Gun owners could help fight terror attack, says police commissioner

Steven Morris  www.theguardian.com 12/06/2017

A police commissioner has caused alarm among rank and file officers by suggesting that members of the public who own guns could help defend rural areas against terror attacks. Alison Hernandez, the Devon and Cornwall police and crime commissioner, said she was interested in having a conversation with the chief constable about whether ordinary people with gun licences could assist in a terrorist crisis.

The comments have caused alarm within the force and prompted a stern warning from a senior officer that citizens should not arm themselves.

Hernandez, a former Conservative election agent, made her comments during an extraordinary exchange with a caller to a phone-in programme on BBC Radio Cornwall. The caller, from Bude in north Cornwall, said she was a gun owner and a former firearms dealer and asked: “If there should ever be a terrorist attack, what happens if I and other people try to defend themselves using those guns? What would be the repercussions?”

Hernandez replied that it was a “a very good question” and asked the woman if she would put it in writing so that the chief constable, Shaun Sawyer, could consider it. But she then added: “This might be some of our solution to our issues.”

When challenged by presenter Laurence Reed if she was advocating vigilantism, Hernandez replied: “I’m just saying, let’s officially have a look at that and see what would be the implications of it. Let’s unpick it a little bit.

“We work with businesses to keep our communities safe. I’d really be interested in exploring that with the chief constable.”

The presenter asked the caller if she would be happy taking on a terrorist. She replied: “Yes,” prompting Hernandez to remark: “She’s not messing about. Don’t go down to Bude.”

The presenter said he could not believe the chief constable would entertain the idea of the public defending themselves with firearms. Hernandez replied: “I’m sure he wouldn’t want to entertain it, but these are times that are challenging and I would like to have an official response on that myself.”

The official response came swiftly from the deputy chief constable, Paul Netherton, who said: “Quite obviously, a marauding terrorist is the most challenging of circumstances. The police response requires significant professionalism and training as well as firearms capability. During these incidents, highly trained police firearms officers and special forces will be deployed to protect our communities.

“Under no circumstances would we want members of the public to arm themselves with firearms, not least because officers responding would not know who the offenders were, and quite obviously they would not have the time to ask. Our message to the public is a simple one: to run, to hide and to tell.”

Rank and file officers also made it clear that they did not believe it was a good idea for members of the public to take up arms. Janice Adam, from the Police Federation, said reacting to and dealing with any such incidents should be left to highly specialised firearms officers. There was no reply from Hernandez’ office on Monday evening.

Owl’s comment at the time:

When your local newspaper runs articles like this, you know that there is a serious problem. It really is time for this incompetent and rather witless person to be replaced.

“Devon and Cornwall Police Commissioner Alison Hernandez has been embroiled in controversy ever since her appointment to the post last year.

She caused consternation yesterday when she said members of the public with guns could form ‘some of our solution’ to terrorism in isolated rural areas.

Ben Jennings www.theguardian.com 

The hedging of bets by senior Tories is obscene. None of them know whether Johnson is finished or still has enough within him to run again so they’re all just laughing and joking about him but without any actual condemnation. “Oh it’s just Johnson”, “what he said was really useful”, “blah blah blah blah blah”.

Not one of them is willing to risk a future job if indeed Johnson has legs and not one of them is willing to chop those legs off at the knees for actively trying to undermine their own government. The man is running his own foreign policy completely separately from government and all they do is smile and nod and excuse and indulge. Cowards.

Here’s the thing, if you didn’t support him last time you’re done. He holds grudges.

If you resigned last time, you’re done. He holds grudges.

If you have brains, you’re done. The sun king can’t countenance another star in his firmament.

Johnson will not forgive, he will not forget and he will not change. If you thought it right to sack him last time for his venal corruption it remains right now. He will do the same things again. He is incapable of being anything other than Johnson and he’ll burn you for disloyalty, advantage or just because he’s too arrogant ti believe anyone matters more than him.

We don’t want more weasel words, we have already heard Jupp deploy the “I would never vote to pollute our water” argument’

To which Owl replied: Simon it is true that you didn’t actually vote to pollute our water, but you did vote against imposing a legal duty to stop it, instead voting for something very much more “light touch”.

This month Thérèse Coffey continued the “light touch” by backtracking on plans for penalties having already extended clean up deadlines to 2035.

Richard Vaughan inews.co.uk 

Tory MPs will be given tips on how to counter claims being made by the Liberal Democrats and Labour over raw sewage being pumped into the country’s rivers and seas.

The issue of the UK’s polluted waterways has become a key battleground in certain parts of the country, with the Conservatives increasingly finding themselves on the back foot.

