Now Blair could be sued over Libya torture claims by man who alleges MI6 sent him into the hands of Gaddafi’s regime
- Abdel Hakim Belhadj is already suing Jack Straw
- Mail learns lawyers are drawing up case against Blair
By Tim Shipman
|
Tony Blair could be next to face a legal claim for damages from the Libyan man who alleges MI6 sent him to be tortured by Gaddafi’s regime, after he announced he was suing Jack Straw.
In a move without precedent against an ex-minister, Abdel Hakim Belhadj served legal papers against the former foreign secretary over claims that he authorised the Secret Intelligence Service to hand him over to Gaddafi’s government.
The Mail has learned that Mr Belhadj’s lawyers are now preparing a case against Mr Blair as well.
Lawsuit: Tony Blair is facing a legal claim from Abdel Hakim Belhadj
In another dramatic development, coalition ministers have apparently undermined Mr Straw’s claims of ignorance about the affair, revealing that papers showing he was implicated in the rendition of Mr Belhadj do exist.
Sapna Malik, a partner at Leigh Day & Co, the firm representing Mr Belhadj, said: ‘It would be surprising to us if something of this magnitude was not done with Mr Blair’s knowledge.
‘Our clients would like us to follow this case up the chain of command. He was at the top of the chain of command. Mr Belhadj certainly wants an apology from Mr Blair. Watch this space.’
Mr Belhadj, 45, was the leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which in 2004 was linked to Al Qaeda – links he fiercely denied.
He was picked up that year following a tip-off by MI6 and flown by the CIA, via the British Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia, to Libya where he claims he was tortured for six years.
The incident took place just days before Mr Blair signed his notorious ‘Deal in the Desert’ with Colonel Gaddafi.
Sued: Mr Belhadj has already launched legal action against former foreign secretary Jack Straw
Documents found in Tripoli following the fall of the dictator show that MI6 counter-terrorism chief Sir Mark Allen boasted to Gaddafi’s spy chief Musa Kusa that ‘the intelligence was British’ which led to Mr Belhadj’s capture. He added that the tip-off was ‘the least we could do for you and for Libya’.
Last year Mr Straw appeared to deny any knowledge of the operation. But it emerged at the weekend that after he made those claims, he was approached by MI6 officers who showed him a document he had signed authorising the rendition.Senior figures in the Coalition claim some documents implicating Mr Straw do exist. One source said: ‘There are papers that point the finger at Jack Straw.’
But Downing Street officials yesterday said they have ‘no plans’ to hand over the documents.
Lawyers for Mr Belhadj and Sami Al Saadi, who also claims he was returned to Libya and tortured, yesterday served Mr Straw with notice that they will launch formal legal proceedings against him unless he comes clean, apologises and produces key documents.
Soldier: Abdel Hakim Belhadj speaks to Libyans at a rally in Tripoli in September 2011
Mr Belhadj, now a senior official in the Libyan transitional government, is already suing the Foreign Office and Sir Mark Allen.
They all have four weeks to come clean and publish the papers or the civil case will begin.
Miss Malik said: ‘If the former foreign secretary does not now own up to his role in this extraordinary affair, he will need to face the prospect of trying to defend his position in court.’
She added: ‘The real issue here is not about the amount of compensation, it is to get public acknowledgement and an admission from Jack Straw and others involved in his rendition. We have evidence that implicates very senior people.’
But she admitted they could seek damages that would force Mr Straw to sell his house.
Mr Straw and Mr Blair are also expected to be questioned by Scotland Yard detectives, who have launched a criminal inquiry into the behaviour of ministers and intelligence officials.
Mr Blair has previously claimed he has no recollection of the case.
Yesterday Mr Straw refused to comment, saying: ‘I am sorry that I can’t say more about this case, but with a police investigation pending and this intended civil legal action I am sorry that it is not appropriate for me to say any more about it.
‘They are entitled to bring the action and it will be dealt with in due course.’
Categories: News Tags: 'torture', alleges, Blair, claims, could, Gaddafi's, Hands, into, Libya, over, regime, sent, sued
Daring Mr Fox! Cub trots into townhouse, scales flight of stairs and curls up for a sleep in schoolboy’s bed
By James Tozer
|
With her emaciated frame and matted fur, this female fox cub doesn’t look too healthy.
