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UK border controls let 500,000 into the country without any checks for FIVE YEARS

• Report shows thousands of Eurostar passengers were let in unchecked
• Millions wasted on schemes that didn’t work
  
• Reveals immigration minister Damian Green did downgrade border checks
• Wiltshire Police chief to take charge of one part of new border agency

By Jack Doyle

Last updated at 8:38 AM on 21st February 2012

Britain’s shambolic Border Agency has routinely dropped or downgraded major immigration controls for the past five years without ministerial approval, a devastating report revealed last night.

It found up to half a million Eurostar passengers arriving from French tourist resorts, including Disneyland Paris, were waved into Britain without facing any anti-terror checks.

The European nationals were not examined against the Home Office’s so-called Warnings Index, which contains details of terrorists and dangerous criminals who must be refused entry to keep the public safe.

The report also showed how millions of pounds was wasted on schemes which did not work, with ministers being regularly fed misleading information by  civil servants.

Foreign students were let in if they ‘appeared to be genuine’.

Last night, as Home Secretary Theresa May announced that she is to split the dysfunctional agency into two, a terrifying culture of arrogance and incompetence emerged.

The report, which was ordered after last  year’s revelations that senior civil servants were abandoning passport checks, provoked fury, with MPs criticising Britain’s ‘Mickey Mouse’ immigration controls. Yesterday’s report also revealed how:

• Staff at Heathrow Airport allowed foreign students into Britain last year – even if they did not have a valid visa;
• Officials abandoned reading expensive biometric chips in passports nearly 15,000 times at ten ports between January and June last year;
• Anti-terror checks were abandoned more than 350 times over the two years, mostly at ports in France, because long traffic jams were a ‘health and safety’ problem;
• Such is the poor record-keeping at the agency, that the true implications of the border breaches may never be known;
• On a number of occasions, including the Eurostar loophole, UKBA staff acted entirely without ministerial approval.

The report, by John Vine, chief inspector of the UK Border Agency, was commissioned last year following the so-called ‘Brodiegate’ scandal.

Taking liberties: The official investigation into the relaxation of border checks last year found staff went ‘over and beyond’ any scheme approved by ministers

It saw former chief Brodie Clark resign after the Home Secretary accused him of weakening controls without her permission.

Yesterday’s report appeared to clear ministers of downgrading checks, saying that border staff went ‘beyond’ what was approved.

However, it revealed Immigration Minister Damian Green did  authorise the downgrading of checks early last year. Mrs May later made clear her opposition but this instruction was ignored.

In her statement to MPs yesterday, she said that from next month the Border Force – the part of the UKBA responsible for checking those trying to enter the country – will be hived off.

Wiltshire Police chief constable Brian Moore will replace Mr Clark and will be ‘directly accountable’ to ministers, Mrs May said. The remaining part of UKBA will be responsible for processing immigration applications.

Mrs May told MPs: ‘The Vine report reveals a border force that suspended important checks  without permission; that spent  millions on new technologies but chose not to use them; that was led by managers who did not communicate with their staff; and that sent reports to ministers that were inaccurate, unbalanced and excluded key information.’

Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: ‘This just shows that the UK Border Agency is a real Mickey Mouse operation. Unfortunately it is neither entertaining nor funny. It is run by clowns for their own advantage and convenience.’ The report revealed that since 2007, passengers on trains arriving from Avignon, Bourg St Maurice and Disneyland station Marne-la-Vallee had their passports examined but no more detailed checks were carried out.

Separately, Warnings Index checks were abandoned more than 350 times, mostly at  so-called ‘juxtaposed controls’ – immigration posts in France.

Agency records suggest the checks were abandoned for up to six hours at Calais, when staff were faced with traffic jams at the port and justified the suspension on ‘health and safety grounds’. The students scheme – codenamed Operation Savant – operated during the peak rush of new arrivals from September last year.

It allowed Heathrow officials to let in students from ‘low risk’  countries if they ‘otherwise appeared to be genuine students’.

Mr Vine said the policy was ‘potentially unlawful’. The report stated: ‘We cannot say whether  any student was admitted into the UK unlawfully under this initiative and any potential risks to security cannot be quantified.’

Chip reading facilities were ‘deactivated’ nearly 15,000 times at ten ports between January and June last year, Mr Vine said.

Astonishingly, the Border Agency was ‘unable to explain definitively why these deactivations occurred’.

