Kite surfer in 'distress' rescued from sea off Mersea Island
The man was brought to shore safely and given medical checks, police said.
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The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Iraqi businessman granted asylum in UK ‘led billion-dollar oil smuggling plot to help fund Iran's terror state'
AN IRAQI businessman granted asylum in the UK has been accused of running a billion dollar oil smuggling plot to finance global terrorism and domestic tyranny by Iran. The Trump administration claims Salim Ahmed Said, 47, has been running a network of firms passing off Iranian oil as a product of Iraq to avoid sanctions for at least five years. Trucks full of cash made from the scheme have allegedly been sent to Iran to finance the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Iraqi Kurd Said became a British citizen after seeking refuge from the Saddam Hussein regime in the UK in the early 2000s. He owns a £27 million hotel in Kensington, West London, and runs two British companies blacklisted by the US Treasury. Said was placed under US sanctions on July 3 but UK authorities so far do not appear to have taken action against him. The US government said that some of the money from the plot had benefited the IRGC's elite Quds Force, a designated terrorist organisation which leads Tehran's overseas operations. The Quds Force is suspected of kidnapping and assassination plots in Britain, the US and Europe and supports terror groups including Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthi movement, and Shia militias in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. US Treasury documents state: 'Salim Ahmed Said runs a network of companies that have been selling Iranian oil falsely declared as Iraqi oil since at least 2020. 'Said's companies use ship-to-ship transfers and other obfuscation techniques to hide their activities. 'Said's companies and vessels blend Iranian oil with Iraqi oil, which is then sold to Western buyers, via Iraq or the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as purely Iraqi oil using forged documentation to avoid sanctions.' 1
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Top detective Colin Sutton who caught serial killer Levi Bellfield and Night Stalker rapist becomes police and crime adviser to Reform UK
A detective who caught some of Britain's worst rapists and murderers has joined Nigel Farage 's mission to clean up 'lawless Britain', the Mail can reveal. Colin Sutton, who led the hunt for serial killer Levi Bellfield and 'Night Stalker' rapist Delroy Grant, has been appointed Reform UK's first police and crime adviser. The former detective chief inspector will develop the party's pledge to halve crime in five years by hiring 30,000 extra police and investigating every reported offence. Leader Mr Farage said: 'Colin Sutton will be a huge asset to Reform UK.' In an interview with the Mail, Mr Sutton - who was played by Martin Clunes in the TV drama Manhunt, about the investigations into Bellfield and Grant - set out more of the measures he believes will clean up Britain's streets, restore public trust in police and make joining the force a more attractive career. He would give all frontline officers Tasers, reopen 300 mothballed police stations, and stop police investigating online spats. Mr Sutton, 64, said: 'Absolute respect to the young men and women who serve their communities and do the job, but do they actually do it because they want to be policing Twitter, or because they want to catch burglars and rapists and robbers?' He said 'a police station with a blue lamp' would be a reassuring sight for people walking in boarded-up town centres at night. He said he would even consider scrapping some of the laws against online abuse, adding: 'I don't mean hate or incitement, but people who are abused, let's make it like a watered-down version of defamation, then you can sue in the civil court. 'Don't give them legal aid and see how many feelings are hurt then. 'I accept that persistent and horrible abuse on social media can be very distressing and cause real problems psychologically. 'There's got to be better ways of dealing with it than sending half a dozen officers round.' Mr Farage said he wanted 'big, strapping' officers, but Mr Sutton said the best two police officers he ever worked with were women, and that at one stage 14 out of the 30 detectives in his murder squad were female. Mr Sutton joined the Tory Party as a teenager in Enfield, north London, but like all new recruits he was required to cease political activism when he joined the Met. He said he and many fellow officers would never forgive the Tories for the cuts imposed by Theresa May when she was home secretary, saying she and former prime minister David Cameron's government did 'more harm to policing than anybody ever'. He claims some chief constables would 'breathe a sigh of relief' under a Reform government. Mr Sutton joined Reform when Mr Farage returned to lead the party at last year's general election. He said: 'It's not about power, it's not about status or anything like that - it's about actually making a difference.'
