Met police suspend sergeant over racism allegations

The Metropolitan police sergeant was suspended after allegedly making a racist comment in front of other officers. Photograph: Alamy

Scotland Yard has announced its 14th investigation into alleged racism since the controversy over prejudice within the force began six weeks ago.

A Metropolitan police statement said a sergeant has been suspended pending an investigation into racist comments he is alleged to have made on Wednesday. He is the 28th Met officer known to be under investigation or facing prosecution since the racism row began.

The controversy began at the end of March when the Guardian released a mobile phone recording in which Constable Alex MacFarlane was captured allegedly racially abusing a black suspect.

The Crown Prosecution Service recently announced that MacFarlane, 52, will face prosecution for racially aggravated public disorder — reversing its earlier decision not to charge the officer.

On Wednesday, the CPS said it had reversed its decision not to prosecute a second police officer, accused of assaulting a 15-year-old black boy. Both incidents occurred on the same night.

The second constable will be charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm. There was no suggestion in the CPS announcement that there was any racial dimension to the second prosecution.

A third Met constable, Philip Juhasz, 31, was recently convicted of racially aggravated public disorder after telling a Pakistani takeaway manager in north London to "go back to your fucking country" after he refused to serve him discounted goods.

The Met commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, has responded to the series of revelations in the Guardian about alleged racism by promising to "drive out" racists from the force.

Unusually, the Met did not provide many details about where in the capital the latest alleged incident occurred. The force said the incident did not involve members of the public.

"The incident happened at around 08:20hrs on Wednesday 9 May in the north London area. The male officer is alleged to have made a racist comment in the company of other officers. One of his colleagues subsequently reported the incident to a supervisor," the statement said. "The police sergeant has been suspended from duty while enquiries continue."

The case has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

The Met is the only force in the country compelled to automatically refer all racism-related cases to the IPPC.

New protocols for dealing with racism complaints at the Met were introduced last month amid growing concern at the scale and nature of complaints.

The Met statement said: "Racism and racist language is totally unacceptable. The action taken in response to this allegation demonstrates the [Met's] determination to act swiftly and to support those that challenge others when alleged racist language is used."

Senior police officers argue the Met has improved significantly since the Macpherson inquiry in 1999 branded the force "institutionally racist".

However, the Independent recently obtained figures indicating complaints about racism in the police nationwide have more than doubled in the last 10 years.

Ed Miliband considering shadow cabinet reshuffle

Shadow work and pensions secretary could be stripped of role if Labour leader conducts limited reshuffle and rethinks policy review








Liam Byrne faces losing responsibility for the Labour policy review. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
Ed Miliband has been discussing whether to conduct a shadow cabinet reshuffle that would strip Liam Byrne of responsibility for the party's policy review. It is understood that Byrne, the shadow work and pensions secretary, is resisting the move and no decisions have been made. The limited reshuffle could occur as early as Monday.

Under plans being considered by Miliband, Byrne may also lose the work and pensions brief and could even be ditched from the shadow cabinet. Miliband has already told the shadow cabinet he is rethinking the way the policy review is conducted.

Byrne is seen as a Blairite, and there have been tensions in the party about how tough a line to take on welfare. Labour supported a regional welfare cap after it opposed a blanket national welfare cap. It has also supported introducing a duty to work for people who have been claiming unemployment benefits for a year.

Byrne, one of the more energetic and intellectual minds on the frontbench, has also been pushing Labour towards support for a return to the contributory principle in welfare. But there have been difficulties between Byrne and parts of the leader's office over consulting on major policy announcements, including ensuring Labour MPs are told in advance about key policy changes.

Byrne in turn has been frustrated at times by some decision-making structures in the leader's office, although recent restructuring of the leader's office has eased problems.

A Labour spokesman said the party did not comment on reshuffle speculation.

It had been expected Byrne would stand down as MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill if he was nominated as the Labour candidate for Birmingham mayor. But the city's voters rejected the concept of mayor in a referendum on 3 May, leaving Byrne free to remain active in the shadow cabinet.

Some of Miliband's advisers believe he should be removed from overhauling party policy. It is also understood the Labour leader has told the shadow cabinet he does not want a full two-year policy programme completed at this stage.

