Keir Starmer may be seeing red over the latest Peter Mandelson drama but so are Labour MPs.

Three weeks before the May elections – when voters will choose their candidates for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments along with some English councils and mayoralties – the prime minister has been hit with a fresh revelation about the ex-ambassador.

It appears security vetting officials advised against hiring Mandelson last year but the Foreign Office decided to give him the job as the UK’s attaché to Washington anyway.

The prime minister promptly sacked the Foreign Office’s top civil servant Olly Robbins hours after the Guardian broke the story on Thursday night.

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Downing Street said neither Starmer nor other government ministers were not aware until this week that Mandelson, former friend to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, had not passed vetting.

Starmer told the press he was “furious” that he had not been told ahead of giving Mandelson the plum post.

Meanwhile, his political opponents have accused Starmer of misleading parliament after he previously told MPs “full due process” was followed with Mandelson.

The Liberal Democrats have also reported the prime minister to ethics adviser Laurie Magnus for failing to notify parliament as soon as he knew about the vetting on Tuesday evening.

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This is not the first time Starmer has been hit with calls to resign over Mandelson.

He vowed to fight on in February when questions arose over how much the PM knew about Mandelson’s Epstein links before he gave him the top job.

Starmer also dodged questions about whether he had even spoken directly to Mandelson before making him chief diplomat to the US during prime minister’s questions in March.

The eruption of the Iran war, and the public’s support for Starmer’s refusal to be drawn drawn into it, shifted attention away from the crisis around his judgement.

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But will he be lucky enough to escape with his job yet again after this latest crisis?

One Labour source told HuffPost UK: “Yeah, he’s fucked.”

Most party insiders speculated that Starmer’s time in office is almost certainly up – it’s not expected to happen this side of the May elections.

Multiple sources claimed even the PM’s internal opponents would want him to stay in post so he could take the fall for what is already expected to be a bloodbath for Labour.

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Just before the new Mandelson crisis erupted, James Johnson of JL Partners said early polls suggest it could be “the worst even local election for Labour in England”.

The party is expected to plummet to third place in Wales too, losing control of the entire Senedd for the first time in history.

Savanta’s political research director Chris Hopkins said Starmer expressing his own anger over Mandelson “just isn’t going to wash with voters”.

He told HuffPost UK: “Trust in politicians is at an all-time low and Labour, elected in part off a ‘holier than thou’ election campaign, have been anything but in office.

“They have done nothing to differentiate themselves from the chaos, sleaze and lies of the Conservative Party, so who can blame voters for seeking something completely different now?

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“UK politics is no longer a case of ‘better the devil you know’, and voters are more than willing to roll the dice with insurgent parties and relatively unknown quantities when it comes to candidates.”

But not everyone is quite so pessimistic about what this means for Starmer’s future, insisting the blame still sits with officials rather than the prime minister.

A cabinet minister told HuffPost UK: “I don’t think he has lied. It is extraordinary that he wasn’t told vetting [was] not passed, but that’s different from lying or deliberately misleading.”

One Labour insider blamed the process, adding: “It’s the whole system that is totally dysfunctional and all the time we keep blaming it on individuals we’ll keep going round this loop.”

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““If the PM did know, then it’s terminal.””

– Labour minister

A source from within the party’s headquarters suggested internal Labour groups do not feel the same “levels of hatred” felt during Jeremy Corbyn’s time in office towards Starmer.

“There is a lot of loyalty to him,” they said. “But just anger at the situation. We all know whoever comes next will be fucked up.”

A different minister said: “It’ll all come down to what he was told and when. Given Olly Robbins has gone, there must’ve been something but we don’t know.”

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But they added: “If the PM did know, then it’s terminal.”

Meanwhile a Labour backbencher suggested the current saga “feels like another match to avoid relegation.”

Meanwhile, Maryam Eslamdoust, the general secretary of the Labour affiliated TSSA union, publicly said it was time for a leadership contest.

She said: “Labour is in danger of being irreversibly tainted by this latest installment in the Mandelson scandal and Keir Starmer’s handling of it.”

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Her brutal assessment concluded: “At the very least, Keir has lost control by presiding over such reckless conduct.”

His critics seem to think it has become a question of when, not if, Starmer is forced out of office.

Will the prime minister be able to defy the odds and hang onto power?

Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

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Organisations specialising in support for neurodivergent employees are advertising their services to people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) through the Department of Work and Pension’s (DWP) Access to Work scheme. An investigation by the Canary has revealed how they have been treating ME as an ‘acquired’ neurodivergent condition.

Now, the Canary has also uncovered how some are promoting notorious pseudoscientific psychotherapies to get people with ME back to work.

DWP Access to Work: sending people with ME for coaching

As we previously reported:

A person living with ME has approached the Canary to whistleblow over their alarming experience engaging with AtW. Notably, DWP staff administering the scheme had directed them to organisations misrepresenting the condition as a form of neurodivergence.

Further undercover investigation by the Canary has found that the support these organisations offered people with ME may have involved some problematic therapies.

The Canary approached staff at these organisations as an employee with ME seeking prospective support through the Access to Work scheme.

Conversations with them revealed a number of incongruities in their understanding and approach to employees with ME.

Conflicting understanding around ME

A senior employee at No Drama Llamas mentioned the concept of “spoons”. She demonstrated some level of knowledge over the ME patients’ need to pace. People with ME regularly use “spoons” to describe their limited energy/relative wellness budget.

The staff member explained how the organisation provides co-coaching with managers and the employee with ME. This would be to advocate for workplace accommodations.

All this sounded somewhat positive, until they detailed how ME:

comes under our neurodiverse umbrella.

They said that as an organisation, they:

know that it’s not just about the fatigue, it’s about the impact on your working memory and your time management and being organised and your focus and concentration. This is why it comes under the neurodiverse thing, because it impacts your brain in just the same way as me with ADHD and dyspraxia and autism. You’re going to have the same challenges that I have because of the way that your condition affects your cognition and your executive function.

Similarly, a Creased Puddle coach explained that the company views ME as “an acquired neurodivergence” stating that:

when we think about neurodivergence, the conditions people think of [are] Autism, ADHD, dyslexia, tourettes, and these are all conditions that people are born with and will have for the whole of their life. Whereas you weren’t fresh out of the womb with ME, you didn’t have it at all. You’ve developed it over time and you could actually recover.

Again, coaching seemed to centre round learning “strategies” and “workarounds” for addressing ME’s impact on “executive function”.

However, the conversation with Creased Puddle also revealed that coaches would apply controversial psychological therapies in sessions involving people with ME.

When workplace adjustments means adjusting you

On its neurodiversity coaching webpage, it lists the credentials of its coaching team. The Canary noticed that this included Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).

ACT has been described as part of the “third wave” of cognitive behavioural therapies (CBT). As MEpedia explains:

ACT assumes that psychological suffering is caused by experiential avoidance of symptoms and hurtful thoughts and feelings.

So, as the NHS puts it, ACT is about learning:

to get ‘unhooked’ from unhelpful thoughts.

Biopsychosocial clinicians have long promoted this “think yourself better” psychotherapy guff for people living with ME. However, the 2021 NICE guidelines finally downgraded the evidence around its efficacy. This was only after years of the promotion of CBT as a cure for ME causing incalculable harm to patients.

As such, it’s obviously concerning that AtW services supporting people with ME may be applying a CBT approach in fresher wrapping.

Meanwhile, NLP is a pseudoscientific psychotherapy that has bounced around since the 1970s. It’s a loose collection of techniques:

designed to alter behaviour by reprogramming unconscious patterns of thought

Put simply, it’s more junk science pushing the idea that ME patients just need to think more positively.

The staff member the Canary spoke to confirmed that this was a possible approach coaches might use for clients with ME. When the Canary asked what this might look like for an employee with ME, they told us that:

It may be something like, for example, you might be telling yourself internally, I’m no good at doing this, this, and this. I never get it right. I always get it wrong. So your coach will kind of challenge the language you’re telling yourself. Because actually, if you’re telling yourself you’re never going to do it, then you’re never going to do it.

Not dismissing its neurological basis?

The Canary contacted these organisations for comment. Genius Within had not responded at the time of publication.

No Drama Llamas refuted the suggestion it classifies ME as a “developmental neurodivergent condition”. It  stated that it fully recognises ME:

as a complex, multi-systemic, and acquired neuroimmune condition, as supported by research such as the DecodeME study.

