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UK Supreme Court hears attempt to change Northern Ireland abortion law

FILE PHOTO: Women gather in Parliament Square for a protest in support of legal abortion in Northern Ireland, and against a Tory coalition with the DUP, in central London, Britain, June 24, 2017. REUTERS/Marko Djurica/File Photo

By Estelle Shirbon

LONDON (Reuters) – An attempt to change the law in Northern Ireland to allow abortions in cases of rape, incest or serious malformation of the fetus started in the UK Supreme Court on Tuesday with harrowing accounts of women’s experiences.

A socially conservative province where the Catholic and Protestant faiths exert strong influence, Northern Ireland allows abortion only when a mother’s life is in danger. The penalty for undergoing or performing an unlawful abortion is life imprisonment.

As a result, women facing tragic circumstances such as a pregnancy resulting from rape or a diagnosis of fatal fetal abnormality, meaning that a baby will not survive outside the womb, have been forced to carry their pregnancies to term.

“The impact of the criminal law in Northern Ireland does amount to inhuman and degrading treatment by the state,” said Nathalie Lieven, lead counsel for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission which is spearheading the legal action.

The commission, an independent body, launched legal action against Northern Ireland’s government in 2014, arguing that the law violates the human rights of women and girls. The case has been working its way through the courts ever since.

A panel of seven Supreme Court judges in London will hear arguments for and against the proposed changes during a three-day hearing. They will give their judgment at a later date.

Lieven began by giving the judges an overview of detailed evidence provided by several women and girls.

One of them, Ashleigh Topley, was told when she was four-and-a-half months pregnant in 2013 that her baby’s limbs were not growing and she was going to die.

Topley was told there was nothing to be done and she had to carry on with the pregnancy until her baby died inside the womb, or until she went into labor which would cause the baby to die.

Topley had to endure 15 weeks of anguish as the pregnancy progressed. She has described how people would ask her if it was her first child, if she wanted a boy or a girl, and other well-meaning questions which exacerbated her suffering.

In the end, Topley went into labor at 35 weeks and the baby girl’s heart stopped.

Other cases described to the judges included that of a girl under 13 years old who was pregnant as a result of sexual abuse by a relative. After police and social services got involved, the distraught girl had to be taken outside of Northern Ireland for the first time in her life to have an abortion.

Northern Ireland’s elected assembly voted against changing abortion laws in February 2016.

The law is far less restrictive in the rest of the United Kingdom, and hundreds of Northern Irish women travel to England every year to have unwanted pregnancies terminated.

As well as the parties in the case, the court will hear from organizations that support changing the law, such as Humanists UK, Amnesty International and a United Nations working group on discrimination against women.

It will also hear from groups who oppose any reform, such as Catholic bishops from the province and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, which describes the legal action as a “crusade against disabled babies”.

(This version of the story includes updates with details from the hearing)

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

UK certain Iran nuclear deal to be preserved, U.S. says remains committed

LONDON (Reuters) – There is absolutely no doubt that a deal between Western powers and Iran to curb its nuclear program will survive despite the U.S. decision not to recertify the deal, Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Monday.

Johnson was giving a speech on foreign affairs in London.

U.S. President Donald Trump broke ranks with other major powers earlier this month by refusing to formally certify that Tehran is complying with the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), even though international inspectors say it is.

The U.S. Congress now has 60 days since Trump’s action to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under the pact.

U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood said on Monday Washington would “continue to meet its commitments under the JCPOA and will hold Iran strictly accountable for each and every one of its commitments as well.”

Wood was speaking at a United Nations meeting in New York.

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, writing by Alistair Smout; additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos at the United Nations; Editing by Kate Holton and Sandra Maler)

One dead as Storm Ophelia batters Ireland

A lighthouse is seen as storm Ophelia approaches South Stack in Anglesey, Wales, Britain, October 16, 2017

By Clodagh Kilcoyne

LAHINCH, Ireland (Reuters) – A woman was killed as Tropical Storm Ophelia battered Ireland’s southern coast on Monday, knocking down trees and power lines and whipping up 10-metre (30-foot) waves.

