Mohamed Fayed, the former owner of Harrods, is said to have raped and sexually assaulted a string of women who worked at the department store.

More than 20 women claimed they were sexually assaulted by the billionaire, who died last year at the age of 94, and five of those said they were raped.

The women, who worked at Harrods from the late 1980s to the 2000s, said assaults were carried out at the company’s offices, in Fayed’s London apartment or on foreign trips, often at the Ritz hotel in Paris.

It is claimed he would regularly tour the department store’s sales floors to identify young female assistants he found attractive before isolating and attacking them.

The BBC revealed the allegations in a documentary and podcast called Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods. In the expose, the broadcaster claims Harrods not only failed to intervene but also helped cover up allegations against Fayed.

The current owners of Harrods said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations, stressing that the company today was “very different”.

Bruce Drummond, a barrister from a legal team representing several of the women, said: “The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark.”

Speaking to the BBC, one of his alleged victims, Sophia, who worked as Fayed’s personal assistant from 1988 to 1991, said he tried to rape her more than once. She said: “He was vile.”

After Fayed was featured in two series of Netflix’s The Crown, she spoke of her anger at his portrayal as a pleasant and gregarious character.

Sophie, who didn’t give her second name, said: “That makes me angry – people shouldn’t remember him like that. It’s not how he was.”

Another alleged victim, Rachel – not her real name – who was 19 at the time, stayed in one of Fayed’s apartments on his insistence instead of taking a taxi home after working late on Harrods business.

He then invited her to his personal apartment, where he asked her to sit on the bed, with his hand on her leg and a firm grip, she said.

She added: “I made it obvious that I didn’t want that to happen. I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over. I remember feeling his body on me, the weight of him. Just hearing him make these noises. And just going somewhere else in my head.”

Rachel told the BBC: “He raped me. Afterwards, you blame yourself. You’re there to do a job, and this is your boss standing there in front of you in a dressing gown. And so even when you’re trying to get out of the situation, I’m trying not to offend him.”

Gemma is another alleged victim who claims she was raped by Fayed.

Gemma was personal assistant to Fayed from 2007 to 2009. She told how she was subjected to an intimate medical check shortly after starting the job, which she now believes was to test for sexually transmitted diseases.

Asked whether she had to have an “invasive gynaecological examination” after starting the role, she told the BBC’s Today Programme: “Yes. So that was one of the selling points, was that, oh, you get these medical checks, and it’s really good.

“You know, they sold it to me that they do mole-mapping, and they’ll check you, screen you for breast cancer and all of that kind of thing. 

“So I just went along with the flow. It was all part of joining. They said you need to have it to be able to work in the chairman’s office.”

She added: “The gynaecological tests kind of sold to me that it was like a smear test.  And I’d never had a smear test at that point, being 24. It wasn’t on my radar, and I didn’t really know what one involved.

“So when I got there they did the smear test and went on to do other tests, one of which was checking my ovaries, which I’d never heard of before.

“And to this day, I’ve never had one, never been asked to have one, and that was hugely invasive.  That involved her inserting her hand and checking. To this day, I don’t know why.

 “It was definitely looking for [STIs], because I’ve still got the doctor’s reports, and they did list like, you know, clear for chlamydia or all of those kinds of things.

“The relevance to doing an admin job versus having your ovaries checked doesn’t make sense. But at the time, I was told that was what was required and if I wanted the job I had to do it.”

In 2009, Gemma contacted a lawyer and provided him with transcripts of a tape she had recorded of Fayed allegedly making unwanted sexual advances towards her.

She received a payout from Harrods, but under the condition that she shredded all the evidence that she had gathered, she claimed in the documentary.

Harrods’ lawyers organised for a shredding truck to destroy the material, which also included transcripts of messages and voicemails from Fayed that were “really quite nasty”, she said.

Gemma said: “I think they just wanted to get rid of it as quick as possible, and get rid of me as quick as possible.”

She added: “I was advised it would be in my best interest not to talk. That I was to keep it quiet.

“All these years not being able to talk about something that’s so unfair. It’s so unfair to make somebody go through something like that and then expect them not to talk about it. It’s cruel.”

Victim was 15 when alleged assault took place

One alleged victim, who started working at Harrods in 2007 as a shop assistant when she was 15, told the BBC she went to the police accusing Fayed of sexual assault.

She said: “I was a child when this happened. He was nearly 80 and I was 15. I spoke to my parents and we thought the best people to talk to were the police.”

However, the case was dropped because of a lack of evidence, she said.

In the documentary, Fayed’s security team is alleged to have known about his behaviour.

Tony Leeming, a manager at Harrods from 1994 to 2004, said security guards would gossip about Fayed groping people.

Steve, who was part of Fayed’s personal security team from 1994 to 1995, said: “We did know that certain things were happening to certain female employees at Harrods and Park Lane.”

Another man, who was also part of his personal security team in the 90s, and is not identified in the documentary, said a woman leaving 60 Park Lane had told him that Fayed had asked her to sit on his lap.

John Macnamara, head of security and a former Met Police officer, allegedly threatened a victim who was going to speak to a Vanity Fair journalist, saying he knew where her parents lived.

Fayed had been accused of groping and sexually assaulting female employees across his lifetime, including a rape allegation that was investigated by police in 2015 but did not lead to any charges.

A controversial figure 

Fayed was an Egyptian-born businessman who became a controversial figure in British public life – both for his dealings with MPs in the “cash for questions” scandal and as the father of Dodi Fayed, who died in the Paris car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales.

Fayed was a businessman in the Middle East before moving to the UK in the 1970s. He took control of Harrods in 1985 and purchased the Ritz hotel in Paris in 1979. He was also the owner of Fulham FC between 1997 and 2013. 

In the decade after the deaths of his son and the Princess, he repeatedly claimed that Dodi had been murdered in a plot by the British establishment. But he was forced to reluctantly concede defeat after a six-month inquest in 2007 and 2008. The jury returned unlawful killing verdicts on both the Princess and Dodi, but pinned the blame on the drink-driving of chauffeur Henri Paul, who also died in the crash.

After 26 years in charge of Harrods, Fayed sold it to the Qatari royal family for a reported £1.5 billion in 2010. At the time, he said problems with pension fund trustees were behind his decision to sell.

Fayed died in September last year aged 94.

Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods is on BBC Two at 9pm on Thursday and is available on BBC iPlayer now. All five episodes of World of Secrets: Al-Fayed, Predator at Harrods are available on BBC Sounds

The NHS should be abolished to save lives, a paper by the Institute of Economic Affairs, said on Thursday.

