Dozens arrested in cybercrime raids

6 March 2015 Last updated at 11:44

The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) has mounted a "strike week" against suspected hackers resulting in 56 arrests.

In total, 25 separate operations were carried out across the UK.

Those arrested are suspected of being involved in a wide variety of cybercrimes including data theft, fraud and virus writing.

One raid the BBC witnessed targeted a man suspected of involvement with a 2012 hack attack on web giant Yahoo.

Stolen data

The week-long series of operations was co-ordinated by the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) as well as specialist officers from regional organised crime squads and the Metropolitan Police.

The biggest operation in the week of action involved the arrest of 25 people in London and Essex suspected of using the net to steal money, launder cash and carry out other frauds.

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Steve Brown from the National Crime Agency describes one of the raids

Separately, West Midlands police arrested a 23-year-old man in Sutton Coldfield who is believed to have been involved in breaking into the network of the US defence department in June 2014. The hackers behind that attack stole contact information for about 800 people and data on the network's internal architecture was also pilfered.

Eyewitness: Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology correspondent

I was with one of the teams from the National Crime Agency as they carried out an arrest this week at a flat in north London. One group had tracked the suspect, a 21-year-old student, all the way back from university 40 minutes away.

The arrest had some of the drama of a classic police operation - "Go! Go! Go!" came the command over the walkie-talkie as we approached the suspect's flat. But no doors were kicked in, and there were no shouts of "You're nicked!" The priority was to make sure any computers were seized before they could be shut down or their data encrypted.

Teams arrived with equipment to gather data, and found a laptop and a desktop computer, both of them online. One officer was employed simply keeping her finger on the laptop's trackpad to make sure it didn't go to sleep. Later, police cyber-specialists would spend many hours examining exactly what was on the two computers.

The action also resulted in the arrest of people thought to be part of some well-known hacking groups. In Leeds, a suspected member of the Lizard Squad group was arrested, and in London a 21-year-old man was taken into custody on suspicion of being part of the D33Ds Company hacking collective.

The D33Ds group is believed to have been behind a 2012 attack on Yahoo that stole more than 400,000 email addresses and passwords subsequently published online.

Phishing gangs

Investigations about suspects in Sutton Coldfield, Leeds and Willesden were aided by forensic information provided by the FBI.

The other actions targeted alleged phishing gangs, intellectual property thieves, users of financial malware, companies that offer hosting services to crime groups and many people who took part in so-called DDoS attacks in an attempt to knock websites offline.

"Criminals need to realise that committing crime online will not render them anonymous to law enforcement," said Andy Archibald, deputy director of the NCCU. "It's imperative that we continue to work with partners to pursue and disrupt the major crime groups targeting the UK."

In addition, this week the NCA coordinated visits to 70 firms to inform them about how vulnerable their servers were to attack and how they could be used by cyber thieves to send out spam or act as proxies for other attacks.

The strike week also involved four forces setting up pop-up shops to give advice to the public about staying safe online and to get their devices checked to make sure they are free of malware and other digital threats.

19.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Outcry as IS 'wrecks' Assyrian site

6 March 2015 Last updated at 11:01

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Why is Islamic State destroying Iraq's history? - Explained in 60 secs

Archaeologists and officials have expressed outrage about the bulldozing of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud by Islamic State militants in Iraq.

On Thursday IS - which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria - began demolishing the site, which was founded in the 13th Century BC, Iraqi officials said.

The head of UN's cultural agency condemned the "systematic" destruction in Iraq as a "war crime".

IS says ancient shrines and statues are "false idols" that have to be smashed.

"They are erasing our history," Iraqi archaeologist Lamia al-Gailani said.

Nimrud lies about 30km (18 miles) south-east of Mosul.

Many of the artefacts found there have been moved to museums in Baghdad and overseas, but many remain on site.

As an act of cultural vandalism, the attempt to destroy Nimrud is already being compared with the Taliban's demolition of the Bamiyan Buddha rock sculptures in Afghanistan in 2001, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut, neighbouring Lebanon.

