Man denies trying to incite armed uprising against government
Between 15 December 2020 and 29 September 2021, he allegedly discussed gathering a militia and weapons and attacking members of government and police.At the same time, Mr Martin allegedly possessed a dagger, a knife, two crossbows and arrows, which gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that he intended to use them for the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorist acts.He is also charged with possessing a weapon on 28 September 2021 that discharged a noxious liquid, gas or other thing, namely a stun gun.
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
QUENTIN LETTS: Step forward Comrades Corbyn and Sultana! It demands a special sort of dimness and self regard to make such a bungle of the launch of a new political party
Historians may – or, there again, may not – record that the Left's tectonic plates shifted at 8.11pm on Thursday. That was when Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana pressed the button on her electronic device and posted a message on X to say she was quitting Labour to 'co-lead the founding of a new party' with Jeremy Corbyn. 'The time is now,' announced Comrade Sultana, 31. 'We are not going to take this any more. In 2029 the choice will be stark: socialism or barbarism.' Barbarism! The balloon had gone up. Leftist civil war had been declared. It was 'action stations' and 'en garde' and 'red alert', with the emphasis on the red. A Leftist breakaway movement had been expected for months, rumours building like summer thunder clouds. On Wednesday evening, with Labour rocked by parliamentary divisions over welfare cuts and with crisis surrounding the future of that leaky bucket Rachel Reeves, Mr Corbyn revealed an inch of ankle on ITV. Interviewer Robert Peston asked the former Labour leader – who was ejected from his old party by his onetime lieutenant Sir Keir Starmer – if he was really going to start a new party. The Che Guevara of Islington North stroked his beardlet, sat back on his sofa with just a hint of prosperous tummy, and replied that there was 'a thirst' for such a venture and more would be disclosed anon. Twenty-four hours later young Zarah had activated the fission. Kaboom. The Great Leftist Split had been triggered. Or perhaps not. As yesterday's brave new dawn broke in north London it became evident that a small mushroom cloud had formed over Islington. Mr Corbyn, 76, had exploded in the most terrible bate. Ms Sultana, with youthful impatience, had jumped the gun. The dramatic reveal had been bungled. In political terms it was a case of what old-fashioned doctors used to call ejaculatio praecox. Despite Ms Sultana's 'the time is now' claim, the time was meant to have been later, possibly on the eve of the Labour Party conference in the autumn when it might have had considerably more impact. But now the semi-secret was out, and it was running up and down the cloisters of Westminster with nothing to cover its modesty. They may be socialist egalitarians but Lefties are just as good at hating each other as Brexity Right-wingers. If anything, they do it with less humour. You only had to look at the sulphurous scenes in the Commons during Tuesday's welfare debate. Even after the Government had caved in, Labour MPs such as Andy McDonald, Imran Hussain and Ian Lavery were foul to the Government. What they now must think of Zarah Sultana, one dreads to think. To launch a political party is quite something. To bungle the launch of one is even more of an achievement. It demands a special type of dimness, muddle and vaunting self-regard. Ms Sultana seems to have thought herself a sufficiently big raisin to break the news herself, only to have her veteran co-conspirator rage at her impetuosity. Once he had recovered his equilibrium Mr Corbyn himself issued a message on X yesterday lunchtime to say that 'real change is coming' (NB not yet) and that Ms Sultana would 'help us build a real alternative' to Labour. You will notice that is not quite the same as confirming that she would be 'co-leading' the thing. Mr Corbyn's message added that 'the democratic foundations of a new kind of party will soon take shape'. Translation: you can forget about calling yourself a co-leader, young lady, until you have been voted as such by the new party's rank and file members. This new party does not yet have a public name so for the time being we should perhaps call it The People's Front of Judaea. This is not some jibe at Ms Sultana and Mr Corbyn's trenchant, some might say excessive, support for Palestinian independence. The People's Front of Judaea is the knot of political obsessives in Monty Python's Life Of Brian film, set in 1st century AD Jerusalem. When asked if they are the Judaean People's Front, or indeed the Popular Front, these scowling nutters become infuriated. 'The only people we hate more than the Romans are the f****** Judaean People's Front!' spits the ringleader, Reg. These days Reg might possibly be called Jeremy. Monty Python's satire harpoons the fragmentising nature of party politics. With each bifurcation, each indignant walk-out by politicians in proud possession of their most precious principles, movements become smaller and rivalries only increase. Eventually you end up with tiny cabals of harrumphing prigs who are more concerned about their pet causes than they are in trying to form a broad party that might, to quote the Book of Common Prayer, allow the country to be 'godly and quietly governed'. Quietness, however, is not really Zarah Sultana's thing. When she speaks in the House of Commons it is invariably in an urgent, tremulous voice, as if she needs to dash to the lavatory the moment her speech has ended. This one is a quavery commissar, making blood-curdling accusations about capitalism and Zionism and – dark organ chords, please – the dreaded Tories. Anyone who is not as Left-wing as her is, as she might say, 'barbaric'. All this is tremendously lively on social media feeds. She flies off the bat in a TikTok video or what-have-you. But in the flesh, for anything more than a 30-second burst, its rigid insistence can become tiresome. Mr Corbyn may have a public reputation for political extremism but in the flesh he is a less intense personality. He is softly spoken, can occasionally be droll, even charming. I'd say it is not impossible that, while he probably admires Sister Zarah's energy, he finds her rather exhausting. As might the voters. Put it like this: you would not want to share a space rocket with Zarah Sultana. She'd hog the oxygen. And this, perhaps, is the delusional weakness of modern politics and may explain the atomisation of both Left (Labour's vote being eaten into by independents, by George Galloway's Workers Party and soon by the Corbyn start-up) and Right (the Conservatives have been lopped in half by Nigel Farage's Reform).
