Courts

A PRISON governor has been jailed over an illicit relationship with a drug gang boss who gifted her a £12,000 Mercedes.

Kerri Pegg was seen as a “rising star” in the Prison Service and quickly rose through the ranks to become governor at HMP Kirkham in Lancashire.

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But her career is now in ruins after she embarked on a relationship with inmate Anthony Saunderson, who was known as Jesse Pinkman after the series Breaking Bad.

Pegg, 42, has now been jailed after she was found guilty of two counts of misconduct in a public office.

One relates to the divorcee’s fling with Saunderson and the second by failing to disclose county court judgements about her debts.

She was also convicted of one count of possessing criminal property, the Mercedes car, from Saunderson.

Preston Crown Court heard Pegg released Saunderson on licence in 2019 despite not having the authority to approve the bid.

After he was granted his freedom, the prisoner used cash from selling 34 kilos of amphetamines to buy Pegg the Mercedes coupe.

On April 6, 2020, Saunderson was sent a message on Encrochat saying “car her for ya bird 12 quid or work” and a photo of the vehicle.

The court was told “12 quid” meant £12,000 and “work” meant drugs.

Saunderson asked “what work they want” and he was told “top or weed” – meaning cocaine or cannabis.

Two days later, he arranged for “17 packs” to be dropped off in Manchester to pay for the car.

The Mercedes was registered in Pegg’s name, with a pal messaging Saunderson: “Where u ya seedy man u and Peggy out floating orrel in the new whip?”

Law enforcement agencies cracked the criminal’s Encrochat and discovered he was involved in drug trafficking on a huge scale.

Saunderson, who was also known to his criminal pals as James Gandolfini -the actor who played Tony Soprano in the mafia TV Series – has now been locked up for 35 years.

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The court was told other messages revealed the “ongoing nature” of his relationship with Pegg.

Police searched her home on November 19, 2020, and found a toothbrush and flip flops containing Saunderson’s DNA.

Officers also discovered a haul of designer clothing and found Pegg was subject to a number of county court judgements for unpaid debts.

Prosecutor Barbara-Louise Webster said: “Her downfall was two-fold, the first, despite having a good income, she lived beyond her means.

“She spent all her income and more, incurring debts and she had county court judgements made against her.

“As a consequence, she became vulnerable and open to exploitation.

“The second was that she became emotionally and personally involved with a serving prisoner, Anthony Saunderson and later accepted an expensive car, a Mercedes C class, which was paid for by him out of his proceeds of criminal activity ie trading in drugs.”

Pegg joined the prison service in 2012 as a graduate entrant and worked at prisons in Risley, Liverpool and Styal.

By April 2018, she was a governor at HMP Kirkham, where Saunderson was serving a lengthy jail term.

He had been locked up in 2014 for his part in importing £19m of cocaine in shipments of corned beef from Argentina.

From the start, there were concerns about Pegg being inappropriately close to prisoners.

It was also noted that she spent a lot of time in her office with Saunderson.

In October 2018, he put in a request to be released on temporary licence.

Despite Pegg not having the authority to green light his release, she intervened and approved his application without notifying the official who should have dealt with the case.

Days later she was moved to another jail, later becoming duty governor at HMP Lancaster Farms.

Saunderson meanwhile was revealed as one of nine gangland figures responsible for producing amphetamines on an industrial, multi-million-pound scale.

The gang made and dealt 2.6 tonnes of amphetamines worth £1million – as well as trafficking heroin, cocaine, cannabis, ketamine, MCAT and diazepam.

Tarryn McCaffrey, from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: “Kerri Pegg’s conduct fell far short of what might be expected from any professional within the Prison Service, let alone one of such a senior grade as prison governor.

“She was clearly involved in an inappropriate relationship with Saunderson after he was released and the evidence points to this going back further, to a time when he was in jail.

“This relationship, and the fact that Pegg failed to disclose her debts to her employers, amount to a gross breach of trust and are therefore extremely damaging to public confidence.”

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Decorated veteran Ben Roberts-Smith failed to have reports that he ‘murdered four Afghan men’ quashed.

Australia’s most decorated living war veteran has lost an appeal against a civil court ruling that implicated him in war crimes while serving in Afghanistan.

Australia’s Federal Court dismissed the appeal lodged by Ben Roberts-Smith on Friday, in the latest setback for the 46-year-old’s fight to salvage a reputation tattered by reports that he took part in the murder of four unarmed Afghan prisoners.

Three federal court judges unanimously rejected his appeal of a judge’s ruling in 2023, which said Roberts-Smith was not defamed by newspaper articles published in 2018 that accused him of a range of war crimes.

In the earlier ruling, a judge had found that the accusations were substantially true to a civil standard and Roberts-Smith was responsible for four of the six unlawful deaths of noncombatants he had been accused of.