The report called for the health service to be replaced with a system of social insurance, showing that countries that have such models have far superior outcomes.

The think tank’s study revealed that Britain has almost the highest levels of deaths that could have been avoided with the right treatment, second only to Greece.

It comes as a separate report by the think tank, Policy Exchange, called for an overhaul of NHS management – including scrapping NHS England, which is responsible for the health service’s £165 billion annual budget.

The 170-page report – welcomed by Jeremt Hunt, the shadow chancellor and former health secretary – found more than four in five hospital trusts had not fired a manager in the last year for poor performance or misconduct.

Mr Hunt said there were “a range of bold and pragmatic proposals that ought to be carefully considered by the Government”.

“It is without doubt that effective management is a requirement if we want to deliver a high-performing and more productive NHS – something which was clear to me throughout my tenure as health secretary,” he said.

The health service is under close scrutiny with an independent investigation by Lord Darzi in September declaring the NHS in a “critical condition”.

On Wednesday, Wes Streeting said his findings would force him to “take on both left and right-wing orthodoxies”.

He said the Left must accept NHS reforms or the health service would “die”.

But he said the Right should accept that without “nanny state” measures to improve public health, healthcare costs would rise, meaning higher taxes.

The report by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) points to a “huge shift in public opinion” with Britons increasingly likely to say the NHS is worse than healthcare systems in other European countries.

According to a YouGov poll, 29 per cent of Britons say the NHS is worse than European healthcare systems, up from 11 per cent in 2021.

The study highlights countries including the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the former East Germany which have moved away from systems similar to the NHS, and improved outcomes.

It says the Netherlands, which has always had some kind of social insurance system, but moved away from heavy regulation to a market based approach, could provide a blueprint for how to reform care.

Even before the pandemic, the UK had waiting times around twice as long as those of the Netherlands for many common procedures.

For common types of cancer the UK’s survival rates are among the lowest in Western Europe, it says.

The report, called The Denationalisation of Healthcare, calls for a transition to such systems, which have private insurers and providers competing for customers.

All health insurers would be obliged to provide a minimum package, which would automatically be given to all citizens as a default option, while taxes were replaced with health insurance contributions.

Hospitals and other healthcare providers would be turned into freestanding independent companies, potentially being floated on the stock exchange.

And it says national pay scales should be phased out, and a free medical labour market introduced.

Dr Kristian Niemietz, the report author and IEA editorial director, said: “Until not even three years ago, the NHS used to be Britain’s most revered sacred cow, and criticising it was the ultimate social taboo.

“Now, three out of ten people say openly that some of the continental European health systems deliver better-quality healthcare than the NHS does. I have rarely seen a social taboo lose its bite so quickly: there has been a dramatic shift in what people feel they are allowed to say in public.”

The Department of Health and Social Care has been approached for comment.

Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “Switching to a social health insurance or other alternative funding model for the NHS is a misguided argument that many independent think tanks have concluded will make no difference to health outcomes. 

“If anything, it’s a distraction when what really matters is the level of investment rather than the model of funding.”

He said research carried out by Ipsos on behalf of the NHS Confederation found a high level of support for the founding principles of the NHS, with 87 per cent saying it should be comprehensive and free.

The Policy Exchange report said the 15,000 employees at NHS England should be replaced by an NHS management board within the Department of Health, while failing managers at local NHS providers should be disbarred.

In response to the Policy Exchange report, an NHS spokesman, said: “As Lord Darzi has said, a reorganisation of NHS England is neither necessary nor desirable, and it was a top-down reorganisation in 2012 – similar to what Policy Exchange is recommending today – that Lord Darzi found was a calamity without international precedent.”

He said NHS England would continue to work closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, including on a 10-year plan, and pointed out that staff numbers at NHS England have fallen by more than one third since 2022.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “The NHS needs fundamental reform, but as the Secretary of State has repeatedly said, we remain committed to providing a public service, free at the point of use.”

He said Lord Darzi’s investigation “found nothing that draws into question the principles of a health service that is taxpayer funded, free at the point of use, and based on need not ability to pay”.

It also found that the 2012 top down reorganisation of the NHS did lasting damage.

The spokesman said: “The Secretary of State has been clear that the NHS needs radical reform, but the last thing patients on a waiting list want is years and billions of pounds wasted on another top-down reorganisation.”

Robin Ince, the comedian, has claimed that he was bullied by Ricky Gervais so much that it triggered a “stress rash”.

The performer, known for co-presenting the Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC Radio 4, toured with Gervais before the pair fell out.

Ince has claimed that, looking back, he now feels he was bullied by Gervais, whose seemingly strange behaviour towards him made others uncomfortable.

Instances of the alleged behaviour were captured in behind-the-scenes material included in a 2004 DVD of Gervais’s Politics tour with Ince.

While it is not clear whether the footage is what Ince is referring to in his allegations, the clips show Gervais apparently irritating Ince with loud noises, songs, surprises and requests to perform tasks for his amusement.

Speaking  on The Starting Line podcast about their relationship, Ince said: “I look back now, and I think it is bullying, really it is.”

Ince said that he forgot how “weird” the behaviour was, and its strangeness was only made apparent when people outside their friendship witnessed Gervais’s actions.

He added: “People who knew me did not like the way that relationship worked. I am not saying it is a traumatic experience, but after two weeks I came out in red lumps that my doctor said were a stress rash. I think my hair is coming out in clumps.”

He said: “I would go through it, but people who knew me did not like the way that relationship worked.”

During one incident, when Gervais was publicly reading out a diary of Ince’s invented daily actions, MacKenzie Crook, star of The Office, intervened to ask him to stop because he was uncomfortable with it, according to Ince.

In video outtakes from their shared tour in 2004, Ince describes himself as a “human stress ball” used by Gervais.

In extras on the DVD for the Politics tour, Gervais is seen squealing at Ince, attempting to jump out and surprise him, prodding his face, tying him up, and singing to him while filming on a small video camera.

He later described members of the tour joining in with Gervais’s antics, comparing them to the out-of-control boys in the novel Lord of the Flies.

The filmed performance of Gervais’s Politics show used in the DVD opens with him making jokes at the expense of Ash Atalla, a producer who uses a wheelchair, which Atalla later said made him “uncomfortable”.

Speaking on the podcast, Ince was asked about his relationship with Gervais, which he said had been broken off.

The pair had been friends since the early 2000s, and Ince said they remained on good terms until a 2022 transgender row.

Gervais had delivered several jokes in his international tours which were critical of gender ideology, the belief that gender identity is decided by personal self-identified, rather than biology.