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
How fake-will fraudsters steal millions from the dead
In late 2023, sisters Lisa and Nicole were told they had inherited a substantial sum from their late Aunt Christine. But while they were absorbing this life-changing news, the windfall was just as quickly snatched away.A man unknown to Christine's family, friends or neighbours, appeared - apparently from nowhere - and produced a will, naming him sole heir to her entire about the man's claim grew as troubling details emerged. However, the police and probate service said they would not and Nicole's is one of several similar cases investigated by BBC News in the south of found mounting evidence that a criminal gang has been carrying out systematic will fraud by exploiting weaknesses in the probate system, stealing millions of pounds from the estates of dead people, and committing serious tax fraud. 'My dear friend' Lisa and Nicole were upset to hear about the death of their aunt, Christine Harverson, whom they had not seen since their early childhood. They were also shocked to be told that they stood to inherit her entire estate, including a house in Wimbledon, south London, which could be worth nearly £1m. She had not left a will, and they were her closest living sisters were alerted to their inheritance by an "heir-finder" company, Anglia Research Services. Heir-finders use an official government register that lists estates where no will has been made. They research the dead person's family in order to identify, locate and contact the rightful return for a portion of the inheritance, these companies act on the heirs' behalf and apply for what's known as a grant of probate. This gives them the legal right to deal with a deceased person's estate – in other words, their property, money and on this occasion, the application for probate on behalf of Lisa and Nicole was stopped in its tracks.A Hungarian man by the name of Tamas Szvercsok contacted the probate service, and produced a will describing him as Christine's "dear friend".It named him the beneficiary of her entire estate, as well as sole executor - the person legally responsible for carrying out the instructions in the will. The possibility that Mr Szvercsok was genuine, initially was not dismissed out of hand."It happens - sometimes cases slip through the net and a will is unearthed," says Matt Boardman, a former police officer who works for Anglia there were clear signs something was amiss: Christine's neighbour and friend, Sue, said she had never mentioned a Hungarian friend at any point in the years they had known each otherThe will was dated 2016 - Christine was housebound and disabled by this time, and receiving practically no visitorsThe terms of the will meant that Christine would have disinherited her husband and carer Dennis, who in 2016 was still alive (he died in 2020)Moreover, because Dennis was the joint owner of their house, Christine could not have legally bequeathed the house without his consentAfter Dennis's death, Christine entered a care home, but there was no record of Mr Szvercsok ever visiting her Other even more troubling details stood home address was misspelled on the will, and even though it was dated 2016, the address given for Mr Szvercsok was a block of flats that had not been built until Boardman contacted Mr Szvercsok, who replied by email: "I never heard of any family. I'm the sole executor of her will."Despite presenting what they thought was a strong case to police and the probate service, Lisa and Nicole were told they would have to bring a civil action if they wanted to prove that the will was a fake. That would cost tens of thousands of pounds which they do not now says she sometimes wishes she had never been told about the will in the first place: "All it's done is bring misery really, and heartache. It's just a whole nightmare." 'Vacant goods' Stealing a dead person's property and financial assets appears to be extremely easy under UK law, if no will can be official government register of unclaimed estates (in England and Wales?) is called Bona Vacantia (Latin for "vacant goods"), and is freely accessible online. It currently contains about 6,000 names and is updated heir-hunting companies use Bona Vacantia to research potential clients, but it also appears to have become a valuable resource for claim an estate where there is no known heir, a fraudster simply has to find a promising name on Bona Vacantia, produce a will quickly enough, and be awarded grant of probate. Since 2017 it's been possible to apply for grant of probate online, but critics of the system say it is failing to detect suspicious applicants, and it also appears to increase the opportunity for tax someone dies, their estate has to be assessed for inheritance tax. This is not payable on estates worth £325,000 or less, but any amount over that threshold – with some exceptions - is taxed at 40%.It's the responsibility of the person awarded grant of probate to make sure inheritance tax has been for grant of probate must complete a form to say this has been done, but under the current arrangements, they need do no more than declare on the online form that no tax is is a system that relies largely on trust, but gives ample opportunity for that trust to be roundly our investigations we have come across cases where estates have been valued at just under the inheritance tax threshold, even though they include property worth far of these was the estate of Charles Haxton. Whose house? At the time of his death in 2021, Charles Haxton was living alone in a terraced house in Tooting, south was reclusive and only occasionally spoke to neighbours, although one of them, Roye Chapman, was there for him near the end when he suffered a bad fall outside."I rang the police and then got him up and got him into the ambulance," he