Nuala McAllister, a politician from Northern Ireland, has said that the number of serious sexual offences committed by a unnamed former police officer in Northern Ireland possibly run into the hundreds. She described the numbers as “absolutely huge“. The Alliance Party Assembly member for Belfast North serves on the Policing Board. This board is intended to hold police in the North of Ireland to account.

The alleged offender was a serving officer at the time of the alleged crimes, which victims say were committed across almost an entire decade between 2000 and 2009.

McAllister made these comments following the announcement by the Police Ombudsman, which said they would be:

…allocating all available resources to ensure [our investigation] will be victim-centred, effective and efficient.

Ombudsman vows to prioritise investigation

The ombudsman’s initial arrest of the officer was on 17 December 2025. Since then it has been compiling additional evidence. Ombudsman chief executive, Hugh Hume, has said:

We have identified multiple potential victims, together with a substantial number of witnesses. We have also seized a large volume of material, including a significant amount of digital evidence, during a search operation.

He went on to point out that the the sheer scale of the investigation may impact other commitments:

Our resources are finite and this means that the timeliness of our other casework may be affected. However, this is the reality of balancing the demands of our complaints across the Office with the need to progress this complex and expanding investigation. If we do not prioritise now, in the long term we risk compromising the service we provide to complainants and victims, and public confidence in this office and the PSNI.

Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MLA Colin McGrath suggested there’s already a risk of confidence in the ombudsman’s work being undermined, saying:

An ombudsman, whenever they are carrying out their work, should not have to prioritise their workload, they should be able to deliver their workload.

This is especially concerning because the officer was part of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in 2000. This police force has a troubled history. The RUC was known for its sectarian (religiously biased) policing. Moreover, it collaborated with loyalist groups in the murders of Catholics.

In 2001, the force was renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). However, the  officer under investigation continued his crimes for nearly a decade. This raises doubt about the effectiveness of police reform. Furthermore, the lack of resources for the ombudsman to ensure accountability only adds to these concerns.

Off-duty cops phoning DV victims

The Ulster Unionist Party leader, Jon Burrows, claims the ombudsman is wasting too much time investigating “late paperwork.” This sounds a lot like the government’s ‘efficiency savings‘ rhetoric amid ruthless cuts to public services.

He did, however, provide some useful insights from his time as head of the PSNI Discipline Unit. He held this role in the period 2019-2021. He discussed the case of another officer involved in abusive behaviour. This officer attended domestic violence calls and interacted with vulnerable women.

Whenever they got back to their station and they were on their own and they get back home, they would take the mobile number of the victim and they would start sending them personal messages from their own phone on WhatsApp.

They would just start that relationship building. Someone who had literally just been the victim of domestic violence, is receiving hours later off-duty, the investigating officer contacting them.

Burrows appeared to suggest there is no existing policy against this. Or, at least if there is, it is not properly enforced.

There needs to be a red line by the Chief Constable, you never use your personal phone in messaging victims. It’s done through your official phone and recorded on the investigation log.

The PSNI appear to be struggling with issues around sexual offences, handling far more cases than those mentioned. The Ditch reported in February this year that:

There were almost 50 domestic abuse accusations against PSNI officers in the last two years – but just a single dismissal and 17 incidents when no further action was taken.

The allegations include physical abuse, coercive control, harassment and sexual abuse and were made against officers from constable to superintendent rank.

Of the 46 complaints since January 2024, 22 cases remain ongoing. Of the 24 concluded cases four officers resigned or retired while two were subject to action from management.

“No further action” was the most common outcome – accounting for 17 cases, or 71 percent, according to records released to The Ditch under freedom of information.

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They also cited a VICE 2021 investigation which discovered:

…two-thirds of concluded PSNI domestic abuse complaints between 2015 and 2021 resulted in no further action.

A history of failing women

Of course, appalling sexual violence from police isn’t confined to Northern Irish officers. The Metropolitan Police gave us the vile David Carrick who in 2022 pleaded guilty to 49 charges, of which 24 were rape.

Wayne Couzens, who served in the Kent Police and the Met, abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in March 2021.

He had a history of indecent exposure that was overlooked during vetting, and by police disciplinary bodies.

These crimes, whether committed by Northern Irish or British officers, are not only avoidable, they are enabled by a culture of impunity, procedural laxity, and, above all, an ingrained institutional disregard and hatred towards women across our police forces.

Featured image via the Canary/Unsplash

Israel have bombed people sheltering in tents in Lebanon. The genocidal settler state has a habit of bombing and re-bombing the people it has displaced. Their practice of striking tented camps is an oft-repeated story of the Gaza genocide. Now, the people they have bombed in Beirut were only sheltering in tents because Israel had forcibly displaced them from their homes.

