Latest news with #Neasden
Telegraph
a day ago
- Telegraph
Albanian drug dealer pictured with £250k in cash can stay in Britain
A jailed Albanian drug dealer who took pictures of himself surrounded by £250,000 in cash has been allowed to remain in the UK. The Home Office and National Crime Agency (NCA) are seeking to deport Olsi Beheluli, 33, who was jailed for 11 years for his 'senior role' in a heroin drug dealing ring. They say that Beheluli, who came to the UK as a nine year old, fraudulently secured British citizenship after claiming that he was not involved in criminality on his application form for naturalisation. Only eight months later, he was arrested with eight kilograms of high purity heroin, which had an estimated street value of £200,000, on his way to a 'stash house' in Neasden, where counterfeit identity documents and scales were found. The National Crime Agency found a picture of him surrounded by £250,000 in cash on his iPhone after raids in north-west London in 2015. He was found guilty of conspiring to supply class A drugs at Blackfriars Crown Court and sentenced to 11 years in prison on April 1, 2015. Home Office's 'common sense' argument The Home Office and NCA argued that only a senior person with a longstanding criminal history would be entrusted with such a high value consignment of drugs. A lower tier tribunal judge then rejected that argument on the basis that there was no surveillance or witness evidence to support it. Beheluli's appeal against his deportation was upheld. However, the Home Office appealed the case and secured a re-hearing after an upper tribunal judge ruled that the lack of evidence to prove his prior criminality was not enough to outweigh the 'common sense' arguments of the Home Secretary. The case, disclosed in court papers, is the latest example uncovered by The Telegraph where illegal migrants or convicted foreign criminals have been able to remain in the UK or halt their deportations. Ministers are proposing to raise the threshold to make it harder for judges to grant the right to remain based on article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to a family life, and article 3, which protects against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Beheluli's father claimed asylum after the family arrived in the UK on November 22, 2000. His applications were rejected but in 2006 they were granted discretionary leave to remain, which then 'confusingly, almost simultaneously' became indefinite leave to remain, the tribunal was told. There is nothing to suggest Beheluli's father was involved in any wrongdoing. Eight years later, in April 2014, Beheluli was granted British citizenship. But eight months after that, on October 7, 2014, he was caught with £200,000 worth of heroin and arrested for drug offences. The Home Office sought to deport him on the basis that he had defrauded officials when he claimed in his citizenship application that there was nothing 'which reflected adversely on his character'. Officials argued that the value of the drugs meant he 'must have established a fairly senior role in the supply of heroin, since he was entrusted with more than eight kilograms of high-purity heroin with a street value of more than £200,000'. 'Beyond logic' The Home Office said it was 'incredible' to accept that he was new to the drug trade and that his arrest represented the first time he had engaged in such activities. The court was told: 'It is beyond logic to accept that [he] would be trusted with such a consignment of drugs if [he was] not already involved in the supply of Class A Drugs.' However, the lower tier tribunal ruled that there was insufficient evidence to reach such a conclusion. The tribunal ruled: 'There is, for example, no surveillance or other evidence from the NCA and there is no opinion evidence from a police officer, for example, to support the suggestion that only a senior and trusted member of an organised criminal gang would be entrusted with such a quantity of drugs. 'There was no evidence of sufficient cogency to establish that the appellant had been involved in criminality at the time that he said that there was nothing adverse to declare about his character.' But the upper tribunal rejected these arguments and ordered a re-hearing. It ruled that the lack of physical evidence did not 'amount to a complete and incontrovertible answer to the common-sense point made by the Secretary of State.' It concluded: 'Whether or not there was a statement from a police officer, and whether or not there was further evidence from the NCA, that view was deserving of respect and was capable of supporting the common-sense stance of the Secretary of State.'
