• Delroy Grant convicted of 29 crimes, including rape • Met police admit they missed chance to catch him in 1999 • 146 offences believed to have been committed since then A police blunder allowed a prolific sex offender who carried out a total of 203 burglaries and sexual assaults to terrorise the elderly for a decade, it can finally be reported. The admission from the Metropolitan police can be revealed after Delroy Grant was convicted by a jury at Woolwich crown court on 29 counts of preying on 18 elderly men and women between 1992 and 2009. Police apologised for missed chances to stop Grant as they said he was responsible for some of the most “awful and disturbing crimes” in the history of Scotland Yard. Police admit that 146 offences happened after they missed a chance to catch the “sickening and depraved” attacker in 1999, meaning the bulk of his victims could have been spared suffering. Among those offences were 23 sexual assaults. Grant’s offending began in 1991 and ended only when he was arrested in November 2009. He had been charged with committing 18 burglaries, three rapes, one attempted rape and seven indecent assaults. Police believe he was responsible for 203 crimes, targeting no one younger than 68. His oldest victim was 89. Seven of his victims died after Grant targeted them. They and others were so traumatised by the attacks that they remained haunted by the fear that he would come after them again. Grant, 53, was dubbed “the night stalker” because he always struck at night. He attacked his victims after watching them, often for hours, and cutting phone and power lines. Sometimes he carried out ferocious assaults, other times heeding pleas for mercy. But the story that can now be told is that the chance to catch and stop Grant was missed in 1999. On 28 May of that year, Grant carried out a burglary during which a member of the public spotted a car which seemed suspicious and noted down the numberplate. On hearing that a nearby house had been burgled, that person contacted the police and passed on the car registration. Police did investigate but became confused and linked the numberplate to a Delroy Grant living in east London, who was the wrong age. His DNA was checked against DNA recovered from the crime scenes and did not match. But worse was to follow. By August 1999, the name of Delroy Grant was marked down as having being investigated and eliminated from inquiries. Grant carried out at least three rapes after May 1999. A senior officer said: “We accept the fact it was a major omission for which we have apologised.” The police error was referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It has recommended that two officers should receive words of advice. Crime Police London Older people Rape Independent Police Complaints Commission Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A soldier who confessed to killing unarmed Afghan civilians for sport has been sentenced to 24 years after entering a guilty plea. Jeremy Morlock, of Wasilla, Alaska, has agreed to testify against four other soldiers involved in the case that’s being called the Afghan Abu Ghraib , reports the New York…
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News that top firms are to recruit students from less traditional universities has not been welcomed by all Corporate lawyers are up in arms about a shift in the profession’s graduate recruitment strategy that could see them forced to mix with “riffraff”. “I did not study at Oxford and the LSE to end up working with people who graduated from Leicester or Queen Mary,” wrote one person on legalweek.com in response to the news last week that magic circle outfit Freshfields is extending the number of universities from which it recruits. Others suggested that students from the less traditional universities were “dirty” and “substandard”, and that recruiting them was a pointless concession to political correctness. Freshfields’ announcement – which sees the solicitors to the Bank of England up the amount of institutions it targets to 28, including ex-poly Essex University – follows rival firm Allen & Overy’s (A&O) recent doubling of the number of universities it recruits to 40. The institutions include the University of East London (ranked 68th in The Times list of top law schools), City (ranked 57th in The Times list) and Greenwich (ranked 51st). A&O graduate recruitment manager Caroline Lindner says the idea that the profession is only interested in one type of person is “outdated”. She adds: “Our clients come from a range of backgrounds so it makes sense for our business to reflect that.” To facilitate this change in strategy the firm has said that it is prepared to be “flexible” with its traditional minimum A-level entry requirement of AAB, pledging to consider all applications, even if they fall short of that standard. However, the expectation is that those with