Ince criticised this in a 2022 essay on his website, in which he complained that Gervais was becoming a figure of Right-wing admiration.

He wrote: “Anti-trans punchlines seem to have become highly profitable and it ignores the dehumanising effect on a swathe of already marginalised people.

“I think Ricky believes it is just him being a “naughty boy”. I believe it makes him a pin-up and role model for the alt-Right (which is sadly just the mainstream right nowadays) and, whether he likes it or not, a useful ally in the culture war.

“I know he is not a supporter of alt-Right ideology, but I see his words used as gifs and memes in support of such ideology.”.

In his July podcast interview, Ince said he had spoken to Gervais only a week before he wrote the piece, but added he had not spoken to his friend since.

Representatives for Gervais were contacted for comment.

Russian troops have been caught on film panicking and repeatedly swearing in the aftermath of a Ukrainian air strike.

An explosion on Wednesday in Pochepsky, a Russian district to the north of the Ukrainian border, left a group of soldiers confused as to whether a fighter jet or drone had struck a nearby building.

“Damn it, damn it,” one man is heard saying over the sound of something swooping towards the ground, in a video circulated on social media.

A loud explosion follows and the view from the camera is completely engulfed by the sight of bright orange flames. The group of shoulders are then seen scuttling along the floor on their hands and knees as they get away from it.

“F–k it,” one of the soldiers screams. Another voice can be heard saying amid the panic: “Looks like it was a drone, f–king hell.”

As they sprint from the scene of the strike, the men begin to ask themselves whether it could have been a fighter jet.

“No, no, it’s definitely a drone,” one of the men shouts. “No, that was a fighter jet,” another responds.

“We better not be standing there. F–k, thank God we’re alive, holy s–t,” one man yells, his voice shaking.

Greater ability to strike deep inside Russia 

The panicked scenes occurred on the same day as a long-range attack hit one of Russia’s largest ammunition depots.

It highlighted the potential of what Ukraine’s forces could achieve if Western governments allowed them to strike targets deep inside Russia with Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles.

The ammunition dump at Toropets, some 240 miles west of Moscow, would have been a perfect target for either of the missiles, which have been donated by the British, French and Americans.

The Storm Shadow’s bunker-busting warhead could have been used to penetrate any hardened bunkers used to store ammunition, while America’s ATACMS, armed with cluster munition warheads, would have been able to scatter thousands of bomblets to detonate any Russian ammunition being stored in the open air.

By Wednesday afternoon, around 30,000 tons of shells were reported to have exploded, with secondary detonations still ongoing.

Ukraine’s SBU security service told local media outlets that Ukrainian drones had “literally wiped off the face of the earth a large warehouse of the main missile and artillery department”.

Toropets is nearly 300 miles from the Ukrainian border, a demonstration of Ukraine’s improved drone-strike capabilities.

While at the outer reaches of the Storm Shadow’s maximum range, the threat of the missile’s use inside Russia would prevent Moscow from storing ammunition so close to the front line.

Dame Maureen Lipman is engaged to be married after proposing to her partner at the age of 78.

The actress and comedian said she first asked David Turner for his hand on a train as a joke – and Mr Turner, also 78, said yes. 

Dame Maureen said that “with a combined age of 156, we are going to get married”.

Writing in The Spectator, she said: “In truth I had been rather against the ‘M’ word, but on a train coming back from Edinburgh, he mentioned that it was the minor festival of Tu B’Av – a day when a Jewish woman can ask a man to marry her.

“Unable to resist the gag, I slid under the table separating us, onto one knee, and asked him for his hand. To my surprise and slight panic, he gave it.”

The actress, whose career has spanned Beattie in the BT advertising campaign and National Theatre roles, revealed she was in a relationship with Mr Turner last year. They made their first public appearance together at the Oldie of the Year awards last November.

She has previously spoken of the joy of finding love in her 70s after losing Jack Rosenthal, her husband of 30 years, to cancer in 2004. Guido Castro, a computer expert who had a form of Parkinson’s, was then her partner for 13 years before he died of Covid.

Announcing her engagement, Dame Maureen told how the couple shared the news with their loved ones on what would have been Rosenthal’s birthday.

She wrote: “My late, great husband Jack Rosenthal’s birthday would have been on Sep 8. So, armed with a birthday cake, we set off in David’s car to tell first my kids, then his, about our engagement. All reactions were warm, and all were individual. One child said that he needed time ‘to process’.”

Dame Maureen said two Metropolitan Police officers who had helped recover her stolen car on the same day were invited to the wedding.

She added: “The cops were impeccably  patient, smiling and interesting. And, improbably, one of the officers, whose surname was Hussein, turned out to have a Jewish mother. They’re both coming to the wedding.”

In June last year, Dame Maureen wrote a column in the magazine with the headline My return to dating, in which she described going on a date on what would have been Castro’s birthday. She said her counterpart had not been on a date in 52 years.

On Tuesday, thousands of Hezbollah’s pagers exploded. On Wednesday, it was the terrorist group’s walkie-talkies that were detonating in the hands of its fighters.

Iran’s largest and most prestigious terrorist proxy in the Middle East appears to have been well and truly compromised by the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service.

For those trying to predict what may happen next, there are two key questions: what are Israel’s intentions with these attacks and how might Hezbollah respond?

Israel has a long history of extrajudicial assassination dating back its deadly response to the Munich massacre of Olympic athletes in 1972 but it has never unleashed a campaign on this scale before.

Despite its code name, Operation Wrath of God, the response to Munich was said to be less about revenge than deterrence through attack.

“We were not engaged in vengeance,” said Zvi Zamir, director of the Mossad at the time. “They definitely deserved to die. But we were not dealing with the past; we concentrated on the future.”

Some think Israel is pursuing a similar objective now, trying to get Hezbollah to back off through a surgical demonstration of strength.

Unnamed US officials were quoted as saying on Wednesday that Mossad had originally only intended the devices be detonated in the event of full-scale war but that Hezbollah was on the brink of discovering that they had been compromised.

Israel then detonated the devices on a “use it or lose it” basis; a classic “mowing” of the terrorist lawn.

Others speculate that the explosions could yet herald an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, planned or opportunistic.

“The scale of these attacks [is] staggering, and the extent to which Israel has managed to penetrate and neutralise Hezbollah’s communications infrastructure and command and control is staggering,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

“In theory, there’s no better time for Israel to launch a full-blown war.”

Israel’s most senior general in the north is said to be agitating for a land invasion of southern Lebanon to push Hezbollah back beyond the Litani river. But what hawkish politicians and generals in Israel want is not necessarily what will transpire.