Delivering the appeal court’s verdict, Justice Nye Perram explained that the reasons for the decision are being withheld due to national security implications that the government must consider.

The marathon 110-day trial is estimated to have cost 25 million Australian dollars ($16m) in legal fees that Roberts-Smith will likely be liable to pay.

He has however said he will fight to clear his name in Australia’s High Court, his last avenue of legal appeal.

“I continue to maintain my innocence and deny these egregious spiteful allegations,” Roberts-Smith said in a statement. “We will immediately seek to challenge this judgement in the High Court of Australia.”

Tory Maguire, an executive of Nine Entertainment that published the articles Roberts-Smith claimed were untrue, welcomed the ruling as an “emphatic win”.

“Today is also a great day for investigative journalism and underscores why it remains highly valued by the Australian people,” Maguire said.

Australia deployed 39,000 troops to Afghanistan over two decades as part of United States and NATO-led operations against the Taliban and other armed groups.

Perth-born Roberts-Smith, a former SAS corporal, had won the Victoria Cross – Australia’s highest military honour – for “conspicuous gallantry” in Afghanistan while on the hunt for a senior Taliban commander.

An Australian military report released in 2020 found evidence that Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners and civilians. The report recommended 19 current and former soldiers face criminal investigation.

It’s not clear whether Roberts-Smith was one of them.

Police have been working with the Office of the Special Investigator, an Australian investigation agency established in 2021, to build cases against elite SAS and Commando Regiments troops who served in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.

The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times said in a series of reports in 2018 that Roberts-Smith had kicked an unarmed Afghan civilian off a cliff and ordered subordinates to shoot him.

He was also said to have taken part in the machine-gunning of a man with a prosthetic leg, which was later brought back to an army bar and used as a drinking vessel.

JUSTIN Bieber has broken his silence on explosive rumours that he was abused by Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs.

Hip-hop star Diddy, 55, whose sex trafficking trial kicked off this week, infamously hosted a teenage Justin at his home in 2009.

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And since the rap mogul’s arrest last year, unfounded gossip online has linked the Canadian singer reported mental health problems with his former mentor’s alleged crimes.

Sean Combs – who is charged with sex trafficking and prostitution – strongly denies all allegations of misconduct.

Now, Justin, 31, has released a statement refuting claims he was targeted by the rapper.

A spokesperson told TMZ: “Although Justin is not among Sean Combs’ victims, there are individuals who were genuinely harmed by him.

“Shifting focus away from this reality detracts from the justice these victims rightfully deserve.”

Last year, video emerged of Diddy and Justin spending “48 hours” together.

Fans online branded the clip “disturbing” considering the 24-year age gap between the pair.

Justin also sang on Combs’ 2023 record The Love Album: Off The Grid which sources now say the pop superstar deeply regrets.

A source told the Mail Online: “He was featured on Diddy’s most recent album, and had he known any of this, there is no way he would have done it.”

This comes as Combs’s ex Cassie Ventura claims she had sex for up to four days with male escorts while living in fear that he would beat her.

The pregnant 38-year-old told a court: “You make the wrong face . . . then I was getting hit in the face.”’

Singer Cassie said she was a sexual novice when she fell in love with Diddy having been won over by his huge wealth and charm.

Within a year, she said she agreed to marathon “freak off” sex sessions with strangers to prove her love and keep him happy.

But Cassie told the court in New York how she began to experience a different side of Diddy — what she called “his abusive side”.

She added: “Very controlling over my life, the things I wanted to do . . . but there’s still love there.

“Control was everything from the way I looked, what I was working on that day, who I was speaking to.

“You make the wrong face and the next thing I knew I was getting hit in the face.”

Cassie testified despite being eight-and-a-half months pregnant with her third child with husband, Alex Fine, a personal trainer hired by Combs to work with her.

She said she was 19 when the rapper signed her on a ten-record deal to his Bad Boy Records label in 2006.

P Diddy, who denies all the charges, faces life imprisonment if convicted.

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Washington, DC – Justices at the US Supreme Court have questioned lawyers representing the administration of US President Donald Trump and those challenging his effort to end birthright citizenship in the country.

The hearing on Thursday represented the first time the top court in the United States has heard a case related to Trump’s January 20 order seeking to do away with the more-than-century-old policy, which grants citizenship to nearly all infants born on US soil, regardless of their parents’ legal status.

It was not immediately clear when the court would issue a ruling in the case, although an outcome could take weeks. It also remained unclear if the justices would address the underlying constitutionality of Trump’s order, or if they would only rule on the narrower question of whether lower federal court justices are empowered to block the implementation of the order nationwide.

Still, demonstrators and lawmakers who gathered outside of the Washington, DC courthouse said any ruling challenging birthright citizenship would corrode the national fabric of the US.

“We are here at the highest court in the land because a fundamental promise of America is under attack. And we are here to say not on our watch,” Ama Frimpong, the legal director of CASA, told those gathered in protest.