Over 230,000 homes and businesses were without electricity with more outages expected and almost 150 flights were canceled from Ireland’s two main airports at Dublin and Shannon.

The woman in her 50s was killed by a tree falling on her car in the southeastern county of Waterford, police said. A female passenger in her 70s was injured. Police corrected an earlier report that the victim was in her 20s.

The storm, downgraded from a hurricane overnight, was the worst to hit Ireland in half a century. It made landfall after 10:40 a.m. (0940 GMT), the Irish National Meteorological Service said, with winds as strong as 176 kph (110 mph) hitting the most southerly tip of the country and flooding likely.

“These gusts are life-threatening. Do not be out there,” the chairman of Ireland’s National Emergency Coordination Group, Sean Hogan, said on national broadcaster RTE.

Schools, hospitals and public transport services were closed and the armed forces were sent to bolster flood defences. Photos on social media showed the roof of a stand at Cork City soccer club’s Turner’s Cross stadium had collapsed.

Hurricane Ophelia image captured by NASA is seen in space, October 14, 2017 in this still obtained from social media. NASA SPORT/ via REUTERS

Hurricane force winds are expected in every part of the country, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said, advising people to stay indoors. The transport minister said it was not safe to drive.

“While the storm in some parts of the country is not yet that bad, it is coming your way,” Varadkar told a news conference.

Britain’s meteorological service put an Amber Weather Warning into effect for Northern Ireland from 1400-2100 GMT, saying the storm posed a danger to life and was likely to cause transport cancellations, power cuts and flying debris.

“Impactful weather” is expected in other western and northern parts of the United Kingdom, it said.

British media are comparing Ophelia to the “Great Storm” of 1987, which subjected parts of the United Kingdom to hurricane strength winds 30 years ago to the day.

The storm is expected to move towards western Scotland overnight.

The Irish government said the storm was likely to be the worst since Hurricane Debbie, which killed 11 in Ireland in 1961.

It is likely to pass close to a west of Ireland golf course owned by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been planning a wall to protect its greens from coastal erosion.

Similar sized storms in the past have changed the shape of stretches of the Irish coastline, climatologists said.

(Additional reporting and writing by Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Robin Pomeroy)

UK top court seeks clarity on how to handle EU rulings after Brexit

The Union Flag and European Union flags fly near the Elizabeth Tower, housing the Big Ben bell, during the anti-Brexit 'People's March for Europe', in Parliament Square in central London, Britain September 9, 2017. REUTERS/Tolga Akmen

By Estelle Shirbon

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Supreme Court would like clearer guidance from parliament on how it should deal with European Union court judgments after Brexit, its new president said on Thursday.

The issue of what weight, if any, judgments of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will have in British law after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union is one of many thorny areas in the Brexit negotiations.

Brenda Hale, who was sworn in as president of the Supreme Court on Monday after serving as one of its justices for 13 years, said she and her colleagues were looking for guidance from parliament on the issue.

“We hope that the European Union Act, when it’s eventually passed, will tell us what we should be doing – giving us the power to take into account, or saying we must take into account, or saying we must ignore,” she told reporters.

“Whatever parliament decides we should do, we would like to be told because then we’ll get on and do it.”

A government policy paper issued in August said Britain wished to leave the “direct jurisdiction” of the ECJ while also recognizing that future civil judicial cooperation would need to take into account “regional legal arrangements” such as the ECJ.

The European Union says that for certain issues, such as the rights of EU citizens in Britain, the ECJ must continue to have its say – a stance strongly rejected by the most ardent advocates of Brexit.

Hale said the government policy papers issued over the summer were “at quite a high level of generality” and described them as aspirational.

