Crime

Donald Trump has approved the execution by US army firing squad of Nidal Hasan, who was sentenced to death for killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a social media post.

Hasan, who was an army psychiatrist, would become the first US soldier to be executed by the US military in more than 60 years.

Parnell said in a post on X that defense secretary Pete Hegseth “has recommended – and President Donald J. Trump has approved – death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan”.

The other execution methods having little local problems at present….

No, don’t go on about hanging. The Septics have a terrible reputation for short drop asphyxiation, not long drop hanging.

As I’ve been known to point out this seems like a good thing:

AI-generated child sexual abuse material is proliferating online, with the amount of illegal material investigated this year already exceeding the total for 2025.

Analysts at the Internet Watch Foundation have found more photorealistic child sexual abuse material in the first half of 2026 than for the whole of the prior year. The UK-based IWF, which monitors abuse material globally, said it had assessed 6,310 AI images that met the legal definition of child sexual abuse, 40% higher than last year’s total of more than 4,500.

As best we know imagery is a substitute for, not complement to, illegal sexual activity. So, the more AI porn out there the less kiddie fiddling. Whether this should be so, is righteous to be so, is another matter, the best empirical evidence we’ve got says it is so.

Of course, the official demand is “Stop it!”.

The IWF said the figures underlined the need for new statutory regulation on AI.

Sigh.

At first, Combs and his legal team issued blanket denials. The lawsuit, they said, had followed an attempt by Ventura to blackmail Combs, and was “riddled with baseless and outrageous lies”. Despite this, they settled it immediately with a $20m sum, but within days more women came forward. A second lawsuit was filed one week after Ventura’s, by Joi Dickerson-Neal, which alleged that, as a student in 1991, she had been drugged and raped by Combs, who had filmed the alleged assault and shared it with other men. Days later came another. In this, Anna Kane alleged that Combs and two others had gang-raped her in 2003 when she was 17. As the cases piled up, Combs’s team continued the denials – describing the lawsuits as “money grabs”. Then a leaked video forced them to change tack. Security footage from a Los Angeles hotel taken in March 2016 showed Cassie Ventura creeping from a room, pursued by Combs, who is wrapped in just a towel. He beats her, kicks her and drags her back.

OK. All of that so far is consistent with either story. Evil bastard doing evil things and dam breached and claims flooding in.

Now 56, he is serving a 50-month sentence for transporting people across state lines for prostitution.

The Mann Act? That’s what he’s actually been found guilty of?

Hmm.

The human race contains some right ones:

Here it’s mostly middle-aged men in “lifted” pickup trucks, which have been modified to be as loud and smoky as possible. Two local SUVs have been refitted to “roll coal” from twin exhaust towers mounted behind the cab, releasing a dense black cloud of soot when the driver hits the “smoke switch”.
….
There’s a similar racing culture in mid-Wales, where I lived until 2012. Night after night, a convoy of cars with exhausts modified to be as loud as possible would race past, at 50mph or more in a 30mph zone.

Some right ones.

In one of the poshest parts of London, the Chelsea Truck Company advertises “iconic urban 4x4s”. “Iconic” appears to mean huge. But what the hell is an “urban 4×4”? And why is it legal?

Therefore ban Land Rovers.

It is perhaps, a bit of a leap there. Why not, instead. jail the little scrotes actually causing the problems?

A government spokesperson said: “We have been clear from the start that the proceeds of the sale of Chelsea FC must be used for humanitarian causes in Ukraine. Roman Abramovich has yet to fulfil the commitment made at the time of the sale. The government is taking further steps to ensure that promise is kept, including continuing preparations for potential legal action if necessary.

We all agree that Chelsea did belong to Abramovich. He sold it, the money’s in the bank.

OK.

By what right is the govt able to insist upon how it is spent? Yes, yes, I know, Putin’s Hitler, Roman is his handmaid and all that. But by what exact legal process and right does the govt control this money? We aren’t at war, he’s not an enemy alien etc etc.

So is there some new found power of the UK govt to just nick stuff because someone’s a bad ‘un? And if there is might not that be something we might want to worry about?

A ‘violent’ air passenger was duct-taped to his seat in the US after attacking another traveller and racially abusing a flight attendant.

Arthur Lundeen, 67, of Arizona, allegedly began choking the person next to him two hours into an American Airlines flight between Texas and Newark, New Jersey, on Friday, witnesses claimed.

Of course, an Englishman would already have been informed by the campaign here to show that choking is Bad, M’Kay, and therefore would not have done that.

It’s that burden of Empire again, having to show the Fuzzie Wuzzies how to behave.