'Levelled'

IS "assaulted the historic city of Nimrud and bulldozed it with heavy vehicles," the tourism and antiquities ministry said on Thursday.

It said the militants continued to "defy the will of the world and the feelings of humanity", calling for a UN Security Council meeting to discuss how to protect cultural heritage in Iraq.

Nimrud covers a large area, and it is not yet clear whether it has been totally destroyed, our correspondent says.

But a local tribal source told Reuters news agency: "Islamic State members came to the Nimrud archaeological city and looted the valuables in it and then they proceeded to level the site to the ground.

"There used to be statues and walls as well as a castle that Islamic State has destroyed completely."

Profile of Nimrud

• Ancient Assyrian city on the River Tigris
• Capital of Assyria for about 150 years
• First excavations in modern times undertaken by Europeans starting in the 1840s
• Treasures unearthed included sections of royal palaces, individual statues and smaller artefacts
• Investigations stopped for decades but in 1949 Sir Max Mallowan (husband of writer Agatha Christie) began fresh excavations
• Extensive photographic record of remaining treasures made in the 1970s

Irina Bokova, head of the UN cultural agency Unesco, condemned the assault.

"This is yet another attack against the Iraqi people, reminding us that nothing is safe from the cultural cleansing under way in the country: it targets human lives, minorities, and is marked by the systematic destruction of humanity's ancient heritage," she said.

"The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime.

"There is absolutely no political or religious justification for the destruction of humanity's cultural heritage."

Dr Gailani told the BBC:"Nimrud for us in Iraq and for me as an archaeologist is one of the most important [sites]. There are still quite a lot of things that are standing - the reliefs and the statues, the famous winged bulls.

"They are erasing our history. I wish it was a nightmare and I could wake up."

It is a "horrific crime against the cultural heritage of the whole world", said the president of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, John Curtis, calling Nimrud "the best preserved Assyrian site in Iraq".

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Professor Eleanor Robson, from University College London, said she had no doubt the "heartbreaking" footage from Mosul was genuine

Last week, IS released a video apparently showing militants with sledgehammers destroying historic artefacts in a museum in Mosul.

One militant was seen drilling through and pulling apart what appeared to be a stone winged bull.

In the video, the artefacts are described as "false idols" and their destruction justified in religious terms.

That attack was also condemned by the UN as a war crime.

IS has controlled Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and nearby areas since June 2014 - a region with nearly 1,800 of the country's 12,000 registered archaeological sites.

Have you ever visited Nimrud? Do still have pictures of its historical landmarks? Please email your comments and pictures to haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk Please remember to leave your phone number if you are happy to be contacted by a BBC journalist.

Have your say

19.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Migrant population 'up 565,000'

6 March 2015 Last updated at 10:54 By Dominic Casciani Home affairs correspondent

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Why the town of Boston has seen a big increase in its migrant population

The migrant population of England has risen by 565,000 since 2011, with two-thirds coming from the EU, analysis by the University of Oxford estimates.

The figures suggest the foreign-born population of every local authority in the country may have risen.

The Migration Observatory unit says it came up with the projections because similar official data will not be available before the general election.

The 2011 census put the population of England at 53m, with 7.3m born abroad.

Continue reading the main story

Watch Dominic's report on Inside Out BBC One, Friday at 19:30

Official estimates for migration focus on movements of people in and out of the UK - and national statistics only definitively record the population and where it comes from every 10 years at the national census. The latest estimate for how many migrants have settled will not be available until later this summer.

Taking two key measures of people in the UK - the 2011 census and rolling data from the Labour Force Survey - Oxford has projected that immigration has added to the population right across England as the economy has expanded.

Its analysis suggests the greatest change has been in London. Almost 3.2 million people in the capital are now born abroad - 200,000 more than at the time of the last census.

The foreign-born population of the South East is projected to have also risen to more than 1.1 million.

Official estimates do not reveal where migrant groups of different origins have settled in the UK over the past three years - but the Migration Observatory has projected what it thinks is going on for each region and local authority.

