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Austerity hit police’s ability to tackle violence against women, say ex-officers

Systematic underfunding of the police in England and Wales during 10 years of austerity “severely diminished” officers’ ability to recognise and target criminals who attack women and girls, according to former senior police figures.

They called for a “Stephen Lawrence moment” of transformation in the service and a full judge-led inquiry to restore faith in policing.

Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent with the Metropolitan police who retired in 2013, said more than a decade of austerity had dealt “a massive body blow” to the police and hampered its ability to tackle male violence against women and girls.

“Resources have never been pulled in such a dramatic way as they have been in the last 10 years – and people want to relinquish responsibility, but this happened on the Lib Dem watch, and the Conservative watch,” he said, referring partly to the coalition government in power from 2010 to 2015.

According to analysis by the police researcher Gavin Hales, published by the Police Foundation, after nine years of austerity in March 2019 the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales had reduced their total number of police officers by 16% (from 143,734 to 123,170), police staff by 19% (from 79,596 to 64,411) and community support officers by 42% (from 16,507 to 9,565). An estimated 400 to 600 police stations were closed or sold off.

Babu said that while an additional 20,000 police officers had been promised by the current government, civilian staff supporting officers to analyse trends and data were not getting a similar boost.

“Effectively, in the last 10 to 11 years you’ve had police officers taken off the street, poorly trained, not necessarily with the right skills, then trying to do the job of professional analysts and intelligence experts,” he said.

Betsy Stanko, an academic who worked in the Met for 11 years, setting up its social science research unit, said that while many police officers were “desperately trying to do a good job investigating violence to women”, it was time for policing to recognise the scale of the crisis and called for a publicly consulted roadmap to transform the organisation.

“The systematic underfunding of policing over the past 10 years has resulted in cuts particularly to the policing of violence against women and girls,” she said. “The specialist investigative skills identifying patterns of offending have been severely diminished through austerity. Crimes of violence against women and girls need police officers who have specialist skills and knowledge about offenders – underfunding undermines good policing and demoralises good police officers.”

Babu said the home secretary, Priti Patel, risked “tinkering around the edges” after announcing an investigation to examine why the former Met police officer Wayne Couzens, who was last week given a whole-life sentence for the murder of Sarah Everard, had not been identified as a sexually aggressive predator. He added his voice to calls for a judge-led public inquiry into wider issues of sexism and women’s access to justice.

“Shockingly, there is not a single person who I meet who does not know a woman who has been the victim of some kind of abuse. That is absolutely appalling,” he said. “We need a Stephen Lawrence moment here, where we acknowledge the way that we’re failing women and young girls. We need a proper inquiry that looks at the wider criminal justice issues and addresses how you make a real change as opposed to tinkering at the edges.”

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, has rejected calls for an immediate public inquiry.

Victor Olisa, formerly the Met’s most senior black officer and now a criminologist and lecturer, said there had been a “deafening silence” from police leaders about how they would tackle the failure to address crimes against women and girls.

“One of the significant worries about this set of incidents, with Sarah’s tragic murder being the centre of that, is the silence from the chief officers across the country,” he said.

“I’ve heard sorry, I’ve heard that Couzens let us down – but as a public institution, we haven’t heard what the police are going to do about it.”

He accused the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, of being slow to reassure the public that action was being taken, adding that the six months between Couzens’ admission of guilt and his sentencing should have been enough time to create a plan of action. The Met has announced an independent inquiry and said it would publish a strategy for tackling violence against women and girls soon.

“They need to reassure us that they’re doing something, that they have got a grip, that they have got a plan – they need to tell us they see a different future,” said Olisa.

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Man eaten alive by pet lion just days after buying the animal to keep in his back garden

A man was mauled to death and eaten by his pet lion just days after buying the beast to keep in his back garden.

A resident of Najaf, southern Iraq, was horrifically attacked by the predator before it consumed most of his body on Thursday, May 8.

“Today in a garden in the city of Kufa in Najaf, a citizen was attacked by a lion in his own garden and died immediately,” Mufid Tahir, spokesperson for the Najaf Police, told local news site Rudaw.

He added that the lion had to be k!lled because it had eaten a large portion of the man’s body, and refused to leave the remains.

The victim, 50-year-old Aqil Fakhr al-Din, had reportedly been keeping lions and other wild animals in his garden for several years, according to Tahir.

But on Thursday, the predator launched a surprise attack on its trainer before ferociously mauling him to death and devouring him.

One of the victim’s neighbours reportedly intervened and shot the lion with a Kalashnikov rifle, killing it with seven bullets, as per local TV reports.

The mans was immediately transferred to Al-Sadr Medical City Hospital in Najaf but did not survive due to the extent of his injuries.

Grisly images showed the man covered in blood as he laid on a hospital bed and an official investigation has also reportedly been opened into the circumstances of the incident.

A clip of the dead lion in the garden is also making rounds on social media, raising concerns about how al-Din was able to keep the wild animal on his property.

According to local reports, the victim had purchased the lion just days before the tragedy, with the intention of raising and taming it at home.

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Court jails T-dollar, TobiNation for spraying naira notes

The duo of Babatunde Peter Olaitan (T-Dollar) and Tobilola Olamide (TobiNation) have been sentenced to six months imprisonment each for mutilation of the Naira notes.

They were jailed by Justice Alexander Owoeye of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos.