Yesterday’s final, terminal blow for UKBA follows a string of scandals for the immigration system going back years.

In 2006, then home secretary John Reid branded the immigration  system ‘not fit for purpose’. The criticism was repeated by MPs on the Home Affairs Committee in a report two years ago.

Mr Clark resigned in November last year claiming constructive  dismissal. He is likely to receive a substantial payoff despite yesterday’s report and a similar internal inquiry finding against him.

Lax: 500,000 Eurostar passengers boarded trains in France and arrived in the UK without being checked against the warnings index of suspected terrorists and those with adverse immigration histories

The internal review by former police officer David Wood found Mr Clark took the action he did because he wanted ‘quick wins’ to cut queues at airports.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper last night accused Mrs May of ‘passing the buck’. ‘It is clear that on Theresa May’s watch border controls were substantially weakened last summer compared to previous years,’ she added.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said  yesterday: ‘The Home Secretary’s proposals do not go far enough.

‘A separate border force will allow a more focused view on what is happening. However, there is a danger in assuming that structural changes will solve these problems.

‘What is needed is root and branch reform, not changing faces but cultures. This is day one for the future of UKBA. The Home Secretary should abandon her Chihuahua approach and become a pit bull. Otherwise her failures will come back to bite her.’

News | Mail Online

Pupils ‘being steered into softer rather than traditional subjects is making them unprepared for university’

By Deputy Political Editor

Last updated at 1:23 AM on 20th February 2012

More pupils are studying vocational courses such as catering than taking traditional academic exams, according to a report on the failure of state schools to prepare students for university.

The report, published today by MPs on the Conservative Fair Access to University Group, demands an overhaul of the university points system for admission and greater transparency from schools about how hard they are pushing pupils.

It shows that some comprehensives are channelling students into dumbed down courses rather than encouraging them to do the academic subjects valued by the top universities.

Dumb down: Pupils who chose so-called ‘Mickey Mouse’ subjects are not prepared for the rigours of studying at Britain’s top universities, the report claims

The report reveals that between 2006 and 2010 the number of GCSE passes dropped from 6.4million to 5.8million, while the number awarded in vocational courses such as food safety and catering rose from 6.1million to 6.8million. 

Between 1996 and 2009, the average number of A-levels taken by sixth form pupils dropped from 3.32 to 1.94.

The paper also appears to prove that selective and independent schools, which have greater success in sending students to the top universities, also push their pupils into taking more rigorous academic subjects.

Official figures passed to the MPs show three times as many comprehensive pupils take media studies at GCSE and A-level as do so in selective schools and nine times as many as in independent schools.

In 2010, only 40 per cent of pupils in comprehensive schools took at least one A-level in biology, chemistry or physics, compared with three out of four pupils at selective schools and 63 per cent in independent schools.

Reform: Report author Rob Wilson MP is calling for major changes of the university admissions system

The report, written by Tory MP Rob Wilson, calls for:

• The abolition of the current Ucas points system which rates high grades in maths and English as the same as those in ‘Mickey Mouse’ courses such as media studies.

• All schools to publish details of the number of pupils applying for university, whether they are successful and the subjects they studied in order to persuade teachers to encourage pupils to take more rigorous subjects.
  

• The Government to join forces with independent schools such as Eton to pay for places at top public schools for talented but poor children who get free school meals.
  

The report is politically significant because it systematically dismantles the claims of the incoming university access tsar Professor Les Ebdon that social class rather than school failure is to blame for the smaller numbers of less well-off students heading to good universities.

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Classic car restorer dies after jumping into freezing golf club lake to rescue his pet dog

• Tim Waddingham, drowned trying to save five-year-old labrador from freezing water

By Arthur Martin

Last updated at 12:42 AM on 9th February 2012

A classic car restorer has drowned after jumping into a freezing pond to rescue his beloved labrador.

Tim Waddingham, 53, was walking on a snow-covered golf course next to his home when his dog Podge wandered on to a frozen pond.

The five-year-old labrador is thought to have fallen through thin ice into the freezing water.

Tim Waddingham, 53, died after trying to rescue his dog in a lake on a golf course in Cranleigh, Surrey. His body was later discovered by police divers

Frozen scene: The lake at the Wildwood Golf and Country Park in Cranleigh, Surrey where Mr Waddingham drowned

Fearing for his dog, Mr Waddingham took some of his clothes off and jumped into the pond to rescue it. During the rescue attempt he got into difficulty and drowned as his dog swam to safety.

