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28 minutes ago, Izzy said:

Lol

 

Forget autocorrect, you really wouldn’t know that English isn’t your first language by your use of slang, abbreviations and humour.

 

I do sometimes honestly forget you’re Algerian. Very, very impressive mate.

But @Buce always tells me that I got a bad sense of humour which honesty sounds like he's just jealous of my brilliant delivery.

 

27 minutes ago, Countryfox said:

 

 

If Carlsberg made fan boys ...

Same as Buce, Country is also jealous of me. But who can blame them? It's hard being this outstanding.

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8 minutes ago, the fox said:

But @Buce always tells me that I got a bad sense of humour which honesty sounds like he's just jealous of my brilliant delivery.

 

Same as Buce, Country is also jealous of me. But who can blame them? It's hard being this outstanding.

 

Mate, you're a great guy but you're about as funny as haemorrhoids.

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1 hour ago, Facecloth said:

Yeah, you're not disproving his point with that lol

 

1 hour ago, Buce said:

 

It's nice of you to illustrate my point, foxy. :thumbup:

 

1 hour ago, Countryfox said:

 

Foxy ...   the gift that just keeps giving ...    :)

Oh would you look at that! Haters hating. 

 

 

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On 08/03/2019 at 15:13, Jon the Hat said:

BBC reporting "strong rumours" that Shamina's baby boy has died at 2 weeks old.  Nice one home secretary.

 

Its genuinely made be ashamed of this country. An innocent British citizen lost its life because of the actions of a populist pandering home secretary and most citizens couldn't give two hoots. 

 

The whole thing has made me realise Britain and the British people don't stand for what they or I thought. Shame. 

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County lines gangs: how drug-running is fuelling knife crime

As always, they were gathered in a large huddle in Andover Square, the tree-shaded courtyard in the middle of the estate. Another group stood nearby on the corner of Medina Road; another loitered outside the tower blocks of the Six Acres estate. “You see? They have taken over the streets,” said Fawzia Addou, one of a group of mothers escorting the Observer around the streets of Finsbury Park, north London. The mothers, dressed in disguise, were pointing out the drug-dealing spots where their sons worked.

The dealers were everywhere. Behind Rowans bowling alley, outside the newsagent’s by the tube, at the top of Finsbury Park Road. A pre-eminent location is the bus stop opposite City and Islington College.

The mothers cannot understand why the drug trade is so brazen. They say the police know all about the locations because they have repeatedly told officers.

But those who could identify their teenage sons were almost grateful. Many other children, aged under 16, have simply disappeared. Some emerge weeks later, hungry, exhausted. Some have been stabbed and are visibly traumatised.

They are the victims of “county lines”, a drug distribution system in which criminal networks exploit thousands of children and vulnerable adults to funnel hard drugs from cities to towns and rural regions across the country, often using the public transport network to move their illicit wares. The youngsters transporting the drugs are recruited by ruthless criminal organisations, who target them with a mixture of financial rewards and threats, often finding recruits outside schools or the pupil referral units to which they have been sent after being excluded from mainstream schools.

The destabilising influence of the county lines system has helped to drive fatal stabbings to the highest levels since records began. The mounting death toll has become increasingly politicised over the past week with crisis meetings between the home secretary and police chiefs, warnings of a “national emergency” and Theresa May pledging an emergency summit on the issue.

 

But the controversy has changed little on the streets around the Andover estate. The mothers, all Somalis who fled their country during the civil war in the 1990s, say they have been abandoned by the state.

Many of their children, they reveal, have asked to leave London because of the violence or have been sent to Africa for their own protection. “We are refugees, if we cannot keep our children safe, we move on,” said Kameela Khalif.

Community representatives estimate that hundreds of British teenagers have left for Somaliland or Somalia – a country that in the past week has seen car bombings, US airstrikes and a deadly siege – because the UK has become too perilous.

Beyond its medieval centre, past St Benedict’s church and the cobbled lanes, the west side of Norwich yields to a network of housing estates. Here, among the streets of Heigham Grove, children from N4 – the postcode of Finsbury Park – have been discovered working county lines.

According to the latest police assessment, there are 27 county lines currently operating into Norfolk, most from London and most affecting Norwich, Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn.