The US does not want an escalation and Israel remains reliant on it to defend against a major blitzkrieg of Hezbollah missiles or another direct attack from Iran.

Also, the window of opportunity is tight. Hugh Lovatt, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that while Israel may currently have an “advantageous window to launch a ground offensive” it would quickly close.

“I don’t expect any significant qualitative change to Hezbollah’s military capability beyond a few days of disruption,” he said.

And war is no easy choice. After all, it was Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 that allowed Hezbollah to become dominant in the first place.

“Old Bibi would never do it. New Bibi is hard to tell,” said Assaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general and a fellow at The Washington Institute, referring to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“War is a bad option, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.” 

So much, then, for Israel’s intention.

But what of Hezbollah’s likely response. How is the terror group likely to respond to what Israeli military analysts are gleefully characterising as its “humiliation” and – in several cases – the literal “emasculation” of its fighters?

In Tehran, the group’s masters will almost certainly be demanding patience, or what the Ayatollah calls “heroic flexibility”.

Whisper it quietly, but it’s the same brand of political expediency Joe Biden advised Israel to adopt in the aftermath of Oct 7.

“You can’t look at what has happened here to your mothers, your fathers, your grandparents, sons, daughters, children – even babies – and not scream out for justice,” the US president told Mr Netanyahu in Tel Aviv in the wake of the massacre.

“But I caution this: while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”

Israel ignored Mr Biden’s advice and has ended up in what most analysts regard as a strategic mess.

It is locked in a multifront war, a large part of its population remains displaced, its economy is tanking and in many parts of the world it has come to be regarded as a pariah state.

Hezbollah will no doubt now be tempted to lash out wildly just as Israel did in the wake of Oct 7. The pressure from its ranks will be immense.

But the message from Iran will almost certainly be to play it cool. Tehran needs Hezbollah in one piece and, from its perspective, Israel is already on the ropes.

Kamala Harris’s ex-boyfriend has hit out over a photograph purporting to show the Democratic presidential candidate with Sean “Diddy” Combs.

A social media post from a Right-wing account claimed to show Ms Harris grinning and linking arms with the rapper, who was charged with sex trafficking and racketeering on Tuesday.

However, the photograph actually shows the vice president with Montel Williams, a television host who she briefly dated in the early 2000s.

“Here is P Diddy with Kamala Harris,” the post read. “P Diddy has been arrested for sex trafficking! Who thinks he should expose everyone in Hollywood?”

Williams responded: “Here they go again with ‘all black people look alike…’”

Other versions of the image have been doctored to replace Williams’ head with that of Combs, who authorities claim threatened and intimidated women into days-long orgies with male prostitutes known as “Freak Offs”. He denies the charges.

One post published the photoshopped image on Sunday, the day that Combs was arrested in New York, with the caption: “The Diddy Client List goes all the way to the top.”

In fact, the unedited photograph shows Ms Harris with Williams and his daughter at an event in California to raise money for research into multiple sclerosis in 2001.

In 2019, Williams posted on X, then Twitter:

The development is the latest example of online misinformation and digital manipulation of images during the presidential race.

Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, has previously posted fake AI images of Taylor Swift endorsing him on his Truth Social account. The Shake It Off singer later endorsed Ms Harris, after citing her concerns about the doctored photographs.

While there is currently no evidence that Ms Harris and Combs know each other, they both appeared at a virtual town hall in April 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The event, which was also attended by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman, according to the Complex news outlet, focused on the impact of the pandemic on black Americans.

Ms Harris, then a senator for California, later praised the music mogul for drawing attention to “racial inequality” in a post on social media.

“Thank you, Diddy, for hosting this town hall last night,” she wrote on X.

“There’s a lot at stake for our communities right now and it’s critical we bring to the forefront how coronavirus is perpetuating racial inequality and health disparities.”

The US government is suing the owner of the container ship that struck and destroyed the iconic Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in March.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Wednesday it was pursuing a civil negligence case against Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy, the owner and operator of the Dali ship.

The department said the tragedy, which killed six, was “avoidable” and called for the companies to pay $100 million in cleanup costs.

In a briefing on Thursday, lawyers for the government told reporters that the two companies were “prioritising profit over safety” and that they, “not the American taxpayer” should cover the costs of the disaster.

The bridge, which had stood since 1972, collapsed entirely after it was struck by the Dali in the night on March 26.

The accident occurred when the ship lost power shortly after leaving Baltimore Port, one of the US East Coast’s largest container hubs and drifted to the side of the channel.

Six workers who were on the bridge fell into the water and died. Some bodies were not recovered for days as investigators and rescue teams dug through the bridge’s mangled wreckage in the water.

In court documents filed by the DOJ, the government’s lawyers said both an officer and a captain of the ship had previously reported issues to Synergy, the operator. They said it should have come as “no surprise” that the power outage tripped the ship’s circuit breakers, preventing it from stopping.

They said negligence by both companies had caused a “cascading series of failures” that resulted in the bridge’s collapse.

The issues included that the ship’s emergency generator did not activate within 45 seconds, as required by US maritime safety law. The ship took more than a minute to regain power, then lost it again.

“As events unfolded, and because of the unseaworthy condition of the ship, none of the four means available to help control the Dali – her propeller, rudder, anchor, or bow thruster – worked when they were needed to avert or even mitigate this disaster,” the lawsuit said.

“This second power failure was caused by Petitioners’ decision – made to save money and for their own convenience – to use a ‘flushing’ pump to fuel the diesel generators that made the ship’s electricity,” it adds.

The US government is also arguing that the companies’ claim for limited liability, filed in the aftermath of the disaster, is not valid under maritime law.

The DOJ is seeking punitive damages it says will partially recover the cost of the cleanup operation, and discourage companies from breaking safety regulations in future.

Germany should abolish the constitutional right to asylum as it will allow the country to set quotas on refugees, the interior minister of the eastern state of Brandenburg has said, in an apparent bid to appease the hard-Right.

Michael Stübgen, a member of the centre-right CDU, said the law should be amended as Germany already subscribes to the Geneva Convention on refugees, making it redundant.

“The individual right to asylum is no longer necessary in the Basic Law [German constitution] because we already grant protection to people who are persecuted under the rules of the Geneva Refugee Convention,” he said. “That is why I am in favour of anchoring the Geneva Refugee Convention as an institutional guarantee in the Basic Law.”

He added that the reform would allow Germany to introduce its own quota system for refugees. “We will then decide who comes into our country. And we can decide to what extent we can accept and integrate migrants.”

Germany’s mainstream parties are expected to be roundly defeated in this weekend’s Brandenburg state elections, where the hard-Right AfD party is projected to take nearly 30 per cent of the vote.

