A MANIPULATIVE fraudster who fleeced an elderly woman out of almost £300,000 before fleeing to Tenerife is facing down a six-year prison sentence.
Pamela Gwinnett, 62, continued to stealmoney from Joan Greene, 89, after the pensioner passed away, treating her as a “cash cow to be milked.”
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Gwinnett fled to Tenerife after she got caught
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A court heard that Joan was made to believe her family hated her in the final months of her lifeCredit: MEN Media
Gwinnet claimed she was the grandmother’s carer but isolated frail, vulnerable Joan from her family.
She accused family members of mistreating the widow and did everything she could to keep them away while she fleeced her “golden goose.”
She would steal hundreds of thousands of pounds from the elderly woman, using the money to pay for botox and expensive meals before fleeing to Tenerife after getting caught.
Gwinett denied charges of fraud and theft but was found guilty by a jury at Preston Crown Court.
After discovering ex-accountant Joan was wealthy Gwinett concocted a lie, convincing Joan that her family were stealing from her pension.
Gwinett even moved Joan into a care home to keep the pensioner close when Covid hit in March 2020.
After the pandemic ended she took Joan home but padlocked the gates of her bungalow and changed the landline number in a bid to stop Joan’s family from getting in touch.
A court heard that the last months of Joan’s life had become “pock marked with increasing periods of bewilderment and confusion.”
Joan also became doubly incontinent, but instead of looking after the elderly woman Gwinett “bullied” her.
Gwinett would cover for Joan’s professional live-in carers for two hours a day, billing the pensioner for the time.
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Judge Michael Maher said: “On one occasion, [one of the carers] found to her horror that you had left Joan covered in her own faeces in bed at the end of your two-hour shift.
“On another occasion, you barked at her to relieve herself in her incontinent pad.”
Eventually one of Joan’s carers became so concerned that she arranged for Joan’s family to visit.
The meeting sparked a massive argument with video from the incident featuring Joan complaining that she doesn’t know what’s going on.
Footage also picked up Joan mentioning money problems despite her being a well off woman.
By the time Gwinett’s power of attorney over Joan was suspended she had already robbed £161,000 from the pensioner.
She even managed to steal a further £119,000 by opening a joint account and transferring Joan’s cash into that.
Judge Maher said Joan’s family “are devastated by the fact that Joan in the fog of her deterioratingmental healthmay well have believed the lies you were pedalling and made her isolation all the more solitary and lonely.”
Joan’s step-daughter Katherine Farrimond, 65, said Joan believed in her final years that her family “hated her” and “didn’t want to see her’” because to Gwinett’s “lies.”
In April, Gwinett applied to vary her bail conditions so she could fly to Tenerife, saying she hoped to scatter her late brother’s ashes there.
Her request was denied but she still brazenly boarded a plane just hours later and has remained there since.
The judge added: “I sincerely hope that Ms Gwinett is extradited back to the UK to serve this sentence for these egregious offences.
“It is an affront to justice and the rule of law for this defendant to be allowed to remain in Tenerife.”
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Gwinett once left Joan ‘covered in her own faeces’Credit: MEN Media
SACRAMENTO — California became center stage for the national political fight over House seats Friday when Gov. Gavin Newsom welcomed Democratic lawmakers from Texas who fled their home state to foil President Trump’s plans to redraw Congressional districts.
California lawmakers plan to respond with their own plan to gerrymander districts to favor Democrats and neutralize any Republican seats gained in Texas in 2026, with a proposed map expected to become public next week, Newsom said at a press conference after meeting with the lawmakers.
“Make no mistake, California is moving forward,” the governor said. “We are talking about emergency measures to respond to what’s happening in Texas, and we will nullify what happens in Texas.”
He noted that while Democrats still support the state’s independent redistricting commission, they must counter Trump’s plan in GOP-led states to give their party a better chance in next year’s midterm election.
“They drew first blood,” he later added of Republicans.
Asked about the gathering, a Trump administration spokesperson said Newsom was seeking the limelight to further his political ambitions.
“Gavin Newsom is a loser of the highest order and he will never be president, no matter how hard he prostitutes himself to the press,” said the spokesperson, Steven Cheung.