It has broken down local figures to create an online map projecting where migrants have come from.

Areas which have experienced rapid growth since Eastern European nations joined the EU in 2004 have continued to see those communities grow - particularly in the agricultural areas of the east of England.

'Revolving door'

There, Oxford estimates that the EU-born population is almost a quarter of a million - about 12% higher than at the time of the 2011 census.

Carlos Vargas Silva, immigration researcher at Oxford University, said migrants, particularly from the EU, were coming to England for work.

"They are finding jobs in low skilled positions and low paid jobs," he said.

"So for British workers competing in those positions it means some competition.

"For employers looking for more workers to fill those gaps it is good news because they have more employees available."

Witold Sobkow, the Polish ambassador to the UK, said migrants were arriving to the UK because of a "mixture of factors".

He said: "A lot of people come here because they find Britain very attractive as a country also, not just as a place to work and earn money.

"So some of them will settle down here, some of them will save money and will come back.

"We call it the revolving door policy, people come and go."

Professor Tony Travers from the London School of Economics said some councils were having to deal with increased demand for services in a time when their budgets were declining.

"The government is responsible for migration policy at the borders but all migration ends up as a local government issue and it's councils that end up dealing with it," he said.

"And of course migrants don't spread themselves round neatly and thinly around the country."

And Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP which wants to limit immigration, said his party had been proved right.

"Migration to this country has been shown to be unsustainable, and councils are even seeing cuts in areas with booming populations," he added.

But Barbara Roche, co-founder of the Migration Matters Trust, a cross-party group of politicians, business executives and trade union leaders, said migrants were "making an economic contribution".

Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford, said: "This data shows how different local experiences of migration have been across the UK.

"There are large variations in the size of migrant populations, as well as the share that come from EU countries.

"We have undertaken this analysis to provide a resource for anyone looking to understand local demographics of migration in the run-up to the general election."

The analysis comes a week after official estimates of net migration - a measure of people moving in and out of the UK - reached almost 300,000. That total is three times higher than the target set by the prime minister but it does not necessarily count how many people stay in the UK for good.

For more on what is going on across England, watch Inside Out BBC One, Friday 19:30 - also available on the BBC iplayer.

19.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Harrison Ford injured in plane crash

6 March 2015 Last updated at 11:37

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Harrison Ford to Air Traffic Control: "Engine failure, immediate return"

US actor Harrison Ford has been injured in a small plane crash in Los Angeles.

The 72-year-old star of the Indiana Jones and Star Wars films reported engine failure and crash-landed his vintage plane on a Venice golf course.

He was breathing and alert when medics arrived and took him to hospital in a "fair to moderate" condition, a fire department spokesman said.

His son Ben, a chef in Los Angeles, later tweeted from the hospital: "Dad is OK. Battered but OK!

His publicist said: "The injuries sustained are not life threatening, and he is expected to make a full recovery,"

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Aerial footage showed the wrecked plane on a golf course

The nature of Ford's injuries have not been disclosed but website TMZ, which first reported the story, said he suffered "multiple gashes to his head".

Shortly after take-off from Santa Monica Airport, he said he was having engine failure with his 1942 Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR and was making an "immediate return".

He was unable to reach the runway and landed on the Penmar Golf Course, where onlookers pulled him from the plane fearing it could explode.

Aerial catastrophes averted

• A drone nearly struck a plane as it landed at London's Heathrow Airport last year
• Three planes carrying about 200 people came close to colliding in 2012 at Washington's Reagan National Airport
• In the "miracle of Hudson" of 2009, a pilot had to ditch into New York's Hudson river after both engines failed. All 155 passengers and crew were saved
• Two Japan Airlines jets with almost 700 people on board came within 10m (10 yards) of colliding in 2001, because of air traffic control confusion
• The cargo door on a plane leaving Miami airport blew off during takeoff in 1989, but it was able to return safely
• A hole blew open in the fuselage of a jet in Hawaii in 1988. A stewardess was sucked out of the plane but it landed safely, with passengers escaping with injuries

Officials said the plane had been flying at about 3,000 feet (900m) and hit a tree on the way down.