But she praised the formulation used by Prime Minister Theresa May in a major speech on Brexit in Florence on Sept. 22. May said that where there was uncertainty around EU law, she wanted UK courts to be able to “take into account” ECJ judgments.

“‘Take account’ is quite useful because it does give one the power to take it into account, but also the power to say ‘for the following good reasons, we think something else,'” said Hale.

Her deputy, Jonathan Mance, said the form of words used in the EU Withdrawal Bill currently going through parliament was “a weaker formula”.

The bill says that British courts “need not have regard to anything done on or after exit day by the European Court … but may do so if it considers it appropriate to do so”.

(Editing by Stephen Addison)

Britain to limit acid sales after steep rise in assaults

Britain's Home Secretary Amber Rudd speaks at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, October 3, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – Britain will limit sales of sulphuric acid and outlaw the sale of such corrosive substances to children after a spate of assaults and its possible use to make bombs, interior minister Amber Rudd said on Tuesday.

Much to public alarm, the number of incidents where assailants have used acid has risen sharply, with police figures suggesting there had been more than 400 corrosive substance attacks in the six months to April this year.

Many victims were left with serious, life-changing injuries as a result.

The proposed new laws will make it illegal to sell the most harmful corrosive substances to under-18s while the carrying of acid in public without good reason will be banned.

“Acid attacks are absolutely revolting,” Home Secretary Rudd told party activists at the Conservative Party Conference in the northern English city of Manchester. “You have all seen the pictures of victims that never fully recover; endless surgeries, lives ruined.”

Rudd said she also intended to “drastically” limit the public sale of sulphuric acid because of its use in making the highly volatile triacetone triperoxide (TATP), known as “mother of Satan”, which is often used as a detonator in home-made explosives.

Police say TATP was used in an attempted bombing on a packed London underground train last month which injured 30 people. The bomb engulfed a carriage in flames but failed to explode fully.

At the moment, businesses that sell sulphuric acid have to tell the police of any theft or loss, but the new law would mean anyone wanting to buy it above a certain concentration would have to have a Home Office license.

Rudd also announced plans to further restrict the online sale of knives to under-18s following a significant increase in the number of stabbings.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Stephen Addison)

British police feel strain from attacks after latest London bombing

Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner chats to armed officers as she walks along the Southbank in London, Britain, September 16, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

By Alistair Smout

LONDON (Reuters) – Two of Britain’s most senior officers said the pressure on the police forces was not sustainable after last week’s attack on a packed London train became the fifth major attack this year.

Fewer officers could make it harder to prevent future attacks and it will force difficult choices about where to put police resources, they said.

A homemade bomb engulfed a train carriage in flames at Parsons Green underground station in west London last Friday injuring 30. Cressida Dick, London’s police Commissioner, said it could have been much worse.

Britain had previously faced four deadly incidents since March which killed a total of 36 people.

“In the long run, if we continue with this level of threat, which is what people are predicting … this is not sustainable for my police service,” Dick said in an interview on LBC radio.

Six men have been arrested and four remain in custody since the Parsons Green attack.

“That was a very very dangerous bomb. It partially detonated, it had a large quantity of explosive and it was packed with shrapnel. So it could have been so much worse,” Dick said.

While the bombing at Parsons Green was not deadly, the aftermath of the attack still saw extra police on the streets and the threat level raised a notch to critical.

Interior minister Amber Rudd has announced an extra 24 million pounds ($32.55 million) of funding for counter-terrorism policing following the bombing, in addition to 707 million previously announced support for 2017/2018.

But while the government has committed to increase the overall spend on counter-terrorism by 3 billion pounds, Sara Thornton, head of National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said that not enough of the budget would support frontline officers.

There are about 20,000 fewer officers than there were when Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives came to power in 2010 and Thornton said numbers were at levels last seen in 1985 despite a 10 percent rise in crime last year.