“All persons born in the US are citizens of the US,” Frimpong said.

Legal experts have also said a ruling limiting federal courts’ ability to order a “national” or “universal” injunction to block Trump’s executive actions would in and of itself be transformative.

“That question, in a normal sense, would already shake the legal foundation of the country: whether lower courts have the right to order nationwide injunctions,” said Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro from outside the courthouse.

“But it’s the second question that really people are focused on, and that is if Trump has the power to cancel birthright citizenship for the children born to undocumented immigrants and certain visa holders visiting the US,” she said.

“Now it is up to the justices whether they want to go in either of those directions.”

‘Catch me if you can kind of regime’

Over two hours of questioning, lawyers for the Trump administration, as well as those representing states and individuals who have challenged Trump’s order, addressed matters both of constitutional grandeur and legal minutia.

Solicitor General John Sauer began by laying out the Trump administration’s broad argument that the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, has been incorrectly interpreted since then. The amendment, Sauer argued, “guarantees citizenship to the children of former slaves, not to illegal aliens or temporary visitors”.

Trump also reiterated that position in a Truth Social post ahead of the hearing, saying birthright citizenship makes the US a “STUPID Country” that incentivises people to visit to have children.

Sauer also took aim at the three federal judges who have ruled in favour of separate lawsuits challenging the law’s constitutionality. Plaintiffs in those cases include 22 state attorneys general, immigrant rights organisations, and individuals affected by the rule. Sauer argued that the judges’ decisions should only apply to the plaintiffs in the cases, and not the entire nation.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether the broader constitutional question could be unpicked from the narrower question of the judges’ reach, saying the president’s order violates “by my count, four established Supreme Court precedents”.

That included the 1898 Supreme Court case, United States v Wong Kim Ark, which first established that the 14th Amendment applies to immigrants, she said.

Other justices questioned the implications of a scenario where the court ruled that the judges could not issue “national injunctions” in the case, without answering the underlying constitutional question.

Legal scholars have noted that this could create a situation where Trump’s end to birthright citizenship would not apply to states and individuals who successfully challenged his order in court. That would mean birthright citizenship – at least temporarily – would end in 28 other states if they do not launch their own challenges.

“Does every single person that is affected by this EO [executive order] have to bring their own suit?” Justice Elena Kagan questioned.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the Trump administration’s argument turns the US justice system into a “catch me if you can kind of regime”.

Under that, “everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights”.

The magistrate ruled that apprehended migrants may not have been aware they were crossing into a military zone.

A United States judge in the southwestern state of New Mexico has dismissed trespassing charges against dozens of migrants apprehended in a military zone recently created under President Donald Trump.

The military zone is one of two so far that the Trump administration has created along the US-Mexico border, in order to deter undocumented migration into the country.

Entering a military zone can result in heightened criminal penalties. As many as 400 cases have since been filed in Las Cruces, New Mexico, alleging security violations and crimes like trespassing on restricted military property.

But starting late on Wednesday and continuing into Thursday, Chief US Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth began issuing dismissals at the request of the federal public defender’s office in Las Cruces.

Wormuth ruled that the government had failed to demonstrate that the migrants knew they were entering a military zone.

“The criminal complaint fails to establish probable cause to believe the defendant knew he/she was entering” the military zone, Wormuth wrote in his orders dismissing charges.

The ruling is the latest legal setback for the Trump administration, as it seeks to impose stricter restrictions and penalties for undocumented immigration. But the president’s broad use of executive power has drawn the ire of civil liberties groups, who argue that Trump is trampling constitutional safeguards.

Establishing new military zones has been part of Trump’s strategy to reduce the flow of migration into the US.

Normally, the crime of “improper entry by an alien” carries fines or a prison sentence of up to six months. But trespassing on a military zone comes with steeper penalties than a typical border crossing, and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has warned of a possible combined sentence of up to 10 years.

“You can be detained. You will be detained,” Hegseth warned migrants. “You will be interdicted by US troops and border patrol working together.”

On April 18, the first military zone was unveiled, called the  “New Mexico National Defence Area”. It covered a stretch of about 274 kilometres — or 180 miles — along the border with Mexico, extending into land formerly held by the Department of the Interior.

Hegseth has said he would like to see more military zones set up along the border, and in early May, a second one was announced near El Paso, Texas. That strip was approximately 101km or 63 miles.

“Let me be clear: if you cross into the National Defense Area, you will be charged to the FULLEST extent of the law,” Hegseth wrote in a social media post.

Hegseth has previously stated that the military will continue to expand such zones until they have achieved “100 percent operational control” of the border.

Trump and his allies have frequently compared undocumented immigration to an “invasion”, and they have used that justification to invoke wartime laws like the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

In a court brief on behalf of the Trump administration, US Attorney Ryan Ellison argued that the new military zones were a vital bulwark for national security. He also rejected the idea that innocent people might be caught in those areas.