"It just sounded like a car hitting the ground or a tree or something," Jeff Kuprycz, who was playing golf told the Associated Press news agency. "He ended up crashing around the eighth hole."

Christian Fry of the Santa Monica Airport Association said it was "an absolutely beautifully executed emergency landing by an unbelievably well-trained pilot".

Film producer Ryan Kavanaugh, who also witnessed the accident from his office, told The Hollywood Reporter: "He literally had five seconds, and 99% of pilots would have turned around to go back to the runway and would have crashed."

"Harrison did what the best pilots in the world would do," he continued. "He made the correct turn that the plane was designed for with an engine out."

'Moderate trauma'

After crash-landing, Ford was initially treated by doctors who happened to be at the golf course.

Later this year, Ford is reprising his role of Han Solo in the latest addition to the Star Wars franchise, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

He broke his leg in June last year on set at Pinewood Studios while filming a scene involving a door on the Millennium Falcon spaceship.

Ford took up flying when he was in his 50s and is also trained to fly helicopters.

In 1999, Ford crash-landed his helicopter during a training flight in Los Angeles but both he and the instructor were unhurt.

A year later a plane he was flying had to make an emergency landing in Nebraska. Again he and his passenger escaped unhurt.

Are you in Venice, Los Angeles? Did you witness the incident? You can email details to haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.

Read the terms and conditions

Have your say

19.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Pair jailed for Ayesha Ali killing

6 March 2015 Last updated at 12:05

A mother and her lover have been jailed for killing her eight-year-old daughter in east London.

Ayesha Ali was found dead in her bedroom with more than 50 injuries including bite-marks, in August 2013.

At the Old Bailey, the girl's mother, Polly Chowdhury, 35, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for manslaughter.

Jailing her lover and co-defendant, Kiki Muddar, 43, for 18-years for the same crime, the judge described her as a "manipulative, wicked woman".

Judge Christopher Moss QC told the court Ayesha's mother had "disgracefully failed" in her role, to keep her daughter safe.

During the trial, the court heard Muddar made Chowdhury believe her daughter was "evil" by creating a fantasy world full of characters on social media who told her Ayesha needed to be punished.

One alias Muddar created was spirit guide "Skyman", whom she used to manipulate Chowdhury into believing Ayesha had "bad blood" and needed to be disciplined to rid her of "evil spirits".

The abuse came to a head on 28 August 2013, when Ayesha was killed at the family home in Chadwell Heath.

Chowdhury later told the court Ayesha was hurt while Muddar was giving her a cold bath as punishment for wetting herself.

'Brainwashed'

Judge Moss said Ayesha was subjected to a "life of cruelty and misery that defies belief" in the months before her death.

He paid tribute to the "courage and personal restraint" of Ayesha's father Afsar Ali, who had to learn the disturbing details of how his daughter died as the case unfolded.

Following the verdicts, Mr Ali said: "This has been the hardest and most difficult thing that I have ever had to do in my life.

"I lost a battle I never agreed to fight. I cry every night; each teardrop engraves yet another scar."

In mitigation, Chowdhury's lawyer, Ali Bajwa QC, said Muddar "skilfully and mercilessly" seized upon Chowdhury's weakness and "excessively gullible and trusting character".

"She was brainwashed entirely", he said.

Muddar, of Green Lane, Ilford, and Chowdhury, of Broomfield Road, Chadwell Heath, had both denied murder, manslaughter and causing or allowing the death of a child.

19.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Teacher jailed for terror offences

5 March 2015 Last updated at 12:04

A chemistry teacher who admitted Syria-related terror offences has been jailed for six years.

Jamshed Javeed, from Manchester, was "determined to fight Jihad" in 2013 despite pleas from his family not to, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

The 30-year-old claimed he wanted to go to support ordinary Syrians.

