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#LIVERPOOL - August 22nd 2022, 9 year old Olivia was shot and killed. After a trial lasting nearly 4 weeks, and following 9 hours deliberations, a jury of 10 men and 2 woman played their part in delivering justice to her family. bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod…
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Matt O'Donoghue retweeted
🔴 EXCLUSIVE: After *five-year* legal battle, Democracy for Sale has forced the government to reveal who referred firms to lucrative Covid PPE ‘VIP lane’ for 'politically connected'
30+ senior Tories are named, plus ex Duchess of York, and many more 🧵
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/revealed-mor…
30+ senior Tories are named, plus ex Duchess of York, and many more 🧵
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/revealed-mor…
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On work experience at ITV’s This Morning in the ’90s, an apartment in the newly renovated Albert Dock seemed like the ultimate in aspirational urban living. You could share the lift with Sporty Spice one day and see Robbie Fowler putting his bins out the next.
“I hate it here…living in a gilded cage.” ‘Jane’ moved into the Colonnades on Albert Dock and things were wonderful — up until spiralling service charges and a dispute over a £126K leccy bill. But why are unhappy residents struggling to move out?shorturl.at/jvwFZ
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Matt O'Donoghue retweeted
“I hate it here…living in a gilded cage.” ‘Jane’ moved into the Colonnades on Albert Dock and things were wonderful — up until spiralling service charges and a dispute over a £126K leccy bill. But why are unhappy residents struggling to move out?shorturl.at/jvwFZ
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Matt O'Donoghue retweeted
Today's HMPPS workforce stats show that on 30 June this year there was a shortfall of 1,935 FTE probation officers against the target staffing level of 7,380 FTE, a vacancy rate of 26.2%.
gov.uk/government/sta…
gov.uk/government/sta…
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Matt O'Donoghue retweeted
Napo General Secretary discussing the chronic workload crisis in probation and the impact that has on public protection. #NoConfidenceinHMPPS @Napotheunion
Whistleblowers say probation system headed for ‘disaster’ because of early release
channel4.com/news/whistlebl…
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Whistleblowers say probation system headed for ‘disaster’ because of early release – Channel 4 News channel4.com/news/whistlebl…
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Matt O'Donoghue retweeted
@andyburnham This week Andy, I sat in court again. This time to learn that the murderer of my son Conner, has earned £50k from his prison cell.
This isnt justice.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…
This isnt justice.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…
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Matt O'Donoghue retweeted
The @POAUnion have been raising concerns consistently with successive governments . Are they now prepared to listen ?
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This political mess was entirely preventable. Excluding those convicted of manslaughter, death by driving offences, rape, child sexual abuse ought to have been obvious to ministers. Victims raised concerns weeks ago - nothing was done, until now it's on newspaper front pages
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Matt O'Donoghue retweeted
0.001% TAX
A junior auditor at @PwC in Luxembourg is getting ready to leave his job. Before he goes he goes looking for some training documents to take with him.
Instead he finds a folder that anyone in the company could open. No password. No warning. Just sitting there.
secret deals between the Luxembourg government and some of the biggest companies on the planet. Deals that let them pay next to nothing in tax.
His name is Antoine Deltour. He copies 30,000 pages. That is the whole story. He copies a folder.
Let me explain what was actually in it, because this is where it gets interesting.
Between 2002 and 2010, PwC alone helped broker 548 of these secret tax agreements, known as tax rulings, for over 340 companies. Apple. Ikea. Pepsi. Disney. Deutsche Bank. AIG. Koch Industries. Skype. GlaxoSmithKline. Coach. Abbott Laboratories. Household names, every one of them.
The trick was simple. Companies moved profits through Luxembourg shell structures and Luxembourg quietly agreed in writing to look the other way on tax.
Some of these companies ended up paying an effective tax rate under 1 percent. In some cases as low as 0.001 percent. On billions of dollars.
Who was running Luxembourg for almost 20 years while this machine was built and protected? Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg until 2013.
Deltour did not leak straight to the world. In 2012 he passed the documents to French journalist Edouard Perrin, who used them for a TV documentary.
PwC noticed and filed a complaint with the Luxembourg courts. Then in November 2014, ICIJ @ICIJorg pulled together over 80 journalists across more than 30 media outlets in 26 countries and published the full scale of it as LuxLeaks.
The timing could not have been worse for Juncker, or depending how you look at it, could not have been better. He had just been elected President of the European Commission days before the story broke. The man who ran the tax haven for two decades was now running Europe.
A month later ICIJ dropped LuxLeaks 2, showing the other Big 4 accounting firms Deloitte, EY and KPMG were running the exact same playbook. This was never one bad apple. It was standard practice.
Juncker faced a no confidence vote in the European Parliament over it. He survived. Deltour was not so lucky.
December 2014, Luxembourg charges him with theft, violation of trade secrecy and fraudulent access to a computer system. He is facing up to 5 years in prison and a fine of 1,250,000 euros. For opening an unlocked folder on his way out the door.
April 2016, the criminal trial. Deltour and his colleague Raphael Halet, another former PwC employee who leaked a second batch of documents, are both convicted. Deltour gets 12 months suspended and a 1,500 euro fine. Perrin the journalist is acquitted.
Deltour appeals. Loses. Appeals again. Finally in May 2018 the Luxembourg Court of Appeal fully recognises him as a genuine whistleblower under European Court of Human Rights standards and acquits him completely.
Halet's fight took even longer. He lost his Luxembourg appeals and only won at the European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber in 2023, nearly a decade after he first spoke up.