Which might explain why she was seeking somewhere comfortable to rest when she happened across a child’s bedroom.
Alexander West, nine, who had left the back door of his house open when he went out to play, found the sorry looking creature curled up on his duvet when he returned.
Caught napping: A fox spotted in schoolboy Alexander West’s best in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire
‘I was absolutely shocked,’ said his mother, Dina Luminati-West. ‘But Alexander was quite excited she had chosen his room. I said it was because it was so messy.’
Tracks show where the female cub crept in through the back door then up to the second floor on Monday afternoon – without encountering their cat, Fifi.
It tried the main bedroom before settling on Alexander’s bed for a nap.
Experts say urban foxes will take advantage of any open window or catflap when desperate for food and say householders should take care to secure their homes. A spate of attacks on children has shown how fearless a hungry fox can be.
Mrs Luminati-West, of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, called RSPCA staff who took the cub away.
Surprise: Alexander with hius mother Dina Luminati-West, who were both shocked by their visitor
Cut: The fluffy baby curled up on top of Alexander’s comfortable-looking duvet
She said she had seen foxes in an alley behind their townhouse home and knew there was a den nearby, but had never heard of them going into houses.
She added: ‘Alexander loves animals, but a bedroom’s not the best place for a fox. We’ll be keeping our door firmly shut from now on.’
Two years ago, nine-month-old twins Lola and Isabella Koupparis were mauled in their cot by a fox in East London, leaving them with horrific injuries.
Shortly after, Jake Jermy, three, was bitten on the arm at a playgroup party.
And last year ambulance worker Tammy Page, 29, had the tip of her finger bitten off by a crazed fox which crept in through the catflap of her home in Brighton, East Sussex.
Categories: News Tags: curls, Daring, Flight, into, Scales, schoolboy's, sleep, stairs, townhouse, trots
Cabinet rift throws cigarette censorship plan into chaos as Lansley is branded as a member of the ‘health police’
By Brendan Carlin
|
Cigar-smoking Ken Clarke has mocked Cabinet colleague Andrew Lansley as a member of the ‘health police’ over his call for cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging only.
Mr Clarke openly suggested the Health Secretary’s controversial plans would not stop youngsters taking up the habit.
The Justice Secretary said: ‘I am surprised that people think that young boys and others take up smoking because they are attracted by the packet.
Dispute: Smoker Ken Clarke says Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s call for cigarettes to be sold in plain packets will not stop youngsters from taking up the habit
‘The campaigners claim they’ve got great evidence for this and my friend Andrew Lansley is obviously completely convinced that they do.’
But Mr Clarke, an ex-director of British American Tobacco, insisted changing public attitudes – not anti-smoking initiatives – had cut cigarette smoking.
He said: ‘A lot of things that have been tried have not actually themselves been the cause of the reduced consumption.
‘There’s been a huge change in public attitude – that’s what has changed to some extent in this country.’
Nannying?: Health Secretary Andrew Lansley announced he was consultinf on enforcing plain-packaging for cigarettes
Plain future: Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has paved the way for the Government to force tobacco firms to provide all cigarettes in plain packets in a bid to cut smoking
Speaking on Radio 4’s Any Questions, Mr Clarke said in his experience cigarette branding was ‘mainly designed to try to get market share from your competitors’ – not to encourage people to start smoking.
‘Health police’: Andrew Lansley’s clampdown on the tobacco trade has been criticised by smokers
He also took issue with Mr Lansley’s wish that tobacco firms ultimately had ‘no business’ in the UK.
Mr Clarke said: ‘The point at which you so police somebody else’s wellbeing that you are prepared to order them and put penalties on them if they won’t stop doing something . . . is a step one should take cautiously.
‘But as he’s a colleague of mine, and I’ve no idea what the general view in the Cabinet is, perhaps I shouldn’t go further than that.’
Mr Lansley, who announced last week he was consulting on his plain-packaging plan, yesterday denied the move amounted to ‘nannying’.
But he made clear that smoking was more dangerous than alcohol or fatty foods, saying: ‘There isn’t a harmless level of tobacco smoking.’