The convicts were arraigned on a separate one-count charge of tampering with the Naira notes and spraying, to which they each pleaded “guilty”.

The charge against Olaitan reads: “That you, BABATUNDE PETER OLAITAN, on 8th April 2025, at 23, Macdonald Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, whilst dancing during a social event, tampered with funds in the denomination of N200 (Two Hundred Naira) issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria by spraying it, and you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 21(1) of the Central Bank Act, 2007.”

The charge against Olamide reads: “That you, TOBILOLA OLAMIDE A.K.A TobiNation, on 8th April 2025, at 23 Macdonald Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, whilst dancing during a social event, tampered with funds in the denomination of N200 (Two Hundred Naira) issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria by spraying it, and you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 21(1) of the Central Bank Act, 2007.”

In view of their pleas, prosecution counsel, C.C. Okezie and H.U.KofarNaisa, respectively, reviewed the facts of the cases through Ibrahim Bukar, an investigative officer with the EFCC.

In his evidence, Bukar specifically told the court that the Commission, on April 10, 2025, generated an intelligence-driven investigation on TikTok, where Olaitan, also known as T-Dollar, was seen spraying Naira notes.

He also told the court that “Upon the approval of the intelligence by the Zonal Director, a letter of investigation was sent to the defendant, requesting him to make a statement regarding the video.

“The defendant reported to the Special Operations Team, SOT, on May 5, 2025 and his statement was recorded under caution.

“He stated that he went to a night club on April 8, 2025 and met some of his fans sharing money.

“He also said that a fan, in the process, gifted him a bundle of N200 notes, which he sprayed on some of his other fans.

“He was shown a video of him spraying the money and he made a statement regarding it.”

Consequently, the defendants’ extrajudicial statements and video recordings were rendered and admitted in evidence by the court.

Okozie and KofarNaisa, therefore, respectively prayed the court to convict and sentence the defendants accordingly.

Justice Owoeye convicted and sentenced both Olaitan and Olamide to six months imprisonment each, with an option of fine in the sum of N200,000 (Two Hundred Thousand Naira).

The convicts’ road to the Correctional Centre started when they were arrested by operatives of the EFCC for Naira abuse. T

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Alleged N33.2bn arms procurement fraud: Re-arraignment of businessman stalled

The re-arraignment of Olugbenga Obadina, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Almond Projects Limited, on Monday, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) suffered a setback.

Obadina is being prosecuted over his alleged involvement in the misappropriation of N33.2billion meant for the purchase of arms by retired Col. Sambo Dasuki, a former National Security Adviser (NSA).

The matter, which was fixed for hearing before Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja, could not proceed because the amended charge, claimed to have been filed by the EFCC, was not in the court record.

Upon resumed hearing, the prosecution lawyer, Ibrahim Buba, informed the court that he had an amended charge filed on May 2 and served on the defendants.

But Justice Omotosho could not see the amended charge in the court record after a thorough search.

“Counsel, I do not have that charge before this court and I have checked our ledger and I do not see it there,” he said.

The judge said the amended charge might have been mistakenly taken to another court at the instruction of the anti-graft agency’s lawyer during the filing of the process.

Buba, who admitted that the amended charge might have been taken to Court 8, instead of Court 7 where the trial judge presides, tendered an apology for the mixup.

Adeola Adedipe, SAN, who appeared for the defendants in the case, also apologised to the court on behalf of the prosecution.

Justice Omotosho subsequently adjourned the matter until June 26 for re-arraignment of the defendants.

“This matter is adjourned to June 26 for arraignment of the defendants for the amended charge that is not before this court as a result of the prosecution given wrong number of the court at the Process Unit,” the judge said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Obadina, alongside his company, was earlier re-arraigned on Jan. 13, 2024, by the anti-corruption commission on eight-count charge bordering on money laundering to the tune of N2.17 billion before Justice Omotosho.

The defendants, however, pleaded not guilty to the counts and the judge ordered his remand in Kuje Correctional Centre pending the perfection of his bail conditions.

NAN reports that Dasuki, a former NSA during the President Goodluck Jonathan government, was accused of criminal diversion of funds to the tune of 2.1 billion U.S. dollars.

The money was allegedly part of funds earmarked by the Federal Government to fight Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast.

The EFCC had, in the charge marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/142/2016, sued Obadina and Almond Project Limited as 1st and 2nd defendants, following their alleged link with Dasuki’s misappropriated funds.

They were formerly being prosecuted before Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of a sister court before his elevation to the Court of Appeal.

In court three of the charge, Obadina and Almond Projects Ltd were alleged to have, on April 3, 2014 directly took possession or control of the sum of N 648,000,000.00 (Six Hundred and Forty Eight Million Naira) paid into the account of Almond Projects Ltd with Zenith Bank Plc Account No: 1010921116.

The money was allegedly to have been paid from the account of the Office of the National Security Adviser with the Central Bank of Nigeria without contract award.

The agency said the fund formed part of the proceeds of an unlawful activity of Col. Dasuki (rtd) and the offence is contrary to Section 15(2), (d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 as amended in 2012 and punishable under Section 15(3) of the same Act.

NAN reports that Justice Dimgba had, on July 4, 2024, adjourned for adoption of final written addresses after the EFCC had closed its case with four witnesses and the defendants called two witnesses before he was elevated to the Appeal Court.(NAN)