Banks pay Post Office Ltd for providing services on their behalf, which helped it to post revenues of £309m from “banking and ATMs” in its 2024-5 accounts. That was more than a third of its revenues for that year, and only slightly less than it earned from handling the mail. In fact, Post Office Ltd may already be making more money from deposits and withdrawals than it does from its traditional business. As the former insider joked: “We should start calling it the Bank Office.”

From a rather good Guardian piece on cash money laundering.

The punters of Monaghans seafront bar had barely finished watching the Nations League final on 8 June when a car pulled up outside. A masked gunman emerged and headed to the table of 46-year-old Eddie Lyons Jr, shooting him at point-blank range. The assassin turned the gun on Lyons’ friend, the bar’s owner Ross Monaghan, 43, but it jammed.

Grainy CCTV captured Monaghan racing inside the bar, pursued by the gunman, and falling to the ground, where he was shot three times while crawling on his hands and knees. The shooter fled the scene and, allegedly, the country too.

This double murder in a public place was the apex of 25 bloody years of feuding between two Glasgow families and their allies in organised crime: the most untouchable gang in Scotland, the Lyons, and their bitter rivals, the Daniels.

As I recall BiS got very sniffy about that bar.

Quite right too – who would want to buy Guinness off Scots?

The former president of the Robert Burns World Federation had already been convicted in 1991 of abusing two boys aged eight and 10 when he worked as a council youth worker in Renfrew.

Most people arrested during violent protests after the sentencing of Henry Nowak’s murderer had previously been reported to the police for domestic abuse, the Guardian can disclose.

Data released by Hampshire police under freedom of information laws shows that 22 of 37 people (59%) detained in Southampton after Vickrum Digwa was jailed for life have been reported for crimes associated with intimate partner violence.

So, why? Are most men in Southampton so convicted or reported? Are the demos from that type who are? Did the police just arrest the familiar* faces?

*See what I did there?

The arrogance of some politicians:

Surrogacy in Germany is illegal, and the CDU is clearly opposed to the practice.
..
Spahn certainly misread the room. In Februaru, at the annual party conference, CDU members voted to to keep the surrogacy prohibition, including when the practice is unpaid, “to prevent abuse, exploitation and health risks”.

Spahn had sat there, knowing a woman in the US was carrying a child that would become his, and had not said a word. After he revealed his paternity, in a podcast interview meant to calm the waves of criticism, he said that he couldn’t explain why he did not speak up then. He acknowledged the discrepancy between his private choices and the politics he supported, as well as the fact that most people would not be able to pay to bypass the law as he did. (Surrogacy in the US costs at least $100,000.)

Antinomianism. I’m speshul, me.

Now, whether it should all be illegal, well, but as it is…..

Not knowing all the details, well:

A British woman who accused a banker of rape in Hong Kong has been jailed for six years for blackmail and perverting the course of public justice.
Isabel Rose, a 26-year-old events manager from south-east London, accused a fellow Briton of rape after visiting him in January 2024.
But the accused was released without charge, while Rose was arrested and charged before being found guilty by a district court in March.

Reading what is reported well, make up your own mind. But this:

Rose was accused of demanding money from the banker, who cannot be named for legal reasons, after she accused him of raping her.

Cannot be named. Quite right too. Anonymity should work for both sides or neither.

Patrick Spencer was seen on camera coming up behind two women and putting his arms around them at the private members’ club during a night out in August 2023, less than a year before he was elected to the seat of Central Suffolk and North Ipswich.

Spencer, 38, was accused of “cupping” the breasts of both women, who he did not know, before “fist pumping” towards his friends nearby.

During his police interview, Spencer apologised for grabbing hold of the two women – from behind – and conceded it was “not acceptable in this day and age”. At his trial at Southwark crown court, Spencer insisted that he had not touched the breasts of one of the women, while contact with the other woman had been unintentional.
…
Spencer is the son of Michael Spencer, a billionaire donor to the Conservative party. He told the court he had drunk red wine with his father at lunch, beers at Twickenham while watching an England rugby match, and drank wine and negroni cocktails at the members’ club.

Umm, well, I dunno.

Drunk slobbering over titties in a club is, well, yes, sexual, we can call it an assault, but “sexual assault”? According to the wimmins, yes. But what’s a crime runs into the wall of what society as a whole considers to be a crime. Drunks slobbering over titties might be something considered to be one of those things best met by a punch to the mouth. Or ejection, say. And the people who decide this are the jury. Or even, just one of those things.

No wonder they want juryless trials, right? How can you impose your vision upon society if there’s a roadblock of the commonplace wisdom?

My own view tends toward much of life being best managed by us, the people, rather than by the law. Which is rather Burkean, Hayekian, even, and it’s easy to mock that view too. So it’s open season on titties then, is it? For drunks you say? At which point I’m left mumbling well, but, yes, that is the best way large parts of life should be managed. By us in the right here and now.