Friday marked the second time in two weeks that Texas Democrats have stood next to Newsom at the California Governor’s Mansion and warned that Republican efforts to draw a new map in their state would dilute the power of Black and brown voters.
The Democrats hoped that their departure would leave the state Legislature with too few members present to change the map in a special session. They face $500 fines for each day of absence, as well as threats of arrest and removal from office by Gov. Greg Abbott and other Texas GOP officials. Some of the Democratic lawmakers were evacuated from a Chicago hotel where they were staying after a bomb threat on Wednesday.
“We are now facing threats — the threat that we’re going to lose our jobs, the threat of financial ruin, the threat that we will be hunted down as our colleagues sit on their hands and remain silent, as we all get personal threats to our lives,” said Texas state Rep. Ann Johnson (D-Houston), one of six Texas lawmakers at the press conference, who was among those evacuated from the Chicago hotel. “We as Democrats are standing up to ensure that the voices of every voter is lifted up in this next election, and that the next election is not stolen from them.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco); Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), chair of the California Democratic congressional delegation; Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg); Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) and other elected officials joined the meeting in a show of unity as California Democrats attempt to convince their own state’s voters to fight back.
Pelosi noted that the state’s congressional delegation is united in backing the redistricting proposal to counter Trump.
“The President has paved over the Rose Garden. He’s paved over freedom of speech. He’s paved over freedom of education, [an] independent judiciary, the rule of law,” Pelosi said. “He’s gone too far. We will not let him pave over free and fair elections in our country, starting with what he’s trying to do in Texas.”
She fought back against an argument some have made — that two wrongs don’t make a right.
“This is self-defense for our democracy,” she said.
The California plan calls for the state Legislature to approve a constitutional amendment establishing new Congressional voting districts crafted to make GOP members vulnerable.
Passage of the bill would result in a special election on Nov. 4, with California voters deciding if the state should temporarily pause the congressional boundaries created by an independent redistricting commission in 2021 and adopt new maps for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections.
If approved by voters, the measure would include a “trigger” specifying that it would only take effect if Texas or other Republican-led states follow through with redrawing their maps to boost GOP seats before the midterm election. California would revert to its existing redistricting law after the next census and before the 2032 election.
At least so far, California voters appear uncertain about whether they want to swap Newsom’s plan for the independent redistricting system they previously adopted at the ballot box.
An Emerson College poll found support for redrawing California’s congressional map at 33% and opposition at 25%. The survey of 1,000 registered voters, conducted Aug. 4 and 5, found that 42% were undecided.
Newsom has expressed confidence that California voters will back his plan, which he is casting as a rebuttal to Trump’s efforts to “rig” the midterm elections.
“I’m confident we’ll get it when people know what it is and what it’s not, and I think, at the end of the day, they understand what’s at stake,” Newsom said Thursday.
Newsom argues that California’s process is more transparent than Trump’s because voters here will see the map and decide if the state should go forward with it.
To fulfill Trump’s request for five additional seats, Abbott is attempting to redraw House districts in Texas through a state legislative process that does not require voter approval. It’s unclear what will happen in Austin, with Democrats determined to block the effort and Abbott and other Texas Republicans insisting they will keep pressing it.
The current special session ends on Aug. 19. But in an interview with NBC News Thursday evening, Abbott vowed “to call special session after special session after special session with the same agenda items on there.”
In addition to arrest on civil warrants, the Democrats are facing threats of being removed from office. Direct-deposit payments to the legislators have been curtailed, forcing them to pick up their checks in person at the state capitol in Austin or go without the money.
As a Christian who smuggled Bibles into my home country of Iran, I became a target of the country’s Islamist regime, which imprisons and sometimes kills those who invite Muslims to convert. After living under house arrest for two years, I fled as a refugee and was ultimately resettled to the United States.
I experienced true religious freedom for the first time in my life in this country, of which I am now a proud, grateful citizen — and that’s why I am shocked by the ways that my government is now treating my Iranian congregants, who have been detained by masked officers, separated from their families and threatened with deportation to a country that would kill them for their Christian faith. What I have witnessed gives me flashbacks to Tehran, and I believe that America must be better.
