‘Director of a private refugee detention center in the United Kingdom has resigned after footage emerged showing officers were abusing and bullying refugees and asylum seekers being held there.

Ben Saunders, the director of Brook House in south-east England, which is run by security firm G4S, has stepped down with “immediate effect,” said Jerry Petherick, managing director for G4S custodial and detention services.

Saunders is also resigning from his post at Tinsley House, another detention center, which holds refugees facing deportation from the UK.

He left his job three weeks after BBC Panorama aired footage apparently showing officers abusing detainees and mocking people who were receiving medical treatment after self-harming.

Undercover footage was filmed by a former officer, Callum Tulley, who contacted the BBC and began working undercover on their behalf.’

Read more: Head of UK refugee detention center quits over abuse

‘They drink tea, eat cake and from time to time burst into song. The few dozen, predominantly retired, professionals at this very English protest hardly add up to a formidable force.

But on the fracking front line police are taking no chances.

At a time when forces up and down the country complain that they are struggling to cope because of budget cuts, North Yorkshire Police are facing accusations of mounting a ‘disproportionate’ and expensive show of strength.

Usually outnumbering – and certainly outmuscling – the grey-haired demonstrators, up to 50 police officers at a time are dealing with the protest.

The start of work to prepare for fracking at the Third Energy well at Kirby Misperton, near Pickering, has prompted the protests. This week 12 people have been arrested, mainly for obstruction of the highway or a police officer.

Many of the protesters are pensioners who gather daily outside the site gates cum rain, cum shine to express their displeasure. They fear fracking – the controversial method of mining for gas and oil – poses a threat to this beautiful and unspoilt rural area.’

Read more: Tea, cake and a very English protest… so why send FIFTY police to tackle a few dozen anti-frackers?

‘More than a third of all police in England and Wales believe officers should be routinely armed, a rise of ten percentage points in a decade, a new survey has shown.

A report from the National Police Federation found that 43 per cent of officers want all police to be trained in the use of guns, but do not think they should be forced to carry them all the time.

One of the starkest findings of the survey, to which 33,366 officers responded, was more than half of serving police said they did not believe armed support would be available if required while only six per cent think there are enough armed officers already.

It is the first time the survey has been carried out in more than ten years, following a 2006 review that found that 23 per cent of officers wanted all police to be armed.’

Read more: Police officers increasingly want to be armed, survey finds

‘More than seven million households have been given flawed smart energy meters that fail if you switch suppliers, the Mail can reveal.

Customers have been urged to sign up for smart meters on the basis that they will be able to see in pounds and pence how much power they’re using.

But these meters – which automatically send suppliers meter readings – currently only work with the customer’s existing provider.

If customers want a cheaper deal by switching supplier, the meters stop working and customers have to go back to submitting readings.

The Mail understands that energy suppliers are preparing to launch a major upgrade to correct the fault later this year. However, last night experts warned it could cause billing chaos for millions.

Mark Todd, director of Energyhelpline, branded the smart meter roll out ‘a complete shambles’. He said: ‘There is still a huge question mark over how firms will update these meters.’

Read more: Not smart! Energy meters given to seven million households will fail if you switch suppliers

‘Florida’s Supreme Court has ruled that police may detain passengers any and all passengers during even minor traffic stops and that doing so does not violate constitutional rights to hold someone not suspected of any wrongdoing for a “reasonable” time, The Newspaper reported.

The high court made the ruling after evaluating a January 29, 2015 traffic stop in which a car with a broken tail light was pulled over in Gainesville for allegedly rolling through a stop sign. Gregory Presley was one of two passengers in the stopped vehicle questioned by Officer John Pandak about who he was and where they were going. The officer asked if any of the passengers had been drinking and Presley questioned why would that be a problem.

“I don’t know, man,” Officer Pandak replied. “This is a traffic stop, you’re part of it. So we’re hanging out. That’s all there is to it…. Well, we’re just talking, man. You can’t go anywhere at the moment because you’re part of this stop. That’s all.”’

Read more: Florida Supreme Court Rules Police May Detain Passengers During Traffic Stops

‘Police say that they do not know where hundreds of homeless people that used to congregate on the streets near a local shelter disappeared to following a local operation.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown told the press that he has checked all of the local encampments along the river banks and all the parks but is still perplexed how over 200 homeless people just vanished. Now some locals fear the worst and want answers.

All of this raises questions after a homeless man from Houston who survived Hurricane Harvey told a reporter that two local shelters were “killing everybody.”

“Salvation Army and Russian Winds homeless shelter where they were accepting people were caught killing everybody that was in there,” the man told NBC.’

Source

‘Renewed interest in reforming America’s complicated and controversial approach to bail has broadened over the past few years. A New Jersey law, which took effect on the first day of 2017, has almost completely eliminated the use of cash bail in the state, inspiring the wrath of the bail industry over the summer.

Though reform legislation to largely do away with cash bail in California was temporarily stalled in the state assembly at the end of August, it will be reintroduced next year with the input and support of the state’s influential governor, Jerry Brown. Meanwhile, local bail reformers across the country have taken actions on their own to lessen the blows bail imposes on vulnerable defendants. Bail funds have emerged in cities, including Boston, New York (Brooklyn), Nashville, and Seattle.’

Read more: When Stealing a $2 Can of Beer Yields $1,000 of Debt

‘Doctors Without Borders has warned that refugee camps in Bangladesh are on the brink of a “health disaster” amid an influx of Rohingya Muslims from neighboring Myanmar.

Over the past month, nearly 430,000 Rohingya have fled from a brutal army-led crackdown across the border in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. The United Nations has described the crackdown as “ethnic cleansing.”

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym as MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières), warned on Thursday that waste water and feces were flowing all around the chaotic camps, creating “a public health disaster.”

MSF said to manage the emergency “a massive scale-up of humanitarian aid is needed in Bangladesh.”‘

Read more: Doctors Without Borders warns Bangladesh refugee camps on brink of ‘health disaster’

‘Thailand’s deputy junta leader has accused three police officers of helping sneak ex-prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra out of the country last month, a vanishing act that stunned the kingdom.

Yingluck, whose government was toppled by the military in 2014, has not been seen since August 25, when she failed to turn up for a court verdict in her criminal negligence trial.

Thailand’s junta says it was unaware she was planning to escape — something many Thais have found difficult to believe given the round-the-clock surveillance Yingluck frequently complained of.

Analysts say the former premier, who faced up to a decade in jail, most likely cut a secret deal with the junta to exit the country.

But the military has denied the charge and is now pointing the finger at the police.’

Read more: Thai junta claims police helped ex-PM Yingluck escape

‘Tens of thousands poured onto the streets of central Barcelona and further afield in Catalonia, outraged at the escalating crackdown on a separatist-led referendum on independence for the region on 1 October that saw 14 local government officials arrested, including the region’s deputy vice president.

According to police, about 4,000 demonstrators gathered near the office of vice president Josep Maria Jove, who is also secretary-general of Catalonia’s economic affairs, to chant “we will vote” in a referendum deemed illegal by the central Madrid government and Spain’s constitutional court.

Outside the headquarters of pro-independence party Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), riot police were called to control thousands of mainly young demonstrators who cried “occupation forces out” and “the streets are ours”.

The arrests were carried out by Spain’s Civil Guard rather than the Catalan regional Mossos d’Esquadra force, who received widespread praise for their quick response to a pair of terrorist attacks last month. Police said they staged 22 search operations in total.’

Read more: Catalonia: Thousands take to streets of Barcelona to protest crackdown on separatists