In an interview, Mr Lansley –widely predicted to be sacked in the next Cabinet reshuffle for his handling of the NHS reforms – said he was confident David Cameron would not fire him.
Categories: News Tags: branded, Cabinet, censorship, Chaos, Cigarette, Health, into, Lansley, Member, Plan, Police, rift, throws
‘You’re a bully and used your van as a weapon’: Road rage driver who rammed into horse rider jailed
- Nadeem Hussain jailed for ten months after using vehicle ‘like a weapon’
- Traumatised rider, 20, says ‘I could have been paralysed’
By Daily Mail Reporter
|
Nadeem Hussain has been jailed for 10 months after he carried out a road rage attack on a horse called Merlin and its rider
A white van driver who rammed his vehicle into a horse and rider has been jailed.
A judge branded Nadeem Hussain a bully and said he had used his vehicle as a weapon.
Hussain was driving along a country lane when Charlotte Watmough signalled for him to slow down. Instead, the father of five skidded to a halt and got out of his vehicle.
Words were exchanged before Hussain got back into his van and drove forwards a few feet, past the horse and rider.
He then slammed it into reverse and drove into Miss Watmough’s mount, Merlin, pushing him into a wall.
The animal panicked and reared up, causing the rider to lose her stirrups and have to fight to stay in the saddle.
Merlin, a 12-year-old Anglo Arab, was later seen by a vet, who found he had suffered bruising to his fetlock.
Miss Watmough, 20, who has ridden regularly since she was three, was left traumatised, with a sore arm, shoulders and neck, caused by the force with which she had to hold on to the horse.
Hussain, 31, drove off after the incident in Baxenden, Accrington, Lancashire, but the rider noted his registration number and he was later arrested.
Hussain, of Accrington, admitted dangerous driving and was jailed for ten months at Burnley Crown Court.
He was also banned from driving for a year and must take an extended retest.
Speaking afterwards, Miss Watmough, of Rossendale, Lancashire, said she was delighted with the sentence and urged drivers to show more respect to riders.
‘I couldn’t sleep’: Lancashire student Charlotte Watmough, pictured with Merlin, was traumatised and suffered pain in her arms, shoulders and neck, while her horse was left bruised
She said: ‘It’s just brilliant, when I got the news I couldn’t believe it. I never expected him to go to prison for that length of time.
‘It will hopefully give him time to think about what he did.’
The student, who is due to begin a course in primary school teaching, added: ‘Because Merlin was rearing up, I just hung on trying to control him.
‘I was screaming at the top of my voice, I thought I was going to fall off and get run over or be squashed by Merlin. Thinking back, it was really, really dangerous. I could have been paralysed.
‘It was just so random, I was so shocked – it wasn’t provoked, I’m always polite.
‘I’ve never come across anyone like that out on the road.
‘I didn’t think he would stop until either I or Merlin was on the floor.
‘I couldn’t sleep for about a week afterwards. I just kept waking up crying and I was referred to counselling by my doctor. It still upsets me and I’m nervous when I go out riding.’
Sarah Johnston, prosecuting, said Miss Watmough described herself as an experienced rider, having ridden almost every day for 16 years.
She had been wearing a specialised hat and a high visibility vest when the incident occurred.
She was riding her horse on Back Lane, in Baxenden, on June 26 last year when Hussain’s van came round a bend in front of her and, instead of slowing down, approached her at some speed.
The prosecutor told the court that Miss Watmough had put up her right hand, with her palm out flat, to signal to the driver to slow down, but he made no effort to do so and skidded to a halt.
Terror: Rider Charlotte Watmough, pictured with 12-year-old Anglo Arab Merlin, had to fight to stay in her saddle. She said she ‘could have been paralysed’ in the run-in with Hussain
She had tucked Merlin in as far as possible and was effectively looking down on the van roof. At the time the horse was not frightened, as he was used to vehicles and traffic.
Hussain got out of his vehicle, words were exchanged and he was said to have threatened to ram the horse with his van. Miss Watmough was scared and explained all she had intended by her gesture was to invite him to slow down.
The defendant got back in his van, drove forward ten to 12 feet, slammed on his brakes and then reversed towards the horse, pushing him into a wall, before driving off.