Two families who are a part of the Farsi-speaking evangelical congregation that I pastor in Los Angeles have been detained in recent weeks. First, a couple and their 3-year-old daughter, who are in the process of seeking asylum because they fear persecution if they were returned to Iran. They were detained at their court hearing in downtown Los Angeles on June 23. The entire family is now being held in South Texas.
The next day, I received a call from a woman in my church. Like me, she had been forced to flee Iran for Turkey when her involvement in Iran’s underground churches was exposed.
When the woman and her husband found themselves in a desperate situation in Turkey last year, they were not offered the option to fly to the U.S. as resettled refugees as I had been in 2010. Instead, they flew to South America, made a treacherous journey north and waited in Mexico for an appointment they reserved on a U.S. government app, CBP One, to be able to explain their situation to officers of the U.S. government.
Once lawfully allowed in with provisional humanitarian status, they found our church — where they could be baptized and publicly profess their faith in Jesus — and legal help to begin their asylum request. They received their work authorization documents and found jobs. Their first asylum hearing in immigration court was scheduled for this September.
When President Trump returned to office, however, his administration both suspended all refugee resettlement and canceled humanitarian parole for those who had been allowed to enter via the CBP One app. Many parolees received menacing letters instructing them to self-deport or face prosecution, fines or deportation. But these letters also noted that these instructions did not apply to those who had “otherwise obtained a lawful basis to remain,” such as a pending asylum application.
That’s why I was so shocked to receive a call from the woman in my congregation informing me that her husband had been detained by masked immigration officers on the street, just a few blocks from our church. I rushed over and began to film the shocking scene: First he was detained by masked officers, and then she was. I asked if they had a judicial warrant, but if they did, they would not show me. The woman experienced a panic attack and was taken to a hospital but discharged into ICE custody; she is now hours away in a detention center in California. Her husband is in a detention center in Texas.
It’s not just these two families who are affected. My community of Iranian Christians is terrified of being detained and deported back to Iran, where they fear being killed for their faith. Some have lost jobs because they fear leaving their homes. Others lost jobs because their work authorization, tied to humanitarian parole, was abruptly terminated.
I believe that America is better than this. This behavior reminds me disturbingly of what I fled in Iran. But I know that most Americans do not support this, nor do most fellow evangelical Christians: Many evangelicals voted for Trump because he pledged to protect persecuted Christians — not to deport them. While most evangelicals want those convicted of violent crimes detained, one-quarter or less of us say that about other immigrants, and 7 in 10 believe the U.S. has a moral responsibility to receive refugees. I have been overwhelmed by the support of English- and Spanish-speaking sister congregations of our church, by the outreach of Christians from across the country and by a recent biblically rooted statement of many California evangelical leaders.
Now, Congress has passed legislation to exponentially increase the funding for detaining and deporting immigrants. Trump’s administration has been clear that anyone in the country unlawfully — including more than a million who were here lawfully until his administration abruptly canceled their status — is at risk of deportation. According to a recent study by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, 80% of those vulnerable to deportation are Christians; some, like those in my church, would likely face death if deported to their home countries.
I hope and pray Trump will reverse course on these policies, going after those who genuinely present a public safety threat but having mercy on others, especially those who fled persecution on account of their faith. And until he does make that policy shift, I plead with Congress to pass real immigration reforms that would halt these horrifying detentions and deportations.
Ara Torosian is a pastor at Cornerstone West Los Angeles.
Insights
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Ideas expressed in the piece
Religious persecution concern: Iranian Christian asylum seekers face existential threats if deported, given Iran’s systemic persecution of Christian converts. ICE raids targeting church members and those with pending asylum cases are likened to the Islamist regime’s crackdowns, triggering trauma for refugees and pastors who fled similar oppression[1][3][4].
Legal uncertainty: Recent policy changes, including revocations of humanitarian parole and work authorizations, have left asylum seekers like the detained families in legal limbo despite lawful entry via approved routes like the CBP One app[1][2][5].
