Probation breach lands Milford Haven man with unpaid work order
TWO vape shops in Pembrokeshire have been forced to close for three months after enforcement officers seized illegal tobacco products and cash during a council-led operation.
KR Vapes in Milford Haven and Vape Zone in Haverfordwest—both operated by the same owner—were the subject of closure orders granted at Haverfordwest Magistrates' Court on Thursday (May 1).
The orders were made under Section 80 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. Although the legislation is often associated with nuisance behaviour, in this case it was used by Pembrokeshire County Council to prevent further illegal sales of tobacco and related goods.
A council-led investigation led to the seizure of a large quantity of cigarettes at KR Vapes on Charles Street, Milford Haven. A local witness told The Herald they saw officers leaving the premises with 'large clear evidence bags full of cigarette packets.'
It is understood the products seized were either counterfeit or unlawfully imported foreign brands, not legally available for sale in the UK.
The owner of both shops, who spoke to The Herald on condition of anonymity, claimed that approximately £3,000 in cash was also seized during the raid on the Milford Haven store.
No criminal charges have been brought at this stage. The court heard only that notices had been served on both shops on April 16, and that the council was taking action to stop further unlawful trading while investigations continue.
The owner had previously told this newspaper that he hoped to re-open in 30 days, but those hopes have now been dashed.
The closure orders apply to the entirety of both premises.
Entry is prohibited to all persons at all times unless specifically authorised in writing by Pembrokeshire County Council.
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The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Operation Broadcroft: Police Scotland refuse to reveal costs
He said the investigation was looking into claims that a 'very, very senior civil servant - Mr James Hynd - gave a false statement on oath at the inquiry'. When the former First Minister and Alba Party leader died suddenly, aged 69, in North Macedonia in October last year it was not clear if and for how long the police investigation into the matter would continue. But The Herald revealed in June that the investigation was still ongoing. READ MORE: Following our report, this newspaper asked the force under freedom of information legislation details on the cost of the inquiry, how many officers were involved and the date the inquiry began. However, our request for the cost and the number of officers working on the inquiry was refused by Police Scotland on the grounds the force does not have the information "In response to your request, I can advise you that the information sought is not held by Police Scotland and section 17 of the Act therefore applies," Police Scotland told The Herald. "By way of explanation, the total costs relating to any investigation, both relating to the investigation itself and the number of hours involved, are difficult to quantify as the nature of policing means that officers are deployed to wherever their services are most required. "Furthermore, the number of officers required throughout an investigation will fluctuate and officers involved in a particular investigation, or multiple investigations, can be redeployed to other duties at any time, dependant on their skillsets." It continued: "Police Scotland may keep limited records for investigations, which record overtime costs and non-pay costs. These costs do not provide an accurate reflection of the total number of hours spent on an investigation nor do they provide, for the reasons stated above, an accurate cost for an investigation. "The costs do not include, for example, officer hours where that officer would have been on duty anyway and as such are not recorded as a specific expense to a particular investigation." Alex Salmond giving evidence to the Holyrood inquiry into how the Scottish Government handled complaints against him. (Image: PA) The force also refused to release the date the inquiry started on the basis this information could "prejudice" the probe. Outlining its decision, the force's freedom of information officer told The Herald: "The information sought is held by Police Scotland, but I am refusing to provide it in terms of section 16(1) of the Act on the basis that the section 34(1)(b) – Investigations, exemption applies. "Information is considered exempt from disclosure if it has at any time been held by Police Scotland for the purposes of an investigation which may lead to a decision to make a report to the Procurator Fiscal to enable it to be determined whether criminal proceedings should be instituted. The matter you are enquiring about is subject to a live police enquiry. "This exemption is non-absolute and requires the application of the public interest test. I do appreciate that there is a degree of