lower A-levels grades will need to make up for it with strong degree performances. Another firm to have cast its net wider is Pinsent Masons, taking the total of major law firms to have broadened their recruitment pools since September to seven. During the last recruitment round Pinsents began targeting graduates from Napier (67th) and Aston (not ranked). The firm’s graduate recruitment manager, Edward Walker, puts the trend down to the impending tuition fee hike, which he thinks will see students increasingly select universities close to home so they can save money by living with their parents. “It’s not going to be a simple case of the best students going to the best universities anymore,” he says, adding that this will lower the incentive for graduate recruitment teams to travel far and wide to bring in the best new talent. Walker continues: “It’s going to make greater sense to focus more on the universities closer to the firm.” All this represents quite a change in mindset for the leading law firms, where Oxbridge graduates make up 38% of trainees , with just 12% having studied at universities outside the top 20. It’s a phenomenon partly explained by recent research from Dr Louise Ashley of Cass’s Centre for Professional Service Firms, which found law firms turned down candidates who looked or sounded working-class in order to preserve their upmarket brand. One City solicitor told Ashley: “There was one guy who came to interviews who was a real Essex barrow boy, and he had a very good CV, he was a clever chap, but we just felt that there’s no way we could employ him. I just thought, putting him in front of a client – you just couldn’t do it.” But there’s a growing sense that the legal profession – which is notorious for lagging other walks of life in reflecting the public mood – is casting aside some of these prejudices. This is illustrated by initiatives such as Addleshaw Goddard’s monitoring of its graduates’ socio-economic backgrounds, and the Bar Council’s new career website, become-a-barrister.com , set up to get the message across that students of “all backgrounds and ethnicities” can become barristers (although in doing so it glosses over some alarming statistics about how few trainee jobs there are at the bar). Certainly there are many lawyers in favour of broadening access, particularly among the older generation who joined the profession in an era when entry requirements were far less stringent. A senior partner at a large law firm told me recently that he thought recruitment based purely on academic merit had gone too far, advocating instead a return to the old system of hiring “five brainboxes, five wild cards, five solid all-rounders who were good at sport (for the firm’s cricket and rugby teams) and five stunningly beautiful women”. He added that one of the main reasons his firm stuck to the top universities was the students themselves: “They’re the biggest snobs of all. If we recruit too widely they won’t come to us.” Somewhere between these extremes may lay a happy medium. Alex Aldridge is a freelance journalist who writes about law and education Law Barristers Solicitors Students Higher education Alex Aldridge guardian.co.uk
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Channel 5 owner would consider selling Daily Express, Star or magazines, according to sources – but only for the right price Richard Desmond is willing to entertain offers for the Daily Express, Daily Star or his magazines – but would only be prepared to consider selling for the right price. Last week it emerged that Barclays Capital had approached Desmond asking if he was willing to see if was willing to sell OK! or any of his other magazines – an approach insiders described as a “fishing expedition”. However, BarCap was not simply dismissed – and instead the bank was given the indication that if Desmond would at least listen to any bidders for any part of his printed stable. One friend said “I told him that he wouldn’t have even entertained selling any of the newspapers or magazines a year ago”, but added that, since the £103.5m acquisition of Channel 5 last year, Desmond’s priorities have changed. Desmond is now closely involved in decisions relating to Channel 5, and has long been particularly attached to OK! magazine. Meanwhile sales of both the Express and Star titles are falling – reflecting the downward trend in the sector – even though both have been price promoted heavily. But with News Corp’s takeover of Sky close to sealing regulatory approval, a sale of the Express and Star titles to an existing newspaper owner may be easier to achieve. Any consolidation play would attract a premium bid. Nevertheless, it remains unlikely that Desmond will sell out, not least because his media empire remains profitable with little or no borrowings, and he has no need of money. Prior to the Channel 5 acquisition Desmond had net cash of £41.7m at his wholly owned Northern & Shell network according to the latest set of accounts available. Profits at Desmond’s publishing and printing activities were £11.4m in 2009, down sharply from £30.8m the year before, largely due to the £52m cost of promotional price-cutting at its titles. Richard Desmond bought the Express and Star titles for £125m from Lord Hollick’s United News & Media in 2000, with the aid of a £97m loan. Aggressive cost cutting meant that Desmond has been able to rapidly pay off the debt and generate healthy profits from the tabloids in the years since. Barclays Capital declined to comment. •
