman Adam, 25, who had been staying at the nearby four-star Cedar Court Hotel, was jailed for seven years last year after he followed the woman into the toilets at Truth and pushed her into the cubicle, pinning her over the toilet while he strangled her. In Oxford, a university student was sexually assaulted by asylum seeker Khaliz Alshimery late at night in a doorway in November 2023. The woman escaped but Alshimery, 47, followed her before dragging her into the churchyard at St Clement's Church and raping her. Alshimery, who was staying at a migrant hotel in the city, was last year jailed for 12 years after being found guilty of rape, sexual assault by penetration and three counts of sexual assault. In March last year, a migrant named Rabie Knissi, who was staying at the Royal Beach Hotel in Southsea, Portsmouth, was jailed for ten years after a horrifying sex attack against a woman in her 40s. After striking up a conversation with the woman, whom he did not know, Knissi pushed her up against a parked car and attempted to rape her. He refused to attend Portsmouth Crown Court during his trial but was convicted of attempted rape, assault by penetration and actual bodily harm. Detective Richard Gibson of Hampshire Police said: 'This was a particularly nasty and violent attack. Incidents of this nature have a devastating and lifelong impact on victims.' Meanwhile, in Bournemouth, our figures identified 46 criminal charges against migrants at the Roundhouse Hotel and 45 charges against the Britannia Hotel, which are just 180 yards from each other and close to the resort's seafront. Another 25 charges were made against those staying at the Chine Hotel, which boasts an indoor swimming pool. In March, a 25-year-old migrant staying at a hotel in Primrose Hill was found guilty at a magistrates' court of 'assault by beating' three police officers. He escaped jail and received a community sentence. Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick last night demanded that the small-boats crisis 'be treated as a national security emergency'. He added: 'Illegal migrants breaking into our country should have no route to claiming asylum and be held in detention until they are deported, not in hotels on high streets.' Some 32,345 asylum seekers are living in hotels, while 66,683 are living in houses, flats and bedsits across the country. Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed last month that Labour wanted to close every migrant hotel by July 2029. The Home Office said last night: 'We do not tolerate criminality of any kind and will be thoroughly investigating all the allegations raised in this report.'
New York Times
5 days ago
- Climate
- New York Times
Heavy Rain Floods Kansas City Area, Prompting Overnight Rescues
Heavy rain in the Kansas City, Mo., area inundated neighborhoods and highways on Thursday, prompting nearly two dozen rescues of people stranded in their cars. More than eight inches of rain fell in some parts of the metropolitan area overnight, meteorologists said. Firefighters and rescuers waded through water, sometimes up to their waists, to reach cars stuck in floods overnight, said Chief Michael Hopkins, the spokesman for the Kansas City Fire Department, in an interview. They continued working through the morning even as the rain started to taper off. No injuries or deaths have been reported. Emergency workers had rescued people from at least 23 vehicles by early morning, he said, and more rescues were expected as the work commute got underway. Storm drains along Interstate 435, a beltway that encircles most of the Kansas City metropolitan area, were unable to keep up during the deluge, he said, causing the highway to flood. Most of the rescues from vehicles took place at the highway's 23rd St. exit, he said. Areas to the west and north of the city were also overrun with heavy rain. 'It is taking place all over the city,' he said of the rescue effort. 'Multiple roads tend to get overrun with water.' These included low-lying areas or those near hills, such as the East Bottoms area, the Westport bar and restaurant district, and neighborhoods in Northeast Kansas City. More than eight inches of rain had fallen in Olathe, Kan., southwest of Kansas City, since 10 p.m. on Wednesday, said Randall Collier, a meteorologist at the Kansas City office of the National Weather Service. The highest total was 9.81 inches, near Gardner Lake, he said. In Kansas City, the local office of the National Weather Service reported 2.04 inches of rain had already fallen by 6:40 a.m. Thursday. That marked the second consecutive day with more than two inches of rainfall, tying a local record that has occurred only 12 times in the past 137 years. Flash flood warnings for the area expired by 9 a.m. local time, but flood warnings remained in place for several rivers in northwest Kansas and northeast Missouri. Forecasters said storms could keep developing along the same areas over the next couple of days. Forecast risk of excessive rain for Thursday Some Moderate High More than 13,000 customers were without power early on Thursday in the Kansas City area, in both Kansas and Missouri, according to Evergy, a utilities provider. The rain was part of a slow-moving weather system that has unleashed a series of intense thunderstorms across a broad section of the United States on Thursday, from the Central Plains to the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Northeast. Nazaneen Ghaffar contributed reporting.
UAE Moments
5 days ago
- UAE Moments
69 Dead in Iraq Mall Fire: Rescue Ongoing, Cause Unknown
A massive fire broke out overnight at the Corniche Hypermarket in al-Kut, eastern Iraq, leaving at least 69 people dead and 11 more missing, according to local health authorities and police. When rescue teams arrived, flames were still raging and people were seen climbing off the roof with help from emergency workers. By morning, the building's exterior was scorched black as firefighters continued their work. Cause of fire still unclear Authorities haven't confirmed what started the fire just yet. The province's governor said that early findings from the investigation will be released within 48 hours, according to Iraq's state news agency INA. Meanwhile, lawsuits have already been filed against the building and mall owners as the city continues to search through the debris for more victims. Fires like this aren't new in Iraq This tragedy adds to a worrying pattern. In 2023, over 100 people were killed when a wedding hall caught fire in northern Iraq — a harsh reminder of the country's ongoing struggles with safety standards.
The Independent
14-07-2025
- The Independent
Shocking moment paraglider flies into power lines in North Dakota
This is the shocking moment that a paraglider goes plunging down into a river after he flies into power lines in North Dakota. Footage captured by a passer-by on 7 July shows the paraglider colliding with the wires, setting off a loud spark and bang before the adventurer becomes submerged in the Red River as the witness shouts 'oh no'. Later footage shows emergency service workers attending the scene where they rescued the man. According to local news reporters, the paraglider was uninjured.
CNN
11-07-2025
- Climate
- CNN
New audio reveals desperate calls for water rescues amid Texas flooding
Dispatch audio from some of the areas hit hardest by deadly flooding in Texas are shedding new light on the situation emergency workers faced as the water quickly rose.