interest in the release of the information you have requested and that to do so would help inform public debate on policing in Scotland. "However, it is essential that any release of information does not interfere or prejudice enquiries or risk such enquiries in the future. To do so would put the enquiries at risk and to do so would be vastly against the public interest. The balance lies in withholding the information requested at this time." The Herald is seeking a review of the decision. READ MORE: [[Alba]] leader Kenny MacAskill, a former [[Scottish Government]] justice secretary, criticised Police Scotland for withholding the information from [[The Herald]]. "Utterly ridiculous and deeply disturbing," he said before making reference to other inquiries around how complaints against Mr Salmond were handled. Last year the Information Commissioner criticised the [[Scottish Government]] relating to a legal battle around freedom of information requests about Irish lawyer James Hamilton's report into Nicola Sturgeon. Mr Hamilton's inquiry was into whether Ms Sturgeon broke the ministerial code when her predecessor Mr Salmond was being investigated for sexual harassment by the Scottish Government. She was not found to have breached the code. "The investigations relating to the Holyrood inquiry and Alex Salmond grow murkier by the hour. "We've a government which was found to have been acting illegally by the court and which has had to be brought to heel by the information commissioner. "Whether it's the redaction of documents or the denial of legitimate information the tale of obfuscation and what appears a cover up continues unabated. "Police Scotland is though independent and separate from government abd openness and transparency are required in this of all cases." Police Scotland has previously given details about the cost of Operation Branchform, the inquiry into the SNP's finances, including when the investigation was ongoing. Operation Branchform ended in March with the inquiry costing the force £2.2million. The police investigation was launched in July 2021 following a number of complaints and concluded in March this year. During that 44 month period [[Nicola Sturgeon]] resigned as First Minister and [[SNP]] leader in February 2023 and was succeeded by Humza Yousaf. In April that year, Ms Sturgeon's husband and former [[SNP]] Chief Executive Peter Murrell was arrested. He was later charged by Police Scotland and appeared in court in March this year on one charge of embezzlement where he made no plea and was granted bail. No date has yet been given for his second court appearance. During Operation Branchform Ms Sturgeon was also arrested and questioned, as was Colin Beattie, the former SNP treasurer. However the police investigations against both ended in March with no charges or further action against either. Operation Broadcroft is into evidence given by Mr Hynd, who was the Scottish Government's head of cabinet, parliament and governance at the time, into the Holyrood inquiry in 2020 which probed how the Scottish Government handled complaints of sexual harassment made against Mr Salmond. The former First Minister was later cleared of all of the charges against him in a separate criminal trial. The Court of Session was told in August 2024 that detectives were probing evidence given to the Scottish Parliament inquiry by Mr Hynd, The probe by a committee of MSPs - formally called the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints - concluded in March 2021 that the government investigation into Mr Salmond was 'seriously flawed". During his evidence to the parliamentary inquiry Mr Salmond alleged that there was a conspiracy among senior SNP figures, including Ms Sturgeon to imprison him. Ms Sturgeon has strongly denied the claim. The Court of Session action was launched by Mr Salmond in November 2023 to seek "significant damages" and compensation for loss of earnings reportedly worth £3 million. The sum would be in addition to the £500,000 that Mr Salmond was awarded in legal costs after a judge said in 2019 that the government investigation into the allegations against him had been 'unlawful in respect that they were procedurally unfair" and also "tainted with apparent bias". Mr Salmond's lawyer Gordon Dangerfield told the Court of Session last August that the Police Scotland investigation into Mr Hynd was called Operation Broadcroft and was being headed by a senior detective. Mr Dangerfield told the court hearing at the time: 'I can advise that the ongoing Police Scotland investigation is named Operation Broadcroft. It is led by senior investigating officer Detective Superintendent Graham Lannigan." Mr Hynd was responsible for drawing up the government's policy on the handling of complaints involving former and current ministers - the policy under which Mr Salmond was investigated. The Scottish Government has previously said would not comment on a live police investigation or on individual staffing matters. Police Scotland was approached for comment.