Pfft.

Don’t clubs have steps people can be thrashed upon these days?

How a convicted fraudster became Andy Burnham’s right-hand woman

If every reference to George Cottrell is “th convicted moneylaunderer” or watever it is they’re using then and therefore:

Louise Haigh, the convicted fraudster.

Always, every reference.

A 26-year-old man arrested on suspicion of murdering Ann Widdecombe has been released.

The man was arrested on Friday but is no longer part of the investigation, Devon and Cornwall Police said on Saturday morning.

Prosecutors said Netflix initially paid Rinsch about $44m for “White Horse” in 2018 and 2019, then provided another $11m in 2020 after he said he needed more money to wrap up production.

But instead of putting that money toward the show, Rinsch steered the cash to a personal account and made a series of failed investments, losing approximately half the $11m in a couple of months, according to prosecutors and witnesses’ testimony.

They said he put the remaining funds into the cryptocurrency market, netting some profit, which Rinsch deposited into his own bank account.

Then came the lavish purchases, prosecutors said, with Rinsch buying five Rolls-Royces, a red Ferrari, $652,000 worth of watches and clothes, and the pricey mattresses, plus another $295,000 on luxury bedding and linens. In addition, he used some of the money to pay off about $1.8m in credit card bills, prosecutors said.

Seriously, that’s some spending:

household goods, including $638,000 on two mattresses.

He’s not even a soon to be ex-wife.

Sheesh.

Scotland Yard has identified more than 4,000 grooming gang cases that may need to be reinvestigated, The Telegraph can reveal.
The Metropolitan Police has been carrying out a major audit of group-based sexual abuse in London dating back to 2010, amid concern victims have been denied justice.
More than 12,000 alleged incidents were reported to the Met during the period being examined, and the review has found a third of them may need to be reopened.
The revelation comes despite Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, previously claiming there was “no indication” grooming gangs were operating in the capital.

But Sadiq assured us that etc etc.

I particularly dislike that particular politician. For no other reason that he is particularly a politician. Everything is about what boosts his power, his position, his post. Possibly that’s all unfair of me but it is what it is.

A man has been sentenced to three and a half years in jail after being convicted of assaulting two female police officers and a member of the public at a Starbucks in Manchester airport.

Doesn’t really seem enough, does it?

No, not to punish this individual, that’s not the point. Rather, to dissuade from belting coppers.

Cook said she was left “traumatised” by the attack, during which she was “terrified” and suffered “excruciating” pain. Amaaz’s punches, she said, had “such power behind them that I thought I was being attacked by three to four people”.

There is also the thought that perhaps we should go back to recruiting from the second row forwards classes. Would have been a bit different if it was Wade Dooley, no?

A man who fled to Pakistan before he was found guilty of raping vulnerable girls as young as 12 has been jailed for 27 years in his absence.
Amar Ilyas, 41, who used the nickname Killer, “remorselessly terrorised” girls in Sheffield, biting one victim and using a gun and threats of gang rape to coerce others he abused almost 20 years ago, detectives have said.
Jailing Ilyas in his absence on Monday,

So we have an extradition treaty then? One that works?

Judge Hampton contrasted this with the “cowardice” shown by the defendant, who fled to a different continent to avoid justice while he was on bail.

Perhaps bail should not have been offered? Flight risk and all that?

The brothers were arrested as part of the NCA’s Operation Stovewood, which is the investigation into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, although this offending mainly took place in nearby Sheffield.

Police suspect Peter Murrell used a six-figure loan to the SNP to “launder” the proceeds of his embezzlement spree, The Telegraph can disclose.
Officers who investigated the party’s finances are understood to believe that the £107,620 loan in June 2021 was an attempt by the then-chief executive of the SNP to disguise its stolen origins.
The SNP had repaid almost half of the money to Murrell by October of that year, meaning the funds going back into his account were washed “clean”.
It is understood that police also believe that the loan was an attempt by Murrell to “throw people off the scent” by appearing to help the party’s finances.

What, actually, is the allegation? That he took out a loan, gave the money to hte SNP, then they repaid it?

Or that he claimed there was a loan when there was not and the repayments then covered his thieving?

The Telegraph was told that it was common practice among embezzlers to put money back into the organisations they were stealing from to “throw people off the trail”.
Police sources alleged that Murrell was engaged in a “form of laundering”, using the £107,620 loan to “put money back in” to the SNP that he had previously stolen.
Electoral Commission records of the loan say that no interest was charged by Mr Murrell. A total of £47,620 was repaid to him in two instalments in August and October 2021.
The remaining £60,000 is still outstanding and is now not expected to be repaid by the party, given his embezzlement conviction.

Hmm.