“The New Mexico National Defense Area is a crucial installation necessary to strengthen the authority of servicemembers to help secure our borders and safeguard the country,” Ellison said.

He noted that the government had put up “restricted area” signs along the border. But the public defender’s office in New Mexico argued that the government had not done enough to make it sufficiently clear to migrants in the area that they were entering a military zone.

In the US, the public defenders noted that trespassing requires that the migrants were aware of the restriction and acted “in defiance of that regulation for some nefarious or bad purpose”.

Despite this week’s dismissals, the migrants involved still face less severe charges of crossing the border illegally.

Baraka’s defence team say they will file a motion to dismiss trespassing charges pursued by the Trump administration.

Lawyers in the United States have said they will file a motion to dismiss trespassing charges directed at Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, following his arrest during a protest at an immigrant detention centre in New Jersey.

During a hearing in a New Jersey federal court on Thursday, Baraka’s defence team said that they believed he was being selectively prosecuted by the administration of President Donald Trump.

“We believe that the mayor himself was targeted here,” said Rahul Agarwal, one of Baraka’s lawyers.

“The mayor was invited into the facility on Friday,” Agarwal added, pointing out that Baraka was “outside the facility when he was ultimately handcuffed and detained”.

Baraka himself attended the hearing and spoke to supporters outside afterwards. On social media, he framed the criminal complaint as a sham.

“Today, the U.S. Attorney General’s office chose to move forward with a trial over trespassing charges at Delaney Hall. While the charges are unwarranted, we will fight this,” Baraka wrote. “This is bigger than me. It’s about all of us.”

The incident is the latest to underscore growing tensions between the Trump administration and local authorities who oppose his immigration crackdown.

Civil liberties groups have argued that the government is using its power to intimidate or coerce officials who do not align with its priorities on immigration.

The Trump administration’s complaint centres on the events of May 9, when lawmakers and protesters showed up at Delaney Hall, a new detention facility in Newark run by the private company GEO Group.

Baraka has long opposed the 1,000-bed facility, saying it lacks the proper permitting, and he has appeared outside its gates multiple times since its May 1 opening.

On the day of his arrest, Baraka joined three members of the US Congress — LaMonica McIver, Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez — who arrived unannounced “to conduct lawful congressional oversight” of the facility, according to their statements afterwards.

Agarwal said that Baraka was the only person arrested in the incident. Baraka has maintained that he was invited in to the facility and shared a video on social media on Wednesday that he says shows a guard opening the gate to allow him inside the premises.

“Mayor Baraka was at Delaney Hall to join a tour of the detention facility with a congressional delegation as part of their authorized oversight responsibilities,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a statement on the arrest of Baraka last week.

“Mayor Baraka — and lawmakers across New Jersey and the country — are being targeted by the Trump administration for refusing to be complicit with its ongoing violations of due process.”

However, the government’s criminal complaint alleges that Baraka entered and remained inside the private facility despite multiple warnings to leave. He faces up to 30 days in prison.

“We believe there’s clear evidence that the mayor was within the property,” Assistant US Attorney Stephen Demanovich told US Magistrate Judge Andre Espinosa.

Video of the incident shows an official behind the gate at Delaney Hall telling Baraka he must return outside because “you are not a congressmember”.

Judge Espinosa on Thursday told Baraka he needed to be processed by US Marshals Service after proceedings came to an end.

The Associated Press said the request sparked a moment of confusion in the courtroom. Baraka pointed out that he had already been processed after his arrest, but ultimately agreed to give his fingerprints and take a mugshot a second time.

“They’re trying their best to humiliate and degrade me as much as they possibly can,” said Baraka. “I feel like what we did was completely correct. We did not violate any laws. We stood up for the constitution of this country, the constitution of the state of New Jersey.”

Baraka is considered a leading candidate in the 2025 New Jersey governor’s race.

It was one of US President Donald Trump’s most ambitious executive orders, and it came just hours after he took office for his second term: ending the United States’ decades-long policy of birthright citizenship.

And just three days after Trump issued the order, a federal judge in Washington state blocked the decree from going into effect. In the months that followed, two other federal judges joined in issuing nationwide injunctions.

On Thursday, the issue will reach the US Supreme Court, with the 6-3 conservative dominated bench set to hear oral arguments in the case. What the court decides could be transformative.

Proponents have long argued that the practice of granting citizenship to all those born on US soil is woven into the national fabric.

American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony Romero did not mince words in January, when he called Trump’s order a “reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values”, destined to create a “permanent subclass of people born in the US who are denied full rights as Americans”.

Meanwhile, a smaller but vocal contingency, empowered by Trump, has maintained that the practice is based on faulty constitutional interpretation and serves as an incentive for undocumented migration. The Trump administration has called it “birth tourism”.