Byrne, with the agreement of Miliband, had set up a series of policy reviews and commissions with the intention of the policies being published this autumn or the following year in time for the party conference. In recent years Labour has prepared lengthy documents that then get amended and voted on by party conference, and by the party's elected national policy forum.

Byrne is expecting to publish five or so brief policy items from the shadow cabinet before the policy forum next month.

It has been agreed that with the election still three years away, publication of a long list of policies at this stage of the parliament would be politically unwise. The shadow cabinet has instead been briefed to produce signature policies that create a buzz around Labour.

An example cited was a visit to Denmark and Norway by Byrne and the shadow education secretary, Stephen Twigg, where they looked at free childcare for the poor, leading to a front page piece in the Observer.

It has been acknowledged that the policy review process has been unwieldy, and has not been going along at a uniform pace. But the disagreements may also reflect tensions between those that believe it is unwise for the party to come up with any detailed policy at this stage, and those who believe it is only through the discussion of specific policies that the party will renew itself.

Shadow cabinet sources also acknowledge that the existence of a five-year fixed term parliament changes the pace of opposition, since it is not credible to argue that the party is at this stage on the verge of power. That in turn puts less pressure on the party from the media to set out detailed policies.

Miliband at recent question and answer sessions has said he believes that one route to re-engagement with politics is not to over-promise.

One shadow cabinet member said: "There would be concern in the shadow cabinet if Liam were to lose any of his responsibilities. He is one of the most intellectually subtle and thoughtful politicians in the party."

Road safety budget cuts risking lives, advisers warn

'The focus on austerity is putting lives at risk,' says parliamentary advisory council for transport safety




The latest statistics point to the first increase in road deaths in the UK since 2003, the parliamentary advisory council for transport safety says. Photograph: David Jones/PA
Spending cuts are putting lives at risk on Britain's roads, a parliamentary advisory group has warned, as the annual death toll looks set to increase for the first time in years,

A report by the parliamentary advisory council for transport safety (Pacts) found 65% of local authorities have cut road safety budgets in the past year, with one in two believing they no longer have sufficient resources to adequately promote road safety.

Robert Gifford, the executive director of Pacts, said: "This report has a clear message to government: the focus on austerity is putting lives at risk."

Road deaths had been falling steadily until last year. In 2010, 1850 people died on the roads, the lowest figure since national records began in 1926.

But the latest statistics and European Commission findings suggest that, when final figures are counted, 2011 would go down as the first year since 2003 when the number road deaths increased.

Gifford said that was particularly concerning given the economic context: "This rise is especially worrying as the country is still in recession. Historically, deaths rise as economic output increases, not as it falls. The government should be deeply concerned by this change in course."

The research found bad news for the government about the reception given to its road safety policy, outlined in a strategic framework document published this time a year ago. Only one in six local authorities believe the impact of the new ideas was positive, with 39% saying they had made things worse.

Gifford said: "Ministers should be worried by the apparent lack of confidence in the much-vaunted framework document published last year. This has clearly failed to gain professional support."

He called for a renewed debate on road safety: "Where measures are cost-effective and achievable, society has a moral and economic responsibility to act for the public benefit."

Mike Penning, the road safety minister, said: "I am not complacent about road safety even though Britain has some of the safest roads in the world. Road safety is a top priority and we are determined to dramatically reduce deaths and injuries still further.

"We do not believe that further persuasion is needed on the importance of road safety through 'Whitehall knows best' national targets or central diktats. We removed ring-fencing from local authority grants so councils would have increased flexibility to respond to, and act on, local concerns, and we would expect that road safety would remain a priority for local communities and for local spending to reflect this."

• This article was corrected on Friday 11 May 2012 because it gave the number of deaths on the road in 2010 as 850 rather than the actual figure of 1,850.

Richard Hamilton's last painting to be centrepiece of posthumous exhibition

The artist, one of Britain's best-loved of the 20th century, worked on the National Gallery show until the eve of his death last year

A detail from Richard Hamilton's The Balzac, inspired by a short story by the writer, which is the centrepiece of a National Gallery exhibition. Photograph: Richard Hamilton

The last unfinished picture by Richard Hamilton, one of the most admired and best-loved British artists of the 20th century, will be the centrepiece of a National Gallery exhibition on which he was working until the eve of his death last September.