Israel escalated its aggression around 2 March amid a spiraling US-backed war with Iran.

Israel decimates Lebanon

Al Arabiya reported on 12 March:

In a statement, the Lebanese health ministry said “the Israeli enemy strike on Ramlet al-Bayda” in the center of Beirut killed eight people and wounded 31.

Adding:

An AFP correspondent at the scene saw a damaged motorcycle and two damaged cars, with the area sealed off by security forces.

The Cradle posted image of the strikes on 12 March:

Israel has committed a massacre of innocent civilians in Ramlet al-Baida in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, where many people displaced from their homes have been sheltering in tents, cars, and on mattresses along the beach with nowhere else to go.

According to local reports, at… pic.twitter.com/GcL7ZRKOmx

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) March 12, 2026

TV host Marwa Osman said the strikes had hit in the Ramlet al-Bayda area, leaving bodies “scattered”:

🚨BREAKING in Beirut
A horrific massacre committed by the Zionist occupation against displaced civilians in tents in the Ramlet al-Bayda area in the heart of the capital Beirut.… bodies are reportedly scattered on the ground amid the rubble. pic.twitter.com/y65VuVqPU2

— Marwa Osman || مروة عثمان (@Marwa__Osman) March 11, 2026

Outrageous war crimes

Filmmaker Robert lnlakesh said:

An outrageous war crime reminiscent of the massacres carried out in Gaza.

BREAKING: Israel Carries Out A Beach Massacre In Beirut

An Israeli strike reportedly targeted displaced people’s tents in the Ramla al-Bayda beach area. A huge number of dead & injured.

An outrageous war crime reminiscent of the massacres carried out in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/AUJ1a5S65e

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— Robert Inlakesh (@falasteen47) March 11, 2026

Since the latest invasion began, Israel has been hitting targets throughout Lebanon – including in densely populated civilian areas of the capital:

In theory, Hezbollah breached a US-brokered ‘ceasefire’ with Israel which had held since their last war in 2024. In practice, the US has given Israel carte blanche to strike Lebanon ever since. Israel has done so constantly since the deal was struck.

You can read about the secretive Israel-US ‘side letter’ pact here. And our extensive coverage of Israel’s ceasefire breaches here.

Aseel Habbaj was displaced from other areas Israel had bombed. She has been sheltering in a tent near where the new strikes landed:

We saw dead people on the ground. We were all asleep in my tent, when suddenly we heard a noise. We jumped up and went to see what was happening.

Drop Site News reported:

The toll since the renewed Israeli offensive began on March 2 is:  – Total Killed: 634+ – Total Wounded: 1,586+ – Displaced: More than 800,000 people (According to Lebanese Ministry of Health).

They added that Israel’s far-right finance minister had openly stated the genocidal settler-colonial state would make Beirut look like Gaza:

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated on March 5, 2026, that the Dahiyeh district, a southern suburb of Beirut, would soon “look like Khan Younis.”

Al Jazeera posted images of the damage in Beirut’s southern suburbs:

Aftermath of overnight Israeli air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/OgnafTvf8a pic.twitter.com/xqWfIyEHPJ

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 12, 2026

Israel’s attack on Lebanon has a similar character to the Gaza genocide. It strikes civilians with impunity, while claiming to target terror groups. It’s unaccountable far-right leaders, meanwhile, openly call for the annihilation of Lebanese civilians and their means to life.

Featured image via the Canary

Migrant workers from poorer countries, including Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and the Philippines, who form the backbone of the UAE’s workforce are increasingly bearing the human cost of the US-Israel-Iran conflict. At least 2 Pakistani labourers are confirmed dead so far.

— Zia Ur Rehman (@zalmayzia) March 8, 2026

This means Gulf employers extract maximum profit from the Asian labourer while bearing none of the true costs of reproducing that labour like education, healthcare, housing and childcare.

So in effect, India and other south Asian countries are subsidising the Gulf’s wealth, and the border ensures the worker can never demand more.

Gulf states complicit

Ali Kadri, also a scholar on West Asia, explains why.

Gulf rulers park their wealth in US dollars, not in their own societies. As Kadri writes:

the merchant class wealth is mostly held in dollars, so it becomes one with US-led capital in the dollar.

They have “little to lose from forfeiting its production base in the home economy.” These South Asian workers are treated as servile and disposable. Mustapha Qadri, director of human rights organisation Equiderm, explained:

There is a conscious choice made to get workers that are from relatively poor countries, who don’t get paid as much and have a lot less power in the social dynamic of these countries, to do this difficult work – because they’re less likely to complain or to demand protection.

The US guarantees the economic security of these Gulf states. As such, they never have to build functioning nations with real citizen workforces.  This US-led set-up favours both. The Gulf ruling class gets cheap labour and US protection. The US gets obedient allies and recycled petrodollars.

