Tag: scotland

Sharp Rise in Facial Recognition Use by Scottish Police, UK Protest Footage Scanned

The police in Scotland have tripled the use of retrospective facial recognition over the last five years jumping from just under 1,300 in 2018 to nearly 4,000 in 2022.

The rising trend has continued during 2023 with more than 2,000 searches carried out in the first four months of the year, according to data obtained by a freedom of information request by UK investigative journalism organizations Liberty Investigates and The Ferret.

The trend has been rising in other parts of the country. In 2014, the total number of searches using retrospective facial recognition by all police forces in the UK amounted to just 3,360. By 2022, that number jumped to 85,158, according to UK Home Office data.

The Scottish police ranks fourth in the use of the technology in the UK. The leader is the London Metropolitan Police which accounted for 30 percent or 27,677 searches last year.

The UK police have been using retrospective facial recognition to match faces captured with CCTV cameras with millions of images stored in the Police National Database. The practice has proved controversial as the database still contains many images of people who were released without charge.

Police in Scotland operate a distinct policy from other UK forces, only uploading custody images to the database once an individual has been charged with a crime and removing images of those found innocent after 6 months.

Facial recognition use by the police has been a target of criticism from some lawmakers, non-governmental organizations and policy experts.

Keep reading

Abuse trial told ‘witches pointed wands’ at child

Eleven people are on trial at the High Court in Glasgow accused of sexually abusing a number of children and causing them to participate in seances to communicate with spirits and demons.

They deny all the charges against them.

The children were said to have made allegations to a man who took notes and then sent them to police and social workers.

The man said he had got to know the children through his work and church and often saw them with his wife.

The girl, who would have been of pre-school age at the time of the alleged abuse, is one of a number of complainers who are aged under 13.

She was alleged to have said in her statement to the man: “I didn’t like it when all the witches pointed their wands at me.”

The older alleged victims said there was a large group of witches and wizards in a room who put a spell on the girl every day to make her a different animal.

They were also said to have claimed that a line of people blew drug smoke onto the girl’s face.

According to the man, the girl also alleged that she had been locked in a cupboard and trapped in an oven and a fridge freezer.

In his notes, the man said that the older children helped her to get out of the oven.

He also wrote that the older children said they adjusted the temperature of the fridge when the child was not in it so it was not too cold as it happened so often.

Keep reading

Scottish Govt Axes 16 Million Trees To Clear Way For ‘Greener’ Solutions

Since 2000, the Scottish government has felled around 1,700 trees on a daily basis, all to make way for “green” initiatives. Leave it to the government and their leftist abettors to harp on the “destruction of the environment” then chop down literal trees to create barren wastelands—all to make room for obtrusive, industrial, inanimate behemoths that obliterate all sorts of animal populations, and create massive amounts of environmental pollution (in production, maintenance, and disposal).

According to an article by Frank Bergman and posted to Slay News yesterday, the Scottish government’s scheme of systematic deforestation was implemented to “meet the goals” of the climate agenda. Is that not one of the most ludicrous and asinine things you’ve ever heard? Or perhaps, the move is right in line with the climate agenda, because the goal isn’t environmentalism… but rather communistic destruction?

From Bergman:

A Scottish government official has admitted that almost 16 million trees have been cut down in Scotland to make way for ‘green energy’ farms.

The trees were growing on public land and were chopped down so the land could be used for wind turbines.

The admission was made by Scotland’s Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon, a member of the ruling left-wing Scottish National Party (SNP).

She estimated that 15.7 million trees had been cut down since 2000 on land currently managed by Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS).

Bergman also reported that Gougeon said:

‘Where woodland is removed in association with development, developers will generally be expected to provide compensatory planting in order to avoid a net loss of woodland.’

“Generally”? Seems rather vague and subjective; unsurprisingly, “No information has yet been provided regarding any trees that were ‘replanted,’ however.”

Keep reading

Bronze age ritual cemetery discovered at planned spaceport in Shetland

A bronze age ritual cremation cemetery has been discovered by archaeologists working at a planned spaceport in Scotland.

The discovery was made at the SaxaVord spaceport site on the Lamba Ness peninsula in Unst, Shetland while foundation work was carried out.