Hamilton died just short of his 90th birthday, and in his last months he knew he would not get it finished and that the exhibition would prove a valedictory from beyond the grave. On his last working day he was completing the layout for the gallery's Sunley room, a labyrinth through earlier works leading to the last picture – which poignantly deals with the failure of art.

"This was the picture literally on his easel, or rather in his computer, on the day he died," curator Christopher Riopelle said. "The whole concept of the exhibition changed very much, shaped by his knowledge that it would be his last."

Hamilton, credited with launching the British pop art movement with his 1956 collage Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?, was a passionate supporter of free admission to national collections. The exhibition, which could well have been a moneyspinning blockbuster like the Lucian Freud retrospective around the corner in the National Portrait Gallery, will be free.

In order to ensure that his chosen works would be available for theNational Gallery, he deferred a major international touring show which will be seen at four cities in Europe and the United States, including the Tate in London, from next year.

It will include many works linked to his lifelong interest in the art of Marcel Duchamp, and to pictures in the National Gallery collection including his startling version of Fra Angelico's 15th-century Annunciation, with two naked women taking the places of the demure angel and Virgin.

The exhibition will culminate in three large working versions of his last work, inspired by a 19th-century short story by Honore de Balzac, The Unknown Masterpiece, in which an artist invites his peers to view a painting in which he claims to have created a nude indistinguishable from real life: they see only meaningless swirls and daubs of colour. In Hamilton's multi-layered version, the artists are based on self-portraits by Poussin, Courbet and Titian, standing by a reclining naked woman based on a 19th-century photograph, in turn referencing classical nudes including Titian's sexy Venus of Urbino.

The work will be titled The Balzac. Hamilton's widow, Rita, thought he would not like it called The Masterpiece, in case people thought he was claiming that honour for himself.

"The origin of the exhibition was one day when Nick [Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery] said: 'Come on, we're going to lunch at Richard's," Riopelle recalled. "The food was excellent, as always at Richard's, as was the wine, as always at Richard's. We probably had far too much for lunchtime – but at the end of it the germ of the exhibition was there. We lost two giants within a few months of one another last year in Hamilton and Freud. I'm not sure we're realised the scale of the loss yet."

Richard Hamilton: the Late Works is at the National Gallery, London WC2N, from 10 October to 13 January

Helicopter ditches into North Sea

Fourteen oil workers and crew airlifted to safety after helicopter makes 'controlled landing' off coast of Aberdeen

Emergency services safely rescue 14 oil workers and crew from a helicopter that ditched in the North Sea off Aberdeen Link to this video
Emergency services have safely rescued 14 oil workers and crew from a helicopter that ditched in the North Sea off Aberdeen soon after midday.


A major rescue operation began after the Super Puma EC225 helicopter operated by Bond Offshore made a "controlled descent" when a low-pressure warning light came on during a flight.


Three search and rescue helicopters, supported by a lifeboat and the coastguard, were scrambled. after the helicopter ditched safely in the sea about 25 miles south-east of Aberdeen.


The incident took place at about 12.15pm. A spokesman for Bond Offshore said all 14 people on board safely transferred to life rafts and were rescued shortly afterwards.


No significant injuries were reported. and Aberdeen Royal Infirmary said its accident and emergency department was expecting 14 people to be admitted for a precautionary assessment.


A Bond Offshore spokesman said: "A low-pressure oil warning light came on and the helicopter made a controlled descent and landed in the North Sea. It didn't crash."


The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: "Aberdeen Coastguard was alerted at 12.15pm that a Bond helicopter was en route from Aberdeen to Maersk Resilient, and then onwards to ENSCO 102, when they broadcast an alert that they were forced to ditch the aircraft into the sea."


Helicopter flights from Aberdeen have been temporarily suspended.


Dozens of helicopters fly in and out of Aberdeen – Europe's busiest heliport – every day to service the North Sea's oil and gas platforms.


This is the first significant helicopter emergency since April 2009, when 16 people on board another Bond Super Puma helicopter were killed after a major gearbox failure caused it to crash into the North Sea.


In February 2009 another Bond helicopter crashed from a low level into the North Sea in thick fog. All 18 passengers survived, with a few minor injuries.


Jim McAuslan, general secretary of the British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA), said the cause of the ditching would be investigated by the air accident investigation branch, and said the Civil Aviation Authority ought to study its findings to see if any safety trends in North Sea flights were developing.