And the workers? They exist in an exploitative structure that treats both their lives and deaths as an acceptable cost for the gross skyscrapers that make up the skylines of the richest Gulf states.

Vassalage confirmed.

Featured image via the Canary

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Spring has only just sprung, which means it’s time for that tricky edge-of-winter transitional dressing.

You know how it is – you leave the house in the morning, and it’s freezing. Then by lunch, you’re sweating your life away, but when you head home for the day, it’s chilly again.

And heaven help you if you stay out past sunset and forget a good coat!

But one of the best things about this time of year is that the weather is suddenly a lot more flat-shoe friendly, what with the fact that there’s (usually) no more snow or ice to waddle your way through, and a lot less need for thick cosy socks.

If you’re looking for a little flat shoe shopping inspo, here are some of the best flats on the high street right now that are perfect for chic gals about town.

Callum Price is Director of Communications at the Institute of Economic Affairs, and a former Government special adviser. 

When I was a child, I used to play Playmobil ‘cowboys and Indians’ with a friend every day at the after-school club (we were about 6 and it was the early 2000s, yet to be made aware of the cultural insensitivities this threw up). One day, my friend didn’t want to play anymore, because the club got a new SEGA Megadrive, which was obviously far more entertaining. I was gutted and rather petulant about it – until I too embraced the wonders of the SEGA Megadrive.

I was reminded of this recently when Ed Davey decided to use his intervention at PMQs as the war in the Middle East unfolded to take aim at those who have moved to Dubai and paid less in UK tax as a result.

Davey probably thought he was making a very sensible and patriotic point. Why should those who have left our shores be recipients of our support?

At first glance there is some instinctive logic to this. They aren’t paying in to the coffers, so why should they be able to take out of them?

However, as many others have pointed out, there are a range of problems with this logic; not least that no-one argued that those we evacuated from Sudan or Afghanistan at times of crisis should foot their own bill.

Not only that, but our entire welfare state system is built on the premise that it is there for British citizens when they need it. In an ideal world, everyone pays into it when they can, and gets out of it what they must. It might feel strange to consider RAF repatriation flights part of the welfare state, but the logic stands just the same.

If we want to be stricter about deciding who benefits from the Treasury’s coffers based on who contributes, then I’m sure many Conservative Home readers would happily partake. But it would surprise me if those who are using the Middle East crisis to take aim at ‘tax avoiders’ in Dubai would share those sympathies.

So, what is really behind the animosity directed at those who have emigrated to Dubai?

On the surface, it seems like a primarily aesthetic debate. The Dubai Deanos vs the British Patriots. To the former Dubai is a safe haven of sunny beaches and a (much) lower tax burden, much preferable to Broken Britain. To the latter, it’s a gauche and cultureless desert that could only appeal to the uncivilised.

I admit to personally being closer to the latter than the former on purely aesthetic grounds, but 240,000 Brits have moved there for something – friends and relatives among them. Can we not accept that people might seek to use their agency to go and find a better life for themselves and their families, even if it might not be our own version of a better life?

When we scratch beneath the surface it appears that many can’t, political elites and otherwise, which is a damning illustration of their attitude to prosperity. It is a sort of Dubai Derangement Syndrome; embracing decline because prosperity is gauche. The belief that having the gall to do something radical to improve your lot in life is an act of vile self-interest, and fundamentally un-British. Taking radical action to achieve something better is beyond the pale. We have it good enough and we should be happy about it.

It is the same philosophy that leads politicians to crow about ‘1.5 per cent growth, the fastest in the G7’ as a major victory: a broad comfort with mediocrity. It is managed decline, with a patriotic spin; accepting a lesser lot to spite those who have dared stray from the accepted path.

But we shouldn’t decry ambition, we should venerate it. In the week that Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations celebrates its 250th anniversary, we should remember just how important self-interest is to a functioning economy, we don’t create wealth or deliver prosperity without it. So why make villains of those who are demonstrating these values?

On the contrary, we should be doing all that we can to get them back, so they can achieve their aims in Britain and we can bask in the reflective benefits of their ambition. Dubai has a lot going for it inherently; so does Britain. But we can do significantly better in the disputed ground in between, by fixing our fundamental economic problems.

If people were more able to easily find fulfilling employment, keep more of the money they earned from it, and spend it on more than just their energy bills and replacing the phone that got stolen at the bus stop, then Dubai and its competitors might become relatively less appealing. After all, at six years old I was able to embrace the SEGA Megadrive to keep playing with my friend – and it turned out to be quite fun too.

Mr. Davey, you may not like what Dubai has to offer, but don’t tarnish those who do with the brush of ‘tax exiles’ and ‘washed-up old footballers’. If we were able to attract their like and their ambition, instead of scaring them away, we would all feel the benefits.

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