UK watchdog says currency and crypto scams hit £27 million

Finance reporter(wp/reuters):::

Scams in Britain involving currencies and crypto assets like bitcoin totalled £27 million in the last financial year, with average losses of 14,600 pounds per victim, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said on Tuesday.

Reports of scams more than tripled in the year that ended in April to 1,800 as fraudsters often used social media to promote their “get rich quick” online trading platforms, according to an FCA statement.

“Investors will often be led to believe that their first investment has successfully made a profit,” it said.

The fraudster then contacts the victim to invest more money with a false promise of greater profits. The customer account is later closed and the scammer disappears, the FCA said.

The FCA said it would run advertsising to raise awareness of online trading scams.

“We’re warning the public to be suspicious of adverts which promise high returns from online trading platforms,” said Mark Steward, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight.

British Steel on brink of collapse with thousands of jobs at risk - source

Industraial reporter(wp/reuters):::

British Steel, the country’s second largest steel producer, is on the brink of collapse unless the government agrees to provide an emergency 30 million pound ($38.1 million) loan by later on Tuesday, a source close to the situation said.

The steelmaker, owned by investment firm Greybull Capital, employs around 5,000 people, mostly in Scunthorpe, in the north of England, while tens of thousands more depend on in its supply chain.

Greybull, which specialises in turning around distressed businesses, paid former owners Tata Steel a nominal one pound in 2016 for the loss-making company which they renamed British Steel.

Greybull had asked the British government for a 75 million pound loan but has since reduced its demand to 30 million pounds, according to the source close to the negotiations.

If the loan is not approved by Tuesday afternoon, administrators could be appointed for British Steel as early as Wednesday, the source said.

Britain’s Business Ministry declined to comment.

Man stabbed multiple times in attack in Salisbury

Crime reporter(wp/bbc):::

A man in his 40s has been airlifted to hospital with multiple stab wounds after an assault in Salisbury.

The man was taken to Southampton Hospital in a serious condition following the attack in Catherine Street at about 20:40 BST on Monday.

A 37-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and is in custody, a spokesperson for Wiltshire Police said.

Officers have appealed for any witnesses to contact them.

Det Sgt Kerry Lawes, from Salisbury CID, said: "We know there will have been people who may have either witnessed the assault itself or who saw something in the aftermath which could assist with our inquiries."

University of Oxford promises quarter of places to poor

University reporter,Oxford(wp/bbc):::

University of Oxford is promising a "sea-change" in admissions, with plans for a quarter of students to come from disadvantaged backgrounds by 2023.

The university wants to tackle accusations that it is socially exclusive.

Oxford will soon announce that 60.5% of its most recent intake are from state schools - the highest since the 1970s.

But vice-chancellor Louise Richardson says she wants to "accelerate the pace at which we are diversifying".

What's the problem they are trying to solve?

Oxford, along with other top universities, has faced claims of perpetuating privilege - with too many privately-educated students and not enough from poorer backgrounds.

The Sutton Trust social mobility charity showed recently that Oxford and Cambridge recruit more students from eight, mostly-private schools than almost 3,000 other UK state schools put together.

Labour MP David Lammy has lambasted the university for admitting too few black students.

The university wants to send a strong signal that it remains very competitive to get a place - but that should be about ability rather than background.

Prof Richardson says she wants to ensure that "every academically exceptional student in the country knows that they have a fair chance of a place at Oxford".

She is being supported by the head of the Sutton Trust, Sir Peter Lampl, who described the scale of Oxford's target as "really impressive".

How will they get more places for disadvantaged applicants?

At present about 15% of Oxford's students are from deprived areas - and the university wants to increase this significantly to 25% over the next four years.

An access scheme will have places for 200 high-achieving disadvantaged students each year.

These will be students, identified during the application process, who will be offered a place and then given extra support before beginning their degree courses.

Another 50 places will be available for a foundation year, aimed at developing students who show high academic potential, but whose education might have been disrupted or who had to overcome personal disadvantage.

Those who successfully complete the foundation year will go on to begin undergraduate courses.

What counts as disadvantaged?