Javeed was sentenced to a minimum of four years in prison for two counts of engaging in conduct in preparation of terror acts.

19.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Man in court on Becky murder charge

5 March 2015 Last updated at 12:03

Nathan Matthews, stepbrother of Bristol teenager Becky Watts, has appeared in court charged with her murder.

The 28-year-old, of Warmley, Bristol, was arrested by police at the weekend before body parts were discovered in a Barton Hill house on Monday night.

Judge Lynne Matthews, at Bristol Magistrates' Court, remanded him to appear at the crown court on Friday.

His girlfriend Shauna Hoare, 21, also appeared charged with perverting the course of justice.

She will appear before the crown court for a preliminary hearing on 2 April. There was no application for bail.

Four other men and a woman, all in their 20s, are still being questioned on suspicion of assisting an offender.

On Wednesday morning, magistrates granted police a further 24 hours to question two men aged 29, two aged 23 and a woman aged 23, who had been arrested earlier in the week.

Becky, 16, was last seen on 19 February and was reported missing the following day.

The discovery of her body came after an extensive search across Bristol.

Floral tributes have been left near that property and outside Becky's home in the St George area of the city.

A fund set up to pay for Becky's funeral has also passed the £7,000 mark.

St Ambrose Church, near the family home, opened on Thursday for members of the public to light candles in memory of Becky.

19.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Cameron scared of TV debates - rivals

5 March 2015 Last updated at 11:18

David Cameron's political rivals have accused him of running scared after saying he will only take part in one televised debate ahead of the election.

Downing Street has rejected a head-to-head clash with Ed Miliband and said the PM will only take part in a debate featuring seven party leaders.

His spokesman criticised the broadcasters for the "chaos" of the negotiating process.

But the other parties accused the Tory leader of "cowardice".

Lib Dem election campaign chief Lord Ashdown said Mr Cameron was "running scared" and was "frightened of defending his own position".

"What he is proposing is not just a ludicrous, seven-sided, bite-sized squabble fest but actually he is proposing it takes place before the Conservative manifesto is published," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

'Get on with it'

He added: "If Mr Cameron hasn't got the guts to stand up and defend this government's record then Nick Clegg will do so."

Mr Clegg accused Mr Cameron of holding the broadcasters "to ransom" by trying to dictate the terms of the proposed TV debates.

In a tweet, he says: "The British public want the debates so let's get on with it."

But Commons leader William Hague defended the prime minister in the Commons, saying the other parties should accept his offer of a debate.

He said: "I recall asking Tony Blair when I was leader of the opposition in 2001 for a television debate there was not even an offer of a debate from Tony not even the pretence of a debate, there was a very clear no debate what so ever.

"And this prime minister is offering a debate and that is an offer that should be taken up that was never offered by Tony Blair in similar circumstances."

Under Mr Cameron's "final offer", one 90-minute contest would take place before 30 March, when the official general election campaign starts.

Downing Street said the Democratic Unionist Party should also be considered for inclusion.

The broadcasters, who have proposed a total of three debates, said they would respond to the Conservatives' proposal in due course.

The BBC and ITV are scheduled to hold two, both involving the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, UKIP, Plaid Cymru, the SNP and the Greens.

A third debate - hosted by Sky and Channel 4 - the week before the 7 May election would feature a head-to-head between Mr Cameron and Mr Miliband.

After Mr Cameron questioned the timing of it at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Sky and Channel 4 offered to move the event to a different date if the leaders could agree.

Labour's Douglas Alexander said his party still supported the broadcasters' plan and said Mr Cameron was "scared" of a debate with Mr Miliband.

Analysis by BBC chief political correspondent Norman Smith

So are the debates dead?

Well, maybe not. But only if the broadcasters hold their nerve.

In other words if they decide to press ahead with the three debates and empty chair the prime minister.

It would be a huge decision - and many at Westminster remain sceptical that the BBC would be willing to do this.

However, privately, the broadcasters' insist they will not buckle and will not allow one party to "dictate" the conditions.