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• Sussex captain to fly home immediately • ‘I felt that it was the only sensible option for me’ Michael Yardy has been withdrawn from England’s World Cup squad suffering from depression and has returned home ahead of England’s quarter final match against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Yardy was days away from one of the biggest matches of his life, but after consultation with England’s medical staff he has returned home immediately to receive specialist advice as he seeks to overcome an illness that an England Wales Cricket Board statement said he “has been managing for a prolonged period of time.” A statement from Yardy, the Sussex captain, said: “Leaving at this stage of a World Cup campaign was a very difficult decision to make but I felt that it was the only sensible option for me and I wanted to be honest about the reason behind that decision. “I would like to wish the squad all the very best ahead of the game on Saturday. I would appreciate some privacy over the coming weeks while I spend time with family and close friends ahead of what I hope will be a successful season for Sussex.” Hugh Morris, managing director of England cricket, said: “I would like to offer my full support to Michael on behalf of everyone involved with the England team and the ECB. He has been an integral part of the England set up in recent years and while he will be missed in the knockout stages of the World Cup, our priority now is to ensure that he returns home to his family and is able to spend time recovering with a strong support network around him. ” The ECB has applied to the ICC’s Technical committee to replace Yardy in its CWC squad and is awaiting a decision. He is the fourth player to pull out of England’s World Cup squad in a matter of weeks, following Kevin Pietersen, Stuart Broad and Ajmal Shahzad, whose involvement was prematurely ended because of injury. Yorkshire’s all-rounder, Adil Rashid, overlooked for the entire winter, would be one of the players in contention along with Nottinghamshire’s Samit Patel. Yardy has had a troubled time on the field during the World Cup. He took only two wickets against India, Ireland and South Africa and he looked innocuous on Indian pitches, drawing attention to the fact that England utilise his slow left-arm as a defensive option in one-day cricket even though he is not a regular bowler at county level with Sussex. He was also a vital component of England’s Twenty20 World Cup win in the Caribbean earlier this year but, at 30, it is possible that his international career is now at an end and he will return to a less stressful career on the county circuit. This is not the first time an England player has suffered from a depressive illness. Marcus Trescothick retired from international cricket, failing in several England comeback attempts, because of clinical depression. He has continued to play county cricket and has captained Somerset without any relapse. Trescothick described in his award-winning autobiography the homesickness, sleeplessness and anxiety which forced him to fly home from Test series against India in February 2006 and from Australia later that year. “I would not have wished this illness on my worst enemy,” he said. Sussex were quick to offer support. Mark Robinson, their cricket manager, said: “Sussex are very proud of Michael Yardy and very supportive of his decision, not only to come home but also to be prepared to go public with the reasons. “He’s always been a person admired for his utmost honesty and integrity, and his courage in dealing with this issue emphasises that. As captain and one of our leading players, we’ll give him all the time and all the support necessary so that he can continue to lead this club forward.” Cricket World Cup 2011 Cricket David Hopps guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …• Sussex captain to fly home immediately • ‘I felt that it was the only sensible option for me’ Michael Yardy has been withdrawn from England’s World Cup squad suffering from depression and has returned home ahead of England’s quarter final match against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Yardy was days away from one of the biggest matches