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Can the Bitcoin Batman save Bedford? He's seen his hometown ravaged by shoplifting, drug abuse and homelessness. Now he's splashing his own cash to make the streets safe
A life-size bronze statue of Bedford's most famous son, John Bunyan, stands at the end of the high street – a stone's throw from the prison where he wrote his best known work, The Pilgrim's Progress. Today, some 360 years after he was banged up for preaching in public, the God-fearing author, whose Christian allegory was set to music in the hymn To Be A Pilgrim, is facing a tough crowd. By 4pm, the nearby park benches have been entirely taken over by alcoholics. 'Come here at the right time and there will be 20 or 30 of them,' says my guide, local businessman Peter McCormack. 'They'll be shouting or fighting or harassing people who walk past.' Another group of undesirables can be found at the bus station, where aggressive begging is the order of the day, while visitors to Bedford's pedestrianised shopping precinct have to negotiate doorways filled with the belongings of rough sleepers. Down an alley next to his town centre coffee shop, McCormack shows me a courtyard where drug addicts gather after dark. It contains small piles of rubbish and the remains of burned mattresses. 'From time to time, people leave used needles here too,' he says. 'This is the centre of town, but there's anti-social behaviour everywhere. Dealers on e-bikes. Crackheads who'll run up and shout in your face. People shooting up in stairwells. Alcoholics in the parks. 'No wonder the shops are all closing and the place looks like a s***hole. People who don't feel safe won't come and spend their money, will they?' On the basis of our tour, McCormack certainly seems to have a point. In theory, the centre of Bedford – a commuter town with 185,000 inhabitants and 20 churches, which lies just 40 minutes from London's St Pancras station, and where suburban executive homes fetch upwards of £1m – ought to be bustling and prosperous. In reality, it's a case study in modern civic decay. Dozens of stores, including an entire arcade, lie empty. Large chain stores, such as Debenhams, are long gone, along with The Body Shop and Marks & Spencer, its former premises now occupied by a B&M discount shop. Graffiti covers shuttered windows. Several bank branches have closed, together with the once-imposing police station, which has been replaced by a comically tiny 'community hub'. The only businesses which seem to be doing a decent trade are vape stores, takeaways and a large Wetherspoons pub, The Pilgrim's Progress, where you can buy a pint of Ruddles Best for the bargain price of £1.79. 'When I was a lad, I used to walk around Bedford and feel totally safe,' says McCormack. 'Now I've got a daughter who's 15 and I won't let her do the same thing. That's a problem. 'There's a plague of addiction and crime, shoplifting is a real problem, and the whole place looks a mess. 'The other day, one of the shopkeepers sent me a message saying, 'There's a guy running round off his face, exposing himself.' Who wants to come shopping in a place like that?' The same could, of course, be said for many of Britain's town centres, which have been in decline for a generation – thanks to the rise of online shopping and out-of-town retail parks and being ravaged by the pandemic, and now having to survive in a world where Chancellor Rachel Reeves is taxing shopkeepers to the hilt. The justice system has also more or less given up on enforcing laws against shoplifting, casual drug use and other petty crime. Yet McCormack, a heavily tattooed 46-year-old, who has made a small fortune in Bitcoin and for years hosted cryptocurrency's most successful podcast, is determined he will not sit back and watch his town go to the dogs. Instead, today – and every Saturday this month – he will pay for ten private security guards to patrol the streets of Bedford, armed with body cameras and radios, to help deter crime, hostile begging, drug-taking, public drunkenness and other anti-social behaviour. The £10,000 initiative, which has seen him dubbed 'Bitcoin's first Batman', is designed to entice shoppers back to the town. He also runs a variety of businesses including the Auction Room bar and Real Coffee, a cafe which doubles up as the club shop of Real Bedford, the local non-league football club which he co-owns with Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the American twins who co-founded Facebook and have since made billion-dollar fortunes in crypto. 'People tell me they won't come to Bedford because the town centre looks like a s***hole and is dangerous,' he says. 