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army review – the eye-opening tale of a national shame
Nobody wants to be in a cult. That includes the people who are in cults – which is why they tend to claim they're nothing of the sort. Founded in 1970s Northamptonshire by lay pastor and self-anointed prophet Noel Stanton, the Jesus Fellowship – or the Jesus Army, as it came to be known in the late 1980s – was a case in point. And, for the 3,500 members it had accrued by the late 2000s, there was clearly something deeply appealing about the organisation unrelated to its ability to brainwash and control its followers (contraband included crisps and books). It served the needs of a certain kind of Christian: to have an accessible, welcoming church, to live communally with people who shared their values, to be given direction by a charismatic leader, to belong. To outsiders, however, it always seemed inordinately sinister. Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army is crammed with half a century's worth of British media to prove it: from tabloid articles ('Cult Crazy' ran one headline, which drew parallels with the recent Jonestown massacre) to news items (a 1970s report about the strange deaths of two members) to programmes such as 1998 talk show For The Love Of… in which Jon Ronson goggles as members explain their 'virtue names' (one man is 'watchman'; a young woman called Sarah is 'submissive'). As late as 2014, we see Grayson Perry singing along wryly with their hymns in his Channel 4 series Who Are You? The details that troubled the public imagination were myriad: for some it was the ecstatic singing and speaking in tongues; for the 1970s newsreader it was only natural to be suspicious of such a 'highly committed' and 'insular' group. Then there was Stanton, pantomime baddie-like with mad eyes, wispy grey hair and an extremely creepy smile. In footage spanning many decades, we see him preaching in an eerie whisper and spouting grotesque soundbites such as 'now we give our genitals to Jesus'. Embedded in this grim fascination was the hunch that something was seriously awry. It was. While the Jesus Army claimed to be a haven for Christians, it was actually a haven for paedophiles – including, allegedly, Stanton himself – giving them ample opportunity and permission to abuse children while making barely any effort to hide their actions. This two-part documentary gives us some sense of why the Jesus Army attracted – and perhaps even created – abusers: it was a microcosm of a fastidiously patriarchal society, it attracted those already vulnerable (Sarah joined after losing both her parents), it deliberately courted teens, it weaponised the concept of sin, it demanded unquestioning loyalty and devotion. Yet the focus here is on the victims; the programme meshes a chronology of the movement with a group therapy session involving four adult survivors. Initially, these ex-members (the Jesus Army closed down in 2019) are encouraged to process the idea that they spent their formative years in a cult. It's not until the middle of the second hour-long instalment that they discuss the abuse they suffered. As a genre, true crime can spread awareness, bust taboos and breed empathy, especially when survivors are able to articulate the impact the misdeeds had on their own lives. But this is always tempered by a certain exploitation, recasting vulnerable people's trauma as entertainment. As the camera lingers on these tearful men and women – after teasing their revelations over almost 80 minutes of nauseating tension – it feels as if the programme has failed to pull off that particular balancing act. And yet, anybody hoping to draw attention to the way sexual assault is dealt with in this country needs some kind of sensational hook; countless accounts of abuse, sickening as they are, clearly aren't enough. Alongside the shocking statistics presented – 539 members accused of abuse, approximately one in six children sexually abused, only 11 people convicted – we get an understanding of the patchwork response to these crimes. There was a relatively brief investigation by police in the mid-2010s, which began by chance and ended in frustration when the elders closed ranks; a Facebook group was set up by Philippa – who felt ostracised after reporting an abuser to the police when she was 12 – to gather testimony; and now this documentary, for all its uncomfortable use of distraught victims, which brings the scandal to a wider audience. It feels like plugging holes in a sieve. Despite all the superficial weirdness on display – watch as picturesque farmhouses are converted into nuclear family-crushing communes, as people in polyester jumpers writhe and groan on the floor, as sparsely attended raves get a Christ-based spin – the lasting message of this documentary is depressingly familiar. As a society, we do not have an effective way of bringing the perpetrators of sexual assault to justice. The Jesus Army may be a thing of the past, but this remains a national shame. Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army aired on BBC Two and is available on iPlayer.
