Groper aged 80 is banned from every nightclub in country after he sexually assaulted two women

Pic:Guilty Jaime Arrochela lobo
Crime reporter(wp/es):

A pensioner who groped two young women on the dance floor as he celebrated his 80th birthday has been banned from every nightclub in the country.

Jaime Arrochela Lobo put his hand up a woman’s skirt and grabbed another on the bottom at the crowded St Christopher’s Inn in London Bridge.

The octogenarian, who has a pacemaker, told police he had gone out drinking and dancing after a row with his partner, admitting to officers: “I like dancing and speaking with girls.”

The former car salesman said he was drunk and could not remember groping the women, Camberwell Green magistrates’ court heard.

At a sentencing hearing last week, Lobo was banned from all nightclubs in England and Wales for the next year as part of a community order, which also includes an electronically tagged curfew between 9pm and 6am and 30 days of rehab.

The first victim, 23, said she “felt a bit sorry” for Lobo when she saw him at the bar, but then felt him grabbing hold of her. 

“I turned around very quickly and pointed my finger in his face and called him disgusting. I felt vulnerable, angry and violated,” she said.

Her friend, 24, told the court Lobo then grabbed her bottom, leaving her feeling “uncomfortable and violated”.

“I did question why an old man would be there on his own in a young environment,” she said. 

Lobo, of Paddington, was arrested at the bar on March 25, and told police he had had “plenty” to drink. 

“I can’t say if what the two woman say is true or not because I can’t remember,” he said.

The pensioner denied, but was convicted of, two charges of sexual assault. He was ordered to pay £250 in court costs and sign the sex offender register for the next five years.

StanChart to take $160 million charge from private equity sale

Business correspondent(wp/Reuters):Standard Chartered PLC (STAN.L) has agreed terms for the sale of its private equity division, ending a more than two-year effort to shed a business the bank no longer deemed central to its strategy.

StanChart will sell a majority of the private equity arm’s investment portfolio to funds managed by Intermediate Capital Group Plc (ICP.L), the bank said on Monday, a deal first reported by Reuters in August.

The bank said it expected to take a restructuring charge of about $160 million from the sale, but did not disclose the terms of the deal.

Reuters previously reported that the main real estate assets in the portfolio were worth around $700 million.

The assets ICG is buying from StanChart will be directly managed by Affirma Capital, a newly-formed company consisting of the former Standard Chartered private equity team.

The disposal follows StanChart’s decision in late 2016 to exit the principal finance business, which invests the bank’s and its clients’ money, as part of a broader strategic shift by Chief Executive Bill Winters to focus more on corporate and individual customers.

The business had been a drag on StanChart’s performance, reporting an operating loss of $217 million in 2016. From 2017, the gains and losses from the business were excluded from the bank’s financial results.

UK student loan write-offs to increase budget deficit - ONS

Campus correspondent(wp/Reuters):

Britain will need to recognise upfront from next year that many students will never fully repay government loans, a move that will increase the official measure of public borrowing by billions of pounds, statisticians said on Monday.

British student loan repayments are linked to future earnings, and many students are not expected to earn enough over their working lives to fully repay the loans and interest before they are automatically written off, 30 years after graduation.

About 45 percent of loans and interest are not expected to be repaid, the government told a parliament committee earlier this year, which in turn asked Britain’s Office for National Statistics to factor this into measures of public finances.

Currently, student loan write-offs are not required to be reflected in the public finances until they take place several decades in the future.

But next year - probably from September - the ONS will treat part of the loan as a grant for statistical purposes.

This will increase annual public sector net borrowing as a share of the economy by about 0.6 percent, equivalent to 12 billion pounds for the current year, the ONS said.

There will be no effect on public sector net debt.

UK signs air service deal with Switzerland for post-Brexit flights

Staff reporter(wp/Reuters):

Transport minister Chris Grayling will sign an agreement with Switzerland on Monday to ensure air services continue to operate between the two countries after Brexit.

Britain is due to leave the European Union in March next year, but uncertainty over how, or even if, Brexit will happen has increased the possibility of the country exiting without a deal on departure terms - a scenario that some companies said would usher in chaos.

“The UK aviation sector is the biggest in Europe and will play an even more crucial role as we further develop as an outward looking global nation,” Grayling said in a statement.

“These agreements will ensure Britain continues to prosper as we leave the EU and I’m confident the UK will reach a mutually beneficial deal, whilst we continue to prepare for all eventualities.”

His department said the new bilateral deal guaranteed the terms of the current EU-Switzerland agreement on air services, safeguarding the route that carried 6.8 million passengers by air in 2017.

The government is also launching the Aviation 2050 consultation, which proposes new measures including commitments to signing more air service agreements, the department said.

“Our aviation sector is world-leading and the Aviation 2050 strategy will promote success in the coming decades,” Liz Sugg, aviation minister, said.

“Our ambition is to expand our international connections, boost trade and investment and strengthening domestic links to support businesses and travelling passengers.”

New Brexit vote would 'break faith' with British people - May

Political reporter(wp/Reuters):
A second Brexit referendum would do “irreparable damage” to politics and “break faith” with the British people, Prime Minister Theresa May will say on Monday, rejecting what some see as the only way to break an impasse.

But May and her ministers have repeatedly ruled out a new ballot, saying it would deepen divisions over Britain’s biggest decision since World War Two and betray voters who narrowly backed leaving the EU at a 2016 referendum.

That increases the risk of Britain leaving without a deal in less than four months, a scenario some businesses fear would be catastrophic for the world’s fifth largest economy.

The political and economic uncertainty over Brexit is having an impact, with data on Monday showing a drop in consumer spending, falling house prices and growing pessimism in household finances.

“Let us not break faith with the British people by trying to stage another referendum,” May will tell lawmakers, according to extracts of her statement released in advance.

“Another vote which would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics, because it would say to millions who trusted in democracy, that our democracy does not deliver. Another vote which would likely leave us no further forward than the last,” she will say.

Business minister Greg Clark said a second vote would only increase uncertainty for the country.

May returns to parliament to update lawmakers on Brexit after a week in which she cancelled a vote on her deal because it was set to be defeated and survived an attempt by some of her own lawmakers to oust her.

The Labour Party, which is under pressure from smaller opposition parties to propose a motion of no confidence against the government this week, said on Sunday it would seek to force May to bring the deal back to parliament for a vote before Christmas.

May used a visit to Brussels last week to call on EU leaders to offer assurances over the so-called Northern Irish “backstop” - an insurance policy to prevent the return of a hard border between the British province and EU-member Ireland that its critics fear will tie Britain to the bloc in the long term.

But while EU leaders said they were willing to help May, they warned the British prime minister she could not renegotiate the deal, agreed earlier this year.