Jamie Manderson banned"You have a flagrant disregard for the law. This the worst case of driving while disqualified, in total, we have come across.

Jamie Manderson, 35, was given another driving ban, this time for five years, after he pleaded guilty before magistrates in his home town of Swindon.The chief magistrate, Norman Ames, said: "You have a flagrant disregard for the law. This the worst case of driving while disqualified, in total, we have come across." He sentenced Manderson to 24 weeks in prison, plus eight weeks from a previously imposed suspended jail sentence.Manderson, a former nightclub bouncer, was first banned from driving in 1988 at the age of 15. He has never had a driving licence.He has 51 convictions for driving while disqualified, and 51 more for connected offences of driving without insurance. A raft of other previous convictions include aggravated vehicle taking and dangerous driving in 2004 and 2005.A decade ago,...

Read more »

Posted in: Jamie Manderson

£10,000 worth of cash and 719 items of stolen property have been recovered from homes, as well as around £5,000 of Class A drugs.

Operation Xantia, which took place in Boston, resulted in 44 arrests after police teams swooped on suppliers of the Class A drugs.The operation involved the execution of 35 warrants at addresses across Boston.And 12 of the 44 people arrested have been remanded in custody on drug charges. Thirteen have been bailed and the rest have either been released without charge, or pending further enquiries.Detective Chief Inspector Andy West, who headed up the operation, said: "I will be feeding back to my bosses in Lincoln about the success of the operation and about how other areas can learn from it."During Operation Xantia we have learned that there are links to other areas in Lincolnshire."This operation is the culmination of months of highly sensitive and detailed covert policing activity aimed...

Read more »

Posted in: Boston

‘card not present’ crime in the UK is far higher than official statistics suggest (1) and is getting worse. Over £500 million of fraud was attempted

Credit card fraud protection specialist, The 3rd Man, says that ‘card not present’ crime in the UK is far higher than official statistics suggest (1) and is getting worse. Over £500 million of fraud was attempted during 2007.This alarming figure shows that the appetite among fraudsters around the world to use the Internet for crime among UK retailers has far from diminished, and comes at a time when retailers need every penny of revenue they can get to cope with the effects of the global credit crunch.“Card not present fraud is a major problem which is not going away and clearly is getting worse as criminals increase their efforts to steal from retailers,” explains Paul Simms, CEO of the 3rd Man Group. “We aren’t just talking about petty thieves and opportunists here. This money also funds...

Read more »

Posted in: ‘card not present’ crime

Ten solicitors’ firms are being investigated with dozens of accident claims-handling companies for alleged insurance fraud.

Ten solicitors’ firms are being investigated with dozens of accident claims-handling companies for alleged insurance fraud. The investigation, reported in the Solicitors’ Journaltoday, is being undertaken by the Insurance Fraud Bureau. The alleged frauds involve law firms paying kickbacks to claims-handling companies for work. This is legal if it is open and transparent, but some of the claims turn out to be fraudulent. Law firms may be unaware that the claims being made are fraudulent but could still be guilty, according to the Insurance Fraud Bureau. Sue Jones, head of unit at the bureau, is urging partners of law firms to keep accurate records of clients and cases referred to them by claims management firms. “If you’ve paid a referral fee to a claims management company and you end up taking...

Read more »

Posted in: solicitors’ firms

Sex trafficking ring forced Thai women to pay debt bondages, of £28,000

Police believe they have smashed a sex trafficking ring after arresting 12 people in dawn raids.The vice squad said the gang used an escort agency website as a front for a network of brothels.They rescued 60 foreign women, mostly Thai, thought to have been kept as sex slaves after the gang paid their fares to Britain.More than 100 police raided addresses across London after a four-month investigation. They said: "Some were forced to pay the largest debt bondages we've seen, about £28,00...

Read more »

Posted in: London

Douglas Fleming walked free after a jury found the case not proven.

Douglas Fleming, 43, who was accused of trafficking millions of pounds worth of coke from Columbia via Antwerp in Belgium, walked free after a jury found the case not proven.Property and construction firm boss Fleming, who used to be an officer with Central Scotland Police, had been targeted in a two-year undercover operation.During the attempted sting, Fleming was followed to Antigua where he met alleged smuggler Martin Toner, 34.Toner was murdered and dumped in a field in Langbank in July 2004.He had been due to appear in court accused of importing cocaine.Throughout his trial, Fleming admitted knowing Toner but maintained their only common interest was property.An undercover Belgian cop - known only as Mike - alleged Fleming, calling himself Ben, called him to discuss importing Colombian...

Read more »

Posted in: Operation Backslider

Europe's largest sex-trafficker

Human trafficking networks and sex slavery gangs bring young women to the United Kingdom where they are “debt-bonded” and ordered to pay debts of up to £25,000 for travel and board. In order to pay off their "debt", the victims are sold between traffickers and forced into prostitution. Many commit suicide and of the survivors, a large number get infected with AIDS before they turn 20.Raids, have taken place over the past three days, uncovered a Moldovan-linked network of brothels and human trafficking which so far has led to the arrest of 15 people. They are suspected of being involved in an international criminal network managing people trafficking and prostitution, the Norwich Evening Post reports. Moldova, Europe's poorest country, is the...

Read more »

Posted in: Moldova

Sid Fillery, once a Metropolitan Police detective sergeant, was one of five men arrested yesterday in connection with the murder of Daniel Morgan

former Scotland Yard detective was being questioned last night on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a man whose brutal killing he investigated 21 years ago. Sid Fillery, once a Metropolitan Police detective sergeant, was one of five men arrested yesterday in connection with the murder of Daniel Morgan, a private detective, in March 1987. Morgan, 37, was found dead in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, southeast London, with an axe embedded in his head. The failure to catch Morgan’s killers has dogged the Metropolitan Police ever since. Five murder inquiries have been conducted, giving rise to allegations of corruption within police ranks and claims of a cover-up. Mr Fillery, 61, was a close contact of the dead man’s business partner, Jonathon Rees, and one of a number...

Read more »

Posted in: Metropolitan Police Authority

"professional smugglers"Bernard Hughes, 48, and Fionnuala Kelly, 39, both from Cathedral Road, Armagh, and Malachy Hughes, 54,

Three men and a woman who made £1.2m through smuggled fuel have been given the UK's first crime prevention orders. They will be barred from selling oil. Bernard Hughes, 48, and Fionnuala Kelly, 39, both from Cathedral Road, Armagh, and Malachy Hughes, 54, from the Portadown Road in the city received two years' imprisonment, suspended for five years, and had confiscation orders totalling £1.2m served against them. Michael Hughes, 58, from the Castleblaney Road, Keady, County Armagh, received nine months suspended for two years. s and their assets and bank accounts will be open to official inspection for the next five years. They ran a distribution company that moved fuel from the Republic of Ireland to supply four filling stations in Northern Ireland in November 2004. The four, described as...

Read more »

Posted in: Armagh