They insist the single 90 minute seven, or even eight party, debate proposed by the prime minister will "not cover the ground".

And crucially, both Labour and the Liberal Democrats say they will still turn up for whatever debates the broadcasters' decide to hold.

Ed Miliband will even take part in the head-to-head without David Cameron - and subject himself to a grilling from Jeremy Paxman.

Senior Lib Dems say Nick Clegg would be ready to stand in for the prime minister in the final head-to-head, making it a Miliband v Clegg clash.

The danger for the prime minister is that even if the debates lose their impact without him - he risks a backlash from voters for failing to take part.

Downing Street's hope is that the broadcasters will buckle and either agree to his proposal or just scrap the whole idea of TV debates for this election.

"This is an outrageous attempt from the prime minister to bully the broadcasters into dropping their proposals for a head-to-head debate between David Cameron and Ed Miliband," he said.

A UKIP spokesman said: "After praising what a good thing debates were for democracy as recently as 2014, why is David Cameron now acting chicken and running as far away from them as possible?"

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon accused Mr Cameron of "arrogance," adding: "I will debate him anytime, anywhere, on any number of occasions.

"However we have accepted the broadcasters' proposals, and believe we should stick with that, rather than allow a Tory prime minister to dictate the terms of debate."

The Green Party has accused Mr Cameron of "further damaging trust" in British politics.

"Not only is Cameron's announcement cowardly but it also shows his contempt for the electorate. People want to see a set of debates between all major party leaders, yet the prime minister is clearly scared of scrutiny," said a spokesman.

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Paddy Ashdown: "If the first debate has to be done as a farce we'll do that too"

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood said Mr Cameron's "efforts to manipulate the broadcasters are unacceptable and arrogant".

Northern Ireland's largest party, the DUP, which has begun legal action against the BBC for excluding it from its earlier proposal of two UK TV debates, said the corporation and the other broadcasters had "messed up big style" over the negotiations.

As leader of the opposition, Mr Cameron led calls for televised debates at the 2010 general election - the first time they have been held in the UK.

But he has since criticised the idea of holding debates in the run up to polling day, saying they had "sucked the life out of the campaign".

After months of wrangling over the format for debates at the 2015 election, Downing Street issued a statement on Wednesday night, confirming that Mr Cameron did not want to go head-to-head with Labour leader Ed Miliband under any circumstances.

In a letter to the broadcasters, the prime minister's communications chief Craig Oliver said: "In order to cut through this chaotic situation I am willing to make the following proposal: There should be one 90-minute debate between seven party leaders before the short campaign."

He added: "In order for it to be organised in time, the debate should take place during the week beginning March 23. I will make myself available to negotiate the details. Having been the editor of numerous broadcast news and current affairs programmes, I know this is ample time to organise a programme.

"This is our final offer, and to be clear, given the fact this has been a deeply unsatisfactory process and we are within a month of the short campaign, the prime minister will not be participating in more than one debate."

In a joint statement, broadcasters said: "The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky have received an email from the prime minister's office with a proposal.

"The broadcasters are committed to providing our audiences with election debates.

"Twenty two million people watched the debates in 2010 and we believe the debates helped people to engage with the election.

"The broadcasters have set out their proposals and continue to talk to all the relevant parties on an equitable basis.

"We will respond to the Conservatives' proposal in due course."

19.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

UK rates mark six years at 0.5%

5 March 2015 Last updated at 12:00

UK interest rates have been kept unchanged again by the Bank of England, meaning they have now been at their record low of 0.5% for six years.

Rates were first cut to 0.5% in March 2009 as the Bank sought to lift economic growth amid the credit crunch.

Recent growth in the economy has prompted speculation that rates will start to rise again in the near future.

However, continuing low inflation, now at 0.3%, gives policymakers little reason to raise the cost of borrowing.

Inflation is expected to remain low, and could even turn negative, thanks largely to a near-halving of the price of energy.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney has even talked about lowering interest rates further to a new record low, should prices remain near flat for longer than expected.