However, it told the Canary that:

while the biological causes of ME/CFS and developmental neurodivergence (like ADHD or Autism) differ, there is a widely recognised and evidence-based overlap in how these conditions present cognitively in the workplace. Emerging clinical literature highlights that neuroinflammation—often mediated by immune and autonomic responses, including Mast Cell Activation—frequently drives cognitive challenges in ME/CFS patients, such as severe executive dysfunction, reduced processing speed, and “brain fog.”

Because of this profound overlap in cognitive impact, our approach utilises the ‘Taxonomy of Neurodiversity’ (Dr Nancy Doyle, BPS) and the concept of a “spiky profile” (an uneven distribution of cognitive strengths and challenges). We are not stating that an ME/CFS patient has a developmental neurodivergence; rather, we recognise that neuroimmune inflammation can chronically or temporarily alter executive functioning. This creates a functional cognitive profile that benefits greatly from similar workplace strategy coaching used for neurodivergent individuals.

Creased Puddle told the Canary that since December 2025, it has stopped offering its services to people living with ME. According to organisation’s PR consultant, this was following an “internal quality review” where it:

made the decision that our offering to Access to Work would only be for individuals whose grant was primarily as a result of challenges related to Autism, ADHD or a Specific Learning Difference and we notified ATW assessors on the 19th December 2025 of this change.

Reflecting a ‘wider systemic problem’

The undercover conversations the Canary had with these organisations gave us the impression that coaches were genuine in their desire to support people with ME. Nevertheless, it was patently clear none were qualified to actually do so.

And of course, it’d be remiss not to recognise that their businesses will of course profit from providing this coaching. The DWP’s AtW scheme is essentially subsidising their services for employers with workers living with ME.

On reading our findings, Sally Callow, founder of ME training organisation Stripy Lightbulb CIC that runs ME-informed sessions for employers and healthcare professionals, told the Canary that:

This situation reflects a wider systemic problem: there is currently no requirement for organisations providing workplace support to have any training or understanding of ME/CFS. Without basic, evidence‑based knowledge of this complex neurological disease, it is unsurprising that some providers are misclassifying M.E./C.F.S. or offering approaches that are inappropriate, but also potentially harmful, for people living with the condition.

Improved M.E./C.F.S. education across government departments, assessment bodies, and commissioned services is essential. A consistent and accurate understanding of the condition would prevent unsuitable referrals and ensure that people with M.E./C.F.S. receive support that aligns with current biomedical evidence rather than assumptions or outdated models.

The investigation raises serious concerns about the types of support available to employees living with ME. In spite of its long delays and numerous accessibility issues, the DWP’s AtW is currently the only scheme for helping chronically ill people returning to or staying in work.

However, it seems that what that support looks like for employees with ME could very well be more gaslighting and psychologising interventions that treat them like malingerers: not the extremely ill and disabled people they really are.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

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The post How woke enabled the monster of Southport appeared first on spiked.

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There are growing indications that the 2026 World Cup, scheduled to be held in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, is facing a series of challenges even before its official start, amid concerns about transportation costs, logistical procedures, and rising prices in the host cities.

This latest furore comes as fans are still reeling from the extortionate cost of tickets.

Al Jazeera reported that several American cities hosting matches are considering raising public transportation fares on match days, given the expected heavy strain on transportation networks due to the influx of fans.

In New York City, estimates suggest that a round-trip ticket between Manhattan and MetLife Stadium could cost more than $100, compared to less than $13 under normal circumstances—a significant increase reflecting the scale of the operational and security burdens associated with the event.

According to The Athletic, the heavy use of the transportation network during the tournament, which includes eight matches at the same stadium, including the final scheduled for July 19, could raise operating costs to approximately $48 million. This has prompted local authorities to request financial assistance from FIFA.

World Cup inaccessible

In the same vein, New York Governor Kathy Hochwell expressed her dissatisfaction with what she described as “outrageously high” prices, emphasizing the need to ensure the tournament remains “accessible and affordable” for fans.

In Boston, local estimates indicate that round-trip transportation tickets to the stadium could cost as much as $80, nearly four times the usual price, reinforcing concerns that attending the World Cup could become an additional financial burden for fans.

Between infrastructure pressures and high organizational costs, the organizers of the 2026 World Cup face an early test, months before kickoff, to ensure a balance between the success of the global event and its accessibility to fans.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alaa Shamali

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Q Manivannan is a Scottish Greens candidate for Edinburgh and Lothians East. They’re standing in the Scottish Parliamentary election on 7 May 2026. On the Edinburgh Greens website, Q describes themself as a “queer, Tamil immigrant” aiming to bring a “politics of care and compassion” to Holyrood.