In a bid to push back against the charges being made against MPs, the party will be giving local council candidates and would-be MPs briefings on the matter ahead of the local and general elections.

Tories will be handed extensive information on what action the Government is taking to prevent sewage dumping in rivers, while providing them with facts and figures to rebut claims being made by the Lib Dems and Labour.

There is growing exasperation among many Conservatives in areas where river pollution is a major local issue, as they believe they are being unfairly criticised by opposition parties for something that is largely beyond their control.

As revealed by i last week, the Lib Dems have drawn up a target list of Tory seats where sewage is a contentious issue and they believe they can gain votes.

One Tory MP who has two rivers running through their constituency bemoaned the Lib Dem attacks, adding: “It’s easy for them because they can take the moral high ground.”

Particular anger is focused on how Conservative MPs are being accused of voting in favour of allowing water companies to continue pumping sewage into the waterways when they voted to pass the Environment Act last year.

An amendment tabled by hereditary peer the Duke of Wellington called for such pumping to be illegal if any raw sewage was spilled into the system. It was voted down by Government MPs.

Clean water campaigners in Devon have erected fake blue plaques on the seafront recording local Tory MP Simon Jupp as having failed to prevent raw sewage from being dumped in the region’s rivers and seas.

One senior backbencher said the sewage issue was regularly referred to on internal WhatsApp groups, with colleagues left “angry” that they are being accused of making the issue worse.

“We were voting to improve the situation, if it were illegal for any rainwater to run back into the waterways leading to heavy fines for the water companies, it would have just been added to people’s bills,” the MP said.

“This is a hugely complex issue, and you can just try and fix it overnight, it will take time to sort it.”

Conservative sources also believe that the two main opposition parties’ policy suggestions do not add up. Tories have claimed that under the Lib Dems’ plan to hit the water companies with a sewage tax of 16 per cent on their profits, it would take 500 years to raise the money needed to solve the problem.

The Tories also accused Labour of promising an uncosted solution and raised doubts that its plans for automatic fines for water companies if they dump sewage into the waterways is workable.

Breathtaking incompetence and failings by police allowed a gunman to kill five people during a mass shooting in Plymouth, victims’ families have said. (BBC)

Alison Hernandez, Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, said the evidence heard at the inquest “provided a clear and independent understanding of missed opportunities”.

Ms Hernandez said: “I am working with the Home Office and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) so that we learn nationally from this tragedy to ensure that nothing like it happens again.”

Victims statement (Extract from full statement published here)

In a statement released by their legal representative, the victims have accused the licensing system at the force of being “a shambles from the top to the bottom”. In addition they said it was “too late for an apology from Devon and Cornwall Police. The time for that has passed” adding that what they do demand is “accountability, ownership and change.”….

They say warning signs were “ignored and a license to kill was granted.” They also say there was “very little evidence” of “regret or remorse in the decisions, actions, omissions or catastrophic mistakes made” by not just the force and its Firearms and Explosives Licencing Unit, but also by “multiple other agencies, care services and individuals.”…..

The families have accused senior police officers who gave evidence at the inquest of “seeking to defend the indefensible” which they found “extremely difficult for us to watch.” ……

Plymouth shooting: Families say warning signs were ignored

By Miles Davis & Johanna Carr www.bbc.co.uk

Jake Davison killed his mother and four other people, including a girl aged three, with a shotgun in August 2021.

Families of four of the victims said: “Warning signs were ignored and a licence to kill was granted.”

The inquest jury said there had been a “catastrophic failure” at Devon and Cornwall Police.

At the conclusion of a five-week inquest at Exeter Racecourse jurors said the deaths of the victims were “caused by the fact the perpetrator had a legally-held shotgun”.

All five of the victims were unlawfully killed, the jury found.

Davison killed his mother Maxine, 51, Sophie Martyn, three, her father Lee, 43, Stephen Washington, 59, and Kate Shepherd, 66, in the Keyham area of Plymouth before turning the gun on himself.

Will Kerr, who took over as Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police in December 2022, said: “Steps should have been taken to safeguard our communities and for that failure I am truly sorry.”

Mr Kerr called for changes in national firearms licensing policy.

He said: “I accept Devon and Cornwall Police has failed our communities in regard to Jake Davison, but had there been clearer national guidance, direction and specific legislation concerning firearms licensing – decision-making locally may well have been very different.”

Mr Kerr said the force had invested £4m into the Firearms and Explosives Licensing Unit since the shootings “to ensure more consistent and robust application of current law and guidance”.

The inquest heard the number of staff in the department had increased from 45 in 2021 to 99 currently.