‘Nationwide border controls’

Irregular migration has quickly become Germany’s most fierce political issue after a knife attack at a music festival in Western Germany where a Syrian man murdered three people.

Olaf Scholz, the chancellor of Germany, this week introduced nationwide border controls in response to calls for a much tougher migration policy, expanding checks already in place with the country’s eastern EU neighbours.

Increased tensions over migration have also been seized upon by the CDU party, which is at risk of losing support to the AfD in both the Brandenburg state election and the general election in September 2025.

It came as a new poll suggested that confidence in Mr Scholz’s traffic light coalition had fallen to just three per cent, with voters venting their frustration about the lack of tougher migration controls in Germany.

The survey of a thousand Germans, conducted in late August and early September, found that only three per cent felt the SPD, Greens and FDP coalition was good for the country.

A quarter of respondents said they were hoping for a powerful, one-party majority in the next election while 54 per cent said they wanted to see the CDU party return to government.

A Polish drink driver has defended himself for being nearly four times over the legal limit by saying that alcohol is “quite usual” in his home country.

Radoslaw Jaroszek, 45, was selling ice creams from a van on the seafront in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in August when customers reported him to police for appearing “intoxicated”.

The Polish national was found to have 131mgs of alcohol per 100ml of breath – almost four times the legal limit of 35mgs. The drink-driving limit in Poland is one of the strictest in Europe, at just 0.2mg.

He admitted drink-driving at Great Yarmouth Magistrates’ court on Wednesday, where he said it was normal to drink alcohol in Poland and that he did not know Britain’s drink-driving laws were so strict.

Jaroszek was working for Lamarti’s Ice Cream at the seaside town on Aug 12 when customers noticed he seemed “intoxicated” and “impaired”.

Police were called, and then tracked him on CCTV as he drove the ice cream van through the town.

‘Quite usual’ to drink alcohol in Poland

Officers who pulled Jaroszek over “smelt liquor” on his breath and found him “unsteady on his feet”, the court heard. A breathalyser test then found that he was significantly over the legal limit, and he was arrested.

The lowest test of his breath recorded following his arrest was 105mgs.

Jaroszek, speaking through an interpreter, told the court that it was “quite usual” to drink alcohol in Poland. He claimed that he had only had two pints of beer on the day of his arrest.

The court heard that he had previously told a probation officer that he did not usually drink and had only been doing so to cope with depression after his partner had a miscarriage.

Jaroszek was banned from driving for 25 months, given a 12-month community order, including 100 hours of unpaid work and 10 rehabilitation requirement days, and ordered to pay £199 costs.

He was fired by Lamarti’s Ice Cream after his arrest and is still jobless.

A former actor freed from jail early under Keir Starmer’s prisoner release scheme is back behind bars after allegedly assaulting his ex-partner.

Jason Hoganson – who starred in the cult 1980s film Empire State – was pictured giving the thumbs up as he left HMP Durham on Sep 10 after being freed from an 18-month sentence for assaulting his former girlfriend in the street.

He was one of 1,750 prisoners released 40 per cent through their sentences rather than halfway under a scheme designed to prevent jails running out of space.

However, within 48 hours Hoganson, a 53-year-old of no fixed abode, his head covered in distinctive tattoos, was back in jail after being arrested.

A court heard he was arrested on Sep 11, the day after he was released, on suspicion of two counts of breaching a restraining order by contacting the same former partner and one of assaulting her.

Prosecutors said that Hoganson allegedly sent his former partner two letters while he was in HMP Durham in August and on Sep 3. He is then suspected of assaulting her by slapping her cheek at her home address the day after his prison release.

Hoganson appeared before Newcastle Magistrates’ court on Sep 12 and pleaded guilty to one count of breaching the restraining order but not guilty to the second. He also denied the allegation of assault by beating.

The court heard that the assault allegedly happened at a property in Arthur’s Hill, Newcastle. District Judge Kate Meek accepted jurisdiction and his trial was listed for Oct 30 at South Tyneside Magistrates’ court. He was remanded in custody.

He had been due to appear again at North Tyneside Magistrates’ court via video link from prison on Wednesday, but refused to do so and his solicitor spoke on his behalf. He was further remanded in custody until his trial.

Hoganson, originally from Wallsend, struggled with his movie career and fell into a life of drink, drugs and crime. 

He had a leading role in the 1988 Hollywood movie Empire State alongside Ray McAnally, the Irish actor, Jamie Foreman and Martin Landau, the US star.

Playing a Geordie drifter living among mobsters in London, Hoganson had been talent-scouted by producers who contacted his drama teacher looking for a youth to play the part in the 1987 movie.

He is the second prisoner freed early who is alleged to have committed a crime within hours of their release. It emerged last week that a different former inmate allegedly sexually assaulted a woman on the same day he was freed.

Amari Ward, 31, was released on Tuesday as part of the policy, which aims to ease prison overcrowding. He appeared at Croydon Magistrates’ court on Thursday, charged with sexual assault, and is due to attend Maidstone Crown court next month.

Ward is alleged to have “intentionally touched” a woman who did not consent in Sittingbourne, Kent, on Tuesday, according to court documents. He was arrested at an address in south London.

Prison and probation watchdogs forecast that prisoners released early would be recalled to jail within weeks, with homelessness a key reason for either breaching their licence or returning to crime. A third of freed prisoners reoffend within a year of release.

A schoolboy has been allowed to identify as a wolf, according to reports.

The pupil claims to suffer from “species dysphoria”, a non-clinical condition in which an individual feels their body belongs to a different species.

Teachers at the secondary school in Britain are understood to be supporting the child’s decision, the Daily Mail reports.

A growing number of schoolchildren have asked to be officially recognised as animals including cats, foxes, birds and dinosaurs.

Tommy MacKay, a clinical neuropsychologist, told the Daily Mail: “There is no such condition in science as ‘species dysphoria’.

“It’s not surprising that we are seeing this in an age when many people want to identify as something other than they are.

“Now we have a council which appears to accept at face value that a child identifies as a wolf, rather than being told to snap out of it and get to grips with themselves, which would be the common-sense approach.”

‘Animal persona’

Official documents seen by the newspaper are said to recognise that the student now identifies as an animal.

The local authority, which has not been disclosed, said the pupil belonged to a group who called themselves “furries” and identified with an “animal persona”.

The council said a well-being worker offered “personal” and “specific” support for such cases including counselling and help with learning, adding: “There is very little specific guidance on species dysphoria.”

The move is in line with Scottish government guidance called Getting It Right For Every Child (Girfec), according to the council.