The European Commission that Juncker went on to lead never opened a single formal investigation into a single LuxLeaks tax ruling. Not one. It did chase Starbucks, Fiat and Amazon over separate deals, but the mountain of paperwork Deltour handed over sat there untouched.
So that is the LuxLeaks story. Build a tax avoidance machine for 20 years and get promoted to run the continent. Copy the evidence of it and spend most of a decade fighting to stay out of prison.
@BBCNews · @ICIJorg · @Reuters · @lemondefr and others.
A junior auditor at @PwC in Luxembourg is getting ready to leave his job. Before he goes he goes looking for some training documents to take with him.
Instead he finds a folder that anyone in the company could open. No password. No warning. Just sitting there.
secret deals between the Luxembourg government and some of the biggest companies on the planet. Deals that let them pay next to nothing in tax.
His name is Antoine Deltour. He copies 30,000 pages. That is the whole story. He copies a folder.
Let me explain what was actually in it, because this is where it gets interesting.
Between 2002 and 2010, PwC alone helped broker 548 of these secret tax agreements, known as tax rulings, for over 340 companies. Apple. Ikea. Pepsi. Disney. Deutsche Bank. AIG. Koch Industries. Skype. GlaxoSmithKline. Coach. Abbott Laboratories. Household names, every one of them.
The trick was simple. Companies moved profits through Luxembourg shell structures and Luxembourg quietly agreed in writing to look the other way on tax.
Some of these companies ended up paying an effective tax rate under 1 percent. In some cases as low as 0.001 percent. On billions of dollars.
Who was running Luxembourg for almost 20 years while this machine was built and protected? Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg until 2013.
Deltour did not leak straight to the world. In 2012 he passed the documents to French journalist Edouard Perrin, who used them for a TV documentary.
PwC noticed and filed a complaint with the Luxembourg courts. Then in November 2014, ICIJ @ICIJorg pulled together over 80 journalists across more than 30 media outlets in 26 countries and published the full scale of it as LuxLeaks.
The timing could not have been worse for Juncker, or depending how you look at it, could not have been better. He had just been elected President of the European Commission days before the story broke. The man who ran the tax haven for two decades was now running Europe.
A month later ICIJ dropped LuxLeaks 2, showing the other Big 4 accounting firms Deloitte, EY and KPMG were running the exact same playbook. This was never one bad apple. It was standard practice.
Juncker faced a no confidence vote in the European Parliament over it. He survived. Deltour was not so lucky.
December 2014, Luxembourg charges him with theft, violation of trade secrecy and fraudulent access to a computer system. He is facing up to 5 years in prison and a fine of 1,250,000 euros. For opening an unlocked folder on his way out the door.
April 2016, the criminal trial. Deltour and his colleague Raphael Halet, another former PwC employee who leaked a second batch of documents, are both convicted. Deltour gets 12 months suspended and a 1,500 euro fine. Perrin the journalist is acquitted.
Deltour appeals. Loses. Appeals again. Finally in May 2018 the Luxembourg Court of Appeal fully recognises him as a genuine whistleblower under European Court of Human Rights standards and acquits him completely.
Halet's fight took even longer. He lost his Luxembourg appeals and only won at the European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber in 2023, nearly a decade after he first spoke up.
The European Commission that Juncker went on to lead never opened a single formal investigation into a single LuxLeaks tax ruling. Not one. It did chase Starbucks, Fiat and Amazon over separate deals, but the mountain of paperwork Deltour handed over sat there untouched.
So that is the LuxLeaks story. Build a tax avoidance machine for 20 years and get promoted to run the continent. Copy the evidence of it and spend most of a decade fighting to stay out of prison.
@BBCNews · @ICIJorg · @Reuters · @lemondefr and others.
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Matt O'Donoghue retweeted
Will try and get the video circulated tomorrow of interview on SKY News with Cathy Newman. Before I was interviewed I had listened intently to different politicians from different parties squabbling and pointing fingers at each others time in office. Let me make it clear as I did in my interview all political parties have failed the prison service and the whole criminal justice system. You reap what you sow. Steve Gillan Gen Sec
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The heartbreaking stories of families who've lost innocent loved ones to Probation Service failures - @VOICE_Families. They need an urgent investigation as more offenders are set for early release into a system more broken than ever.
voicejustice.info
voicejustice.info
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Their campaign has the support of MP's and @andyburnham seen here at Parliament with 'VOICE' Families as they call for probation reform after killings by offenders.
youtu.be/gWICKinmIYI?is… via @YouTube
youtu.be/gWICKinmIYI?is… via @YouTube
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Matt O'Donoghue retweeted
Jamaica’s sacred heartbeat
Heart and Soul
Jamaica’s revivalists keep their ancient living faith alive – blending healing, ancestry, and spirit in a tradition that is now gaining long-awaited recognition.
bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3c…
Heart and Soul
Jamaica’s revivalists keep their ancient living faith alive – blending healing, ancestry, and spirit in a tradition that is now gaining long-awaited recognition.
bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3c…
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RT @SkyNews: Police raided three properties and made nine arrests as part of a probe into allegations of sex offences involving a religious…
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RT @PoliceCrewe: Earlier today, more than 500 officers from Cheshire Police and neighbouring forces conducted three warrants in Crewe, incl…
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RT @PoliceCrewe: Officers investigating reports of several serious offences alleged to have involved members of a religious group called th…
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RT @PoliceCrewe: Officers from Cheshire Police, with support from colleagues from neighbouring forces are currently conducting a warrant at…
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What Qwert says ...
@Mjbreagan If such a ruling happens after you have already pled guilty or accepted a deal, you are likely stuck. By accepting the deal, you essentially accepted the evidence as valid and waived your right to fight it. Even if the evidence is later declared "illegal"
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