However, Mr Carney has said prices are likely to rebound around the turn of the year.

Most developed economies are used to prices rising. The fear is that if prices do start to fall, consumers will put off buying goods in the hope of further price falls.

With the economy around 70% dependent on consumer spending, any slow down could have a harsh impact on overall economic growth.

Martin Beck, senior economic adviser to the EY Item Club, said the next rate rise could be almost a year away.

"While the risks of an earlier rate rise have probably increased lately, we still think it most likely that the Bank will wait until February 2016, by which time inflation will be back above 1% and heading towards the 2% target."

19.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Police search ex-Tory MP's home

5 March 2015 Last updated at 12:06

The home of former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor has been searched by police investigating historical allegations of child abuse.

The BBC understands police from Operation Midland arrived at the house on the estate of Belvoir Castle, in Leicestershire, on Wednesday.

The investigation is looking at claims establishment figures abused boys.

Mr Proctor, 68, denied being part of any "rent-boy ring" or attending sex parties with prominent figures.

Mr Proctor was MP for Billericay until 1987 before resigning ahead of a trial for gross indecency. He pleaded guilty to four charges relating to homosexual activity and was fined.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he would like to be interviewed by police "at the earliest opportunity".

The Metropolitan Police confirmed officers had searched an address near Grantham.

Operation Midland is examining claims boys were abused by a group of powerful men from politics, the military and law enforcement agencies at locations across southern England and in London in the 1970s and 1980s.

It has focused on the Dolphin Square estate in Pimlico, south-west London.

Mr Proctor said: "I have not been part of any rent-boy ring with cabinet ministers, other MPs or the military."

He added he had "never attended sex parties at Dolphin Square or anywhere else".

Asked if he was aware of Operation Midland, he said: "I may not have known the detail of it but anyone would be blind if they hadn't seen the press relating to these matters over the last year and I find myself in a Kafkaesque fantasy situation."

The investigation, which is under the umbrella of Operation Fairbank, a wider inquiry into historical abuse, is also examining claims that three boys were murdered.

Profile

Harvey Proctor was born in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, and served as a Conservative MP from 1979 to 1987, representing the Essex constituencies of Basildon and then Billericay.

In 1986, allegations surrounding his sex life appeared in a Sunday newspaper, claiming he had been involved with male prostitutes aged between 17 and 21.

The legal age of consent for gay men at the time was 21 and Mr Proctor was charged with gross indecency. He resigned as an MP shortly before his trial in May 1987, where he pleaded guilty and was fined £1,450.

The following year he opened two shops selling luxury shirts, with financial support from some former colleagues.

In 1992, two men assaulted Mr Proctor in his Richmond-upon-Thames shop. Neil Hamilton, who was a government minister at the time, was also in the shop and had his nose broken in the incident.

In 2000, Mr Proctor's stores were forced into liquidation after legal action by Customs and Excise over an unpaid VAT bill.

Since 2003, he has been private secretary to the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle, a 16,000 acre site of farmland and woodland in Leicestershire.

Asked about the wider allegations of sexual abuse being made, he said: "I believe that the number of victims grows by the day.

"The number of alleged perpetrators through death diminishes. That is a problem.

"It is certainly a problem for me. I suppose my problem is that I'm still very much alive.

"I am sure some of the allegations are true but I'm also sure a lot of the allegations are pure and utter fantasy."

'Loner'

Speaking about the gross indecency case, Mr Proctor said his guilty pleas related to homosexual activity with men he believed to be above the then age of consent of 21. They were also older than the current age of consent of 16, he added.

"The offences I committed in 1987 are no longer offences and there is legislation on the statute book which would allow me to wipe them clean if I wish to do so," he said.

The former MP described himself as a "discreet person" and said that the press "did an assortment of things to out me".

He said: "I was regarded in the House of Commons as a very independent MP and a loner.

"The last thing I would dream of doing is talking to other MPs or ministers or anybody else about my personal life."

19.12 | 0 komentar | Read More