“Every time there’s a terror attack, we mobilize specialist officers and staff to respond but the majority of the officers and staff responding come from mainstream policing,” she wrote in a blog post on the NPCC website.

“This puts extra strain on an already stretched service.”

(Additional reporting by Elisabeth O’Leary; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Manslaughter charges possible in London tower block fire disaster: police

FILE PHOTO: A member of the emergency services works inside the Grenfell apartment tower block in North Kensington, London, Britain June 17, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

By Estelle Shirbon

LONDON (Reuters) – The criminal investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire that killed about 80 people in London in June could result in manslaughter charges, but any prosecutions could be months away due to the complexity of the forensic work, police said.

The 24-storey social housing block, home to a poor, multi-ethnic community, was destroyed on June 14 by a fire that started in a fourth-floor flat in the middle of the night and rapidly engulfed the whole building.

Police have formally identified 60 of the victims, but painstaking forensic work to find human remains, some of them tiny fragments, among tonnes of debris inside the charred ruin is ongoing.

Commander Stuart Cundy, who has overall control of police operations at Grenfell Tower, told reporters on Tuesday it was likely the final death toll would be a little below 80.

Detective Chief Inspector Matt Bonner, in charge of the criminal side of the police investigation, said a forensic examination of the tower would continue into 2018 and would be followed by lengthy laboratory analysis.

“I will seek to identify and deal with whatever offences come to light during that investigation,” he said.

“The kind of stuff that I would envisage we may come across would involve offences perhaps of fraud, misconduct offences, health and safety breaches, breaches of fire safety regulations and of course offences of manslaughter whether that be on a corporate or an individual level,” he added.

However, Bonner said this should not be taken as an indication that police had already found evidence to support any such charges.

The building, which was completed in 1974, was owned by the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, one of London’s richest, and managed by an organization that ran social housing on the borough’s behalf.

Bonner said police had so far identified 336 companies or organizations that were involved in the construction, refurbishment and management of the tower and officers had recovered as many as 31 million documents from all of those.

Police were now also investigating allegations of thefts from some of the less damaged flats in the lower levels of the building. There had been one confirmed theft of a considerable amount of money from one of the flats and three further allegations of theft, they said.

The thefts had come to light when former residents had been let into their apartments to pick up treasured possessions and say goodbye to their homes. Cundy said police had been shocked.

“All of us here, working down on Grenfell Tower or working on it anywhere, are just so disappointed that something like that can happen on the back of such a huge tragedy,” he said.

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; editing by Stephen Addison)

British police arrest man in hunt for London bombers

By Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) – British police arrested an 18-year-old man in the southern port of Dover on Saturday in a “significant” development in the hunt for the culprits behind a London commuter train bombing that injured 30 people a day earlier.

Prime Minister Theresa May put Britain on the highest security level of “critical” late on Friday, meaning an attack may be imminent, and deployed soldiers and armed police to secure strategic sites and hunt down the perpetrators.

In the fifth major terrorism attack in Britain this year, the home-made bomb shot flames through a packed commuter train during the Friday morning rush hour in west London but apparently failed to detonate fully.

The militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility.

“We have made a significant arrest in our investigation this morning,” said Neil Basu, Senior National Co-ordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing.

“This arrest will lead to more activity from our officers,” he said, suggesting there could be more arrests and house raids to come. “For strong investigative reasons we will not give any more details on the man we arrested at this stage.”

The arrest was made in the port area of Dover, where passenger ferries sail to France.

According to media reports, the bomb was attached to a timer unlike recent blasts which have typically been suicide bombs.

Pictures showed a slightly charred white plastic bucket with wires coming out of the top in a supermarket shopping bag on the floor of a train carriage.

The Parsons Green station where the attack took place had reopened by Saturday morning.

Armed police patrolled the streets of London near government departments in Westminster and were expected to guard the Premier League soccer grounds hosting matches on Saturday, including the national stadium of Wembley.