BBC News
05-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Travellers at overcrowded Brent site asked to leave by council
Irish Travellers living on an authorised site in north London have been sent letters asking many of them to leave due to overcrowding. The breach notices from Brent Council said the proximity of mobile homes and caravans within Lynton Close in Neasden was a fire risk and posed an "intolerable risk to life".It said "bricks-and-mortar" temporary accommodation was available for established residents to move into, however many called the offer "culturally inappropriate". Bernie Corcoran, 58, has lived in Lynton Close since it opened in 1997. He said: "We're not just going to get up and leave, we're going to make a stand." Mr Corcoran, who is considered by residents as one of the elders in the community, said he had always accompanied council representatives any time they visited the site. "If they're coming down here to evict everyone, they'll have to have the British army with them," he told the Brigid Corcoran, 48, of no relation to Mr Corcoran, pointed to a mobile home close to her own. "That's my daughter's home. She lives there, she needs that," she said. She said Brent Council had asked for it to be removed. "If I don't agree to that, I get an eviction," she early April, a wave of "notices for breach of licence" were sent to residents from the council, beginning a process of civil Corcoran believes she is one of roughly 300 residents, including 90 children, who face eviction if they do not comply with the council's demands "to bring the site within safe and legal limits".Residents were told that voluntary compliance was encouraged "to avoid the need for legal escalation". Lynton Close, which opened with 31 pitches, has become densely populated over the years and overcrowding is not a new issue.A report by Brent Council estimated there were now as many as 74 mobile homes on 2017, months after the Grenfell Tower fire, Brent Council published a report on the traveller site and described space between individual homes and neighbouring pitches as "practically non-existent", and said this posed a fire said the risk of a fire spreading would reduce if a gap of 19ft 7in (6m) was "maintained between each individual residence" or "a fire-resisting wall" was built between each who the BBC spoke to said that neither of the mitigation measures was discussed with them nor the BBC asked Brent Council about any efforts to complete the work that the 2017 report requested, the council did not respond on that point, but said the site's most recent risk assessment superseded the 2017 report. A London Fire Brigade officer who previously worked with the council on making Lynton Close more fire secure said he installed about 70 smoke alarms " in every van and mobile home that we could". Brent Council said the site's level of overcrowding had become an "intolerable risk to life" and told residents that it had accommodation in the borough ready for them to move into."The properties that we have found and matched families to are available now. They are all in Brent and have been matched to the specific requirements of families," the local authority told residents in a letter in woman, who did not want to be identified and who cannot read, told the BBC that the council asked her to sign a document relating to its offer of a temporary she said she did not realise that she and her family may end up outside the borough if she signed the Wright, chief executive of the council, apologised to the family and said established residents were assured there was "safe, affordable, secure, bricks-and-mortar accommodation for them in Brent". Some residents have left the site in an effort to comply with the council's breach early May, the BBC observed one family leave Lynton Close, towing their mobile home with a pick-up truck. "We'll try to find a Tesco or Asda car park, or some vacant land somewhere," the driver said. Dr Nancy Hawker from non-profit organisation London Gypsy and Travellers said some of the Lynton Close residents had been made homeless."The council had promised to accommodate anyone displaced as a result of the council's orders, but they have broken their promise," Dr Hawker said."We have found where residents of Lynton Close have agreed - under pressure of threats of wholesale site closure - to move at the council's behest, they have been denied council accommodation, and have been made homeless as a result." Ms Wright said she would not comment on the specifics of individual cases, adding that residents who were not deemed to be "established residents" would not receive the same housing offer."Any members of the community who weren't living there in April as an established resident absolutely will be supported through our homelessness program," she said. Local Labour MP Dawn Butler wrote to Brent Council's chief executive "deeply concerned" by what she saw and heard from residents after visiting the site in May. "Many families feel they are being displaced once again without consideration, echoing generational trauma," she said in a Wright said the council was not conducting "enforcement evictions"."What we've been doing with the residents is working with them really constructively in the last few months," she said."We recognise that there have been some mental health concerns and some anxiety and distress on the site and no-one wants to be in the position to see that."We have put in place a package of support for them through a community support day." Many Lynton Close residents told the BBC that they feared speaking publicly about what was happening in case they were treated also said they had no intention of moving into the bricks-and-mortar accommodation being offered by the council and called it "culturally inappropriate".Ms Wright said: "I recognise that bricks and mortar is not their chosen lifestyle."We have a situation at the moment where that site is unsafe and there are overcrowded living conditions and no responsible landlord wants to see their tenants living in those conditions."We've been clear with any family who is interested in moving that it would be a temporary relocation for them and we have already had two families that have moved off the site into bricks and mortar on a temporary basis."
Times
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Barry Fantoni obituary: Private Eye stalwart for half a century
So. Farewell then, Barry, as EJ Thribb might have written. Cartoonist, caricaturist, painter, broadcaster, jazz musician, actor, playwright and crime novelist, Barry Fantoni was all of those but above all he was a vital and indispensable part of the fabric of Private Eye for half a century. His satirical cartoons wickedly mocked the idiocies of modern life; he wrote the bubble captions for some of the magazine's most memorable covers and created a disproportionate number of its long-running trademark features and characters. It was Fantoni who, with Richard Ingrams, wrote the spoof Mills and Boon romances by Sylvie Krin, often about the love tangles of the royal family. He was also the devoted chronicler of the Neasden Football Club of the North Circular Relegation League