When Mr Waddingham, a former amateur Jaguar car racer, failed to return home an hour later, his wife Sarah, 37, went looking for him on the golf course.

She came across Podge sitting on her husband’s clothes next to the pond shortly after 9am on Sunday, a close family friend said.

Police divers later recovered Mr Waddingham’s body. He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

Yesterday relatives were trying to comfort his wife and their seven-year-old daughter Louisa at the £1.5million family home in West Sussex.

Speaking outside the gates of the farmhouse, a relative said: ‘It was an act of reckless foolishness that was done for love. He left the house in the morning contented. It was a wrong decision to go and help the dog at this time of year. The family are all cut up dreadfully.’

Mr Waddingham, who ran a classic car restoration firm specialising in Jaguars from his home, regularly walked his dog at the golf club. There are  several water features on its three nine-hole courses.

Photographer Max Grizaard, 53, a former school friend who was Mr Waddingham’s best man, said the death was ‘a tragedy for everyone who knew and loved Tim’.

Robert Coucher, the international editor of classic car magazine Octane, said he met Mr Waddingham in 2006 when he asked him to restore a 1955 Jaguar XK140.

‘Tim was one of the foremost experts when it came to classic cars, especially Jaguars,’ he said. ‘He knew everything there was to know about Jaguars. He was a very skilled engineer and he had clients all over the world.’

Yesterday after conducting a post mortem examination a pathologist gave the cause of death as drowning. An inquest was opened and adjourned. A police spokesman said: ‘Officers are investigating. At this stage it is believed there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death.’

Up to three inches of snow are expected to fall this evening on the Midlands, Lincolnshire and East Anglia. London, the South and parts of Yorkshire are due to get up to 1.5 inches.

Temperatures will plunge as low as minus 7c (19f) in central and eastern England tomorrow night, and daytime levels will struggle to rise above minus 1c (30f) in some parts of the country.

Wildwood Golf and Country Club in Cranleigh, Surrey. Mr Waddingham drowned in a lake near the club

Forecasters are warning that low temperatures will cause a ‘slow thaw’ leaving the snow on the ground well into the weekend.

The cold snap is expected to have relaxed its grip by Sunday, although night-time temperatures will still fall below zero in parts of England into next week.

Despite freezing conditions over most of England, much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are experiencing milder weather.

● Former footballer David Ginola has broken three ribs in a skiing accident in the French Alps. He was taken to hospital on Tuesday after colliding with another skier in the Le Jaillet area of Megeve, but discharged yesterday. The other skier was unhurt.

Ginola, 45, played for clubs including Paris Saint Germain, Tottenham, Newcastle and Everton and the French national team until he retired in 2002. He has since tried to forge a career as an actor.

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BMW careers into man’s porch as he sits watching television just feet away

By Katie Silver

Last updated at 2:47 PM on 3rd February 2012

A man had a lucky escape when a suspected stolen BMW smashed into his porch late at night as he sat in his house just feet away.

Chris Sparrow, 47, was about to go to bed when the high-powered black motor ploughed into his home in Essex at about 10.20pm.

Shell-shocked Chris was in his living room while his wife Karen, 47, was in bed when he heard a bombshell crash.

Quite a crash! Chris Sparrow, 47, was about to go to bed when a black BMW smashed into his home destroying his wife’s Ford Fiesta in the drive. Two 27-year-old men were in the car that was suspected to have been stolen

He looked out of the window to see that his porch had been destroyed and the BMW was piled up on the side of Karen’s battered silver Ford Fiesta.

Mr Sparrow, of Hornchurch, Essex, said: ‘I heard a loud bang.

‘I knew straight away it was a crash – but I didn’t realise that it was in my house.

‘I knew something was wrong because I could see lots of rubble and there were lots of people gathered around the front of the house.’

Stunned Chris and Karen managed to get out through the back door after the dramatic incident on Monday night.

A man of 27 got out of the mangled BMW on his own while another man, also 27, had to be cut free by firefighters.

Paramedics dashed to the accident scene and both the crash driver and his passenger were taken to Queen’s Hospital, Romford.

One of the men suffered neck, back and shoulder injuries while the other one had a suspected head injury.

Shocked neighbour Christine Clarke said: ‘I thought a bomb had gone off when I heard the bang.