says. "His head was all cut open, and then two weeks later, he died."No will was initially found for Mr Haxton, and his name and address appeared on Bona Vacantia. This prompted Anglia Research to look for possible heirs, and they told several of his cousins that they could be in line to inherit Mr Haxton's estate. Then, as with Lisa and Nicole, the cousins were told that a will had appeared after all, leaving everything to one man - also Hungarian - called Roland family initially accepted his claim, to have been an old friend of Mr Haxton, but one relation, Barry, obtained a copy of the will and was struck by how odd it left Mr Silye two properties - not only Mr Haxton's home in London, but also a house in the two properties would have been worth about £2m. However, Mr Silye listed the value of the estate as £320,500 – just £4,500 short of the amount at which inheritance tax kicked was even stranger was that Mr Haxton had never owned, and had no connection to, any house in visited this property. It was large and dilapidated, and neighbours told us it had been unoccupied for a long puzzle of the extra house also caught the attention of Neil Fraser, a partner in another heir-hunting company. He thinks that Mr Silye may have bundled the Hertfordshire property into a will in an attempt to fake ownership."He must have gone past that house and thought, 'I'll just take that derelict house. How can I get that house? Well, I can put it inside a will!"Crucially, the will was accepted by the probate service, who did not check or raise any questions about the Hertfordshire were unable to trace Roland Silye in our investigation, and his motivation remains a will would not give him possession of the Hertfordshire house - the property registry and the electoral roll name the owner as a woman who would be in her 70s. However, Mr Fraser speculates that the will could be used in future as leverage to take ownership when the real owner reporting his suspicions to the police and the probate service, he says action was not Silye cleared probate not only for Mr Haxton's estate, but also that of George Woon, an elderly man from Southall, west Woon also died in 2021, and shortly afterwards, his name appeared on Bona Vacantia. Mr Silye came forward with a will which named him as sole heir. Mr Woon's house was later sold at auction for £360,000. A complex web We asked an expert in financial fraud, Graham Barrow, to check whether there could be any connection between Roland Silye and Tamas have names of Hungarian origin, and, according to Companies House, both appear to be directors in a complex and interlinked web of Barrow established that the address Mr Szvercsok gave in Mrs Harverson's will was also used by Mr Silye for some of his these companies do is unclear, although some have been struck off for fraudulent addresses, and others have been warned for failing to provide pattern - multiple businesses, related addresses, similar names - is one which often indicates a criminal network, says Mr adds that owning multiple companies can allow criminals to disperse funds across different accounts and locations, and makes life more difficult for law Hungarian name featuring in this web of companies is Bela Kovacs, who, according to a will dated 2021, was heir to the entire estate of Michael Judd, from Pinner, west London. According to his neighbours, Mr Judd was a multi-talented individual with a distinguished record in the security services. However, in his final years he had become something of a hoarder, seldom leaving his neighbour, Chris, told us he thought the will had sounded strange and not only because Mr Judd had never mentioned Bela Kovacs.A few months before his death in 2024, Mr Judd told Chris he had made a will long ago, but the people named on it were all now dead. In any case, he added, he did not know where it was."I suppose I better try and dig it out some time," Chris remembers him feels it's inconceivable that Mr Judd would have troubled himself with these decisions if he had made a will three years tracked Mr Kovacs down to a luxury estate in the Watford area but he refused to talk to us. Joined-up writing Other factors seem to connect these wills made out for Charles Haxton, George Woon and the others we have seen, appear to have been written by the same person, according to handwriting expert Christina Strang."The numbers two, four and seven are all written in the same way on several addresses," she also sees other similarities, such as the spacing of the letters in different signatures, and the positioning of the signatures on the line."It seems to be one person actually signing, forging all of these." Ms Strang also thinks this same person may have also forged signatures for the witnesses named on the wills, none of whom, we found, were apparently known to the deceased, and some of whom might have been completely are disturbing similarities in the way that properties were treated during and after the probate process: Shortly after Mr Szvercsok made his initial claim on Mrs Harverson's estate, her nieces discovered her Wimbledon house had been ransackedA workman employed to empty Mr Judd's house told us he had been instructed to empty it quickly, even though this meant having to destroy what appeared to be valuable heirloomsAfter Mr Haxton's house was cleared, the windows and doors were blacked out, and the locks strengthened; a year later, it emerged that it was being used as a cannabis farm (a fact that only emerged when a rival gang tried to force entry and neighbours alerted the police) A system in trouble As a result of our investigation, bank accounts for dozens of companies connected to the suspected fraudsters, have been addition, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has told us it now wants to question Roland Silye about inheritance tax which he might