Community impact: Detentions have sown fear, prompting job loss, economic hardship, and social isolation among congregants. Clusters of arrests in closely-knit religious communities amplify collective trauma[1][4][5].
Evangelical divide: While many evangelicals initially supported Trump due to promises to protect persecuted Christians, current policies are viewed as contradictory to these ideals. The majority of threatened deportees are Christians fleeing religious violence[2][5].
Policy critique: Legislation increasing immigration enforcement funding disproportionately impacts vulnerable refugees instead of prioritizing public safety, with only a small fraction of deportees representing violent crime concerns[2][5].
Different views on the topic
Enforcement rationale: Federal authorities emphasize upholding immigration laws, particularly targeting individuals stripped of legal status under revised humanitarian parole rules or expired protections[2][5].
Asylum system reform: Prioritizing detention for those with pending cases may aim to address backlog management, though critics argue it jeopardizes due process[5].
National security focus: The Trump administration’s approach stresses border security as a top priority, with increased detention capacity framed as a response to perceived threats from unchecked immigration[2][5].
Lawful removal authority: ICE maintains broad discretion under U.S. law to enforce removal orders, even for non-criminal individuals with unresolved cases, reflecting a shift toward stricter enforcement metrics[1][5].
Political alignment: Some conservative advocates may view enhanced deportation policies as fulfilling campaign promises, outweighing religious freedom concerns despite advocacy from evangelical leaders[2][5].
July 18 (UPI) — At least four people were killed and 18 injured, including children and seniors, after a high-speed multi-vehicle collision in San Antonio on Interstate 35, the city’s Police Department said.
The Thursday afternoon incident occurred when a stolen Chevy Camaro being driven at high speed reportedly crashed into a small passenger bus towing a trailer.
Police said they were looking for four suspects, one of whom was armed, who left the scene and asked people to avoid the Leon Creek section of southbound I-35.
“We had a stolen white Camaro south on 35 speeding wrecked into a small transport bus carrying a trailer. As a result of that crash, two individuals are dead. 18 have been transported to hospitals,” said San Antonio Police Chief Bill McManus.
“There are four individuals who fled from the vehicle. One was armed with an AK rifle,” he added.
Bus operator, Fort Worth-based Transport Guerra, asked relatives of passengers who were on the Mexico-bound service to call their office.
The bus was scheduled to stop in Eagle Pass on the border, before crossing into Mexico with stops in the Carbonifera coal mining region and “5 manantiales.”
Alison Hammond’s son Aidan has revealed that as a child he would seek solace at his grandmother’s house which was across the road every time his mum annoyed him
09:47, 05 Jul 2025Updated 09:50, 05 Jul 2025
Alison Hammond will be joined by her sister Saundra and son Aidan on Celebrity Gogglebox(Image: Channel 4)
Alison Hammond is best known for her bubbly personality while presenting This Morning along with Dermot O’Leary. However, according to her son and Celebrity Gogglebox co-star Aidan, the TV presenter wasn’t always a delight to live with.
Alison, 50, who soared to fame following her memorable stint on Big Brother back in 2002, made her Celebrity Gogglebox debut last night, critiquing TV shows with her rarely seen sister Saundra and her 20 year old son. Giving fans a more intimate account of his mother while growing up, Aidan revealed that he used to run away from home and stay with his grandmother, who lived across the road.
Alison Hammond and her son Aidan co-host their travel show Florida Unpacked (Image: BBC/Rock Oyster Media Productions Ltd)
And this would happen on a regular basis every time he and Alison failed to agree on certain things. Speaking on the Spin Justice podcast, Aidan said: “When we were in the flat, she (his grandmother) had a house pretty much opposite us, so we could literally leave and run across the road.”
He added: “So when my mum was doing my head in, I’d just go to my nan’s.”
Before Alison’s mother Maria sadly passed away five years ago, the trio enjoyed an incredibly special bond. Aidan described their relationship as “very, very close”.
Despite his youthful age, Aidan is no stranger to the world of TV after appearing on a number of quiz shows with his mum and starring in their very own travel show, Florida Unpacked which aired on BBC Two.
He then went on to say: “She’s passed away now, but we were very close all the time – me, my mum and my nan – and that was kind of the little trio.”