It is believed the remains are from a bronze age ritual cremation cemetery after pits, large boulders and cremations were uncovered alongside a quartz setting, which is generally associated with prehistoric burial tombs.

Excavation is still in its early stages, but archaeologists believe the remains date to between 2200-1800 BC.

The discovery will offer archaeologists a fresh opportunity to study prehistoric inhabitants of Shetland, and will not hold back the development of the spaceport.

Shetland’s regional archaeologist, Dr Val Hunter, said: “I’ve always suspected that some of Shetland’s rings of boulders and low stones found could in fact be bronze age cremation cemeteries, so it is hugely exciting to be proved right.

“The bronze age is perhaps the period of Shetland’s past which we know least about and this is a wonderful opportunity to change that. With the modern techniques available now, we can potentially find out far more about the individuals who lived and died here than we could have discovered even 20 years ago.

“Hats off to the archaeologists from AOC who spotted this in the watching brief.”

The discovery was welcomed by SaxaVord chief executive Frank Strang, who said the spaceport would work with archaeologists in their excavation.

Keep reading

The War on Drugs Has Failed And It’s Time to Decriminalise, Scotland Says

The Scottish government wants to legalise drug possession for personal use and potentially the entire drug market as part of a massive change in the way addiction is tackled. 

Scottish ministers want to reform drug laws to enable people with drug problems to be better supported instead of being criminalised. They want to address record drug death rates in the country, which are 15 times more likely to affect the poorest 20 percent, and are the highest in Europe. 

Currently the Scottish government, led by the Scottish National Party with the Scottish Greens, has no power to change the laws in this way. VICE News has contacted the UK Home Office for a response to the proposals.

In 2021 the crisis prompted a £250m investment by the Scottish government into the country’s addiction services, with former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon admitting her government had “failed” every person who had died as a result of drug addiction.

A policy paper outlining the plans published Friday, entitled A Caring, Compassionate and Human Rights Informed Drug Policy for Scotland, called for the decriminalisation of personal drug possession, the expansion of harm reduction tools such as heroin assisted treatment, supervised drug consumption facilities and drug checking, and a roadmap to explore legal regulation of drugs. 

“We want to create a society where problematic drug use is treated as a health, not a criminal matter, reducing stigma and discrimination and enabling the person to recover and contribute positively to society,” said Scotland’s drugs policy minister Elena Whitham. 

She said that as a strategy to reduce drug use, “the global war on drugs has failed in its objectives”.

“To improve and save lives, we must be innovative, bold and radical. We are clear that nothing should be considered off the table. We must start by recognising that no country, anywhere in the world, has succeeded in eliminating drug use. A fairer, safer and healthier country must care about all its citizens and be inclusive of those with health conditions such as drug dependence.”

In order to achieve these objectives, which Witham said were supported by the public, the UK government needed to change its half a century old drug laws to enable Scotland “to appropriately tailor policy decisions to our unique challenges”.  

The paper said decriminalising small amounts of drugs for personal use “could provide a framework within which we can better pursue our existing policies to help, treat and support people rather than criminalise, stigmatise and fail them”.

Keep reading

The ghosts in Scotland that ’emerge in June’ including phantom piper and hounds

With summer having now truly begun, you may think that spooky season is many months away.

However, just because the sun is shining and the temperature is rising, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t unexplained phenomena occurring. June in particular is said to see many creepy occurrences each year in and around Scotland.

From spooky castles to historic city pubs, no matter where you are in the country, you aren’t likely to be far from somewhere said to have a supernatural presence. In June, however, it is the site of an old Angus farm and a ruined Borders tower that you are most likely to experience strange goings on.

The Paranormal Database has compiled a list of the ghosts across Scotland that are believed to come out only during the sixth month of the year.

Read on for a summary of some of the spirits that you may see this month in Scotland if you’re in the right place at the right time.

Keep reading

Satanic child abuse ring shut victims in oven, forced them to kill animals and filmed themselves gang raping them, court hears

A satanic child abuse ring tortured children by putting them in an oven, forcing them to kill animals and gang raping them, a court has heard.

Seven men and four women are accused of abusing three young children over the course of 10 years in Glasgow which saw them attempt to ‘call on spirits and demons’. 