of his life, but after consultation with England’s medical staff he has returned home immediately to receive specialist advice as he seeks to overcome an illness that an England Wales Cricket Board statement said he “has been managing for a prolonged period of time.” A statement from Yardy, the Sussex captain, said: “Leaving at this stage of a World Cup campaign was a very difficult decision to make but I felt that it was the only sensible option for me and I wanted to be honest about the reason behind that decision. “I would like to wish the squad all the very best ahead of the game on Saturday. I would appreciate some privacy over the coming weeks while I spend time with family and close friends ahead of what I hope will be a successful season for Sussex.” Hugh Morris, managing director of England cricket, said: “I would like to offer my full support to Michael on behalf of everyone involved with the England team and the ECB. He has been an integral part of the England set up in recent years and while he will be missed in the knockout stages of the World Cup, our priority now is to ensure that he returns home to his family and is able to spend time recovering with a strong support network around him. ” The ECB has applied to the ICC’s Technical committee to replace Yardy in its CWC squad and is awaiting a decision. He is the fourth player to pull out of England’s World Cup squad in a matter of weeks, following Kevin Pietersen, Stuart Broad and Ajmal Shahzad, whose involvement was prematurely ended because of injury. Yorkshire’s all-rounder, Adil Rashid, overlooked for the entire winter, would be one of the players in contention along with Nottinghamshire’s Samit Patel. Yardy has had a troubled time on the field during the World Cup. He took only two wickets against India, Ireland and South Africa and he looked innocuous on Indian pitches, drawing attention to the fact that England utilise his slow left-arm as a defensive option in one-day cricket even though he is not a regular bowler at county level with Sussex. He was also a vital component of England’s Twenty20 World Cup win in the Caribbean earlier this year but, at 30, it is possible that his international career is now at an end and he will return to a less stressful career on the county circuit. This is not the first time an England player has suffered from a depressive illness. Marcus Trescothick retired from international cricket, failing in several England comeback attempts, because of clinical depression. He has continued to play county cricket and has captained Somerset without any relapse. Trescothick described in his award-winning autobiography the homesickness, sleeplessness and anxiety which forced him to fly home from Test series against India in February 2006 and from Australia later that year. “I would not have wished this illness on my worst enemy,” he said. Sussex were quick to offer support. Mark Robinson, their cricket manager, said: “Sussex are very proud of Michael Yardy and very supportive of his decision, not only to come home but also to be prepared to go public with the reasons. “He’s always been a person admired for his utmost honesty and integrity, and his courage in dealing with this issue emphasises that. As captain and one of our leading players, we’ll give him all the time and all the support necessary so that he can continue to lead this club forward.” Cricket World Cup 2011 Cricket David Hopps guardian.co.uk
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• Hit F5 or tickle the autorefresh button for the latest updates • Email rob.smyth@guardian.co.uk with your thoughts • Buy the Guardian’s Ashes OBO book, why don’t you? 1st over: Australia 3-0 (Watson 1, Haddin 1) India will open the bowling with the offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin. He was impressive against the West Indies on Sunday, and his second ball is a nice doosra that Watson defends respectfully. There’s an interesting atmosphere – unusually hushed by Indian standards (still deafening by any other standards), a reflection of the insecurity surrounding both sides. Watson takes a single to leg and then the fourth ball turns so sharply as to be a leg-side wide. There is a sense that this pitch will turn a lot more from this end than the other, so expect all the spinners from this end. The tense start continues when Haddin drags an inside edge over midwicket for a single. You can smell the fear. “Thanks for your link to that yoga video, which has left me scarred for life,” says Chris Hotham. “From now on I will be resting in the safe haven of the blog page and will certainly not be clicking any links.” Something for a Thursday morning, from Bharath Rajagopalan “As the title says, this is a very scary video .” And I thought Napoleon Dynamite was a comedy, not a documentary. Australia have won the toss and will bat first. MS Dhoni says he would