Alison will sit along side her sister and son for their debut on the popular TV show, mugs in hand ready to analyse TV shows watched by the nation.
Speaking about sharing the moment with another family member apart from her son, Alison chimed in: “I’m so excited to be doing Celebrity Gogglebox with my son Aidan.”
She said: “We’ve always loved watching telly together, and now we get to do it on the sofa for the nation! It’s a real family affair too, because my fabulous sister Saundra is getting involved as well. “
The Great British Bake Off presenter then went on to say: “Expect laughs, eye-rolls, and lots of commentary, classic Hammond style!”
Alison and her family with join the cast of the new series for the charity Stand Up To Cancer.
A TV source reportedly told The Sun: “Producers were impressed by the dynamic between Aidan and his mum on their new travel show, so wanted a piece of it for Celebrity Gogglebox.”
They added: “They’re always looking for new duos to appear on the programme to keep it constantly feeling fresh, and, of course, fronting the Great British Bake Off means she’s already part of the C4 family.”
Gilan, Iran – The prospect of war seemed to creep nearer to reality with each passing day, but perhaps few of the millions who have been forced to abandon their homes across Iran in the past week – including myself – could have known this new reality would impose itself so harshly or abruptly.
The first explosions jolted people awake in Tehran shortly after 3am on June 13, when a large number of Israeli fighter jets and drones attacked dozens of areas across the country, and explosives-laden quadcopters and anti-fortification Spike guided missiles were launched by Israeli agents from inside Iran.
Entire residential buildings were levelled in the capital, military sites and air defence batteries were targeted, and above-ground facilities supporting nuclear enrichment halls buried deep inside mountains in Isfahan province’s Natanz were bombed. Dozens of civilians were killed, as were a large number of top military commanders and nuclear scientists.
In this photo released by the Iranian Red Crescent Society, rescuers work at the scene of an explosion after an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, on Friday, June 13, 2025 [Iranian Red Crescent Society via AP]
Tehran was in shock the first morning after the attacks, as people struggled to process the terrifying news and evaluate their options while the authorities scrambled to mount a concerted response to the surprise hits.
As the attacks came on a Friday morning – the last day of the weekend in Iran – most city streets were eerily quiet in the immediate aftermath, except for those where Israeli bombs had made an impact.
Soon, however, hours-long queues had formed at almost every single fuel station across the sprawling capital, which has a population of nearly 10 million people and holds more than 15 million during busy workdays, as millions also commute from neighbouring cities like Karaj.
I went out to visit a few of the targeted sites in western Tehran: Multiple homes had been destroyed in the Patrice Lumumba neighbourhood, several floors of a 15-storey building providing accommodation for university professors had caved in at Saadat Abad and adjacent buildings were damaged, while the top two floors of another residential building had been completely wiped out in Marzdaran. All were successful targeted assassinations – including of several top nuclear scientists – and many civilians were also killed.
Debris from an apartment building is seen on top of parked cars after a strike in Tehran, Iran, early on Friday, June 13, 2025 [Vahid Salemi/AP]
Later that night, Iran’s armed forces began launching hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation. Nearly one week on, at least 16 rounds of Iranian strikes have been launched, with no immediate end in sight as Tehran says it will continue to hit back so long as Israel is attacking. Meanwhile, United States President Donald Trump teases triggering an all-out regional war by directly entering the war alongside Israel, which he and Washington’s Western allies already support with cutting-edge munitions, a massive fleet of refuelling planes and intelligence efforts.
For the next few days, the Israeli attacks were ringing out across Tehran and the country during the daytime, terrorising civilians who saw the smoke and heard the explosions get closer to their homes or places of work. Both at home and at Al Jazeera’s Tehran bureau, I heard many explosive impacts, with some of the closer ones only about 2km (1.2 miles) away.
Most of Tehran was shut down after the Israeli attacks ramped up, and the streets and petrol stations were more crowded than ever after Israel and Trump told people to evacuate immediately. The government said metro stations and mosques were opened as 24-hour shelters since it has built no dedicated shelters or come up with any clear security protocols, despite the ever-present threat of war.