A “well-being wheel” is being used to support pupils. The wheel is a diagram used in Girfec guidance that emphasises the importance of helping children “overcome inequalities”.

In November last year, a school in Wales was forced to deny that it provided litter trays for children who identify as cats. Parents of around 1,000 pupils at West Monmouth School in Pontypool, South Wales, were told that the school did not provide extra facilities for pupils who might identify as “an animal of any kind”.

‘This kind of behaviour is not acceptable’

In a letter, Claire Hughes, the deputy head teacher, said: “It has come to our attention that there appears to be a number of queries and concerns raised within the community regarding the use of litter trays at West Monmouth School.

“I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that we do not and will not be planning on providing any litter trays at the school.

“Whilst we are an inclusive and welcoming school, we do not make any provision for any pupils who might identify as an animal of any kind.

“This kind of behaviour is not acceptable at school and as such, no provision is in place at school, such as litter trays.”

In 2023, a school in East Sussex reprimanded students for refusing to accept a classmate’s decision to self-identify as a cat. A teacher at Rye College was recorded telling pupils they were “despicable” for expressing their belief that there are only two genders after another pupil was believed to self-identify as a cat.

The Telegraph discovered that a pupil at a secondary school in the South West was insisting on being addressed as a dinosaur.

At another secondary school in England, a pupil insisted on identifying as a horse, while another wore a cape and wanted to be acknowledged as a moon.

A woman who worked for a domestic violence charity has been jailed for three years after stabbing her ex-boyfriend.

Jayne Rudd, 32, stabbed Sam Leopold three times in January just weeks after he won a restraining order against her because of the domestic abuse she subjected him to.

Rudd, a former communications officer at Olive Pathway, a Manchester-based domestic violence charity, had previously been given a suspended sentence for another attack on Mr Leopold.

Manchester Crown Court heard that in January, Mr Leopold was sleeping in a friend’s living room when Rudd let herself in at 6am, despite being banned from contacting Mr Leopold under the terms of the restraining order.

Mr Leopold rushed to close the room’s door to prevent Rudd getting in – only for her to force it off its hinges and use a kitchen knife to punch holes in it.

Mr Leopold suffered three injuries in the attack, including a slashed wrist, before he fled to a neighbouring house and called the police.

Officers later found Rudd asleep in a drunken stupor on the living room floor before arresting her.

The court heard that Rudd had previously been given 34 weeks in jail suspended for 18 months in June 2023 after she became verbally aggressive towards Mr Leopold in a local pub and then punched him.

He hid from her but Rudd subsequently hounded him with 300 texts apologising for her volatile behaviour.

In September 2022, Rudd was ordered to complete a 12-month community order and 100 hours after she mauled one trainee policeman on the hand and lashed out at a policewoman as four officers detained her for refusing to leave a property.

‘Dangerous to be around’

In a statement, Mr Leopold, a tree surgeon from Altrincham, Cheshire, said he “became used to being assaulted by her”.

He said: “She is dangerous to be around and this latest incident is clear evidence of that.”

“It doesn’t matter if she has a non-molestation order or a restraining order to protect me. She will always find a way back to me and that makes me feel unsafe.”

The court heard from a psychiatrist who examined her who said Rudd had an “emotionally unstable personality disorder” and a “tendency to self-destruct”.

‘A chaotic, toxic relationship’

Brendan O’Leary, Rudd’s counsel, said his client had mental issues dating back to a childhood trauma.

“There were suicide attempts from the age of 14 onwards and she has a borderline personality disorder,” he told the court.

“At the time of these offences she was clearly a very unwell woman and this was a chaotic, toxic relationship.”

Sentencing Rudd to three years in prison, the judge told her that she was “a highly intelligent woman but with a very troubled history”.

He also gave her a lifelong restraining order preventing her from contacting Mr Leopold.

A Labour councillor who was caught “covered in lipstick” in an illegal sex den has become the leader of his local authority.

Cllr Brent Carter, the new leader of Merthyr Tydfil Borough council in south Wales, was caught at a backstreet brothel in 2015 during a police raid.

He became the leader of the Labour-run authority on Wednesday after a group of independent councillors lost their majority following a by-election defeat.

Cllr Carter, 52, had only been inside the brothel for a few minutes in May 2015 when police officers raided the address in Merthyr Tydfil’s Regent Street.

Details of the incident emerged in September 2017 when Leon Hall, the pimp running the illegal sex den, was tried in court.

Merthyr Tydfil Magistrates Court heard that Cllr Carter – who was a Labour councillor at the time – was found “covered in lipstick” inside the property.

Police also discovered packets of condoms and lubricating gel on the floor.

Residents on the street had previously complained that the round-the-clock activity at the terraced house had been a nuisance for a year and was causing “distress”.

‘Highly embarrassing’

It is understood the brothel was staffed by Eastern European women who were allowed to keep two-thirds of their earnings.

Hall was given a 10-month suspended sentence for running the brothel.

Cllr Carter was reported to the Public Service Ombudsman for breaching the council’s code of conduct but was not arrested and kept hold of his seat, which he has held since 2008.

The ombudsman later ruled there was no evidence that Cllr Carter had brought his office or authority into disrepute – “as opposed to bringing himself personally into disrepute”. 

Residents of the town said it was “highly embarrassing” that he was now leader of the council.

Local resident Simon Ryan, 57, a taxi driver, said: “How will people respect the town when its leader has acted in this way?

“He was caught red-handed in a brothel – people can’t have faith in a man like that. We will be the laughing stock of the Valleys.

“It’s highly embarrassing for him and for Merthyr Tydfil which has improved its reputation over recent years.”

In a statement issued by Merthyr Tydfil Borough Council, Cllr Carter said: “I appreciate the concern raised by some members of the community regarding my past.

“As the newly elected Leader of the Council, I understand the importance of upholding the values and reputation of our town as I have lived in Merthyr all my life; and I can honestly say that I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

“The support received by my family, friends and constituents, who have from 2008, trusted me with their vote, has been overwhelming.

“I want to assure everyone that I am fully committed to serving with integrity and dedication. It is important that residents know that I have learned from my past experiences and have worked hard to grow and evolve as a person.”

A married police chief had sex on duty with a junior officer 17 years younger than him, a tribunal has heard.

Daniel Greenwood, a former chief superintendent, quit West Yorkshire Police on Tuesday, hours before he was due to face a misconduct hearing over his affair with Caitlin Howarth, a probationary service constable.