‘They were all really lucky to get out because someone could have been killed.’

Chris and Karen are now assessing the damage to their house but have been able to continue living there.

‘It’s not the best start to the year but we have to concentrate now on just getting the house fixed,’ said Chris.

Two men were arrested on Tuesday over the smash and have been quizzed by cops.

Police believe the car was stolen from Essex.

News | Mail Online

Mind-boggling! Science creates computer that can decode your thoughts and put them into words

• Technology could offer lifeline for stroke victims and people hit by degenerative diseases
• In the study, a computer analyzed brain activity and reproduced words that people were hearing

By Tamara Cohen

Last updated at 5:36 AM on 1st February 2012

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction dreams – or nightmares.

Scientists believe they have found a way to read our minds, using a computer program that can decode brain activity in our brains and put it into words.

They say it could offer a lifeline to those whose speech has been affected by stroke or degenerative disease, but many will be concerned about the implications of a technique that can eavesdrop on thoughts and reproduce them.

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Scientific breakthrough: An X-ray CT scan of the head of one of the volunteers, showing electrodes distributed over the brain’s temporal lobe, where sounds are processed

Neuroscientists at the University of California Berkeley put electrodes inside the skulls of brain surgery patients to monitor information from their temporal lobe, which is involved in the processing of speech and images.

As the patient listened to someone speaking, a computer program analysed how the brain processed and reproduced the words they had heard.

The scientists believe the technique could also be used to read and report what they were thinking of saying next.

In the journal PLoS Biology, they write that it takes attempts at mind reading to ‘a whole new level’.

Brain workings: Researchers tested 15 people who were already undergoing brain surgery to treat epilepsy or brain tumours

Words with scientists: The top graphic shows a spectrogram of six isolated words (deep, jazz, cause) and pseudo-words (fook, ors, nim). At bottom, the speech segments how the words were reconstructed based on findings from the electrodes

Robert Knight, professor of psychology and neuroscience, added: ‘This is huge for patients who have damage to their speech mechanisms because of a stroke or Lou Gehrig’s [motor neurone] disease and can’t speak.

‘If you could eventually reconstruct imagined conversations from brain activity, thousands could benefit.’

The researchers tested 15 people who were already undergoing brain surgery to treat epilepsy or brain tumours.

They agreed to have up to 256 electrodes put on to the brain surface, as they listened to men and women saying individual words including nouns, verbs and names.

Breakthrough: The ability to scan the brain and read thoughts could offer a lifeline to those whose speech has been affected by a stroke or degenerative disease

A computer programme analysed the activity from the electrodes, and reproduced the word they had heard or something very similar to it at the first attempt.

Co-author Brian Pasley said there is already mounting evidence that ‘perception and imagery may be pretty similar in the brain’.

Therefore with more work, brain recordings could allow scientists to ‘synthesise the actual sound a person is thinking, or just write out the words with a type of interface device.’

Their study also shows in sharp relief how the auditory system breaks down sound into its individual frequencies – a range of around 1 to 8,000 Hertz for human speech.

Pasley told ABC News: ‘This study mainly focused on lower-level acoustic characteristics of speech. But I think there’s a lot more happening in these brain areas than acoustic analysis’.

He added: ‘We sort of take it for granted, the ability to understand speech. But your brain is doing amazing computations to accomplish this feat.’

Analyzing words: This graphic breaks down the three ways the brain hears spoken words and processes sounds

This information does not change inside the brain but can be accurately mapped and the original sound decoded by a computer. British expert Professor Jan Schnupp, from Oxford University who was not involved in the study said it was ‘quite remarkable’.

‘Neuroscientists have of course long believed that the brain essentially works by translating aspects of the external world, such as spoken words, into patterns of electrical activity’, he said.

‘But proving that this is true by showing that it is possible to translate these activity patterns back into the original sound (or at least a fair approximation of it) is nevertheless a great step forward, and it paves the way to rapid progress toward biomedical applications.’

He played down fears it could lead to range of ‘mind reading’ devices as the technique can only, at the moment, be done on patients willing to have surgery.

Non-invasive brain scans are not powerful enough to read this level of information so it will remain limited to ‘small numbers of willing patients’.

He added: ‘Perhaps luckily for all those of us who value the privacy of their own thoughts, we can rest assured that our skulls will remain an impenetrable barrier for any would-be technological mind hacker for any foreseeable future.’

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