A “hostile” strategy towards the drugs gangs, Operation Gravity, has seen 1,024 people arrested in Norfolk since November 2016. Analysis of these arrests produced a striking theme – the minority were locals. More than 800, in fact, did not have a Norfolk postcode. Of 18 girls, only three were from the county.

Further investigation found 500 gang members from London or elsewhere had recently left a criminal “footprint” inside Norfolk. “It was a bit of an eye opener,” said Sonia Humphreys, chief inspector of Norfolk Constabulary.

Most children from London arrive into Norfolk by train. Those from Finsbury Park and Islington, whose mosaic of multi-ethnic gangs include Easy Cash, Kelly Gang and Andover Boys – named after the estate – travel from King’s Cross direct to King’s Lynn. Further east across the capital a competing Somali-led gang, the Mali Boys, uses Liverpool Street station to travel direct to Norwich.

The Mali Boys, run by Somali “olders”, are symbolic of a new wave of commercially aggressive county lines operations which have attempted to gain a Norwich foothold. “Historically, we’ve seen a lot of violence when the Somalis come up,” said Humphreys.

Transport police are briefed to look out for young black children travelling alone to Norfolk, often using first class, often paying with cash. Gangs are increasingly aware such journeys can seem conspicuous.

“White British children are now being targeted because gangs perceive they are more likely to evade police detection,” states an internal Norfolk police document.

Although Norwich teenagers are increasingly joining county lines operations, recruits largely remain inner-city children exported elsewhere.

Last Wednesday, another seven Somali mothers gathered inside an Islington community centre to discuss their “lost generation”. Rakhia Ismail, deputy mayor of Islington and a councillor for Holloway Road, is counselling 15 mothers who have lost sons to county lines and has dozens more terrified about trafficking.

Addou, part of a network of 13 parents whose children have been taken by drug gangs, estimated that half – possibly as much of 70% – of Islington’s Somali community had been directly impacted by knife crime and county lines. “The ones not affected are worried because they’re next,” she said.

Addou’s son has been found in King’s Lynn four times. Groomed by gangs in a football park outside his school, the first time he disappeared she traced him to a local dealer. “He said that he couldn’t come home until Tuesday. They were holding him.” She sent the 15-year-old to Somalia then Kenya.

Sahra Amburo, a prominent member of N4’s Somali community, told how her 15-year-old was top of his class, a risk factor in itself because gangs target the most intelligent or popular, knowing friends will follow.

Her son vanished one Sunday afternoon in 2017. After obtaining his phone records, she tracked him to Essex where he was being held by a group of dealers. She flew him immediately to Somaliland. “I took him away otherwise he would have been killed because they knew our address,” she said.

Another described how she learned her 16-year-old son had been taken to Hemel Hempstead. She pasted dozens of posters of his face across the Hertfordshire town. After three days the gang handed him over. “Straightaway he said ‘please take me away from this country’.”

Last Wednesday, a new development tormented the group. One of their sons, aged 19, who had been sent to Kenya for safety, was being enticed by a gang via Snapchat to return to N4. “The drug dealers want him. If he returns I will lose him,” said Iana Ali. On Friday, she flew to Mombasa to persuade him to stay.

When a teenager was fatally stabbed earlier this year, 300 metres from the centre, the deceased’s 15-year-old Somali friend was told he was next. Within two days his mother put him on a one-way ticket to Mogadishu. “Now he’s walking the land, living free,” she said.

 

All the mothers have learned that county lines necessitates violence. Exploited children hoping to rise up the criminal foodchain must exhibit escalating brutality. Nick Davison, assistant chief constable of Norfolk Constabulary, outlined the concept of “ultra-violence” where younger recruits maintain status by executing acts of increasingly outrageous savagery.

Beatings turn to stabbings in the buttock, then the chest, the face. “If you don’t, you become vulnerable to becoming a victim of that behaviour,” said Davison.

Internal police documents confirm endemic violence – “85% of forces report knives referenced in relation to county lines intelligence, 74% report firearms referenced”.

Children who attempt to escape are tortured. A 16-year-old reported missing from London was found by Norfolk police in possession of a 6in kitchen knife and 30 wraps of drugs. In custody they also discovered his body was covered with scarring “consistent with having been burnt with boiling liquid”.