'Every year, we see more crackheads, more aggressive beggars, more shoplifters. Women are being harassed, shops are closing and families no longer feel safe. McCormack, a heavily tattooed 46-year-old, who has made a small fortune in Bitcoin and for years hosted cryptocurrency's most successful podcast, is determined he will not sit back and watch his town go to the dogs 'I've been saying for ages that if the police won't fix it, then I will do it for them. They haven't, so here we are.' McCormack's patrolmen are instructed to act as the equivalent of 'scarecrows', deterring crime by their presence. They will follow known criminals, including shoplifters, report law-breaking to the police and, on occasions where they witness a potentially dangerous incident, have been instructed to intervene. 'I've travelled to a lot of failed states, places like El Salvador or Venezuela, and you get parallel institutions, where people take responsibility for their own security. You see it in South Africa, with gated communities. That's what we are doing here in Bedford. 'I am sick of the decline. I don't think the police can sort it. Too much tape and bureaucracy. So I am going to put my money where my mouth is. 'In a few years' time, Bedford is either going to look like Stoke, or like Bath, and I don't want it to be Stoke.' The project is not without controversy. Some have accused McCormack of talking Bedford down, while the county's police and crime commissioner, John Tizard, has described his project as 'political stunt'. Mr Tizard says anti-social behaviour is 'at a long-term low in Bedford town centre' and he argues that 'keeping our town centres safe is the responsibility of publicly accountable police and local authorities, not private individuals.' McCormack promptly hit back on X, where he boasts nearly 600,000 followers, telling Mr Tizard: 'You are a weak man and you should resign.' His combative way with words will be familiar to listeners of his podcast, which has seen him interview well-known figures and activists from across the political spectrum, including Liz Truss, Ann Widdecombe, George Galloway and the US military whistleblower Chelsea Manning, or those who have followed his topsy-turvy career. As his unusual life story attests, he is quite the disrupter. Raised by a nurse and an aircraft engineer, who 'worked all hours' to send him to Bedford Modern, a local private school, McCormack says that being 'a poor kid among rich kids' forced him to develop an entrepreneurial streak – selling football stickers and marbles at the school gates before setting up a heavy metal music fanzine to get free tickets to gigs. The project is not without controversy. Some have accused McCormack of talking Bedford down, while the county's police and crime commissioner, John Tizard, has described his project as 'political stunt' At Buckinghamshire New University in the late 1990s, he taught himself how to build a website for the publication. Then his landlord, who ran a window company, paid him £450 to create one for their business. A local recruitment business also offered him £2,000 to build its website. Within a few months, he'd abandoned his studies and moved to London, where a dotcom firm had offered him a £1,000-a-week job. In 2007, he started his own agency with a friend, titled McCormack & Morrison. It specialised in web design, social media and marketing and quickly grew to 35 staff, generating a turnover of about £3m a year. But in 2014, McCormack's marriage to the mother of his two children collapsed and following the divorce, his life went spectacularly off the rails. 'I basically got addicted to cocaine,' he says. 'I went hard. To the point where I was taking a gram a day and drinking heavily every night. There's doing the drug at parties or in a bar in London on Friday night, and there's doing it at 11am because your head's gone. And I was the latter.' There followed a 'Jerry Maguire' moment where he sabotaged his successful career. 'I felt like I was constantly trying to sell people shit they didn't need and lying. So I wrote this article headlined 'Online advertising doesn't work', published it and walked out.' Then, having sold the remnants of his business for £180,000, he decided to hit the cocaine even harder, sparking a downward spiral. He was eventually hospitalised, his heart beating at over 200 beats a minute, with a suspected heart attack Luckily, it turned out to be the less serious supraventricular tachycardia, an arrhythmia triggered by drug consumption. But the near-miss persuaded McCormack to clean himself up. Ignoring doctors, who had advised him to take antidepressants, he bought some running shoes, temporarily turned vegan, quit booze and began jogging every day. While pounding the streets of Bedford, McCormack began listening to podcasts by Rich Roll, an American former drug addict- turned ultra-endurance athlete and healthy living influencer. A friendship ensued and, in 2017, he asked Roll for advice on how to start a career in podcasting. 'He basically told me, 'Pick a subject and stick with it,'' McCormack says. 