Metropolitan police

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Tarique Ghaffur to seek consultancy role for Olympic security after leaving Metropolitan Police

Tarique Ghaffur Britain's most senior Asian police officer will seek a role as a security consultant on the London Olympics after he has reached an outofcourt settlement with the Metropolitan Police over race claims it has emerged.

Chelsea's Didier Drogba faces FA and police probe after throwing coin at Burnley fans

Chelsea striker under investigation by Metropolitan Police and FA after appearing to throw coin at Burnley fans.

British tycoon held in Florida over caretaker murder

A multimillionaire British developer who lives among the West Palm Beach elite has been arrested in Florida on an extradition warrant accusing him of murdering a caretaker who was tortured and strangled in London eight years ago.Thanos Papalexis, 36, who regularly features in the society pages of the Palm Beach Post, was eating with a female friend at the chic Fire Rock Pizza restaurant in West Palm Beach at Friday lunchtime when US marshalls approached his table and read him his rights.US police said they had been following Papalexis, a Briton of Greek descent, before he was arrested on a warrant issued by a judge in London alleging he murdered Charalambos Christodoulides, 57. Extradition proceedings are now under way.The multimillionaire, who drives a Bentley and hosted a fundraising party for Bill and Hillary Clinton at an oceanfront house in January, was picked up at the request of the Metropolitan police in connection with the murder of Christodoulides, a single man who lived in a flat in a disused wine warehouse in Kilburn, north-west London. For a long time the killing of Christodoulides, a Greek Cypriot, had baffled the British police. He was found buried in a vehicle pit at the warehouse where he had lived for several years in an upstairs flat.At the time officers said the room where he was killed would have been a bloodbath, but it appeared that the killers had spent time washing the walls and floor in the upstairs room. Police said spots of blood found on a yacht parked in the courtyard of the warehouse suggested Christodoulides was first attacked there. Patterns of blood in the building suggest he was later dragged to an upstairs room where he was tied to a chair and beaten as if the killers were trying to force information from him.Police believe he was strangled in the room. His body was wrapped in a sheet, with two woolly hats placed over his face, before the killers took him into the courtyard. He was dumped in a car pit in the warehouse before the murderers poured paint stripper all over his body. Police believed the killers were trying to stop sniffer dogs from finding him.According to reports at the time, Christodoulides last spoke to his sister, Anna Lanitis, on March 8 2000. Two days later he failed to collect his winnings from a betting shop he used regularly and was reported missing. Police found him 10 days later.Papalexis appeared on the extradition warrant at the federal court in West Palm Beach on Monday. According to court documents the developer, then aged 26 and just starting up his property business, had wanted to develop the Kilburn warehouse.According to the extradition request, as long as the caretaker lived in the flat he was unable to buy the property. For every week he was prevented from buying the unit Papalexis lost £60,000 in interest to a loan shark, the court documents said.US authorities were notified in April by the Metropolitan police that Papalexis was wanted in connection with the murder. Scotland Yard said yesterday that Papalexis had been arrested on an extradition warrant alleging the murder of Christodoulides. Police sources confirmed that Papalexis was hoping to buy the disused warehouse in 2000.News of the arrest was picked up in the gossip columns of the local Palm Beach press, where he has featured several times since he arrived in Florida to set up his property business in 2000.His highest-profile entry in the pages of the newspaper gossip columns so far came in January, when he hosted a fundraising party for the Clintons in a rented beach house. According to the New York Times, the owner of the property, Michael Cantor, later complained that Papalexis had failed to pay the rent on time.Two men are due to appear for trial at the Old Bailey next year in connection with the murder.CrimeUnited Statesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Human trafficking police unit to close after two years

Britain's only specialist police human trafficking unit is to be shut down after two years because of a lack of funding, the government said today.A Home Office spokeswoman confirmed that money for the Metropolitan police team, which totalled £1.8m in the first year and £780,000 in the second, would no longer be available after April.Experts and campaigners reacted to the move with dismay. Denise Marshall, the chief executive of the Poppy Project, which helps trafficked women after they have been rescued, said she was appalled at the decision, which would have a "hugely detrimental impact"."This is at best foolhardy and at worst discriminatory," she said. Marshall said the project had been impressed by the "sensitivity and expertise" officers had shown in their work with victims, earning the women's trust and, crucially, encouraging them to tell their stories in court.Last week, the 11-strong human trafficking team secured the convictions of a gang of six traffickers, brothel keepers and pimps for their parts in the ordeal of a Slovakian teenager tricked into coming to the UK and forced to work as a prostitute.The men were jailed for a total of almost 53 years, an outcome Scotland Yard hailed as a "really great result". The case was the unit's biggest success.After sentencing, at Southwark crown court, the Home Office issued a statement saying combating human trafficking was a "key government priority". Some 4,000 women are estimated to have been trafficked into sexual exploitation in the UK.One of the victims in the case, who told her story to the Guardian at the weekend, praised the dedication and sensitivity of the officers who worked on her case, and said the closure of the unit would lead to fewer traffickers being convicted."These officers treat you like a proper person," she said. "How many brothels are there in London? How many girls have a pimp? Without the team, they never will find the guilty men."The chair of the parliamentary all-party group on the trafficking of women and children, Anthony Steen, said closing the unit was at odds with the government's professed commitment to tackling human trafficking, and would undermine attempts to make the issue a priority for all police forces."Every police officer I have met on the beat and in the constabulary accepts that it is main, core police business," he said. "If a unit that is specifically there to give human trafficking status and importance is cut, that attitude may well change."In a letter to Marshall, Commander Allan Gibson, of the Met's specialist crime directorate, said the decision to close the unit had been "difficult".A Home Office spokeswoman said the funding had always been intended to be temporary."However, this is not to say that human trafficking is not a key priority for the Met and the government," she added. "We still provide funding to Soca [the Serious Organised Crime Agency] and Operation Maxim, which is very much still in operation. We expect the Met to continue to treat it as one of their core issues." Operation Maxim is a London-wide drive to target immigration crime.Marshall said that if victims had to go to local police stations to report their cases, they risked encountering officers who were not trained in handling human trafficking, and who might traumatise them further with inappropriate questions.A Scotland Yard spokesman said it was conducting a review of the Met's approach to tackling illegal immigration."The Met's human trafficking team was launched in March 2007 as a result of being fully funded by money from the Home Office Reflex project," he said."From April 2009, that money will no longer be available, and the Met does not have the additional funds to keep the team running in its current format whilst meeting other existing policing requirements."Human traffickingPoliceProstitutionguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Youth stabbed on school premises

A 15-year-old boy is in a critical condition after being stabbed in a school in west London, the Metropolitan Police says.

Hunt for Sir Ian Blair successor 'delayed by advert row'

The hunt for a successor to Sir Ian Blair as head of the Metropolitan Police has been delayed by a political row over the wording of the job advertisement it has been claimed.

New Met chief 'not from abroad'

The next Metropolitan Police commissioner will not be from overseas, the home secretary has said.

Row after top policeman resigns

A row begins over whether Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair was forced to resign for political reasons.