Defending, Martin Hackett, said Hussain accepted there had been an ‘altercation’ but denied getting out of his vehicle or reversing into the horse. He claimed Miss Watmough had hit him with her ‘riding stick’.
Hussain agreed that reversing towards the animal and rider was dangerous and likely to frighten the horse, but said that he did not deliberately aim for the animal.
Judge Beverley Lunt told him he had intended to frighten the horse and rider and his actions could have had very serious consequences.
She continued: ‘You behaved like a bully. You used your vehicle to intimidate and threaten. That’s like using it as a weapon.
‘People who lose their temper and use their cars to threaten and intimidate, and where they cause fear and harm, must understand the consequences will be severe.’
Justice: Miss Watmough described her delight after hearing Hussain had been jailed over the confrontation in Baxenden, Lancashire
Categories: News Tags: 'bully, Driver, horse, into, jailed, rage, rammed, rider, road, used, weapon, You're
As it’s revealed 10,000 children are taken into care a year, how one doctor made a fortune setting parents bizarre tasks to test if they were fit to keep their children
|
Few places could have been more fitting for a memorial to one of Britain’s most celebrated and respected ambassadors.
In the Crypt Chapel of St Paul’s Cathedral, representatives of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, as well as diplomats from around the world, had assembled for a service to remember Sir Reginald Hibbert, the former Ambassador to France.
With the stone sarcophagi of Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington within touching distance of the congregation, Sir Reginald’s son, Dr George Hibbert, could not help but be moved by the turnout for his father, who had died, aged 80, from cancer. Delegates from the Foreign Office, Diplomatic Service, the Royal Hussars, where Sir Reginald once served, and Worcester College, Oxford, where he studied, were also present that crisp February morning in 2003.
Under investigation: Dr George Hibbert, pictured outside the Family Assessment Centre near Blunsdon, Swindon
And although he was very proud of his father, Dr George Hibbert could also later claim that his own career was flourishing as the self-proclaimed expert and psychiatrist called on by local authorities from across the country to assess whether hundreds of young mothers were fit to be parents. After the service, as he got into his black Porsche Turbo to drive home, he probably thought that, like his father, he would one day be respected and esteemed by the great and good of his profession.
But today, Dr Hibbert is famous for very different reasons. He is being investigated by the General Medical Council (GMC) following accusations that he deliberately misdiagnosed parents as having mental disorders to allow social services to take their children into care.
This week, it was revealed that applications by local authorities to take children into care in England have reached an all-time record, soaring to 10,000 a year. Since 2008, the figure has more than doubled as the authorities decide ever-more parents should have their children taken away from them.
In the UK as a whole, there are at least 90,000 children in care. And it is to ‘experts’ such as Dr Hibbert that authorities turn to for court evidence to back up their applications.
Hibbert has offered to surrender his licence to practise medicine but still faces a full GMC inquiry. The scandal of Dr Hibbert — accused in Parliament of being little more than a ‘hired gun’ for local authorities trying to take children into care — has shone a spotlight on a family courts system normally shrouded in secrecy.
Crucially, it raises the question of whether a single ‘expert’ should be allowed to determine the most fundamental rights of parents to bring up their own children. Even the Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, the minister responsible for Britain’s family courts — where Hibbert gave many of his judgements — has been asked to launch a parliamentary investigation.
Now some of Dr Hibbert’s fellow psychiatrists are pouring scorn on the hugely controversial methods that helped him amass a fortune of more than £2 million.
But how did this privileged son of a respected British ambassador end up in such an embarrassing scandal at the age of 59? Born in Vienna in April 1952, while his father was working at the consulate in Austria, George Hibbert became accustomed to life as the son of a distinguished dignitary.
His father received Foreign Service postings in Bucharest, Guatemala, Ankara, Singapore and Mongolia, to name but a few. George was the middle of three children with an older sister, Jane, and younger brother, William, who is now a barrister.
At 13, he was packed off to board at the historic public school, Charterhouse. Eager to follow in his father’s footsteps, he went to Worcester College, Oxford, where he graduated with a BA in psychology, philosophy and physiology in 1974.
He then gained his medical qualification at the University of London, and began work as a psychiatrist.