also have batted, and that’s a decent toss to win on a pitch that should lose a bit of life as the day progresses. There’s some surprising team news on both sides. India have omitted Yusuf Pathan, with Suresh Raina preferred at No7 and the fit again Virender Sehwag coming back into the side. That really is a shock. Australia have also strengthened their batting, with David Hussey replacing Steve Smith. That’s a reflection of the poor performance of the middle order on both sides thus far. India Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Kohli, Yuvraj, Dhoni (c/wk), Raina, Harbhajan, Ashwin, Zaheer, Patel. Australia Watson, Haddin (wk), Ponting (c), Clarke, M Hussey, White, D Hussey, Johnson, Lee, Krejza, Tait. The last time India went out of their World Cup , in 1996, the fans rioted . Just saying. In other news, here’s some rare footage of Graham Gooch sweeping India to death in the semi-finals in 1987 – the other occasion on which India were eliminated as hosts. Whoever wins tonight will play Pakistan on Wednesday. If India get through, that will make today’s match seem like a jaunty little warm-up fixture. Preamble This is a quarter-final only in name. In nature, India v Australia is something much grander, especially when it is the hosts against the holders. It’s almost too big for a final, never mind a last-eight game, and that adds a significant frisson to today’s contest. There is a unique tension when two superpowers meet ahead of schedule. If the quarter-finals is par for the heavyweights in a football World Cup, then in rugby and cricket it’s the semi-finals. If you go out before that you are generally doomed to bathe in ignominy for the foreseeable future. Everyone and everything has an unspoken minimum requirement when it comes to performance. For some, it’s a triumph to simply get through the day without making a total fool of themselves, or without brushing their teeth with the Original Source Chocolate and Mint Shower Melt and smearing Colgate under their armpits; for some of us you, defiant mediocrity really is a victory. For others, and certainly for these two teams, the bar is a little higher. A quarter-final exit alone is enough to invite widespread criticism – but this time that will be exacerbated by both teams’ modest performances during the group stage. Whoever departs today will have beaten just one of the top eight sides, New Zealand in Australia’s case and West Indies in India’s. That’[s not good enough. Both sides have problems, and have been dangerously dependent on their openers and one high-class fast bowler (Brett Lee for Australia, Zaheer Khan for India). Today’s match might not be decided by who reaches the greater peaks, but who best avoids the troughs. Chuck in the compelling subplots, particularly Ricky Ponting fighting for his life and Sachin Tendulkar on 99 international centuries, and it’s clear that this game is – as Mark Nicholas once said – massive, massive . It’s almost too much to comprehend that one of these sides will be out of the tournament by this evening. But they will and, whoever it is, they probably shouldn’t read the papers tomorrow. * Chocolate shower gel? That’s a still-drunk-the-morning-after accident waiting to happen. What next. Deodorant-flavour beer? Ready salted crisps with a hint of Ralgex? Cricket World Cup 2011 India cricket team Australia cricket team Over by over reports Cricket Rob Smyth guardian.co.uk
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• Hit F5 or tickle the autorefresh button for the latest updates • Email rob.smyth@guardian.co.uk with your thoughts • Buy the Guardian’s Ashes OBO book, why don’t you? 1st over: Australia 3-0 (Watson 1, Haddin 1) India will open the bowling with the offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin. He was impressive against the West Indies on Sunday, and his second ball is a nice doosra that Watson defends respectfully. There’s an interesting atmosphere – unusually hushed by Indian standards (still deafening by any other standards), a reflection of the insecurity surrounding both sides. Watson takes a single to leg and then the fourth ball turns so sharply as to be a leg-side wide. There is a sense that this pitch will turn a lot more from this end than the other, so expect all the spinners from this end. The tense start continues when Haddin drags an inside edge over midwicket for a single. You can smell the fear. “Thanks for your link to that yoga video, which has left me scarred for life,” says Chris Hotham. “From now on I will be resting in the safe haven of the blog page and will certainly not be clicking any links.” Something for a Thursday morning, from Bharath Rajagopalan “As the title says, this is a very scary video .” And I thought Napoleon Dynamite was a comedy, not a documentary. Australia have won the toss and will bat first. MS Dhoni says he would also have