It is not by income thresholds, ethnicity or whether families qualified for free school meals, but is based on a socio-economic profile of where people live.

This uses two postcode-based systems, called Polar and Acorn, which measure local levels of deprivation or affluence.

The particular focus of Polar is the level of entry to university from people living in that area.

There have been critics of Polar - including Universities Minister Chris Skidmore, who wants to find a better way of showing disadvantage.

For instance, a very poor area with relatively high levels of university entry, such as in some parts of London, might not appear to be disadvantaged.

Such approaches also depend on helping people who have already applied to university - when the hardest-to-reach groups, such as white, working-class boys, might never even have considered trying to get a place.

Is this another squeezed middle?

If 25% of places are to be targeted at applicants from poorer areas - and in recent years, about 40% of places have gone to pupils from private schools - then that leaves 35% for everyone else.

That would be the remaining slice of places for all those state school pupils who do not live in the most deprived areas - which is to say, state-educated families in the middle.

Such an analysis is rejected by Oxford - with the university saying there is no reason to assume that so many places will go to private school pupils in the future.

The next round of entry figures, covering 2018, will show 60.5% of students from state schools, more than about 58% in the two previous years, and the highest in these records going back more than 40 years.

But it is worth noting that all these figures are about the proportion of UK undergraduates - and they do not include the increase in overseas applicants getting places.

There might be an extra 250 places for deprived youngsters - but on current trends, there will be more than 700 overseas students.

Will this stop accusations of snobbery and elitism?

Very unlikely. As the competition for places at top universities has become more intense, so too has the public scrutiny.

Such famous universities are seen not only in terms of academic excellence, but as markers of social status and a passport to top professions.

So there will be more questions about what "fair" entry means - and arguments over representative intakes and "social engineering".

Chris Millward, the Office for Students' director for fair access, says there will be more "pressure" on universities over access for disadvantaged students.

But there are concerns from the private school sector about not making unfair assumptions.

"Many pupils in state schools come from high-income homes and many pupils attending independent schools receive means-tested bursaries," said Julie Robinson, chief executive of the Independent Schools Council.

Labour's shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said "this is an important step in the right direction" - and that "for too long our top universities have been a closed club".

Mr Skidmore welcomed the announcement, saying such universities should be open to everyone who "has the potential".

Alex Hepburn: Rape victim 'humiliated by sexual conquest game'

Pic:::Alex Hepburn was found guilty of rape in April

Crime reporter(wp/bbc):::

A woman who was raped by a cricketer while asleep has said she was "humiliated" to find out he had taken part in a sexual conquest "game".

Former Worcestershire player Alex Hepburn was sentenced to five years in prison last month.

He assaulted the victim at his flat in Worcester after she had consensual sex with his then team-mate Joe Clarke.

The stress has left her with facial paralysis and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Hepburn and Mr Clarke had set up a "game" on WhatsApp to see how many women they could have sex with.

Hepburn attacked "Sarah" - not her real name - after Mr Clarke had left his bedroom to be sick and passed out in his bathroom.

On arriving back at the flat, Hepburn found her asleep on a mattress, "saw a chance" and attacked her, his trial heard.

'He had sex with me'

She realised he was not Mr Clarke only when Hepburn spoke in an Australian accent.

Sarah told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme she remembered finding Mr Clarke after the attack and telling him "again and again and again 'your friend has had sex with me'."

She then saw Hepburn, before fleeing the flat.

"Once I'd grabbed my clothes, I ran out to the street and stopped a passer-by," she said.

"I told her everything that happened and she rang the police."

At the police station, she said, officers "rang my mum". "But I remember thinking that I didn't want people knowing."

Sarah said it had been "so humiliating" to later find out, at Hepburn's trial, that she had unwillingly been part of a "game".

She believes that Hepburn "got so involved in the competition... he had no idea what he was doing was wrong", and wishes to educate perpetrators that such behaviour constitutes rape.

During sentencing, Judge Jim Tindal said Hepburn had "arrogantly" believed his victim would consent during the attack.

Sarah agrees, saying she believes that Hepburn "would have thought I was grateful".