In 1977, the year he completed his medical studies, he married Krystina Tysler, a midwife from Essex whom he had met through work. They bought a family home on a Thirties estate in Oxford and had three daughters, Katharine, Rosalind and Elizabeth — all now grown up.
The scene seemed set for a perfect family life and career, perhaps almost as distinguished as his father’s.
But that was not to be.
A psychiatrist who worked with Dr Hibbert at the Warneford Hospital, a specialist mental health unit in Oxford, in the Nineties, recalls a vain man with an eye for the ladies.
‘His nickname was “Gorgeous George” because he was so full of himself,’ she says, speaking on condition of anonymity. ‘He was incredibly vain and was often seen looking at his reflection in the window.
‘His hair was immaculately styled, and while most consultants would just wear chinos and a jumper, he would wear expensive suits and arrive at work in a sports car.
Former Charterhouse pupil and Oxford graduate Dr Hibbert is the son of a privileged British ambassador
‘He was a massive show-off, very arrogant and looked down on people.’
It appears snobbery was not his only failing. The psychiatrist told us that he revelled in the old school tie network, and expressed antiquated views about the role of women.
‘I often heard him making very laddish comments about women he considered attractive,’ the psychiatrist continues. But some nurses would be flirty and he would love it. I think it made him feel powerful.’
At first Hibbert specialised in patients suffering drink-and-drug addiction problems. Before long he was running the addiction unit, and, it is said, told colleagues he planned to join a march in 1998 organised by the Independent on Sunday newspaper calling for the decriminalisation of cannabis. It was the talk of the hospital — we were so shocked,’ the psychiatrist continues, explaining that heavy cannabis use can lead to psychosis. ‘Here was a consultant psychiatrist treating people with cannabis addiction, preparing to publicly support the legalisation of cannabis.
‘To say it raised eyebrows was an understatement.
‘It was inappropriate.’
He also viewed the drug as a way to make money. He became a sizeable shareholder in GW Pharmaceuticals, a company that secured a Home Office contract to grow and develop medicines from cannabis.
By 2000, Dr Hibbert decided to part company with the NHS to make ‘real money’ and fund the kind of lifestyle he had become accustomed to as the son of a diplomat. In March that year he set up the consultancy Assessment in Care, making himself its director and psychiatrist, and offering its services to local authorities. His business partner was Jill Canvin, a solicitor specialising in representing children in care proceedings.
For premises they paid £390,000 in 2001 for Tadpole Cottage, a detached four-bedroom house near Swindon in Wiltshire. It would house up to four families at any one time as they were assessed at the request of local authorities to see whether children should be taken into care. Methods Dr Hibbert used to assess parental skills were bizarre and unorthodox.
‘He tried to tell my Dad that because my baby’s father and I were not together, it proved I was a bad mother’
Staff monitored and made notes on everything parents did with their children during their stay, which could last as long as three months.
He set them stressful challenges. He made some mothers vacuum the stairs while holding their baby.
Or he told parents to take a car journey with their infant strapped in the back seat and then simulate a breakdown to add stress to the situation as a test to see if they were fit to keep their children.
Former residents have claimed their time spent at Tadpole Cottage was like a nightmare version of the Big Brother household on television.
But, for Hibbert and Canvin, it was a lucrative business that resulted in their company being valued at £2.7 million last year. Local authorities paid £6,000 a week to have a family in his care. He charged £210 an hour simply to read a report from their social services departments.
But Dr Hibbert’s gilded life began to unravel when, in 2007, a mother complained that he had wrongly diagnosed her with bipolar depression. The GMC began to investigate.
Other parents began to tell their of their shocking experiences. Many of them claimed they were in a ‘no-win’ situation: if they were too attentive to their babies, they were deemed to be ‘trying too hard’, while if they worked at seeming to be less conscientious, they were accused of being distant.
A whistleblowing member of staff, who has agreed to give evidence at the GMC inquiry, claims Dr Hibbert was in the habit of putting his fingers in his ears and chanting ‘Nah, nah, nah. I’m not listening’ when he wanted to ignore an aggrieved mother.
At Tadpole Cottage, staff-recorded details about a number of parents reveal the true extent of the impossible situation they faced.
It included details of what time a mother or father got up, what they wore, what they ate and even the telephone conversations they had.