batted, and that’s a decent toss to win on a pitch that should lose a bit of life as the day progresses. There’s some surprising team news on both sides. India have omitted Yusuf Pathan, with Suresh Raina preferred at No7 and the fit again Virender Sehwag coming back into the side. That really is a shock. Australia have also strengthened their batting, with David Hussey replacing Steve Smith. That’s a reflection of the poor performance of the middle order on both sides thus far. India Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Kohli, Yuvraj, Dhoni (c/wk), Raina, Harbhajan, Ashwin, Zaheer, Patel. Australia Watson, Haddin (wk), Ponting (c), Clarke, M Hussey, White, D Hussey, Johnson, Lee, Krejza, Tait. The last time India went out of their World Cup , in 1996, the fans rioted . Just saying. In other news, here’s some rare footage of Graham Gooch sweeping India to death in the semi-finals in 1987 – the other occasion on which India were eliminated as hosts. Whoever wins tonight will play Pakistan on Wednesday. If India get through, that will make today’s match seem like a jaunty little warm-up fixture. Preamble This is a quarter-final only in name. In nature, India v Australia is something much grander, especially when it is the hosts against the holders. It’s almost too big for a final, never mind a last-eight game, and that adds a significant frisson to today’s contest. There is a unique tension when two superpowers meet ahead of schedule. If the quarter-finals is par for the heavyweights in a football World Cup, then in rugby and cricket it’s the semi-finals. If you go out before that you are generally doomed to bathe in ignominy for the foreseeable future. Everyone and everything has an unspoken minimum requirement when it comes to performance. For some, it’s a triumph to simply get through the day without making a total fool of themselves, or without brushing their teeth with the Original Source Chocolate and Mint Shower Melt and smearing Colgate under their armpits; for some of us you, defiant mediocrity really is a victory. For others, and certainly for these two teams, the bar is a little higher. A quarter-final exit alone is enough to invite widespread criticism – but this time that will be exacerbated by both teams’ modest performances during the group stage. Whoever departs today will have beaten just one of the top eight sides, New Zealand in Australia’s case and West Indies in India’s. That’[s not good enough. Both sides have problems, and have been dangerously dependent on their openers and one high-class fast bowler (Brett Lee for Australia, Zaheer Khan for India). Today’s match might not be decided by who reaches the greater peaks, but who best avoids the troughs. Chuck in the compelling subplots, particularly Ricky Ponting fighting for his life and Sachin Tendulkar on 99 international centuries, and it’s clear that this game is – as Mark Nicholas once said – massive, massive . It’s almost too much to comprehend that one of these sides will be out of the tournament by this evening. But they will and, whoever it is, they probably shouldn’t read the papers tomorrow. * Chocolate shower gel? That’s a still-drunk-the-morning-after accident waiting to happen. What next. Deodorant-flavour beer? Ready salted crisps with a hint of Ralgex? Cricket World Cup 2011 India cricket team Australia cricket team Over by over reports Cricket Rob Smyth guardian.co.uk
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State-run Press TV showed Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani describing her alleged role in her husband’s death Ofcom has ruled that Iran’s state-run Press TV station, which has offices in London, did not breach the UK’s broadcasting rules in transmitting a programme that showed an Iranian woman participating in the reconstruction of her alleged part in the murder of her husband. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, whose sentence of death by stoning for adultery triggered an international outcry, was taken from prison to her home in Osku, in Iran’s East Azarbaijan province, last December. She appeared in front of a camera for Press TV recounting how she rendered her husband unconscious before the killer electrocuted him. Ashtiani’s 22-year-old son, Sajad Ghaderzadeh, played the part of her husband in the broadcast. Human rights campaigners described it as a forced confession aimed at collecting new evidence against her and distracting world attention from Iran’s embarrassment over the case. Press TV is Iran’s English-language state television station and has its main overseas office in London, where many of its programmes are made. People in Iran do not have access to the channel. Opponents of the Iranian regime believe the channel is used for propaganda purposes. In response to a complaint made by the Iranian human rights campaigner Fazel Hawramy, who asked whether