Two girls – one of whom was allegedly shut in a microwave, fridge, oven and freezer in an attempted to kill her – and one boy were forced to kill animals as well as being sexually abused by the group, it is claimed.

Members of the group have been charged with 43 offences with among the most serious being attempted murder and rape of young children.

Iain Owens, 44, Elaine Lannery, 38, Lesley Williams, 41, Paul Brannan, 40, Marianne Gallagher, 38, Scott Forbes, 49, Barry Watson, 46, Mark Carr, 49, Richard Gachagan, 45, Leona Laing, 50, and John Clark, 46, all deny the offences.

Four other people alleged to have been involved in the ring –  Maureen Goudie, Steven McHendrie, Robert Brown, James McLean and Douglas Gachagan – have since died, according to court papers.

The High Court in Glasgow was told on Friday that the offences took place between January 2010 and March 2020 at a number of addresses in the city.

The group are alleged to have run a wheelchair over the legs of one of the girls, as well as putting a plastic bag over her head.

It’s claimed she was made to eat cat food, as well as take drugs and alcohol, with the other girl also made to eat pet food.

The second girl was allegedly chased by an adult wearing a devil mask and hung by her jumper from a nail on the wall. 

This culminated with her being pushed into and trapped inside a microwave, an oven, a fridge freezer and various cupboards, the court heard.

It is claimed one of the girls was threatened with being sent to Turkey with a male stranger, while the boy was put in a bath which they said was filled with blood. 

The boy and older girl are alleged to have been made to take part in ‘seances (and) use a Ouija board…to call on spirits and demons’.

The children were also involved in ‘witchcraft’ leading them to believe that they themselves had ‘metamorphosed into animals’.

The 11 are further said to have worn cloaks and devil horns as well making the young boy stab a budgie to death.

The group are also accused of killing a number of dogs including getting the children to attack the animals.

It is claimed that all three children were raped and sexually assaulted by members of the ring, with some cheering and clapping while recording the offences.

Prosecutors allege that some members of the group paid for ‘sexual services’ from three of the children.

The court heard that when the older girl called the police she was threatened by members of the group and had her call disconnected. 

Keep reading

Anger as EU project sees Police Scotland rebrand paedophiles as ‘Minor-Attracted People’

A controversial move to label paedophiles as “Minor-Attracted People” in a top-level report has been defended by Police Scotland, with the force suggesting the EU was to blame.

Chief Constable Iain Livingstone’s annual year end report refers to child abusers as Minor-Attracted People (MAPs). The move comes amid wider concerns by campaigners over what they see as attempts to rebrand paedophilia as a harmless sexual preference.

A spokesman for the force stressed that MAPs is not a term they routinely use to describe child abusers and said that its use in the report had to be understood in context.

He explained that the reference to MAPs was in relation to the force’s engagement with the European Union‘s Horizon Europe Project – Prevention of Child Sexual Exploitation.

The report states: “The project’s main agenda is to develop understanding and approach to avoid the victimisation of children by engaging Minor-Attracted People (MAPs) and providing them with the necessary support, treatment and guidance to help prevent criminal activities.”

Keep reading

FBI arrests Libyan operative charged in 1988 airline bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland

The FBI has arrested a Libyan intelligence operative suspected of making the bomb that downed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 in one of the deadliest terror attacks in history, Scottish authorities announced Sunday.

The U.S. Justice Department confirmed the arrest of Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, announcing “he is expected to make his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.”

The arrest marks a four-decade hunt for Mas’ud, who was charged with making the bomb that killed 270 passengers, including 190 Americans.

Keep reading

Holocaust denier arrested in Scottish fishing village two years after fleeing French authorities

A Holocaust denier who fled France after he was convicted under anti-Nazi laws has been arrested in a Scottish fishing village.

Vincent Reynouard, 53, was arrested in Anstruther, Fife, on Thursday after a two-year search.

He had been working as a private tutor while living under a false identity in the UK, according to French media reports.

Holocaust denial has been a criminal offence in France since 1990, and Reynouard has been convicted on numerous occasions.

He was given a four-month jail term in November 2020 and a further six-month sentence in January 2021.

Keep reading