And the gangs have long memories. The mother who rescued her child from Hemel Hempstead allowed him to return to London in November 2017, assuming he would be safe. Within days of arriving he was stabbed in the stomach, his assailant wiggling the blade inside the body to cause maximum harm. After 40 days in hospital he returned home and has not left since. “Both my sons are too scared to leave the house,” she said.

The family has received no counselling or trauma aftercare.

Others take drastic measures. One London gang member, stabbed multiple times, turned to religion to escape. Norfolk officers subsequently discovered he had travelled to fight in Syria.

The lack of safety has provoked outrage. “We parents are fighting a war with the gangs to save our children,” said Khalif. They argue that their sons have been denied a statutory right to a safe environment. “The government must take responsibility,” said mother-of-seven Addou.

When her son was caught, he refused bail because it was safer in prison. Others complain their probation prevents them from leaving the country.

The mothers ridiculed Theresa May’s claim last week that there is “no direct correlation” between crime and police numbers. Davison, although more circumspect, agreed that austerity and the state’s inability to provide security outside the family had been adeptly “exploited” by criminals.

The mothers’ deepest gripe is police apathy. They, along with many in the community, have shared detailed intelligence with police. Since 2015, addresses, locations and movements of individuals have been offered that they say connect county line operations to its “generals”. “I’ve told the police so many times but now I’ve stopped. I expect it be acted on, or at least given some feedback. It’s one-way communication,” said Addou.

 

The Islington Somali Community (ISC) complains that eight neighbourhood police serve a ward, Finsbury Park, which has a population of 17,200. Dealing spots, others say, lie within an area of concentrated CCTV coverage. The breakdown in trust is so great that unsupported claims of collusion flourish.

“Some parents believe that some police are working with the gangs because nothing is done,” said Ali. There is also disquiet over the genesis of the latest political furore over knife crime, in particular that it took the death of a white teenager to prompt the outrage.

“It is absolutely tragic but it has taken a white girl to get killed for this to top the political agenda,” said Kalyfa Ismail. A year ago three Somali youngsters in nearby Camden were knifed in 24 hours; two died and one just survived. “Where was the emergency summit then?” said Addou.

Another burning issue is the increasing evidence linking school exclusion rates and gang recruitment. Excluded pupils are 200 times more likely to receive a knife-carrying offence.

Abdiwahab Ali, director of the Somali Youth Development Resource Centre (SYDRC), is conducting pioneering research into the issue. Early estimates suggest half of Somali origin children excluded permanently in Camden enter the criminal justice system. Then there are the “units” – the pupil referral units accused of being fertile grounds for gang recruitment. Ismail described gang members waiting in lines outside Islington’s unit.

Bilan Hoseen, who works with excluded Somali teenagers, said many are too petrified to attend the local unit. “They get a taxi there because they feel too unsafe to walk,” he said. Officers in Norfolk view its smattering of units as so vulnerable they have flagged concerns with the council and are seeking to embed officers inside.

Secondary schools have also been targeted by police with 10 of Norfolk’s 50 sites having a dedicated officer to spot vulnerable children. “Through this we have discovered kids who have gone missing from high school in Norwich travelling to London to pick up drugs to support county lines activities,” said Davison.

The exploitation of thousands of children provides the labour for county lines. Latest figures for the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the government system to identify trafficking victims, revealed drug gangs helped prompt a 66% increase to 2,118 cases in 2017. But first the children must be groomed. They are usually targeted between the ages of 13 and 14, with the optimum age for recruitment of 15 to 16.

Addou said the gang gave her football-mad son a new ball and the offer of protection. Months later he was running drugs in Norfolk. A caged artificial-turf pitch, 100 metres from Andover’s central square, is a well-known recruitment ground for N4 county lines operations. One mother on the Andover estate said her nine-year-old son was already receiving money for sweets from gangs. Others describe 14-year-olds wanting to “do Deliveroo” when they turn 16, a euphemism for couriering drugs.

Fast food joints in Finsbury Park are targeted by gang recruiters. In Norwich, officers are told to be vigilant in shopping centres.

Recruiters, said Humphreys, seek a “chink in the armour” of adolescents using techniques indistinguishable from child abusers. Internal briefings by police forces have highlighted video interviews conducted by youth worker Paul McKenzie with gang recruiters. “It’s like listening to an exploiter of sexual abuse,” said Humphreys.