She said she also struggled to initially "put two and two together" and realise she had been raped and hoped speaking out would inform other victims.

Life 'on hold'

The stress caused by the rape has led Sarah to develop Bell's palsy, a partial paralysis of the face.

She has also been diagnosed with PTSD and said her life had effectively been placed on hold.

"I wanted to go travelling when I left university," she said.

"I wanted to go on to do a PGCE [Postgraduate Certificate of Education] to be a primary school teacher and I delayed all of that because of the trial."

Now Hepburn has been convicted, Sarah said she had reached an "epiphany, where I could think about my future again for the first time".

Hepburn's barrister, Michelle Heeley QC, said in court that he had expressed "true remorse", adding: "He has lost everything: his career, his good character and ultimately his liberty."

But Sarah said the impact the rape had had on her was worse than the time Hepburn would spend in prison.

"He will have no idea the effect it has had on me," she said.

Hepburn is presently seeking to appeal against his conviction.

Police arrest 586 people in county lines crackdown

Special Crime report(wp/bbc):::

 Nearly 600 suspected members of county lines drugs gangs have been arrested across the UK in the past week, the National Crime Agency has said.

Police forces led by the National County Lines Coordination Centre also seized cocaine worth £176,780; £312,649 in cash; and 46 weapons.

The NCA estimates there are about 2,000 city-based gangs exploiting young people to sell drugs in smaller towns.

It says tackling the gangs is a "national law enforcement priority".

In the operation between 13 and 20 May:

• 500 men and 86 women were arrested in raids in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cheshire, Bedfordshire and other areas
• 519 vulnerable adults and 364 children in need of support were helped
• 30 people were identified as potential victims of slavery or human trafficking
• Four guns were seized, as well as swords, machetes, an axe, knives, samurai swords, and a crossbow
• Drugs including cocaine with a street value of £176,780, crack worth £36,550 and £17,950 of heroin were recovered

County line drugs gangs - linked by a network of mobile phone lines and often coercing children and vulnerable adults - travel out of their usual urban territory and into rural areas to sell drugs.

Most come out of London, Birmingham and Merseyside, said NCA County Lines lead Nikki Holland.

'Children used as shields'

Some raids were on so-called cuckooed houses, which is a home taken over by drugs gangs from a drug user or vulnerable person.

Ms Holland likened gangs' exploitation of children to grooming for sex, saying these children often did not see themselves as victims because they enjoyed the attention and the gifts of drugs.

Gangs then used coercion, intimidation and violence to control the children, to keep them involved in running the drugs and to act as a "shield" from arrest and violence by rival gangs, she added.

Ms Holland appealed to parents and the public to trust their instincts and look out for children travelling long distances with older people or children going missing and having new and older friends.

This is the third week that police forces across the UK have co-ordinated raids.

The latest police operation "demonstrated the power of a whole-system response to a complex problem that we're seeing in every area of the UK", said Ms Holland.

• County lines' drug runners 'as young as 11'
• Train patrols target drug dealers
• '100 county lines drug networks in Wales'

Ms Holland called on professionals working with people at risk of being involved in county line operations to assist, saying: "It's the nurses, teachers, social workers, GPs, and anyone who works with young or vulnerable people, that can really help to make a difference."

'Life of glamour becomes a nightmare'

Last week three drug dealers from London and Kent who used vulnerable teenagers to traffic crack cocaine and heroin to Portsmouth were jailed in a "landmark case".

They are believed to have been the first to have been charged with modern slavery offences.

Other recent cases before the courts include two brothers from Birmingham who ran a network supplying heroin and crack cocaine in Hereford, while a police operation on 1 May resulted in 24 arrests and raids in Newcastle, Stevenage, Norwich, Glasgow and London.

Iryna Pona, policy manager at the Children's Society, said the charity had heard "shocking stories of children being groomed with money and drugs before the life of glamour they have been promised quickly descends into a nightmare".

She said while it was good to see police are stepping up their fight against the gangs "too many children exploited through county lines are still... failing to get help from an independent advocate to ensure they are supported as victims".