it was ethical for Press TV to make the imprisoned son play his murdered father, Ofcom said in a letter, seen by the Guardian, that the broadcaster had not breached its code. “Given the broadcaster’s assurances that both Sakineh Ashtiani and her son willingly participated in this programme, we considered that the context was not materially misleading so as to cause harm and offence,” Adam Baxter, standards executive of the media regulator, wrote to Hawramy. Ofcom went on to say: “Given the high public salience of the case of Sakineh Ashtiani in Iran, and across the world generally, we considered that it was unsurprising for this matter to be discussed on a serious analysis programme such as this, which focused on Iranian-related matters.” The regulator admitted it was “unusual for a prisoner facing an allegation of murder to take part in a reconstruction of their alleged crime”, but ruled: “It is an editorial matter for broadcasters as to what issues and content they cover in their services, and how they cover them, as long as they comply with the code.” Ofcom added: “The fact that both [Mohammadi Ashtiani and her son] did not appear to be in any obvious distress in their appearances on screen” was another factor it had considered in reaching its decision that “the content, though potentially offensive to some, could be justified by the context”. Ghaderzadeh had been arrested by Iranian authorities before the programme after he spoke to foreign media in support of his mother. Hawramy, who writes for a human rights forum called Kurdishblogger , said: “It is disappointing for me to see that Ofcom has based its conclusions on the assurances Press TV’s editors have given to them. How come Press TV has access to Ms Ashtiani while she, herself, has been denied access to her lawyer? And while one of her lawyers was forced to flee Iran and the other one remains in jail? Why is it that independent journalists were not allowed to access her unrestrictedly while Iran’s state journalists were given permission to?” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, an Iranian human rights activist based in Norway who is also a spokesman for the NGO Iran Human Rights, said: “I was simply shocked by reading Ofcom’s response. One would expect that Ofcom has sufficient knowledge of Iran’s history of using televised confessions, and the fact that Iran is one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists. Iranian authorities claim that prisoners appear ‘willingly’ on the TV and confess against themselves but very often these confessions have been used as new evidence for the death sentences the prisoners have been given afterwards.” According to Ofcom’s letter, Press TV has responded to the regulator and has said: “The complaints are based on the complainants’ assumptions that Ms Ashtiani and her son were forced to appear in the programme and the reconstruction scene. Being that this assumption is false, there is no validity to the complaints. Press TV did not ‘make’ or ‘force’ Ms Ashtiani and her son to do anything they were uncomfortable with. Both participated willingly, and gave no indication that they felt humiliation, distress or violation of their human dignity at any time prior to, during, or subsequent to the filming and broadcast of the programme.” Ofcom said it had received three complaints over Press TV’s programme involving Ashtiani. According to Amnesty International, Ashtiani was sentenced to death by stoning for “adultery while married” but was also given a 10-year prison term in 2006 for the murder of her husband, which her lawyer said later was subsequently reduced to five years for “complicity” in the crime. Last October her son and her lawyer, Houtan Kian, were arrested, with two German journalists who were detained after trying to interview her family. The journalists were released after a few months. Sakineh Ashtiani’s stoning sentence was suspended last year, but she and her lawyer remain in jail. Ofcom Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani Iran Television industry Middle East Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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State-run Press TV showed Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani describing her alleged role in her husband’s death Ofcom has ruled that Iran’s state-run Press TV station, which has offices in London, did not breach the UK’s broadcasting rules in transmitting a programme that showed an Iranian woman participating in the reconstruction of her alleged part in the murder of her husband. