Couple faces extradition over chemical sales
Posted: under News.
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By Craig Robertson
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Apr 27 2009
Tribunal told of “delays and neglect” at Cleveland Police
Posted: under Cleveland Police, Lancet Files.
Jan 8 2009 By Evening Gazette
Crimes were going unrecorded and arrest warrants left outstanding due to civilian staff shortages at Cleveland Police, a tribunal has heard.
Sue Francis, from Ingleby Barwick, is suing her employers for constructive unfair dismissal, claiming she felt forced to leave her position after a string of incidents involving a number of staff.
The mum-of-three was “bullied, victimised and over-worked” while working for the police, the employment tribunal heard.
In her opening statement, the 48-year-old said her problems began soon after starting in her post as national calls operator in the central crimes bureau.
When the bureau lost seven members of staff to other departments, she claimed “crimes were going unrecorded in their hundreds”.
Mrs Frances said on one day there were “13 outstanding warrants” which had failed to be recorded into the Police National Computer (PNC), when a warrant was meant to be logged within two hours.
“The warrants were being left, they were being neglected,” she said.
More than 3,000 penalty points and stolen property lists were also being “left for long periods of time”, she said.
Mrs Francis told the tribunal she felt intimidated by work colleagues.
After making a complaint regarding the alleged intimidation, Mrs Francis was given a mobile phone number to call at times when management were not present and she felt threatened.
Mrs Francis was employed by the police between October 2005 and September, 2007, although she was off on sick leave from April 24, 2007, until her resignation.
Cleveland Police denies the claims.
* Proceeding.
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Jan 28 2009
Cleveland Police: Gillian Matthews
Posted: under Cleveland Police, Extradition, Extradition Act 2003, Lancet Files, News, Suzanne Holdsworth.
No UK trial to establish evidence of supplying global crystal-meth labs By Billy Briggs.
A SCOTS couple who have four children face the possibility of prison and extradition to America next month despite having not stood trial in a court for the crime of which they are accused.
In a case that highlights the controversial impact on British justice of the post-9/11 extradition treaty signed between the UK and the US, Brian and Kerry Howes of Bo’ness, West Lothian, are facing extradition to America on allegations of supplying chemicals over the internet in a conspiracy to produce crystal meth.
The couple, who deny the charges, face a preliminary extradition hearing at the high court in Edinburgh on January 14. They fear they will be remanded in custody and their four children will go into care ahead of their removal to America.
Under the terms of the treaty, the US can apply to have someone extradited without any trial taking place in the UK. On signing the Extradition Act 2003, the then home secretary, David Blunkett, removed the obligation on US law enforcement agencies to present British courts with prima facie evidence of criminality. Thanks to the Royal Prerogative, the treaty became law without parliamentary debate, which means that the US must only provide “written information” relating to an alleged wrongdoing.
Crystal meth - a form of amphetamine that has been crystallised so that it can be smoked - is a highly dangerous and addictive drug that has pervaded the poorer sections of American society for the past 20 years. Pseudoephedrine, iodine and red phosphorus are the three main chemicals required to make the drug, which produces a high that may last 12 hours or more.
Brian Howes - an amateur pyrotechnician who sold chemicals in the UK legally - denies that he and his wife broke the law by selling iodine and red phosphorus through their internet business. But federal prosecutors at the Drug Enforcement Agency in Arizona allege they were part of a drugs racket supplying a global network of meth labs in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries.
Howes said their children will have to go into care if they are remanded in custody and that his wife, Kerry, is 23 weeks pregnant and faces giving birth to their fifth child on a chain gang in Arizona. “We just want a fair trial in the UK but that is not going to happen as the extradition treaty replaces the word evidence’ with information’ - and information is accepted as true, that is the wording of the act. We have no faith in these proceedings as the files from our previous solicitors have not arrived with our current solicitors after three months, so no defence has been able to be mounted.
“In England, people are bailed right up to the House of Lords and then the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), but we will be remanded during or after the high court hearing in Edinburgh. We need help with a fund to fight in the ECHR and then we may have a chance of bail. The Scottish legal aid system does not pay for this - in England it is even afforded to people who have confessed to a crime.”
While a passionate debate raged across Britain about the 42-day limit for terror suspects, Brian, 44, and, Kerry-Ann, 30, previously spent 214 days on remand in prison, a detention that lasted five times longer than the proposed terror suspect threshold passed by the House of Commons in June but recently rejected by the House of Lords.
People can be held on remand indefinitely under the extradition treaty.
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Dec 28 2008