'I had come across Bitcoin in the past because I'd used it to buy cocaine. I thought, 'That'll do.' So I got on a plane and flew to America to interview people in the industry.' Later that year, he launched a podcast called What Bitcoin Did. In the Bitcoin boom which followed, it became the world's most successful crypto podcast, making roughly £10m in advertising revenue and turning McCormack – who invested much of the profits in the online currency – into a very wealthy man indeed. In 2021, he spent a portion of his fortune on Bedford FC, which was languishing in the tenth tier of the non-league pyramid. They were rebranded as Real Bedford, with a skull and crossbow logo, and marketed as the world's first 'Bitcoin club', where fans can pay in crypto and staff and players can take wages in it. Games were streamed online to followers of McCormack's podcast, who spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on merchandise. Consecutive promotions followed and then, in February, the Winklevoss twins came on board. The brothers, who in 2004 sued their Harvard contemporary Mark Zuckerberg for stealing their idea for a social media website (he settled for $65m and actor Armie Hammer starred as the twins in the film The Social Network), have since made billion-dollar fortunes in crypto and had been meeting McCormack to discuss collaborations with his podcast. They were apparently fascinated by the concept – alien to American sport and which revolves around closed shop franchises – that a small local team could potentially be promoted to the Premier League. They agreed to pay £3.6m for a 45 per cent stake. Real Bedford has since been promoted and will start this season in English football's seventh tier. What is less clear, of course, is how deep someone's pockets need to be to sort out a town like Bedford. 'We need people to come to town, buy stuff and mooch around shops,' McCormack says. 'That starts by making them actually feel safe here' McCormack, meanwhile, describes himself as a 'budget Ryan Reynolds' after the Hollywood star who owns Wrexham AFC and whose story is the subject of hit Disney+ series Welcome To Wrexham. 'You can buy pretty much any league, depending on how deep your pockets are,' is how he puts it. What is less clear, of course, is how deep someone's pockets need to be to sort out a town like Bedford. 'We need people to come to town, buy stuff and mooch around shops,' he says. 'That starts by making them actually feel safe here. There are loads of rich people round here but, at the moment, they spend their money in London or Cambridge. 'I have this thing I tell people: that if half the people who live in town spent just a tenner a week more here, that would add up to £50m a year. 'Imagine what that could achieve. A few security guards might not instantly fix Bedford, or any other town for that matter. But it's got to be a start.
Leader Live
11 hours ago
- Leader Live
Tulip Siddiq has had no ‘official confirmation' of Bangladesh trial, say lawyers
The Labour MP is due to face corruption allegations in the country on August 11, according to media reports. In April, it was reported that Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) had sought an arrest warrant over allegations that Ms Siddiq illegally received a 7,200 square feet plot of land in the country's capital, Dhaka. Ms Siddiq's aunt, Sheikh Hasina, served as prime minister of Bangladesh until she was ousted in the summer of 2024, since when she has been living in exile in India. A statement released by Ms Siddiq's lawyers attacked the 'longstanding politically motivated smear campaign'. 'For nearly a year now, the Bangladesh authorities have been making false allegations against Tulip Siddiq,' the statement said. 'Ms Siddiq has not been contacted or received any official communication from the court and does not and has never owned any plot of land in Purbachal. 'This longstanding politically motivated smear campaign has included repeated briefings to the media, a refusal to respond to formal legal correspondence, and a failure to seek any meeting with or question Ms Siddiq during the recent visit by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to the United Kingdom. Such conduct is wholly incompatible with the standards of a fair, lawful, and credible investigation. 'In light of these facts, it is now time for the Chief Adviser and the ACC to end this baseless and defamatory effort to damage Ms Siddiq's reputation and obstruct her work in public service.' A source close to Ms Siddiq said that media reports published on Thursday were the first she had heard of the trial. The Hampstead and Highgate MP resigned from her ministerial job in the Treasury earlier this year following an investigation by the Prime Minister's ethics adviser into her links to Ms Hasina's regime, which was overthrown last year. She came under scrutiny over her use of properties in London linked to her aunt's allies. Although Sir Laurie Magnus concluded that she had not breached the Ministerial Code, he advised Sir Keir Starmer to reconsider Ms Siddiq's responsibilities. Ms Siddiq chose to resign, saying she had become 'a distraction' from the Government's agenda.