Here’s what to expect from Thursday’s hearing:

What time will it start?

The hearing will start at 9am local (14:00 GMT).

What is at stake?

The most fundamental question that could be answered by the top court is whether birthright citizenship will be allowed to continue.

Proponents point to the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, which reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside”.

A subsequent 1898 Supreme Court case, United States v Wong Kim Ark, interpreted the language as applying to all immigrants, creating a precedent that has since stood.

Some studies estimate that about 150,000 immigrant infants are born with citizenship every year under the policy.

The Trump administration, in contrast, has embraced the theory that babies born to noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US, and therefore are not constitutionally guaranteed citizenship.
Speaking to reporters in April, Trump described a scenario of “tourists coming in and touching a piece of sand and then all of a sudden, there’s citizenship”. He has embraced the theory that the 14th Amendment was meant to apply only to former slaves, and not newly arriving immigrants

At the time, Trump predicted it would be “easy” to win the case based on that logic.

Could the outcome be more complicated?

Yes. The Trump administration has taken a strategically unique tack in the case.

In their emergency filing to the Supreme Court, they have focused on the actions of the three judges who blocked Trump’s order from going into effect nationwide.

They argue the orders extend beyond the judges’ authorities and should only apply to the plaintiffs or jurisdictions directly connected to Trump’s executive order.

Theoretically, the Supreme Court could rule on whether the judges can issue nationwide injunctions, without ruling on whether birthright citizenship is, in fact, protected by the Constitution.

For example, if the justices rule that the lower judges exceeded their power, but do not make a determination on the constitutional merits of birthright citizenship, the executive order would only be blocked in the 22 states that successfully challenged Trump’s order.

Attorneys General in those states had challenged the order in a joint lawsuit, with a federal judge in Massachusetts ruling in their favour in February.

Birthright citizenship would effectively be banned in 28 other states unless they also successfully challenge the order or until the Supreme Court makes a future ruling.

The possibility has split legal scholars, with some arguing it is unlikely the Supreme Court would make the narrower decision on the scope of the lower judges’ power without also ruling on the underlying constitutional merits of birthright citizenship.

Could the ruling extend beyond birthright citizenship?

Yes. If the justices do decide to only address the scope of the lower judges’ power, the implications could extend far beyond the birthright citizenship question.

It would also apply to several other Trump executive orders that have been blocked by a federal judge’s national injunction, also called “universal injunctions”. Those include several Trump executive orders seeking to unilaterally transform the federal government, the military, and how funding is disbursed to states, to name a few.

In a written filing in the birthright citizenship case, the Department of Justice pointed to the wider implications, saying the need for the Supreme Court’s “intervention has become urgent as universal injunctions have reached tsunami levels”.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs in the Maryland case that successfully challenged Trump’s birthright order said doing away with national injunctions would create different tiers of rights depending on an individual’s geographical location.

“An infant would be a United States citizen and full member of society if born in New Jersey, but a deportable noncitizen if born in Tennessee,” they wrote in a court filing.

A BRIT teen held in Georgia accused of smuggling 30lb of marijuana is the great-granddaughter of a Labour MP who was caught up in the parliamentary expenses scandal.

Bella May Culley faces life in prison in a brutal ex-Soviet slammer after she was arrested at Tbilisi airport on suspicion of drug smuggling.

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The 18-year-old appeared in court earlier this week, where she said was pregnant before stating she would reserve the right to remain silent.

But the nursing student from County Durham is the great-granddaughter of ex-Stockton North Labour MP Frank Cook, who passed away in 2012, the MailOnline has reported.

Culley is reported to regularly post pictures with her “special lady” grandmother – who is the late MP’s daughter.

In one post wishing her happy birthday, she says she loves her “unconditionally” before calling her “one of the most important ladies in my life”.

Cook, who represented Stockton North for 27 years, was among the MPs implicated in the 2009 expenses row that rocked Westminster to its core.

It transpired he had claimed for £153,902, which included a £5 donation made by an aide representing him at a memorial service. 

However, he would later explain this donation was an IOU from the member of staff who went to the service on his behalf – and that he expensed it by mistake.

“It was a genuine mistake and I stress again: I would never deliberately make a claim of this kind,” he said.

He would later lose a libel case against The Sunday Telegraph following the revelations.

Cook stood as an independent candidate in his constituency at the 2010 general election after being deselected by Labour, but he failed to retain the seat.

He died in 2012 at the age of 76 – a year after being diagnosed with lung cancer. 

Culley was arrested after she was allegedly caught trying to sneak 34 bags of marijuana in her luggage through the Georgian capital’s main airport.

She had been reported missing in Thailand – where she had been travelling – before she was arrested 4,000 miles away.

Her family had raised the alarm after she failed to contact anyone since Saturday – despite usually being a prolific texter.

Her dad Neil Culley, who lives in Vietnam, has reportedly flown to the Eastern European nation to be by his daughter’s side.