And, what really caught our eye was this line in their profile:

Scottish Greens and transphobia

I opted to get the least pleasant question out of the way first. One of the first things I noticed when researching for the interview was that a lot of Scottish anti-trans groups are very het up about Q’s candidacy. When I asked how they felt about this, the replied:

 It feels like I’m doing a good thing by pissing off the right people

Q is trans, and Scotland has been an epicenter of transphobic lawfare in recent years. It was pressure group For Women Scotland that was behind last year’s transphobic Supreme Court ruling, for instance. However, we talked about that ‘For Women’ claim failing to include cis women who stand alongside the trans community. Q said:

We’ve seen such solidarity from our cis women comrades. We’ve seen such incredible warmth. I’ve been held by them after I faced assault and multiple other kinds of violence, and I was nursed back to health by my lesbian friends.

They also mentioned the pledges within the Scottish Greens manifesto to stand by the trans community. These include banning conversion therapy, ensuring access to healthcare, and stamping out transphobic hate crimes.

We talked about the fact that women’s, trans and immigrants’ rights are bound together. After all, the political forces oppressing us are often one and the same. Q recalled that:

There was a speech at Trans Pride a couple of weeks ago that said that ‘trans’ doesn’t just mean transgender but also transnational, in the sense that our bodies and our identities don’t stop at a checkpoint, are not bounded by structures that do not serve us.

‘Exactly what Scotland is dealing with right now’

Given that it’s the “island of friends” line that piqued our interest, I also asked Q about how their immigrant status influenced their politics. They were clearly pleased with the opportunity to talk about their Tamil heritage.

Coming from a lower-caste background in Tamil Nadu, the southern state of India, they told me that the state’s politics “always had strong resistance tones”. Q also spoke with admiration about Indian politician B. R. Ambedkar, who was born to the Dalit caste, and campaigned tirelessly against ‘untouchability’:  

I continue to call myself a queer Tamil immigrant because we come from a background of people like Ambedkar, who are directly oriented to a politics that is all inclusive, that has ecological justice.

This has been going on for decades, a conversation where ecological justice is directly tied to battling the caste system, to making sure that people’s circumstances are not dictated by wider capitalist systems, which is, I think, exactly what Scotland is dealing with right now as well. Even if we don’t call it a caste system, you have individuals relegated to particular work, along with their families – it’s a generational thing.

That point about inclusive politics alongside ecological justice certainly aligns with the Scottish Greens’ messaging. Likewise, Q’s profile states that care for struggling people and care for the environment are “one and the same”.

Given that these interconnected struggles are close to our hearts at the Canary, I asked Q to say more. As an illustration, they used the example of the US/Israeli war on Iran:

That is not just a matter of genocide, but it’s also about emissions. It’s also about the environment being directly affected by acts like a Scottish government-owned airport being used to commit large-scale murder and being used to enable a genocide.

‘A litmus test’

They went on to speak more broadly about the replication of this same pattern across the world:

I think the Greens have just gotten frustrated to the point of realizing that every single thing that we’re dealing with in terms of the ecology is tied into imperialism, is tied into Western colonialism, and it’s tied to the space that we have right now.

Addressing that seems to be the key. Honestly, convincing people of that on the doorstep feels like it’s never been easier, because I think the right wing lines of, ‘oh, this is just social justice’ – like it’s a bad word – is starting to fail horribly, because everyone else is feeling the effects as well, not just the minorities.

Speaking of imperialism, we of course got to chatting about solidarity with the Palestine solidarity movement. Q told me that the Scottish Greens’ Palestine Solidarity Group was the reason they joined the party in the first place. They explained:

For me, it was a litmus test to show that  the Greens are happy to be in a place that they can express unpopular views and unpopular policies if it meant be doing the right thing.

‘An excellent case study’

Jumping off that point about doing the right thing, our conversation moved on to the topic of prison abolition. Both the Canary and the Scottish Greens support prison abolition policies, but the subject can often be hard to broach with an unfamiliar audience. Q laughed at that, and said:

the focus always tends to be on this idea that if the Greens are elected into Parliament, that on the first day, we’re going to declare that all prisons are gone for good, and then that’s it.

