A teenager on trial for murder told a fellow inmate he would “do it again” after being accused of killing girls, a court has heard.
Hassan Sentamu, 18, allegedly murdered 15-year-old Elianne Andam, who was fatally stabbed in the neck during a row over a teddy bear outside a shopping centre in south London in September 2023.
A month after Elianne’s knife death, Sentamu got into a row with a fellow inmate in youth custody, jurors were told.
When he was accused of killing girls, Sentamu responded by saying: “I’ll do it again. I’ll do it to your mum,” the Old Bailey heard.
Image: Elianne Andam. Pic: PA
Sentamu, who was 17 at the time of the attack outside the Whitgift Centre in Croydon on 27 September 2023, has claimed his autism spectrum disorder caused him to lose control during the meeting to exchange belongings with his ex-girlfriend, who was Elianne’s friend.
The prosecution told the court on Friday that his case was built on “flimsy foundations”.
There was no evidence that autism caused Sentamu to lash out in “frenzied murderous violence”, prosecutor Alex Chalk KC said, but instead, he was annoyed over “an earlier incident of perceived disrespect”.
Mr Chalk said: “He was angry on 27 September, having brooded on the insult and he took the knife to the scene to reassert dominance.
“He exacted vengeance on a young girl clearly running away from him and posing no threat.”
Defence barrister Pavlos Panayi KC said there were “two sides of the coin” as he set out Sentamu’s case.
It was not disputed the killing was a “grotesque overreaction” to Sentamu being splashed with water during a meeting with Elianne and her friends the day before.
Mr Panayi suggested a “central issue” in the case was Sentamu’s autism history and symptoms.
Sentamu, who was studying sports science at Croydon College, has admitted manslaughter but denies Elianne’s murder and having a blade.
A Russian spy was living in a “typical seaside hotel” on the English coast crammed full of electronic surveillance equipment, a court has heard.
Orlin Roussev boasted to his controller that he was becoming like the James Bond character “Q” as he prepared his spying “toys” for kidnap and surveillance operations across Europe.
He is said to have taken instructions from a handler called Jan Marsalek, who is wanted in connection with a £1.6bn tech fraud linked to a company called Wirecard.
Roussev, 46, a Bulgarian national, has pleaded guilty to running a spy ring on behalf of the Russians, but three other members of the group deny the charges.
Image: Orlin Roussev pleaded guilty to running a spy ring on behalf of the Russians. Pic: Met Police
The Old Bailey was told a “vast” amount of technical equipment for “intrusive surveillance” was found at Roussev’s address in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, which he described in messages as his “Indiana Jones warehouse”.
The Haydee guest house on Prince’s Road had 33 rooms according to Dan Pawson-Pounds, prosecuting.
Inside three of them was a “significant amount of IT and surveillance equipment”. It was stacked up in two storage rooms and an office used by Roussev, the court was told.
The jury heard that Operation Skirp seized 3,540 exhibits from a number of addresses, including 1,650 digital exhibits, and was shown two “IMSI grabbers” – a black metal box capable of capturing mobile phone numbers from a nearby area.
Image: An IMSI grabber, which can capture mobile phone numbers from a nearby area. Pic: Duncan Gardham/MPS
Both devices were described as “law enforcement grade” and could be used to intercept or disrupt targeted mobile phone communications and to identify an individual phone by their IMSI and IMEI numbers, in conjunction with a direction-finding unit.
The spies planned to use them outside a US military base in Stuttgart, Germany, to gather information from the phones of Ukrainian servicemen who were being trained to operate Patriot missile defence batteries, the prosecution said.
The information would have allowed them to track the servicemen back to Ukraine and identify where the missiles were fired from, but the plan was foiled when the men were arrested in February last year.
Read more on the trial: Five suspected of spying for Russia charged, CPS says Spies in love triangle to be used in ‘honeytrap’ across Europe Spies plotted to kidnap Salisbury attack journalist
Image: Pic: Duncan Gardham/MPS
Gadgets with hidden cameras part of evidence
Other findings included pendant necklaces with hidden cameras, water bottles with mobile phone-linked video surveillance capability, a Pandora car key cloning device, and more traditional surveillance equipment such as night vision binoculars and mobile radios.