A loved-one said: “She is just a student – she doesn’t really go out or do anything like that. She just wanted a break so took herself to Thailand.

“She must have become mixed up with someone. She must have met someone who has taken advantage of her.”

Authorities in Georgia claim she tried to stash 34 bags of cannabis in her luggage which was detected at the airport.

Georgia’s Interior Ministry says she could face 20 years or even a life sentence in an overcrowded Women’s Penitentiary No. 5 in Rustavi

The country has been blasted for its treatment of its prisoners by rights groups.

Culley’s paternal grandfather said: “I’m terrified that she’s in for a long sentence. I might never see her again – I’m 80 years old.

“She’s got sucked into something, somehow. She’s not an international drug trafficker.

“It’s all just very strange and at the moment we just don’t have any answers. We don’t know what to think.”

Bella’s lawyer said after her court appearance: “My client is currently exercising the right to remain silent, so we will provide detailed information later, once they decide how to proceed.”

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US federal prosecutors say defendant and co-conspirators got the company to pay for deliveries that never occurred.

A former food delivery driver pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal more than $2.5m from the food delivery service DoorDash.

Sayee Chaitanya Reddy Devagiri pleaded guilty on Tuesday in a federal court in San Jose, California, to a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the US Attorney’s Office said.

Devagiri and his co-conspirators would get the company to pay for deliveries that never occurred, federal prosecutors said.

Devagiri, 30, of Newport Beach, California, admitted to working with three others in 2020 and 2021 to defraud the San Francisco-based delivery company, federal prosecutors said. The other three were indicted by a federal grand jury in August.

Prosecutors said Devagiri used customer accounts to place high-value orders and then used an employee’s credentials to gain access to DoorDash software and manually reassign the orders to driver accounts that he and others controlled. He then caused the fraudulent driver accounts to report that the orders had been delivered when they had not and manipulated DoorDash’s computer systems to pay the fraudulent driver accounts for the nonexistent deliveries, officials said.

Devagiri would then use DoorDash software to change the orders from “delivered” status to “in process” status and manually reassign the orders to driver accounts he and others controlled, beginning the process again, prosecutors said.

Devagiri is the third defendant to plead guilty to having a role in this conspiracy. Two co-defendants previously entered pleas to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, authorities said.

Manaswi Mandadapu pleaded guilty this month, and Tyler Thomas Bottenhorn pleaded guilty in November 2023. Bottenhorn was charged separately.

Devagiri faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. He is scheduled to return to court on September 16.

Singer says on day three of trial Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs routinely beat her and threatened to ruin her career with videos of sexual encounters.

Casandra Ventura, the singer popularly known as Cassie and former girlfriend of rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, has taken to the witness stand on the third day of his trial to portray a relationship defined by physical abuse and routine humiliation.

Testifying before the court on Wednesday, Ventura said Combs, who faces sex trafficking and racketeering charges, beat her and threatened to release compromising videos that could damage her career.

“He would grab me up, push me down, hit me in the side of the head, kick me,” Ventura, a rhythm and blues singer, told jurors in Manhattan federal court.

“It would just make him more violent, make him stronger, make him want to push me harder,” Ventura said of efforts to resist Combs’s violent behaviour during their decadelong relationship.

Prosecutors have alleged that Combs used his wealth and control of an entertainment empire to manipulate and coerce women, sometimes through physical violence, into participation in drug-fuelled sex parties known as “freak-offs” and then used videos of sexual encounters as blackmail.

“He said that it would ruin everything that I had worked for, that it would make me look like a slut, that I would be shamed,” Ventura said. “Nobody should do that to anyone.”

She stated participation in the “freak-offs” started to feel like “a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again” and she developed an opioid addiction to cope.

On one occasion in 2013, Ventura sent Combs pictures of injuries she sustained when he threw her into a bed frame so he could “remember” what he had done.

“You don’t know when to stop. You pushed it too far and continued to push,” he responded. “Sad.”

Combs’s lawyers have conceded that the rapper has an aggressive temperament and has physically assaulted people but state he has been incorrectly charged with racketeering and sex trafficking and a freewheeling sexual lifestyle is being misconstrued by prosecutors.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to five counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. If he is convicted on all charges, he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Police say the trio espoused hatred for Muslims and immigrants and discussed attacking mosques or synagogues.

Police in the United Kingdom say three men have been convicted of planning to carry out an attack on mosques or synagogues in anticipation of a coming race war.

Brogan Stewart and Marco Pitzettu, both aged 25, and Christopher Ringrose, 34, all pleaded not guilty but were convicted of all charges by jurors at Sheffield Crown Court on Wednesday. Sentencing is scheduled for July 17.

“Stewart, Pitzettu, and Ringrose have today been rightfully convicted of multiple terrorism offences,” Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said in a statement.