It would be noted that a three-month-old baby ‘did not seem to respond’ when told she was a good girl by her mother.
That apparent failing became the basis for an accusation that the mother was not ‘in tune’ with her child. Another mother was said to be unable to ‘prioritise her child’ because she had bought herself hair conditioner during a trip to a pharmacy. Yet another mother, who liked to bake cakes, read books and was chatty and outgoing, was reported to have worn ‘a bright orange sundress’ and ‘inappropriate socks and trainers’.
Yet another was criticised for ‘a blank expression’ while doing the cleaning chores. Some parents who stayed there felt Hibbert’s demands for perfection were not only excessive, but also hypocritical. By then, the psychiatrist had split up with his wife and moved from their Oxford home into a cottage adjacent to the Wiltshire centre —Ms Canvin lived in a flat above the centre’s garage.
A woman who Hibbert had chided as a bad mother because she had split from her husband recalls him becoming ‘very aggressive’ when he was asked about his own family life.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, tells of how her father once attended the cottage and challenged Dr Hibbert over his views on single mothers.
‘He tried to tell my Dad that because my baby’s father and I were not together, it proved I was a bad mother,’ the woman says.
‘He said it showed I had problems forming relationships.
‘My dad was stunned and asked: “Have you never had a failed relationship?” Dr Hibbert became really angry and aggressive.
He snapped back: “We’re not here to discuss me — we are here to discuss your daughter”. Later on, we found out from a member of staff that he was going through a divorce at the time.
‘We just thought: “What a complete hypocrite.”‘
While the psychiatrist’s career has not ended as successfully as his esteemed father’s, he did inherit a reputation for being combative and abrasive (a trait that was noted about Sir Reginald in one newspaper obituary).
We have obtained a letter Dr Hibbert sent in response to Kristina Hofberg, a consultant psychiatrist, who was critical of his methods when she reviewed his care of one mother.
In it, he rounds on his fellow medical professional, accusing her of having an ‘apparent difficulty in interpreting English words in common usage’.
He concludes: ‘Her reinterpretations consistently imply that it is our behaviour and judgement, rather than our patient’s, that is at fault.’
The question the GMC will have to answer is whether Dr Hibbert’s methods were ethical and professional and, if not, how many children were torn needlessly from their mothers. Inevitably, many women — some as young as 16 — spoke of a deep sense of despair and stress while in his care.
During her period of assessment, one told a member of staff that she ‘hadn’t spoken to anybody in days except for my baby, but she doesn’t talk back’. It was observed how one mother ‘was tearful and began to swear, saying: “I am fed up here — fed up of being watched.” ’
On another occasion, the same mother tried to withdraw to a quiet room but was followed there by staff.
When staff looked in and asked if she was all right, she snapped back: ‘Can I just have five minutes on my own please?” and was crying.
A woman who was at the centre with her eight-week-old son told us that she became alarmed when she arrived because she believed that no one left the establishment with their babies. ‘It was like something from Victorian times. I started to panic,’ she recalls. ‘It seemed like no one got out without having their baby taken away. You would see them screaming and crying, begging not to have their babies taken away.’
Her premonition came all too tragically true. She was ordered to leave without her son after Hibbert ruled that she was suffering from a bipolar disorder.
Two other psychiatrists later criticised his findings, insisting she had no such condition. By then, however, her child had been adopted and she could not get him back.
The centre is now closed. And the company website, which featured a picture of Dr Hibbert smiling reassuringly, has been taken down.
Although we made regular calls and left messages for Hibbert, he has refused to comment.
Instead, he relies on the Medical Protection Society. A spokesman says: ‘Dr Hibbert is limited in the amount of information he can provide about his actions or advice.
‘He is unable to comment on allegations raised in relation to care of a patient due to his professional duty of confidentiality.
‘We can confirm that Dr Hibbert is co-operating with an ongoing GMC investigation and that no findings have been made against him.
‘The questions raised with regards to Dr Hibbert’s personal life constitute a wholly unacceptable intrusion into his private and family life and as such he does not intend to respond further.’
In the meantime, families torn apart as a result of Dr Hibbert’s findings into their personal relationships are trying desperately to rebuild their shattered lives.