In the entertainment and cultural district on the south bank of the Thames, Cressida Dick, Britain’s top police officer, sought to reassure the public and tourists as she joined colleagues patrolling the area.

“Yesterday we saw a cowardly and indiscriminate attack which could have resulted in many lives being lost,” she said. “London has not stopped after other terrible attacks and it will not stop after this one.”

CRITICAL THREAT LEVEL

The last time Britain was put on “critical” alert was after a suicide bomber killed 22 people, including children, at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in May.

The threat level remained at the highest setting for four days while officers raced to establish if the man had worked alone or with the help of others. Prior to that it had not been triggered since 2007.

Prime Minister May said the public should not be alarmed by armed officers on the streets, a rare sight in Britain. “This is a proportionate and sensible step which will provide extra reassurance and protection while the investigation progresses,” she said in a televised statement late on Friday.

The bomb struck as passengers were traveling to the center of the British capital. Some suffered burns and others were injured in a stampede to escape from the station, one of the above-ground stops on the underground network. Health officials said none was thought to be in a serious condition.

With Britain on high alert after a spate of attacks this summer, witnesses recalled their horror.

“I was on the second carriage from the back. I just heard a kind of ‘whoosh’. I looked up and saw the whole carriage engulfed in flames making its way toward me,” Ola Fayankinnu, who was on the train, told Reuters.

“There were phones, hats, bags all over the place and when I looked back I saw a bag with flames.”

The Islamic State militant group have claimed other attacks in Britain this year, including two in London and the pop concert in Manchester.

It was not immediately possible to verify the claim about Parsons Green, for which Islamic State’s news agency Amaq offered no evidence.

Western intelligence officials have questioned similar claims in the past, saying that while Islamic State’s jihadist ideology may have inspired some attackers, there is scant evidence that it has orchestrated attacks.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by David Clarke)

London fire inquiry starts amid anger, despair of survivors

Demonstrators gather outside the Grenfell Tower public Inquiry in central London, Britain, September 14, 2017. REUTERS/Mary Turner

By Estelle Shirbon

LONDON (Reuters) – A public inquiry into a fire that killed at least 80 people at London’s Grenfell Tower will get to the truth about the tragedy, its chairman pledged on Thursday, but critics said survivors of the blaze were still being failed.

The 24-storey social housing block, home to a poor, multi-ethnic community, was gutted on June 14 in an inferno that started in a fourth-floor apartment in the middle of the night and quickly engulfed the building.

Grenfell Tower was part of a deprived housing estate in Kensington and Chelsea, one of the richest boroughs in London, and the disaster has prompted a national debate about social inequality and government neglect of poor communities.

The inquiry started with a minute’s silence to honor the victims, whose exact number remains unknown because of the devastation inside the tower.

“(The inquiry) can and will provide answers to the pressing questions of how a disaster of this kind could occur in 21st century London,” its chairman, retired judge Martin Moore-Bick, said in his opening statement.

He said the inquiry was not there to punish anyone or to award compensation, but to get to the truth. A separate police investigation is underway, which could result in manslaughter charges. There have been no arrests.

The inquiry will examine the cause and spread of the fire, the design, construction and refurbishment of the tower, whether fire regulations relating to high-rise buildings are adequate and whether they were complied with. It will also look at the actions of the authorities before and after the tragedy.

But critics warned of a disconnect between the technical, legalistic inquiry process and the ongoing ordeal of traumatized former Grenfell Tower residents still awaiting new homes.

Prime Minister Theresa May pledged that all families whose homes were destroyed in the fire would be rehoused within three weeks, but three months later most still live in hotels.

Just three out of 197 households that needed rehousing have moved into permanent homes, while 29 have moved into temporary accommodation.

“We lost everything. It’s difficult for the other people to be in our shoes,” Miguel Alves, who escaped his 13th-floor apartment in Grenfell Tower with his family, told the BBC.