The tribunal heard on Wednesday that Mr Greenwood, 41, had admitted abusing his position to have sex with the then 21-year-old while on duty – in contravention of Covid restrictions, which he was responsible for overseeing in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

The court also heard that Ms Howarth had a relationship with drug dealer Joseph Shaw, who was later jailed for taking part in an operation to supply large quantities of Class A drugs in Bradford, but did not disclose this to the force.

Ms Howarth, who was referred to as Miss A during the hearing but has previously been named in reporting, regularly posts glamorous photos on social media to her 10,000 followers.

She met Mr Greenwood after her mother – a governor at his children’s primary school – introduced them, the hearing was told.

He was said to have agreed to help her apply for a job with West Yorkshire Police in December 2019, which she started in November the following year, and the pair soon began to exchange flirty messages and sexually explicit images.

“He always asked me to delete the messages,” Ms Howarth, who herself faces a misconduct hearing, told police investigators. “I think he deleted them so that his wife didn’t see.”

The tribunal was told that the pair had “consensual dressed sexual activity” in October 2020, a month before she joined the force, and they then breached Covid restrictions by having sex at her flat in January 2021 while Mr Greenwood was on duty.

He was in charge of Bradford’s response to Covid at the time.

The hearing was told that they had sex at her home for a second time in July that year, by which time rumours of the affair had started to cause “tittle-tattle and gossip in the ranks”.

Their tryst began to unravel when Mr Greenwood told Ms Howarth that she did not need to disclose a reason when applying for annual leave.

She then revealed this advice to an unnamed senior officer, who asked Mr Greenwood what he knew of her circumstances.

John Beggs KC, representing West Yorkshire Police, told the hearing that at this point he “began to appreciate the trouble he had brought upon himself”. He searched online to see whether police could recover iPhone data and attempted a factory reset on his device.

“An officer of Greenwood’s experience, service and rank knew – or ought reasonably to have known – that his sexual dalliances with this probationer were bound to bring discredit upon the police service,” Mr Beggs said.

“Greenwood’s motivations for helping Miss A with her application to join West Yorkshire Police morphed, at least in part, into sexual self-interest.”

Ms Howarth then entered a relationship with Shaw, who was later jailed for drugs offences.

In October 2021, Ms Howarth showed Mr Shaw a photograph from a crime scene showing laundry bags filled with heroin while the couple were on a date.

Following a probe into her relationship with Mr Shaw, she was arrested on Nov 2 2021 for misconduct in public office.

Mr Greenwood, whose wife is undergoing treatment for cancer, was suspended on full pay the next day.

He was not present at the hearing but admitted gross misconduct and has now resigned.

Hugh Davies KC, his lawyer, told the tribunal that he was a “high-functioning alcoholic” and was not fit to give evidence because he had PTSD.

The tribunal will decide on Thursday whether his conduct would have led to his dismissal had he not resigned.

Ms Howarth, who has also quit the force, had been due to face trial in February next year but the Crown Prosecution Service dropped proceedings on Tuesday.

An Army veteran has gone on trial for silently praying outside an abortion clinic.

Adam Smith-Connor, a reservist who served in Afghanistan, is being prosecuted for breaching a ban on protests within a buffer zone around the clinic in Bournemouth.

He has, however, claims that he has the right to silently pray for an unborn son whom he now regrets aborting and that prosecuting him amounts to “criminalisng someone’s beliefs”.

His case comes as the Home Office is set to enact legislation that will ban protests including silent prayer within 150-metre buffer zones around abortion clinics from the end of October.

The clinic in Bournemouth has been previously targeted by protesters and was made the subject of a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) in 2022 by the local council.

The order creates an area around the clinic so women visitors and staff members can come and go without being harassed and subjected to verbal abuse by pro-life campaigners.

Mr Smith-Connor, 51, was spotted behind a tree on a green in a public space about 50 metres from the entrance of the BPAS abortion clinic on Nov 24 2022.

He was approached by Catherine Brookfield, a council officer, who had observed him standing in silence for four or five minutes with his head slightly bowed and his hands clasped down in front of him.

In a video taken by Mr Smith-Connor, a chartered physiotherapist, she asked what he was doing and he replied: “I’m praying for my son who is deceased.” 

Poole magistrates’ court heard he was still haunted by the decision he and his then partner made to abort their unborn child 24 years ago.

She responded: “My belief is you are here to engage in an act of disapproval of the work of the abortion clinic.” 

She asked him to move on as he was within the buffer zone and acts of “prayer as disapproval” were prohibited by the PSPO.

Mr Smith-Connor refused and told her: “You are telling me that silent prayer is banned in this area? I’m praying in my mind and not approaching anyone. I’m entitled to pray silently for my dead son in a free country.”

Mr Smith-Connor, from Marchwood, Hants, was repeatedly warned he could face further action if he did not leave the buffer zone during their conversation, which lasted for more than 90 minutes. 

He was subsequently issued with a £100 fine for breach of conduct on Dec 13 2022.

He did not pay it and so was charged with the criminal offence of failing to comply with a public spaces protection order under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. He denies the offence.

He broke down in court on Thursday as he said that he believed it was wrong for prayer to be criminalised in a “free nation”. 

He said: “My son was aborted in Leeds 24 years ago. It is not practical for me to go to Leeds, so I go to a more local location to pray because my son lost his life within an abortion facility.

“I feel it’s important for me to go near that kind of location. Prayer is important and prayer shouldn’t be threatened in this great land, so I chose to go and practise this right. 

“I think in a free nation you can do that, and prayer should not be criminalised.

“I and fellow servicemen made an oath to the King and country that our freedoms are upheld and defended. I am a law-abiding citizen.” The trial continues.

Nigel Farage has revealed that he is not holding in-person surgeries for constituents because of fears for his safety.

In a series of interviews ahead of Reform UK’s annual conference in Birmingham, which starts on Friday, the MP said that he was yet to host any “old-style” meetings in his Clacton seat amid concerns people could “flow through the door with their knives in their pockets”.

In a speech on Friday afternoon, Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, is expected to denounce net zero as an “extremist cult”, with Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, as its “zealot in chief”.

On Thursday, Mr Farage claimed he had been advised by the Speaker’s Office not to hold the surgeries in person, but this was denied by parliamentary sources.

Mr Farage is facing questions over whether he is fulfilling his duties as an MP, having spent time in the US endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

During a phone-in on LBC on Thursday, he was asked whether he had an office in his constituency and how many surgeries he had held there since he was elected more than two months ago.

“Do I have an office in Clacton? Yes. Am I allowing the public to flow through the door with their knives in their pockets? No, no I’m not,” he replied.

Mr Farage clarified that he was “not yet” hosting surgeries in person, but that he would “when Parliament allows me”. For now, he said people could speak to him on Zoom.