But he paid tribute to the skills of the Super Puma pilots. "This looks like a terrific piece of airmanship from very skilled pilots," McAuslan said. "A helicopter ditching is one of the most difficult manoeuvres in commercial aviation and yet reports indicate that every passenger and crew member on board has been winched to safety."

National day of action spreads to prisons

Protest meetings outside jails across UK called off after government views stoppages as industrial action

Prison officers at a protest meeting outside Barlinnie prison in Glasgow as part of a day of action by public sector staff against pension reforms. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Prison officers made a dramatic contribution to a day of action by public sector workers with a wave of unofficial protest meetings, before a threatened injunction forced them back to work.

The Prison Officers Association claimed more than 80% of its 25,000 members had supported the stoppages, which appeared to contravene a ban on strikes by prison staff. "This has been a great success in raising the public's awareness to the inherent dangers that the coalition government's policy change will bring to the prison service in the future," said a spokesman.

The protests came as civil servants, lecturers and health workers took part in the third wave of national strikes against pension changes in less than 12 months, and amid reports that the government is planning a system to assess and sack underperforming civil servants.

The Cabinet Office said about 150,000 employees stayed at home, as the general secretary of the Unite union, Len McCluskey, pledged more strikes next month and throughout 2012.

The POA action was a surprise addition to protests. Steve Gillan, the association's general secretary, said the organisation had been warned by the Treasury solicitor that ministers considered the protest meetings tantamount to industrial action and would seek an injunction if they continued.

The prisoners at the jails affected were put on a "lockdown" regime, but Gillan said minimum cover arrangements were in place to ensure prisoner safety.

Echoing concerns among the public sector workers who staged walkouts on Thursday, the POA is unhappy about plans to link the normal pension age for prison officers to the state retirement age.

"The state pension age will ultimately rise to 68 and it is unrealistic to expect 68-year-olds to walk landings and grapple with prisoners aged 20 or 21," said Gillan.

As police officers marched nearby against proposed pay changes and job cuts, a rally in Westminster marked a national strike against public sector pension changes by five unions: the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) civil servants' union; health workers from Unite; teachers and lecturers from the University and College Union; the Nipsa civil servants' union in Northern Ireland; and Royal Navy support staff at the RMT union. The PCS, the biggest participant in the walkouts, claimed support among members was "very strong".

Mark Serwotka, the PCS general secretary, told the rally "if we lose this fight, we will regret it for generations to come", adding that he would ask the TUC to reopen talks with the government on pensions.

Referring to Wednesday's comments by the cabinet secretary Francis Maude, that the protests are "futile", Serwotka said: "Francis Maude may say this is futile – but I say it's inspiring."

Serwotka added that members' pensions were being "robbed" by changes that include higher contributions and raising the public sector pension age.

Speaking at the rally, McCluskey said: "If the government thought their fight was over, they best think again. There will be more strike action in June and on into winter, spring and on, and on."

The Daily Telegraph reported that plans to overhaul the civil servicewere expected to be published within the next month. Aimed at bringing government departments into line with private companies, managers would be expected to rate employees under a "rigorous assessment regime".

In an interview with Francis Maude before the day of strikes, the Cabinet Office minister had said it was a myth that civil servants could not be sacked and that forcing managers to rank people would be one of the issues "we will be addressing in our civil service reform plans".

In a personal speech, McCluskey paid tribute to the care his mother, who died this week, had received from care workers.

Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT union, drew parallels with the continent as he called for a nationwide walkout in the autumn. "You know the general strike action in Greece and France? We're going to bring it to Britain."

The government played down the impact of the stoppages, saying 102,000 civil servants had stayed at home compared with 146,000 in a national day of action in November, when other civil service unions took part.

The Cabinet Office said nine out of 700 jobcentres had closed, while four courts had shut. Major airports including Heathrow said there had been no significant disruption or delays at immigration halls following stoppages by PCS members in the Border Agency. The Department of Health said the strike by Unite members including radiologists, pharmacists and health visitors had "little impact" on the NHS, with some hospitals claiming that there had been no walkouts. Unite said "tens of thousands" of NHS and Ministry of Defence employees went on strike.

