MI5

7/7 inquests: MI5 'not responsible for attack'

Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Sidque Khan photographed by MI5, 2004

MI5's chief of staff has told the 7 July inquests that the security service cannot be held responsible for the 2005 London suicide attacks.

Giving evidence anonymously, Witness G said the agency had no inkling of what was to hit London and every member of the service felt profound regret.
It would be "nonsensical and offensive" to suggest MI5 bore any responsibility for the 52 deaths, the officer said.
Families of the bereaved were in court to see Witness G give evidence.
Four suicide bombers detonated their devices on three Tube trains and a double-decker bus on 7 July 2005.
Many of the relatives of those who died want to know why those under surveillance were not subjected to detailed scrutiny.
'No guarantees'
Witness G, who acts as chief of staff for the service's director general Jonathan Evans, said he had spent between three and four months preparing for the inquests, carefully reviewing what MI5 knew about the bombers before they attacked.
The inquests have already heard that the ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan appeared on the periphery of another investigation, codenamed Crevice, in 2004 - but the security service concluded at the time he was not a threat to the UK.
It also heard how counter-terrorism officers watched, photographed and followed another of the suicide bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, during the same inquiry into the group of extremists planning a fertiliser bomb attack.
Questioned by Hugo Keith QC, counsel to the inquests, Witness G briefly outlined the scale of the threats to the UK during 2004 and 2005.
Mr Keith said: "The security service had no inkling of what was going to befall London?"
"On 7th July 2005, that is correct," said Witness G. "It would be nonsensical and offensive."
Witness G said there were "no guarantees" in national security because the security service could not foil all of the attacks all of the time.
Mr Keith said: "I understand that the security service says... that the service cannot be held responsible for causing or contributing to the attacks?"
Witness G replied: "That is correct."
Mr Keith went on: "And you reject the assertion that there were significant intelligence failings?"

Witness G replied: "I do."

Asked if lessons had been learnt from the follow-up of Crevice which was not "quite as thorough" as it might have been, Witness G said: "Not just Crevice, I think we learnt lessons from a number of operations between 2004 and 2005."
MI5 chiefs have previously told the Intelligence and Security Committee that in late 2004, their officers had an enormous workload because of massive growth in al-Qaeda-linked plots.
Witness G said this workload, revealed in documents to the inquest, meant the service was forced to "prioritise ruthlessly", and could only pin down the "crocodiles nearest the boat" rather than follow up every individual potential lead.
MI5 had received intelligence in early 2005 about a committed extremist called "Saddique" from Batley, West Yorkshire, who spent two months doing military training after travelling to Pakistan in 2001, the inquest heard.
Witness G was asked if MI5's system at the time allowed officers to collate the references to a suspect called Sidique, and he replied: "They could have done.
But he said the search was "still a long way from perfect on common names". He said the name Sidique was a common name for MI5.
In a bugged conversation, Sidique Khan was also heard discussing travelling to Pakistan to fight jihad with fertiliser bomb plot ringleader Omar Khyam in February 2004, although police only established it was Khan's voice on the tape after the 7 July attacks.
Mr Keith said: "Now that sort of tape would cause alarm bells to ring perhaps somewhat louder than had been the case in February 2004?"
Witness G said: "Yes, it would, but again within the context of if a major operation were running, it might need to be put to one side."
MI5 also received information in April 2004 from Mohammed Junaid Babar - a former terrorist who became a supergrass - that two men from West Yorkshire called "Ibrahim" and "Zubair" had travelled to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan the previous year.
Babar was shown surveillance pictures of Khan and Tanweer in August 2004 but failed to identify them, and it was only confirmed after the 7/7 attacks that "Ibrahim" was Khan.

Witness G was asked why a photograph of Tanweer but not one of Khan - known only at the time as "unidentified man E" - was shown to Babar in April 2004.

He replied: "I can only speculate here because we don't know exactly why.
"The judgement we formed was that the cropped photograph of man E was probably such poor quality it wasn't worth showing, but I don't have any contemporaneous record documentation."
Last month, the coroner Lady Justice Hallett granted a request from Home Secretary Theresa May for Witness G to give evidence anonymously.
But she refused to rule that the witness should be screened from the families of those who died.
The attacks were carried out by suicide bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Germaine Lindsay, 19.
They targeted Tube trains at Aldgate, Edgware Road and Russell Square and a bus in Tavistock Square.

UK Clocks to be brought forward?

Plan to bring UK clocks forward

The move would mean darker summer mornings but lighter evenings

Longer evenings could move a step closer with a government plan to move UK clocks forward an extra hour.