‘Our community is angry’

Luke Pollard, Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, said gun licensing systems were “not fit for purpose”.

“The inquest has found the failings are systemic and so deep rooted, the confidence that the public should have in the police to keep us safe – to licence firearms correctly – is absent.

“The inquest might have concluded, but the pain people still feel is very real.”

Mr Pollard said: “I do not have confidence in Devon and Cornwall Police to issue firearms licences, and every gun certificate they have issued must be reviewed in light of the failings laid bare by the inquest.

“I am angry. Our community is angry. We want to see comprehensive change to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.”

Ian Arrow, senior coroner for Plymouth, Torbay and South Devon, said he would be preparing a preventing future deaths report to address “the likelihood of shotgun licences being inappropriately granted”.

In a joint statement, the Martyn, Washington and Shepherd families said the shooting “was an act of pure evil”.

They added: “However, we now know that this evil act was facilitated and enabled by a series of failings and incompetence from the people and organisations that are supposed to keep us safe.”

The families said they had been “hopelessly failed by the system” and in particular by Devon and Cornwall Police.

They said the evidence heard at the inquest told “a consistent story of individual failures, breathtaking incompetence and systemic failings within every level of the firearms licensing unit of the Devon and Cornwall Police force”.

They said: “It is beyond us how Davison, a man with a known history of violence, mental health issues, and with no real need to own a firearm, was granted a licence to possess a gun in the first place.”

Delivering a narrative conclusion on behalf of the jury, the coroner said: “There was a serious failure by Devon and Cornwall Police’s firearms and explosive licensing unit in granting and later failing to revoke the perpetrator’s shotgun licence.”

After hearing evidence from more than 50 witnesses the jury concluded there was “a lack of scrutiny and professional curiosity at all levels” and a “seriously unsafe culture of defaulting to granting licences and returning licences after review”.

It said there was a “catastrophic failure in the management of the firearms licensing department at Devon and Cornwall Police”.

“This was compounded by a lack of senior management and executive leadership who failed to notice or address the issues.”

The jury also concluded there had been “a serious failure at a national level by the government, Home Office and National College of Policing” to implement previous recommendations to improve firearms safety.

In the wake of the Dunblane shootings in 1996, Lord Cullen recommended nationally accredited training for firearms enquiry officers and that recommendation was echoed in 2015 in Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of the Constabulary’s Targeting the Risk Report.

Davison had applied to Devon and Cornwall Police for a shotgun certificate in July 2017 aged 18, saying he wanted to go clay pigeon shooting with his uncle.

As part of the application process Davison had declared he was autistic and had Asperger’s, but when police sought relevant information from his GP, the doctor declined to provide any as it was not mandatory.

Image source, Plymouth Coroner

The jury was shown a picture of the Weatherby pump-action shotgun (top) used by Jake Davison next to a standard sporting style twin-barrel shotgun (below)

Davison had a history of violence at the special school he attended and in September 2020 he repeatedly punched a 15-year-old boy in the face and slapped a 16-year-old girl in a skate park in Plymouth, the inquest heard.

Police decided on a deferred charge of battery – which could be dealt with by restorative justice – rather than the more serious charge of actual bodily harm.

Under the restorative justice scheme, called Pathfinder, Davison had to complete an online “thinking skills” course and was given a 40-page anger management booklet.

Following completion of the scheme Davison was given his shotgun and certificate back in July 2021 – a month before the tragedy.

‘Missed opportunities’

The IOPC watchdog found two employees of Devon and Cornwall Police had a case to answer for misconduct over the way they dealt with Davison’s gun licence.

David Ford, IOPC regional director, said: “The potential corporate failing of Devon and Cornwall Police as an organisation is subject to our separate criminal inquiry into possible health and safety breaches.”

Mr Ford added the IOPC was liaising with the Home Office regarding “recommendations at a national level to help inform improved firearms licensing arrangements and guidance for the police service as a whole”.

A Home Office spokesperson said it would “reflect” on the report and any recommendations from the coroner and “respond in due course”.

Alison Hernandez, Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, said the evidence heard at the inquest “provided a clear and independent understanding of missed opportunities”.

Ms Hernandez said: “I am working with the Home Office and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) so that we learn nationally from this tragedy to ensure that nothing like it happens again.”

It’s now official.

Jupp has jumped, abandoning 78% of his current constituents. 

He obviously wants to escape from ESCAPE (End Sewage Convoys And Pollution Exmouth) and all the other Exmouth protest groups.

However, he is too young and is insufficiently “local” to recall that in 2012 4,000 marched on the Knowle in Sidmouth to protest at Tory plans to sell the site for redevelopment. 