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, whose sentence of death by stoning for adultery triggered an international outcry, was taken from prison to her home in Osku, in Iran’s East Azarbaijan province, last December. She appeared in front of a camera for Press TV recounting how she rendered her husband unconscious before the killer electrocuted him. Ashtiani’s 22-year-old son, Sajad Ghaderzadeh, played the part of her husband in the broadcast. Human rights campaigners described it as a forced confession aimed at collecting new evidence against her and distracting world attention from Iran’s embarrassment over the case. Press TV is Iran’s English-language state television station and has its main overseas office in London, where many of its programmes are made. People in Iran do not have access to the channel. Opponents of the Iranian regime believe the channel is used for propaganda purposes. In response to a complaint made by the Iranian human rights campaigner Fazel Hawramy, who asked whether it was ethical for Press TV to make the imprisoned son play his murdered father, Ofcom said in a letter, seen by the Guardian, that the broadcaster had not breached its code. “Given the broadcaster’s assurances that both Sakineh Ashtiani and her son willingly participated in this programme, we considered that the context was not materially misleading so as to cause harm and offence,” Adam Baxter, standards executive of the media regulator, wrote to Hawramy. Ofcom went on to say: “Given the high public salience of the case of Sakineh Ashtiani in Iran, and across the world generally, we considered that it was unsurprising for this matter to be discussed on a serious analysis programme such as this, which focused on Iranian-related matters.” The regulator admitted it was “unusual for a prisoner facing an allegation of murder to take part in a reconstruction of their alleged crime”, but ruled: “It is an editorial matter for broadcasters as to what issues and content they cover in their services, and how they cover them, as long as they comply with the code.” Ofcom added: “The fact that both [Mohammadi Ashtiani and her son] did not appear to be in any obvious distress in their appearances on screen” was another factor it had considered in reaching its decision that “the content, though potentially offensive to some, could be justified by the context”. Ghaderzadeh had been arrested by Iranian authorities before the programme after he spoke to foreign media in support of his mother. Hawramy, who writes for a human rights forum called Kurdishblogger , said: “It is disappointing for me to see that Ofcom has based its conclusions on the assurances Press TV’s editors have given to them. How come Press TV has access to Ms Ashtiani while she, herself, has been denied access to her lawyer? And while one of her lawyers was forced to flee Iran and the other one remains in jail? Why is it that independent journalists were not allowed to access her unrestrictedly while Iran’s state journalists were given permission to?” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, an Iranian human rights activist based in Norway who is also a spokesman for the NGO Iran Human Rights, said: “I was simply shocked by reading Ofcom’s response. One would expect that Ofcom has sufficient knowledge of Iran’s history of using televised confessions, and the fact that Iran is one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists. Iranian authorities claim that prisoners appear ‘willingly’ on the TV and confess against themselves but very often these confessions have been used as new evidence for the death sentences the prisoners have been given afterwards.” According to Ofcom’s letter, Press TV has responded to the regulator and has said: “The complaints are based on the complainants’ assumptions that Ms Ashtiani and her son were forced to appear in the programme and the reconstruction scene. Being that this assumption is false, there is no validity to the complaints. Press TV did not ‘make’ or ‘force’ Ms Ashtiani and her son to do anything they were uncomfortable with. Both participated willingly, and gave no indication that they felt humiliation, distress or violation of their human dignity at any time prior to, during, or subsequent to the filming and broadcast of the programme.” Ofcom said it had received three complaints over Press TV’s programme involving Ashtiani. According to Amnesty International, Ashtiani was sentenced to death by stoning for “adultery while married” but was also given a 10-year prison term in 2006 for the murder of her husband, which her lawyer said later was subsequently reduced to five years for “complicity” in the crime. Last October her son and her lawyer, Houtan Kian, were arrested, with two German journalists who were detained after trying to interview her family. The journalists were released after a few months. Sakineh Ashtiani’s stoning sentence was suspended last year, but she and her lawyer remain in jail. Ofcom Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani Iran Television industry Middle East Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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