owe on the estate of Charles Kovacs was granted probate over the estate of Michael Judd, which was valued at £310,000 - just below the inheritance tax threshold. However, HMRC's interest was also piqued by this case, and it has now suspended a planned sale of Mr Judd's bungalow in the dispute over Christine Harverson's estate means the probate process has been frozen, and it looks unlikely to be resolved soon. Tamas Szvercsok cannot take possession of her Wimbledon house, but Lisa and Nicole lack the funds to go to the civil court and prove his will is fake. We wrote to Mr Szvercsok and Mr Silye at the addresses supplied with their probate applications, offering them a right of reply, but we did not hear we shared our findings with the Ministry of Justice, which is ultimately responsible for the probate system, it told us that it was "working with law enforcement to ensure criminals feel the full force of the law".However, a different picture emerges from others who know the system."Because probate isn't high profile – it's not sort of, for want of a better word, politically sexy, it doesn't stay in the headlines," says former MP Sir Bob Neill, who until the 2024 general election was the chair of the House of Commons Justice Select 2023, the select committee launched an inquiry into the probate system, but it was cut short by the Bob believes an over-eagerness to cut costs by digitising the probate system, has produced weaknesses which fraudsters are now exploiting."When you had regional offices you had human awareness, contact and scrutiny that was better suited to pick up cases where things have gone wrong," he says. "A purely sort of automated system isn't really good at doing that." He says the system introduced in 2017 was a cheap and quick fix. It lacks the sophistication, he says, of programs used by insurance companies to deal with fraud, which can detect patterns of suspicious concerns are echoed by Anglia Research's investigator, Matt Boardman, who says that previously, executors of wills would have had to attend their local probate registry to swear an oath, which "would allow the registrar to evaluate every single case on its own merit".He says the system's move online "completely eliminated" the chance to question the executor's demeanour or behaviour."Goodness knows just how many of these have already gone through and been processed by the probate registry," he says, "and how rich we're making these people."
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Home Office announces ‘nationwide blitz' on asylum seekers taking jobs
The Home Office has announced what it is calling a 'nationwide blitz' on asylum seekers who take jobs, after recent political controversy about people in asylum hotels working as food takeaway delivery riders. In a statement, which gave few specifics, the Home Office pledged to begin 'a major operation to disrupt this type of criminality' based around enforcement teams focusing on the gig economy, particularly on delivery riders. 'Strategic, intel-driven activity will bring together officers across the UK and place an increased focus on migrants suspected of working illegally whilst in taxpayer funded accommodation or receiving financial support,' the statement said. It follows media stories about evidence that people who are living in hotels waiting for their asylum claims to be processed, and who are banned from working, have been using the log-ins of people with official migration status to work for companies such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats. Ten days ago the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, posted a much-shared social media video of him visiting an asylum hotel in London and finding bikes laden with bags from the various food delivery companies packed together in an outside courtyard. On Monday, Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat promised to increase the use of facial verification checks for riders after a hastily arranged meeting with Home Office ministers. The Home Office statement said anyone caught working could lose their accommodation or support payments, and that businesses found to be employing someone not entitled to work could face fines of up to £60,000 per worker, as well as director disqualifications or prison terms. It said there had already been an increase in enforcement and arrests connected to illegal working in the year since Labour took power. Asylum and immigration is seen by ministers as an area of political vulnerability, one being exploited by Reform UK and the Conservatives. While a huge backlog of unprocessed asylum claims is being gradually reduced, the number of asylum seekers arriving on small boats across the Channel has risen. Keir Starmer is to discuss the issue with Emmanuel Macron when the French president visits the UK next week, with the possibility of a 'one in, one out' deal in which the UK could return those on small boats to France in exchange for accepting asylum seekers with links to Britain via more formal means. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said the government was increasing action to combat the 'pull factor' of such work. However, she said: 'There is no single solution to the problem of illegal migration. That's why we've signed landmark agreements with international partners to dismantle gangs and made significant arrests of notorious people smugglers.' Philp said: 'It shouldn't take a visit to an asylum hotel by me as shadow home secretary to shame the government into action. Illegal working by asylum seekers – most of whom also entered the country illegally – is happening from the very hotels Yvette Cooper is using our money to run. 'The government could easily stop it. I saw Deliveroo and other bikes parked in the hotel's own compound - yet all the security guard cared about was me filming.'