In his new constituency at least two thirds of the voters will never have heard of him – Out of the frying pan into the fire? – Owl

[Will Neil Parish be one of the candidates standing against him?]

Simon Jupp candidate for Honiton and Sidmouth constituency

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com

East Devon’s Conservative MP Simon Jupp has announced that he will be candidate the new Honiton and Sidmouth constituency at the next general election. As part of changes to ward boundaries, existing constituencies in the region are being split up.

Honiton and Sidmouth is one of the new constituencies proposed to replace East Devon. The other will see a new East Exeter and Exmouth constituency created, while the existing Tiverton and Honiton constituency will be split as well.

Mr Jupp, who was first elected in 2019, would see his current constituency split into two when the boundary changes are confirmed. He though now has been selected as the candidate for Honiton and Sidmouth following at a meeting held at Sidmouth Conservative Club on Saturday.

He said: “I am delighted to have been selected by Conservative Party members to stand for the new Honiton and Sidmouth constituency at the next general election. Under the most recent boundary review, the current East Devon and Tiverton and Honiton constituency boundaries are being redrawn for the next election.

“As a resident of Sidmouth, home is where the heart is and I’m standing where I’m incredibly proud to live. Since I was elected in 2019, I have successfully secured a new school to replace Tipton St John Primary, £15.7m from the Levelling Up Fund, a new police station for Exmouth, and multi-million-pound support for Exeter Airport during the pandemic. I have a proven track record and will continue to work hard for everyone I represent in East Devon.”

The Independent Boundary Commission for England will send its final recommendations for the new constituency boundaries to Parliament by 1 July.

The new East Exeter Exmouth constituency will include the area covering Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Woodbury, Otterton, Newton Poppleford, West Hill, Whimple, and around Cranbrook from the current East Devon constituency, as well as parts of Exeter.

The new Honiton and Sidmouth constituency will include Sidmouth and Ottery St Mary from the previous East Devon constituency. The area around Branscombe, Seaton, Uplyme, Colyton, Axminster, Yarcombe, Uppotery, Hemyock, Culmstock, Cullompton, Dunkeswell, Feniton and Honiton from the current Tiverton and Honiton constituency would be included in this new area.

Nearly 15,000 British retail jobs have already been cut since January in a “brutal start to the year” for the high street.

Joanna Partridge www.theguardian.com 

A total of 14,874 retail job losses have been announced by companies so far, according to analysis from the Centre for Retail Research (CRR).

National retailers including stationery brand Paperchase, clothing chain M&Co and Tile Giant have all gone bust in recent weeks, while discount retailer Wilko, clothing retailer New Look and supermarkets Tesco and Asda have all also announced job cuts.

Large retail chains, which have 10 or more stores, are among those cutting jobs on UK high streets, as well as at main shopping destinations, the research found.

Most of the job losses – totalling 11,689 – are at large retailers including Tesco and Asda who are carrying out cost cutting programmes and restructuring operations.

Meanwhile, a further 3,185 jobs have been lost at large retailers which have collapsed and undergoing insolvency proceedings.

The embattled stationery specialist retailer Paperchase fell into administration in January, after being hit by rising costs and disappointing sales.

The brand and its intellectual property was bought by Tesco, but the deal did not include taking on Paperchase’s 106 stores across the UK and Ireland, prompting the immediate loss of 250 jobs, with an uncertain future for the remaining 500 staff.

Many of the struggling retailers have already collapsed in recent years, according to Prof Joshua Bamfield, the CRR’s director.

“The process of rationalisation will continue at pace as retailers continue to reduce their cost base,” he said. “We are unlikely to see any respite in job losses in 2023 after a brutal start to the year.”

Retail job losses have been mounting for several years, even prior to lengthy closures after repeated Covid lockdowns.

Just under 3 million people were employed in retail in the second quarter of 2022, according to a survey from industry body the British Retail Consortium, which was 63,000 lower than a year earlier.

A revaluation of business rates, which are among the largest operating costs for retailers, is taking place from 1 April, and looks likely to reduce the rateable values used to determine bills.

Business rates relief means that new bills will be discounted by 75% for the tax year from April 2023 to the end of March 2024, up to a cash cap of £110,000 per business, as announced by the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, in his autumn statement.

The Treasury has said that the retail sector “is set to see its overall bills paid fall by 20%” as a result.

However, the property adviser Altus Group is warning that most retailers with multiple stores will only benefit from the discount on a handful of their branches because of the cap.

“While the adjustments brought about by the revaluation are welcome, 10% overall just does not go far enough given the state of the market on the valuation date which is likely to lead to a tsunami of appeals,” said Alex Probyn, global president of property tax at Altus Group.