Red Crescent Society rescuers work at the scene of an explosion following an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, on Friday, June 13, 2025 [Iranian Red Crescent Society via AP]
On Monday, after three days of evaluating the situation, my family and I decided to join the countless others who had already fled Tehran.
After hurriedly packing some clothes and a few belongings in a suitcase, I drove from my own place to my girlfriend’s house to pick her up at about 4pm. Her parents, who work in healthcare, needed to stay in Tehran that day but they have since left as well, after Israeli air strikes intensified in their neighbourhood.
We then picked up my mother – along with our four cats who have been staying with her – from her home in western Tehran, close to a major road which exits the capital.
Israeli bombs were falling on multiple areas across western Tehran as we scurried to grab the cats and put them in their boxes.
The unmistakable sounds of the explosions, which leave a sickening, sinking sensation in your stomach no matter how many times you hear them, only added to the urgency – especially since the Israeli military had issued a new evacuation threat at about the same time and then bombed the state television headquarters.
Smoke rises from the building of Iran’s state-run television channel after an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, on Monday, June 16, 2025 [AP]
Fleeing north
We left Tehran with heavy hearts, not knowing when we might return. The buildings were already mostly empty of residents.
The feeling that we may not return to the same intact neighbourhoods was unavoidable, as was the terror we feel for those who wanted to leave but could not, whether because they are nursing a sick family member or because they simply lacked the means to do so. Iran’s ailing economy has been dragged under the weight of years of local mismanagement and US sanctions.
The journey north, which usually takes about four hours, took close to 12. The highways were a sea of vehicles filled with families, pets and belongings. Roadside diners and service areas brimmed with people who had no idea when or how they might return. Many worriedly followed news of the latest air strikes.
Close to our destination in the north of Iran, checkpoints set up by armed and masked security forces made the traffic even worse. They were stopping some vehicles, mostly pick-up trucks, since those are what have been used by Israeli agents to smuggle explosive quadcopters and other weapons inside Iran.
I am writing this from a small but vibrant city in the province of Gilan in northern Iran. The northern provinces, also including Mazandaran and Golestan, are where most Iranians have opted to go. They are relatively close to Tehran, have far fewer places that could be potential targets for the Israeli army, and were already popular travel destinations with a large number of hotels that many have visited before.
Many here have opened their homes to people displaced from other provinces, too. Six million people have entered Mazandaran alone since last week, according to Iran’s deputy police chief, Qasem Rezaei.
The authorities are trying to reassure the population, especially Iranians who have fled to the northern provinces, that the government faces no problems in providing for their basic needs, especially food and fuel.
The aftermath of an Israeli strike on Iran’s State TV broadcaster building in Tehran, Iran, seen on June 19, 2025 [Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters]
But in the meantime, 90 million Iranians have been thrown into a state of uncertainty, frustration and anger while trying to maintain hope for a semblance of normal life when the country is not constantly under threat of military action or isolated from the international community.
For ordinary civilians, the situation is seriously compounded by the fact that they have been completely cut off from the internet for days, with internet observatory NetBlocks confirming on Friday that 97 percent of the country’s connectivity was down. Barring a handful of small daily updates gleaned from state media or local sources, Iranians have little idea about the extent of the Israeli military strikes across the country.
The Iranian authorities began imposing internet restrictions from the first day of the Israeli strikes, but increased them as Israel expanded its offensive and a pro-Israeli hacking group also launched cyberattacks.
Several of the country’s top banks have been taken offline as a result of the cyberattacks, as well as Iran’s top cryptocurrency exchange, Nobitex, which said its “hot wallet” had been compromised but promised it would return any lost money.
Iranian officials, who also took the country offline during the deadly nationwide protests in November 2019, claimed disconnecting the internet was necessary to fend off Israeli quadcopters and other projectiles, but gave no timeline as to when they would restore full connectivity.
Iran already has one of the most closed-off and slowed-down internet connections in the world, as almost all major global messaging apps and other services, along with tens of thousands of websites, are blocked and only accessible through workarounds such as virtual private networks (VPNs).
If you are reading this now, it means I managed to find a barely functioning connection to send this out.