Image: Pic: Duncan Gardham/MPS
The spy ring’s members allegedly included Katrin Ivanova, 33, a lab assistant from Harrow, North London, Vanya Gaberova, 30, a beautician from Acton, West London, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, a painter and decorator from Enfield.
Roussev and Biser Dzhambazov – a 43-year-old man from London who is also an alleged member of the ring – have both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to collect information useful to an enemy.
Gaberova, Ivanova, and Ivanchev all deny the charges and the trial continues. All five are Bulgarian nationals with “settled status” in the UK.
More equipment – including a black cap with a concealed camera and a one-litre plastic Coke bottle with waterproof camera behind the label – was found in the lounge at a North London flat shared by Ivanova and Dzhambazov, the trial has heard.
A man has appeared in court charged with the murders of two women on Christmas Day.
Jazwell Brown, 49, is accused of killing Joanne Pearson, 38, and Teohna Grant, 24, in a suspected stabbing in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, just after 6.30pm on Wednesday.
Brown appeared in court wearing a grey tracksuit. He spoke only to confirm his name, age and address and was remanded in custody.
He did not enter a plea. He will next appear at Luton Crown Court on Tuesday.
A man and a teenage boy also suffered serious injuries in the incident but are now in a stable condition in hospital.
Initial reports said a dog was also killed in the attack, but police have now said the dog survived.
Brown, of Santa Cruz Avenue, Bletchley, has been charged with two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder.
He also faces one count each of possession of a knife blade or sharp pointed article in a public place and causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal, a Staffordshire bull terrier.
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“Removing the right to trial by jury” and “intermediate courts” may be the only way to clear the crown court backlog in England and Wales, the chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate has said.
Speaking exclusively to Sky News, Anthony Rogers says “radical action” is needed urgently.
“The number of cases waiting to be heard in the crown courts is the highest it’s ever been.
“It’s bringing significant pressure into the whole system. Those we inspect, the Crown Prosecution Service, are under the greatest pressure I’ve ever seen in 25 years of the existence of the inspectorate.
“The thing that worries me more is I can’t see an end to it. I can only see an increasing backlog.”
There are 73,105 outstanding criminal cases waiting to be dealt with in the crown courts, according to the Ministry of Justice.
Mr Rogers says: “If you’re going to fix a problem on this scale, it needs a radical solution.
“It could be anything from removing the right of election to jury trial.
“It could be looking at an intermediate court between the magistrates court and the crown court, radical could literally mean changing the way that we look at the criminal justice system.”
Image: Anthony Rogers, the chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, speaks to Sky’s Ashna Hurynag
Both suggestions are being considered under a ‘once-in-a-generation’ independent review announced by the government last week.
Former High Court judge Sir Brian Leveson is leading the major justice review in an effort to tackle the delays.
The government says “nothing is off the table” as jury trials could be scrapped for some offences and “intermediate” middle-tier courts, made up of a judge and two magistrates, are being looked at.
Both are suggestions Mr Rogers says he would support.
“If you did that you would take 20,000 or 30,000 cases out of the backlog.
“You could start by having the simplest cases in the magistrate court, the more serious cases with probably a judge and two lay members in an intermediate court and then have the crown court reserved for the most serious offences like rape, murder, manslaughter, terrorism for example. That is radical, that would solve the problem.”
‘It was like the court was a circus and he was the ringmaster’
It’s a problem Vicki Crawford knows all too well.
Ms Crawford reported historic sexual abuse to the police in 2018. She reached out to Sky News after she waited five years and eight months for her trial to go ahead.
A gruelling wait, she bravely opened up about it.
“With every hearing and every court date, I was nervous and anxious. I had a headache, I felt sick, I couldn’t sleep. The run up to it was awful. I had nightmares. In the middle of the night, I would wake up having panic attacks. I just couldn’t eat, I just felt awful.”
Image: Vicki Crawford, who has waived her right to anonymity, says her case took almost six years from reporting to sentencing
Ms Crawford’s abuser was jailed for seven years after the trial eventually went ahead in March this year.
