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| Azelle Rodney evidence should not have been kept secret, says inquiry Inquest into 2005 police shooting of Rodney failed after government withheld information from family and their lawyersThe police and government's five-year attempt to keep secret evidence relating to a man shot dead by police is wrong, an inquiry today heard.A police officer shot Azelle Rodney six times from point blank range in a street in Edgware, north London, in April 2005.Since then police and the government have said the information that led officers to follow Rodney, and for one to shoot him, had to be kept secret. It is believed to have come from electronic intercepts.The dead man's family fought plans for an inquest into the death to be held in which secret evidence would be withheld from them and their lawyers. Consequently, there has been no inquest and the family said their right under article two of the European Convention on Human Rights to an independent inquiry into the state killing of their loved one could not be met.Today an inquiry into the death began, chaired by a former high court judge, Sir Christopher Holland.Counsel to the inquiry, Ashley Underwood QC, rejected the government's central premise that the crucial evidence covering why police opened fire would have to be kept secret from the family of the deceased, their legal team and the public."It will be my submission throughout that it will be entirely possible to hear this matter sufficiently in public with sufficient engagement of the family so as to discharge the state's article two obligations by way of this inquiry," he said.The Guardian understands the evidence relates to intercepted communications, such as phone intercepts.The government and police believed the laws covering this, contained in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers act (Ripa), meant it could not be disclosed to an inquest or inquiry.Holland will now decide whether to rule that the evidence can be revealed, and if he does so, it is expected the government will consider a legal challenge.The Rodney case was one reason the last government tried to change the law to allow "secret" inquests to be held. The attempt eventually failed.The police belief that Ripa meant they could not share material from intercepts with unauthorised persons also meant that officers were told by their bosses to give incomplete statements to an investigation into the death conducted by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.The officers are now expected to give complete statements, over five years after the shooting, before the inquiry resumes next year.Rodney, from Hounslow, west London, was in a silver Golf car outside the Railway Tavern in Burnt Oak in April 2005 when he was confronted and shot by armed police six times in the face, head, neck and chest. Weapons were later found in the car.The car had been under police surveillance before officers stopped the vehicle at about 8pm on 30 April 2005.Two men in the front, both aged in their 20s, escaped uninjured and were later jailed for firearms offences.Rodney's mother, Susan Alexander, has fought a five-year battle for answers as to why one officer, known only by the codename E7, believed it was necessary to open fire.Her barrister Tim Owen QC said: "Susan Alexander is not a fool and she is sick and tired of being patronised, of being marginalised, of being treated as an irrelevant nuisance by what is to her a bewildering legal obstacle course with no apparent end."She simply wants to know in unsanitised, unedited form why police officer E7 believed it was necessary to shoot her son six times at point blank range in a car on a busy London street."The Crown Prosecution Service later decided that no officer should face criminal charges.The public inquiry was announced in March after an inquest stalled in 2007 over the Metropolitan police's refusal to disclose secret evidence to the coroner.Today's ruling by the inquiry chair saying evidence the government wants kept secret can in fact be made public, and other legal arguments, means it is not expected to start hearing evidence from witnesses until March next year.PoliceCrimeVikram Doddguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Barack Obama streaker could receive $1million prize The man who streaked Barack Obama at a rally on Sunday could be in line for a $1million prize. telegraph.co.uk |
Spending review: thousands join anti-cuts rally in Westminster Union members, community leaders, campaign groups and users of public services stage protest against spending cutsThe government was warned today that "unions will be back" as thousands of activists and other campaigners joined a rally in Westminster to protest against spending cuts.The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, did not join the demonstration, but aides denied the decision was a U-turn despite his declaration last month that he would "definitely" attend.Miliband will meet union members from his constituency to hear their concerns about the coalition's deficit reduction programme, but will not participate in today's rally.Dave Prentis, the general secretary of Unison, said the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats wanted to "drag" the UK into a "dismal, downward spiral of despair" by announcing huge cuts in tomorrow's comprehensive spending review."The truth is they are not interested in alternatives. They don't care if the poor, the elderly, the vulnerable are the targets of cuts. They don't care if hundreds of thousands of families suffer because they no longer have a breadwinner."If they did, they would see that they could claw back billions of pounds by taxing the banks that caused the recession in the first place. I am warning the government today: the public can only take so much, working people will only take so much, and this union has already had enough."If the government doesn't listen to us today, they won't have heard the last of us. If George Osborne's cuts go through – cuts that could mean a death sentence for our services and our communities – then we will be back."For every one of us in this room today, we will bring a hundred more. We'll march in our thousands and we'll vote in our millions."Miliband's aides insisted there had been no formal invitation to the rally as the TUC was treating the event as "non-political" and had not asked any politicians to attend.They were forced to defend the move after Miliband, asked at the TUC conference during the leadership campaign if he would pledge to attend, said: "I'll attend the rally, definitely."The event brought together a broad coalition of union members, community leaders, campaign groups and users of public services, and will be followed by a lobby of MPs inside parliament.Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC, said the government's cuts programme was a political choice, not an economic necessity, that will make Britain "a more unequal, more squalid and nastier country"."Tomorrow, the government will announce unprecedented cuts in public spending – deeper than any of us can remember. They will bite deep into our social fabric – and hit some of the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society."They want us to believe that they have no choice and that this is economic necessity. Yet economic experts across the spectrum warn us that the cuts are too deep and too rapid."At worst the cuts will plunge us back into recession, and at best they will condemn us to lost years of high unemployment, and growth so weak that the deficit may well stay high."Unite has a target list of Conservative and Lib Dem MPs it will lobby today, with a warning that cuts have already hit vital services and cost jobs.Spending cuts of between 25% and 40% will destroy nearly as many private sector jobs as public sector ones, according to research by the union.Tony Woodley, the joint general secretary of Unite, said that for every four public sector jobs scrapped by the cuts, three more would follow in the private sector."The coalition has no brief for the devastation it is about to unleash on this country. Cuts on this scale make no sense. Business knows it needs the public sector to fill the growth gap created by a struggling private sector, and the people of this country, who need their public services to help them during tough times, did not vote for the dismantling of their schools, hospitals and communities."Make no mistake, if this government forces through its brutal programme, Britain will not become a stronger economy – it will become a bleaker and more divided country."Spending review 2010Tax and spendingRecessionEconomicsTrade unionsPublic sector cutsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Why Hobbit fliming may move to UK An industrial pay dispute by an acting union may result in Warner Bros relocating the filming of The Hobbit from New Zealand, where the landscape has been used in the Lord of the Rings movies, to England. bbc.co.uk |
David Cameron hints at relaxing immigration cap The Prime Minister promises business leaders, who have been voicing alarm over tough restrictions, that they would not be stopped from bringing the ''best talent'' to Britain. telegraph.co.uk |