Once hooked, their families are threatened with violence or they are trapped through debt bondage. Although a county line can make a gang up to £5,000 a day, mothers say there is scant evidence of wealth distribution. “Our boys come home hungry, tired, cold. They are still growing, their clothes no longer fit.”

Both Norfolk’s senior officers and Islington’s Somali mothers concur that the solution requires ambition. Davison, whose force has closed down 21 county lines, agrees the answer is bigger than the level of policing.

“We will not arrest our way out of county lines. It needs a whole system approach, offering young people alternatives,” he said.

Beyond removing children from the country, the mothers list various solutions; more parental involvement in schools; safe spaces; more vocational education; a deradicalisation programme for groomed children.

In the absence of a concerted new approach, both police and parents know that the teenagers of N4 will continue to surface in Norwich while their younger brothers on the Andover estate receive new gifts from the guys in the square.

Some names have been changed

27 The number of county lines operating from London to Norfolk

1,024 Total number of people arrested in Norfolk since 2016

500 Number of gang members who left criminal footprint in Norfolk

70% of Islington’s Somalis are affected by knife crime and county lines

8 neighbourhood police serve Finsbury Park ward’s 17,200 population

15-16 Optimum age for recruiting children to work in county lines

66% Increase in trafficked children, boosted by drug gang activity

£5,000 The amount a gang can earn in a day from a county line

Edited by Buce
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On 10/03/2019 at 09:26, RonnieTodger said:

This blame culture is quite frightening. Pardon my ignorance, but even if she was allowed home, would they allow an ill 2 week-old baby on a flight back from Syria?

When you are the home secretary your decisions have consequences.  I find the fact that there are seemingly endless media types quite able to operate safely in Syria in contract to the inability of the Government to safely extract a wanted criminal and an innocent baby.

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1 hour ago, Jon the Hat said:

 

When you are the home secretary your decisions have consequences.  I find the fact that there are seemingly endless media types quite able to operate safely in Syria in contract to the inability of the Government to safely extract a wanted criminal and an innocent baby.

Are you serious? When you are human decisions have consequences. Like the decision to join an active war zone has cost this terrorist 3 of her children's lives. That not on javid, that is on her. 

 

Hundreds of reporters and journalists have died in Syria since the start of the civil war. "quite able to operate safely" might be true now that the war is coming to somewhat of an end, but to pretend these journalists aren't putting their lives at risk in being there is somewhat naieve at best. 

 

We shouldn't be risking lives rescuing a known terrorist. Not now, not ever. Popping out a kid doesn't absolve you from your mistakes. 

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25 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

Popping out a kid doesn't absolve you from your mistakes. 

 

it compounds the mistakes.

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On 10/03/2019 at 01:31, Sampson said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-47510255

Powercuts into the 3rd day in Venezuela's capital Caracus. Maduro still refusing to step down despite the 800,000% hyper-inflation last year.

Begs the question:

Whose fault is the hyperinflation? Maduro's or are there external forces at play that caused it or continue to contribute to its downward spiral or is it a mixture of both?

http://theconversation.com/what-caused-hyperinflation-in-venezuela-a-rare-blend-of-public-ineptitude-and-private-enterprise-102483

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31 minutes ago, Izzy said:

14 weeks in jail and a 10 year ban for the twat who punched Jack Grealish

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-47523268

Mitchell, of Cock Hill Lane, was also ordered to pay £350 in fines and costs and has been banned from attending any football matches in the UK for 10 years.

The £350 includes £100 in compensation for Grealish's "pain, discomfort and shock".

 

This bit tickled me lol

 

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1 minute ago, Aus Fox said:

Harsh? I read it and though the cnut got off lightly. 

 

Why?

 

I don't know about Down Under, but in the UK common assault doesn't usually attract a custodial sentence.

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1 hour ago, Strokes said:

Mitchell, of Cock Hill Lane, was also ordered to pay £350 in fines and costs and has been banned from attending any football matches in the UK for 10 years.

The £350 includes £100 in compensation for Grealish's "pain, discomfort and shock".

 

This bit tickled me lol

 

He lives on the right street at least lol

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