“They were a group that espoused vile racist views and advocated for violence, all to support their extreme right-wing mindset.”

The convictions come amid a debate in the UK over immigration rights as the left-of-centre Labour Party adopts increasingly harsh rhetoric on migration amid increasing public support for the far right. Critics said a recent speech by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in which he said immigration threatened to turn the UK into an “island of strangers” helps legitimise a view perpetuated by the far right that immigration is a destructive and dangerous force.

The convicted far-right group was part of a Telegram channel named Einsatz 14, in which they talked about executing former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and torturing imams.

“It was their belief that there must soon come a time when there would be a race war between the white and other races,” prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford told jurors.

Conspiracy theories that Muslims and immigrants are carrying out a “great replacement” of white people in Western nations have become increasingly widespread on the right in recent years.

That conspiracy often involves an anti-Semitic angle, portraying Jews as supporters of pro-immigration policies meant to weaken Western nations from the inside.

All three men were convicted of planning an act of terrorism and multiple firearms offences. They were found guilty of two counts of collecting information that could be useful to someone preparing a terrorist act, and Ringrose was additionally charged with manufacturing a component for a 3D-printed FGC9 firearm.

Prosecutors said the group was preparing for an act of terrorism when they were arrested in February 2024. Their trial began in March.

“Some of their defence in court was that it was all fantasy or just part of harmless chat, however all three took real world steps to plan and prepare for carrying out an attack on innocent citizens,” Dunkerley said.

PETER Sullivan is in line for a £1million compensation payout after spending 38 years in jail for a murder he didn’t commit.

The then 29-year-old was branded ‘Beast of Birkenhead’ after being wrongly convicted of killing 21-year-old Diane Sindall in 1986.

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Yesterday, Mr Sullivan, 68, saw his conviction quashed following a review at the Court of Appeal.

It also means a new murder investigation has been launched to find Diane’s killer.

Mr Sullivan, who held his hand to his mouth and appeared tearful as the decision was handed down, said he was “not angry” and would “begin repairing what I made from the driftwood that is my life”.

In a statement released through his solicitor, Sarah Myatt, moments after the verdict, he said: “As God is my witness, it is said the truth shall set you free. It is unfortunate that it does not give a timescale.”

The victim of Britain’s longest miscarriage of justice left prison a free man last night.

Compensation from the Ministry of Justice is capped at £1million, which Mr Sullivan is now in line for.

The MoJ said: “Peter Sullivan suffered a grave miscarriage of justice, and our thoughts are with him and the family of Diane Sindall.

“We will carefully consider this judgment, looking at how this could have happened and making sure both Mr Sullivan and Diane’s family get the answers they deserve.”

Mr Sullivan’s release comes after new tests ordered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission revealed his DNA was not present on samples preserved at the time.

On the night of her murder, Diane had just left her shift as a part-time barmaid at a pub in Bebington when her small blue van ran out of petrol.

She was making her way to a garage when she was beaten to death and sexually assaulted in a “frenzied” attack.

Her body was discovered partially clothed on August 2 in an alleyway.

Diane’s belongings were later found close to where a small fire had been started – with a man seen running from the scene.

Mr Sullivan was said to have spent the day of the murder drinking heavily.

Following his arrest in September 1986, he was quizzed 22 times and denied legal advice in the first seven interviews – despite requesting it.

Mr Sullivan later “confessed to the murder” in an unrecorded interview a day after his arrest.

He then made a formal confession but the court was told this was “inconsistent with the facts established by the investigation”.

It also went against his earlier interviews, with Mr Sullivan retracting the admission later that day.

Since his conviction, questions have been raised about whether he had proper legal representation during his interviews.

Evidence related to bite marks on Diane’s body has also been called into question.

At the time of the case, DNA technology was not available and subsequent requests for new tests were refused.

Mr Sullivan first went to the CCRC for help in 2008 but they did not refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal.

He then launched his own appeal bid in 2019, which judges dismissed after ruling the bite mark evidence was not central to the prosecution at trial.

In 2021, Mr Sullivan went back to the CCRC and raised concerns over police interviews, the bite mark evidence and the murder weapon.

The independent body revealed Mr Sullivan’s DNA was not present on samples preserved at the time.

This led Merseyside Police to confirm they were “carrying out an extensive investigation in a bid to identify who the new DNA profile belongs to”.

The force revealed they had no matches on the police database but were contacting people previously identified in the original probe to request new samples.

The Crown Prosecution Service yesterday told the Court of Appeal the new evidence was enough to cast “sufficient” doubt on the conviction.

It also agreed the fresh clue was “reliable” and that the CPS “does not seek to argue that this evidence is not capable of undermining the safety of Mr Sullivan’s conviction”.

Duncan Atkinson KC, for the CPS, said: “The respondent considers that there is no credible basis on which the appeal can be opposed, solely by reference to the DNA evidence.