“Now I’m without anything, I’m in the hotel, I have to cope with my family. My daughter, she just started school. They need some stability and that I cannot give to my family,” he said.

FILE PHOTO: The spire of the Notting Hill Methodist Church stands in front of Grenfell Tower, destroyed in a catastrophic fire, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in London, Britain July 2, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo

“BALLROOM DRIPPING WITH CHANDELIERS”

Emma Dent Coad, a member of parliament from the opposition Labour Party who represents the area, said the inquiry’s remit was too narrow and would fail to address the blaze’s deeper causes such as failings in social housing policies.

She also criticized the choice of venue for Moore-Bick’s opening statement, a lavishly decorated room in central London.

“We were sitting in a ballroom dripping with chandeliers. I think it was the most incredibly inappropriate place to have something like that, and actually says it all about the us-and-them divide that people see,” she told the BBC.

Many of those affected have also expressed disquiet about the fact that Moore-Bick and the other lawyers appointed to run the inquiry are all white and part of a perceived “establishment” far removed from their own circumstances.

“The experience of many residents of that tower is that they were ignored because of their immigration status,” lawyer Jolyon Maugham, who is advising some residents, told the BBC.

“We need someone on the inquiry team that can speak to that experience and at the moment on the panel we have a bunch of white privileged barristers,” he said.

One of the difficulties facing the inquiry is that it needs former residents to give evidence but some fear possible deportation.

The government has said it would grant a 12-month amnesty to anyone affected by the fire who was in Britain illegally. Supporters say only permanent residency rights will persuade people to come forward.

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon and Elisabeth O’Leary; editing by Stephen Addison and Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Man with sword injures police outside UK Queen’s palace

A police officer patrols within the grounds of Buckingham Palace in London, Britain August 26, 2017. REUTERS/Paul Hackett

By Elisabeth O’Leary

(Reuters) – A man who assaulted police officers with a four-foot sword outside Queen Elizabeth’s Buckingham Palace residence shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) was being questioned by counter-terrorism police on Saturday.

Two unarmed officers suffered slight cuts as they detained the man, who drove at a police van on Friday evening, then took the sword from the front passenger foot-well of his car, London’s Metropolitan Police said.

It was too early to say what the man was planning to do, said Commander Dean Haydon, the head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command.

“We believe the man was acting alone and we are not looking for other suspects at this stage,” he said. “It is only right that we investigate this as a terrorist incident at this time.”

Europe has been on high alert following a string of militant attacks, including four this year in Britain which killed 36 people. The country’s threat level remains at severe, meaning an attack is highly likely.

No members of the royal family were present in the palace, which is a magnet for tourists in Britain’s capital in the peak August holiday weekend.

“I want to thank the officers who acted quickly and bravely to protect the public last night demonstrating the dedication and professionalism of our police,” Prime Minister Theresa May said in a message on Twitter.

SUSPECT FROM LUTON

The suspect was initially arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm and assault on police. He was then further arrested under Britain’s Terrorism Act.

Police said they were investigating a 26-year-old man from the Luton area, an ethnically diverse town 35 miles (55 km) north of London where police have carried out investigations linked to other militant attacks, including one earlier this year on London’s Westminster Bridge.

“My partner saw a sword (…) as well as a policeman with blood on him, looking like his hand or chest was injured. The police officer had it in his hand, walking away with it,” said an unnamed witness quoted by The Times newspaper, who said tourists were running away from the scene.

“Something happened before, which is why the people ran away. I’m not sure what this was. But people were already scared and I saw the policeman pull the man from the car” the witness said.

The suspect was treated at a London hospital for minor injuries, and there were no other reported injuries.

“This is a timely reminder that the threat from terrorism in the UK remains severe,” Haydon added. “The police, together with the security services, are doing everything we can to protect the public and we already have an enhanced policing plan over the Bank Holiday weekend to keep the public safe.”

(Reporting by Elisabeth O’Leary and Kate Holton; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

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