On whether he had been advised for his own security not to host the meetings, he replied: “I would have thought that would make sense, wouldn’t you?”

He said that the guidance had been given by the Speaker’s Office, adding: “Beneath the Speaker’s Office, there is a security team who give advice and say you should do some things and not do others.”

“So we’re not in a fit state to do the old-style surgeries,” he said.

However, parliamentary authorities are understood to have no recollection of giving any such instruction.

Sources said that neither the Speaker’s Office nor Parliament’s security team would have advised any MP not to hold a surgery because this would interfere with their democratic duties.

Instead, they said that they may offer security advice on measures to keep members safe.

It comes as Reform gathers for its two-day annual conference in central Birmingham, where members will celebrate finally getting a foothold in Parliament with five MPs and nearly four million votes.

The party is hoping to overtake the Tories at the next election to become the official opposition, with Mr Farage having said he plans to challenge to be prime minister in 2029.

In an interview with the Telegraph Politics Newsletter on the eve of the conference, Zia Yusuf, the Reform chairman, insisted that his party could win the next national vote.

The 37-year-old entrepreneur, who was appointed by Mr Farage in July, also vowed to lift the grammar school ban, warning existing education policies mean social mobility is “under assault” in Britain.

It is currently against the law to open new grammar schools, although the existing 163 grammars – attended by more than 175,000 pupils – are allowed to expand.

Conference marks coming of age of Reform

“A society grows very ill, many bad things happen in a society, if there is a lack of social mobility,” he said.

“That’s incredibly important, and it’s a really important part of this country’s history that is under threat now – frankly, it’s under assault.”

“I went to a selective school, my parents were certainly not wealthy at all. And so I certainly think that that was an important thing for me.”

Rishi Sunak appeared to signal his support for bringing back grammar schools during his Tory leadership campaign in the summer of 2022, but his team later clarified he only wanted to expand existing institutions.

Criticising the net zero target, which Reform has pledged to scrap, Mr Tice will say: “Other major nations with oil and gas treasure are extracting it as fast as they can according to market conditions.

“They are laughing at our naive stupidity which is nothing short of gross negligence on our part and impoverishing our economy.”

Another major theme of the conference will be constitutional reform, with Mr Farage having announced on Thursday he was “relinquishing” his shares in a bid to democratise the party.

He declared in a video posted on X: “I’ve now made a decision. I no longer need to control this party. I’m going to let go.

“We will change the structure of the party from one limited by shares to a company limited by guarantee, and that means it’s the members of Reform that will own this party.

“I am relinquishing control of the company, and indeed of the overall control of the party, it’s now going to be the members, and that, I think, is the right thing, and it’s the right thing because this conference marks the coming of age of Reform UK, and that’s something that I’m very, very excited about.”

Lisa Nandy received death threats from a constituent who was armed with a crossbow when he opened his door to police, a court has heard.

Ryan Breheny, from Wigan, threatened to kill Ms Nandy in emails sent to her constituency office on June 3.

Earlier that day, Breheny had called 999 and told police he had been “offered an AK-47” assault rifle and was going to “execute everyone” in a hospital.

During the same call to police, the 48-year-old claimed he had access to chemicals and spoke of how easy it would be to build a bomb.

Less than an hour later, he sent the emails to the office of Ms Nandy, the Labour MP for Wigan, who is now the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary.

In a victim statement read to the court, her office manager said: “I was shocked and genuinely believed that this man could’ve carried out the threats that he was making.”

When police arrived at Breheny’s house later that day, he was seen with a crossbow. He was told to drop the weapon, but instead loaded it and opened his door to officers while holding it.

Breheny was jailed for three years and three months at Bolton Crown Court for making a threat to kill, making threatening communications, and common assault.

A Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spokesman said: “Ryan Breheny, 48, called the emergency services just after 6.15pm on June 3 this year. He told the police operator he wanted to make a complaint about the NHS. He then said that he had been ‘offered an AK47 and was going to execute everyone in the hospital wearing a uniform’.

“He continued to make threats, using the word ‘execute’ multiple times and referring to the specific weapons he was planning on using. During the call, Breheny referred to chemicals he could get hold of and how easy it was to make a bomb.

“Less than an hour later, he sent two threatening email messages to an MP’s constituency office. The messages contained threats to kill the MP.”

Police went to Breheny’s house the same evening, and as officers knocked on the door, one saw him in the house with a crossbow.

The CPS added in the statement: “Breheny was told to drop the weapon, but instead began to load it and opened the door with the weapon in his hand.

“He was later arrested in his house after he dropped the weapon. Further weapons were seized from inside his home including, slingshots, rifles, a baton and a machete.”

In a police interview, he admitted sending the emails, but claimed that he had no intention of carrying out his threats.

Abbie Clarke, the senior crown prosecutor for the North West, said: “Breheny’s threats have caused fear and distress to the staff at the MP’s office.

“Members of Parliament and the emergency services play vital roles in our communities and criminality cannot be allowed to impede or affect that in any way. The Crown Prosecution Service works with the police to protect MPs and our emergency services, so they can continue to do their important work.”

A teenager wearing a shower cap allegedly took a New York subway train for a joyride before crashing it.

The 17-year-old girl is suspected of being one of two people who commandeered the empty train from Briarwood subway station in Queens in the early hours of Sept 12.

They subsequently crashed into a parked train and fled the scene on foot. No injuries were reported following the collision.

The 17-year-old has been arrested and charged with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment, while authorities are still searching for her companion.

It is unclear how the pair were able to get into the train, despite requests for clarification by The Telegraph. A spokesman for the New York Police Department indicated that the issue was likely to be under investigation.

Surveillance images released by police show a woman wearing tight pink shorts, large hoop earrings and what appears to be a shower cap walking through the unoccupied train carriage. A man was with her.

Police have not clarified how far the duo travelled in the train before it crashed, how fast they were going, or the nature of the damage that was caused.

Officers said in a statement that they “entered an unoccupied train and operated it, causing a collision and damage to the train”.

In an appeal for information this week, officers said they were seeking a “female with a medium build and medium complexion”.

“She was last seen wearing a pink shower cap, a pink sleeveless shirt, pink shorts, and carrying a pink handbag,” the statement added.

Her companion was described as a “male with a slim build and light complexion” who was “last seen wearing a blue tank top, red shorts, and carrying a black backpack”.

A similar incident took place in January at Forest Hills-71st Avenue station, also in Queens, when joyriders drove the train a short distance before fleeing.

At the time, officials speculated that the culprits used a stolen key to operate the train.