A "tourism strategy" will include a plan to move the clocks in line with most of Europe, bringing lighter evenings but darker mornings.
Tourism chiefs and safety campaigners support the move, but there are fears in Scotland about road accidents.
Ministers want to be satisfied the country backs the plan before giving the go-ahead.
Last year, Prime Minister David Cameron indicated he was willing to consider a switch.
"The argument will be won when people across the country feel comfortable with the change," he said in August.
"It's up to those who want to make the change to make the argument to try to convince people right across the country that it's a good thing.
"People who like taking part in sporting activity and would like longer days are already quite easy to sway. That's the key to winning this argument."
The proposals will be published by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in the coming week.
Three-year trial
Bringing the clocks forward by one hour would bring the UK into line with Central European Time (CET), which is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) plus one hour.
It would mean, for instance, that instead of the sun rising in Newcastle-upon-Tyne at 0714 GMT and setting at 1723 GMT, as it does at this time of year, it would rise at 0814 GMT and set at 1623 GMT.
Tourism bosses say the number of overseas visitors would increase if summer evenings were lighter and they estimate the benefits to the economy could total billions of pounds.
But there have been fears expressed in Scotland that putting the clocks forward would increase road accidents in the darker mornings.
A parliamentary bill requiring the government to conduct analysis of the costs and benefits of shifting the clocks forward received MPs' initial approval in December.
A three-year experiment to keep BST all year took place between 1968 and 1971, but was not made permanent.

Bow-ness Monster

New photo of 'English Nessie' hailed as best yet

Pictures of a mysterious creature surfacing from Lake Windermere have been hailed as the best ever sighting of the 'English Loch Ness Monster', or "Bownessie". 

This is believed to be the eighth sighting of a long humpbacked creature, known by local residents as 'Bownessie', in the past last five years 

The photograph, which shows an object with three humps breaching the surface of the lake, is said to be the best evidence yet of what some claim is a monster lurking beneath the depths.

It was taken on a camera phone by Tom Pickles, 24, while kayaking on the lake as part of a team building exercise with his IT company, CapGemini, last Friday.

Mr Pickles said he saw an animal the size of three cars speed past him on the lake and watched it for about 20 seconds.

He said: “It was petrifying and we paddled back to the shore straight away. At first I thought it was a dog and then saw it was much bigger and moving really quickly at about 10mph.

“Each hump was moving in a rippling motion and it was swimming fast.

“Its skin was like a seal’s but it’s shape was completely abnormal – it’s not like any animal I’ve ever seen before."
This is believed to be the eighth sighting of a long humpbacked creature – known by local residents as "Bownessie" – in the past last five years.
Mr Pickles’ companion Sarah Harrington, 23, said: “It was like an enormous snake.
“I only saw it for a few seconds but all I could think about was that I had to get off the lake.”
The pair were on the last day of a team building residential training course at Fallbarrow Hall, Bowness, Cumbria.
They said they had kayaked 300m out into the lake near Belle Isle when they spotted the beast to the south.
Mr Pickles's picture perfectly matches the description of an earlier sighting from the shores of Wray Castle in 2006 by journalism lecturer Steve Burnip.
He said: “I’m really pleased that someone has finally got a really good picture of it.
“I know what I saw and it shocked me, it had three humps and it’s uncanny the likeness between this and what I saw five years ago.”
Photo expert David Farnell of Farnell’s photographic laboratory in Lancaster said: “It does look like a real photo but because it’s been taken on a phone the file size is too small to really tell whether it has been altered on Photoshop or not.”
Sceptics remain unconvinced that something so large could exist in the 11 mile long lake.
Dr Ian Winfield, a lake ecologist at the University of Lancaster, said: “It’s possible that it’s a catfish from Eastern Europe and people are misjudging the size but there is no known fish as large as the descriptions we’re hearing that could be living in Windermere.
“We run echo sounding surveys every month and have never found anything new".

Our Woodlands

Woodland Trust campaign continues

Whilst welcoming Government intentions to abandon plans for disposal of public forests, the campaign to protect and restore England’s ancient forests must go on, warns the Woodland Trust. Commenting on the decision, Sue Holden chief executive of the Trust said, “We welcome the opportunity for a more considered approach to the future of our much loved woodlands but our campaign continues. "Whilst we welcome the removal of threats to public access,  there is still an acute need for better protection of Ancient Woodland, our equivalent of the rainforests, and restoration of ancient woods planted with conifers. "Even if there are no sales of publicly owned forests, the worst of all worlds would be for there to be no change to the loopholes that have allowed 850 ancient woods to be threatened by built development over the past decade.  "Ministers have made strong commitments over the past few weeks to increase protection for ancient woods, and we will be holding them to these commitments.”