“On the contrary, the DNA evidence provides a clear and uncontroverted basis to suggest that another person was responsible for both the sexual assault and the murder.

“As such, it positively undermines the circumstantial case against Mr Sullivan as identified at the time both of his trial and his 2021 appeal.”

The judge said: “Strong though the circumstantial evidence undoubtedly seemed at the trial, it is now necessary to take into account the new scientific evidence pointing to someone else – the unknown man.

“If the new evidence had been available in 1986, the evidence as a whole would have been regarded as insufficient.

“In the light of that evidence it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe.”

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Reality TV star and business mogul Kim Kardashian has testified before a French courtroom about her experience getting robbed at gunpoint in a Paris hotel.

Taking the witness stand on Tuesday, Kardashian confronted the suspects accused of tying her up and taping her mouth shut on October 3, 2016, while they stole more than $6m in jewellery.

The case concerns a group of about a dozen suspects known in French media as “les papys braqueurs”: the grandpa robbers. The group, many in their 60s and 70s, are part of a crime ring, according to prosecutors. One has died since the robbery took place, while the charges against another have been dismissed due to health concerns.

But Kardashian recounted the terror she felt as members of the group burst into her hotel room after a night at the Paris Fashion Week.

“We were leaving the next morning, so I was just packing up,” Kardashian said. “It was around three in the morning. I heard stomping up the stairs when I was in bed.”

She explained that she figured it was her older sister, Kourtney Kardashian, returning to the hotel room. But instead, it was a group of armed men, dressed as police officers and wearing balaclavas.

Waving a gun at her, one of the men asked her to surrender her $4m engagement ring, a gift from her then-husband Kanye West, a rapper now known as Ye.

“Then I heard one of the gentlemen forcefully say ‘Ring! Ring!’ in English, with an accent, pointing,” she said.

At one point, she said the robbers threw her onto the hotel bed. She was wearing a bathrobe at the time.

“I was certain that was the moment that he was going to rape me,” Kardashian explained. “I absolutely did think I was going to die.”

Her mind flashed to the idea of her sister coming home to find her body, she added. “I thought about my sister, thought she would walk in and see me shot dead and have that memory in her forever.”

But the robbers proceeded to restrain her with zip ties and duct tape. They told her she would be safe so long as she remained quiet.

“I have babies,” Kardashian, a mother of four, remembered thinking. “I have to make it home. They can take everything. I just have to make it home.”

Eventually, she was locked in the hotel room’s marble bathroom while the robbers made their escape. During her testimony, she explained that the suspects did not beat her during the attack.

“I was grabbed and dragged into the other room and thrown onto the floor, but wasn’t hit, no,” she said.

Eventually, Kardashian said she was able to use the bathroom sink to loosen the restraints on her hands. She hobbled downstairs, where she met with her stylist Simone Harouche, who had locked herself in a bathroom one floor below to call for help during the attack.

“She was beside herself. I’ve never seen her like that before,” Harouche said of Kardashian. “She just was screaming and kept saying, ‘We need to get out of here. We need help. What are we going to do if they come back?’”

The attack prompted the entertainment industry to adopt new procedures around security and social media posts, including through the delayed publication of certain images that might help robbers identify targets and locations.

Some critics, however, blamed Kardashian herself for her luxurious lifestyle and lack of on-hand security. The controversial fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, for instance, was quoted by the Reuters news agency as questioning Kardashian’s habit of posting photos of herself on social media.

“You cannot display your wealth and then be surprised that some people want to share it with you,” the late designer said.

That kind of commentary has sparked its own backlash, with some denouncing it as victim-blaming. Still, Judge David De Pas in Paris asked those involved if they had not made themselves targets.

“Just because a woman wears jewellery, that doesn’t make her a target,” Harouche said. “That’s like saying that because a woman wears a short skirt that she deserves to be raped.”

Kardashian added that she had a bodyguard in a separate hotel. “We assumed that, if we were in a hotel, it was safe, it was secure,” she said.

She added that she now keeps five or six guards around her. She also blamed the Paris attack for prompting a copycat robbery at her Los Angeles house.

“I started to get this phobia of going out,” Kardashian said. “This experience really changed everything for us.”

Tuesday’s appearance is expected to be the only time Kardashian testifies in the criminal case, which includes 10 defendants: nine men and one woman.

Five of the men face armed robbery and kidnapping charges that could result in life imprisonment. Others face lesser charges of being accomplices or possessing unauthorised firearms.

Prosecutors say the ringleader in the group was a 69-year-old man named Aomar Ait Khedache, nicknamed “Omar the Old”. He wrote a letter of apology that was read aloud in the court.

“I do appreciate the letter, for sure. I forgive you,” Kardashian replied, looking at Khedache. “But it doesn’t change the feelings and the trauma and the fact that my life was forever changed, but I do appreciate the letter, thank you.”