Maude ruled out reopening talks on changes to pensions for education, health, civil service and local government employees. He added: "The combination of the dedicated majority of public service workers who came to work as usual and our rigorous contingency plans ensured that public services were mainly unaffected."

The PCS and Unite are proposing another day of national walkouts next month and the TUC is planning a repeat of the March for the Alternative that attracted 250,000 people last year.

Marchers police themselves as protest calls for role reversal

The tens of thousands of police marching on central London made impressive, and unusually orderly, demonstrators

Police officers march on London, wearing 16,000 black caps to symbolise potential job losses. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

They were out of uniform, of course, but some habits die hard. As tens of thousands of off-duty police officers gathered in central London on Thursday to march against job cuts and changes to their pension deals, march organisers handed them baseball caps, which the overwhelmingly majority promptly, obediently, put on.

Some of the hats – 16,000 to be precise – were black, to represent the number of jobs that the Police Federation of England and Wales estimates could be lost under proposed cuts to policing services. Others were white, representing nothing more than that they had run out of black ones. It made an impressive image – a long, snaking and terribly well-behaved crowd, looking exactly like a bunch of police officers on their day off.

This was no leisurely day out, however. The march, past the Home Office, the Houses of Parliament and along Whitehall, might have been unusually mannerly – "the quietest demo ever", as the shadow defence secretary, Jim Murphy, tweeted from his office overlooking the route – but the mood was determined and frequently angry.

"Utterly betrayed," read the hand-made placard carried by David Ginn, a Metropolitan police dog handler based in south-west London. "No right to strike – every right to be screwed."

"Of course we're angry, we're very angry," he said as the march set off. "We've been treated with the most grotesque disrespect by this government." It was not all their fault, he acknowledged, and some belt-tightening was necessary. "We will take our share of the hit, but it would seem that our share is disproportionate, because we cannot strike." Of his team of 10, eight had turned out, all of them either on a scheduled day off or taking leave.

"We're here to show the public how strongly we feel about this," said one young frontline officer from Surrey, who, like many of those marching, preferred not to give her name. "I don't think the public realise what we're going through." She signed up three years ago to what she thought was a career for life, she said, but with 20% cuts to the policing budget, she was already seeing job losses among her team and fewer chances of promotion. People feared for the jobs, and she admitted she had thought of looking elsewhere. "The problem is, all the jobs I would be good at, civil service jobs, they are all being cut back too."

However great the frustration of those involved, it was not only their orderliness that marked this out as no ordinary protest. "All right mate!" shouted one marcher as the demo began to snake towards the Home Office. He had spotted a friend among the on-duty officers charged with policing the demo – distinguished by their fluorescent jackets and slightly bemused air – and bounded across to give him a hug. "Haven't seen you in ages! What have you been up to?"

Similarly, as the march processed along Whitehall ("Caps off, lads, as we pass the cenotaph"), it passed a number of police vans full of officers keeping an eye on a small, separate demonstration outside Downing Street, against the visit of the Pakistani prime minister. A handful of police marchers began to applaud as they passed the vans. One on-duty officer raised a discreet fist in a salute of solidarity.

As they rounded on to Parliament Square, the marchers encountered a separate protest being co-ordinated by striking public sector workers, and matters became briefly surreal. Some of those holding Unite banners applauded, while one man next to them shouted: "Remember what you lot did to the miners!" A tiny but rowdy group from the Socialist Workers party shouted: "Charge the police!"

"Have a bath," came the reply.

Simon Newport, a constable with North Wales police in Colwyn Bay, had worked from 6pm to 3am on Wednesday night, and come straight from his shift to catch the coach to London at 4am. It had been a typical night – two assaults, several domestics, paperwork for a couple of arrests. "A quiet one." All the same, he said, "you would be alarmed if I told you how few of us were on duty … Staff levels are critical."

Parallel cuts to other services make things even harder, he said, citing a recent example when ambulance service shortages meant an injured woman had to wait so long for treatment that "it led to a public order situation", requiring the police to make arrests.

"I'm careful not to scaremonger, but for the small force that we are, and the large area we cover, we are close to breaking point at certain times of day."

Two hundred officers felt strongly enough about the issue to make the journey from north Wales, a pattern echoed in forces across the country. How many had attended in total? The Police Federation was confident there had been more than 35,000. The Metropolitan police, as is now their habit with all protests, declined to say.