They stressed that abolition needs to be evidence-based, that it shouldn’t be rushed. However, Q also spoke of both prison reform and abolition as “one and the same”, with prison reform creating a society in which abolition is possible. They explained that:

Scotland in particular is an excellent case study, because you have regions already in small areas where the crime is almost nil, where people leave their doors unlocked, where the police have barely any job to do. It’s still possible to have spaces like that, except it’s only some parts that have that privilege, and other parts of Scotland have to struggle, especially the poorer parts.

So when we’re speaking of the idea of prison abolition, it’s not simply about getting rid of prisons, but of making it a society where we move towards this kind of ideal.

The threat of Reform

As we reached the end of our interview time, I asked if there were any other burning issues Q wanted to address. Unsurprisingly, given the stakes of the upcoming election, they brought up the rise of the far right and Reform UK.

In particular, Q (quite rightly) derided the idea that Reform was in any way a party of the working public. They didn’t mince words, either:

there is a global authoritarian movement rising, and that it is not one that is led by working people – it is directly millionaire- and billionaire-funded. When they say cut taxes, they mean cutting taxes for the rich. When they say we need to drill the North Sea, it means lining the the pockets of more rich billionaires.

Q also talked about the tactics used by the likes of Reform, and how to counter them. Bringing things full circle, we came back to that all-important politics of care:

The ways in which they’re reaching their audiences are through money, they’re through targeted media and social media towards forms of politics that are directly oriented around systemic sabotage, and that is exactly what we need to counter with this politics of care.

We left off on an ambivalent note. We’d talked a lot about our shared trans identities, and the concerted attacks on community. Likewise, Q’s immigration politics are also informed directly by their own lived experience, with all the fears that brings. They told me that:

I’m scared, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t, but I think being scared drives us to feel a sort of urgency – it’s going to be an interesting next few years.

That rings true for me, and I’m sure it will be be the same for a lot of readers. The only way we, as a society, can move past the politics of fear – feeling fear, inflicting fear – is through solidarity and care for one another.

That applies to our politicians just as it does to the rest of us – and it’s heartening to speak to a candidate who recognises that.

Featured image via Edinburgh and West Lothian Greens

By Alex/Rose Cocker

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A former MI5 worker will be sectioned indefinitely, a court has decided. Jurors heard how he leaked secrets to an unnamed foreign state. Juan Joseph, an IT worker for the UK’s internal security agency, reportedly emailed secret information during a mental health episode.

The National reported that Joseph:

even travelled overseas attempting to arrange a meeting at an embassy there as he pursued a complaint against MI5.

The paper said:

Jurors at the Old Bailey took less than an hour to find Joseph not guilty by reason of insanity after a week-long trial.

Joseph is being held indefinitely under:

under sections 37 and 41 of the Mental Health Act at a disposal hearing at the Old Bailey.

The accused made a range of claims against MI5:

about racist treatment and “highly disturbing” claims, including rape, child abuse, and torture, jurors were told.

The National reported that these claims were “unfounded”.

Closed door trials

The judge ordered the trial to be held behind closed doors:

 in the absence of the public and press to “avoid the risk of damage to national security”.

The National reported:

Before the jury were invited to retire to consider their verdicts, they were told that experts agreed the defendant was in the grip of mental illness to the extent that Joseph did not think he was doing anything wrong.

The details of the case that have emerged into the public domain are remarkable:

Joseph also claimed a swastika had been put up in the office and he was injected with a hypodermic needle containing something that made him “very poorly” while at Thames House, MI5’s headquarters.

He made contact with the foreign state in 2024 after a bid to bring a private prosecution for assault in 2019 was rejected.

Joseph also applied to the High Court for a judicial review

and began copying an email linked to the foreign state in to his communications.

The court heard that Joseph flew to Latvia in 2024 and attempted to contact a foreign embassy there. He was arrested on his return to Gatwick and refused to give up his passwords saying he was an MI5 officer.

On January 13 2025, Joseph copied in a foreign state in another email complaining about his treatment by police at Gatwick Airport.

On his arrest at an Ibis Hotel on January 30 2025, he maintained he was an “armed MI5 officer” and a lock knife was found in his pocket.

A search of his home later turned up:

a homemade card falsely identify him as an MI5 officer.

He also claimed in a police interview to be an MI5 spy and protested his innocence while claiming to have passed a lie detector test.

At one point, Joseph claimed to be:

a black belt in taekwondo with training in ninja-style knife and sword techniques at Thames House and was allowed to carry a blade for “defence”.

The court acquitted Joseph of all charges on grounds of “insanity”. He will remain in Broadmoor hospital indefinitely. He was arrested in 2022 on similar charges.

The Brits increasingly use secretive trials. As the Justice Gap reported in 2020, the practice of Closed Material Proceedings:

may relate to minutes of discussions between government officials and the security services. Often, it pertains to sensitive or classified intelligence information/evidence gathered and relied on by the security services (MI5, MI6, GCHQ).

Adding

Intelligence has naturally evolved over the years as technology has advanced, but it might include: human sources, intercepted communications, surveillance techniques, or location intelligence.

Joseph reportedly worked in IT in various roles over a decade.

MI5 was recently found to have lied in court in a separate case involving a machete-wielding Neo-Nazi agent who fantasised about eating children. MI5 compensated one of his victims. The service eventually apologised, but only after their wrongdoing was exposed.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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Another gaping hole has opened up in the supposedly ‘open and shut’ case against Tyler Robinson, the alleged killer of murdered US far-right activist Charlie Kirk.

Tyler Robinson

Kirk, who had begun to turn against Israel and refused approaches from Israel lobbyists just before his death, was murdered as he answered public questions in Utah. Footage from the FBI claims to show Tyler Robinson escaping shows an unrecognisable figure on a rooftop – with no gun. Robinson was then supposedly arrested in the woods with the gun. Court filings at the end of March 2026 then stated that the bullet does not even match the gun Robinson supposedly used.

The issues with the gun and with video and other evidence have led to huge speculation that Robinson is just an Oswald-type patsy. But the FBI claimed to have found a note under Robinson’s keyboard in the flat he shared with his lover, written in very atypical language for someone of Robinson’s age. And Robinson, under the handle “zealous_monkey_55095”, allegedly sent messages to friends on a ‘Discord’ chat server, confessing to Kirk’s murder. He had “bad news”, he wrote. Then he continued:

it was me at UVU yesterday. Im sorry for all of this. im surrendering through a sheriff friend in a few moments. thanks for all the good times and laughs, you’ve all been so amazing. thank you all for everything.

But the FBI’s timeline has fallen apart.

The timeline

In the public official narrative, Tyler Robinson turned himself in – after his father called a police officer friend – just before 9pm local time on 11 September 2025, a day after Kirk died. At the same time, 8.57pm, as he then supposedly sat for 2-2.5 hours in a custody suite waiting to be seen he wrote the Discord confession messages.

But documents released as part of attempts by Robinson’s lawyers to have cameras excluded from Robinson’s trial, completely overturn that narrative. One particular document, tagged as “Discovery Bates 000007”, shows that Robinson was already in custody and being reminded of his ‘Miranda’ rights at 6.25pm – more than two and a half hours earlier than the FBI has claimed:

In other words, Tyler Robinson’s phone would already have been taken away from him. So who sent the Discord messages?

As the Prospect notes, law enforcement officials have tried to claim that the interrogation was actually happening a day later, at 6.25pm on 12 September and that this explains away the time discrepancy. But this doesn’t fit with the evidence of the note itself. Robinson told officers that the lawyer he wanted to speak to was “closed for the night”. Friday 12 September 2025 was a Friday night, which would mean the office would have been closed for the weekend, but on 11 September would have been closed just until the morning.

What is going on?

The Washington County sheriff’s department repeatedly blocked public records requests filed by Salt Lake media for surveillance camera footage of Tyler Robinson entering and/or being held inside county police headquarters, which would have shown exactly when he was taken into custody. At first it claimed that Robinson had arrived at the building via a different entrance than the one mentioned in the request, then said the footage had been destroyed.

A former Utah prosecutor told the Prospect the timeline discrepancies are “a big problem for the prosecution”, particularly when combined with the missing footage and the recent resignation of the county sheriff over:

allegations that he had interfered in the investigation of another deputy who was charged in November on four counts of “unlawfully accessing, using, disclosing or disseminating criminal investigation records [in a different case].”

A bigger problem still if the bullet ballistics don’t match. Indeed, a huge problem.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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