She explained to Sky News it felt like he was profiting from the constant adjournments, while she was being tortured by it.
“It was like the court was a circus and he was the ringmaster.”
On at least one occasion the trial was adjourned because her perpetrator claimed to be unwell.
“For me, it felt like he had a lot of control over what was going on during the court process. And it was quite frustrating to watch somebody consistently say I can’t come to court today. For such a serious load of charges, I couldn’t quite understand how he was allowed to get away with that, like so many times.”
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Read more: Inside the UK’s ‘wild west’ court system Lawyers warn against more powers for magistrates Backlog of rape and sexual offences in courts ‘totally unacceptable’
As a survivor of sexual abuse, Ms Crawford is entitled to anonymity for life but told us her reason for waiving it.
“The reason I’m waiving my anonymity is because there are thousands of people just like me, look like me, talk like me, think like me, have the same experiences that I’m having in the court system. And nobody puts a face to those people, so, this is me.”
Watchdog warned of delays since 2019
Mr Rogers told Sky News that inspectors have been warning about delays since 2019.
The crisis in the criminal justice system is mirrored in almost every crown court in England and Wales.
In Leicester, Sky News spent time with barristers and court staff and observed delay after delay.
We heard from a judge so exasperated at cases being pushed back to 2026, witnessed crumbling court infrastructure, spoke to barristers fed up with constant adjournments and spoke to victims stuck in the middle.
An overhaul of the criminal justice system is coming – and for many, it can’t come soon enough.
Two female Russian spies in a love triangle were to be used as “honeytraps” in a surveillance operation on targets across Europe, run from the UK, a court has been told.
Katrin Ivanova, 33, a lab assistant, and Vanya Gaberova, 30, a beautician, were intended to be “in direct contact” with targets “as sexual bait to capture more information”, the Old Bailey heard.
They were allegedly assisted by Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, a painter and decorator from Enfield who had previously been in a relationship with Gaberova.
Bizer Dzhambazov, 43, a medical courier who has pleaded guilty to the spying conspiracy, lived with Ivanova in Harrow, northwest London, but was also having a relationship with Gaberova, who had a flat in Euston.
Image: Bizer Dzhambazov. Pic: Met Police
Alison Morgan KC, prosecuting, told the jury: “They may each, in different ways, seek to rely on these relationships to suggest that they were in some way misled, or that they were blindly following others or going around Europe simply out of love.
“The prosecution’s case is that they were all knowingly involved in this conspiracy. This is not the sort of activity that you conduct simply because of a romantic relationship.”
The spy ring was allegedly run by Orlin Roussev, 46, who lived in a guest house in Great Yarmouth and “tasked” a network of spies who included Ivanova, Gaberova, and Ivanchev.
He has also pleaded guilty to the conspiracy.
Image: Orlin Roussev. Pic: Met Police
The spy ring was allegedly directed by a Russian agent called Jan Marsalek, 43, an Austrian national who used the online alias “Rupert Ticz”.
“By gathering the information and passing it on to the Russian state, the defendants were, make no mistake, putting many lives at risk,” Ms Morgan said.
The activity is said to have taken place between 30 August 2020 and 8 February 2023 in locations including London, Vienna, Valencia, Montenegro and Stuttgart.
Each received “significant sums of money for their actions”, Ms Morgan said, and their activities “caused obvious and inevitable prejudice to the safety and interests of the United Kingdom”.
Messages and money
Nearly 80,000 Telegram messages were recovered between Marsalek and Roussev, showing the “genesis and planning of the operations”.
“There are messages about Russia in general and direct references to President Putin in particular,” Ms Morgan said.
When police raided Roussev’s home in Great Yarmouth, they found it packed with technical equipment including 221 mobile phones, 258 hard drives, 495 SIM cards, 55 visual recording devices and 11 drones.
There were also Wi-Fi eavesdropping devices and items including jammers, cyber exploitation hardware, hacking software, card readers and GPS trackers.
There were 91 bank cards in the names of 17 individuals and 75 passports and identity documents in 55 individuals’ names.
Ms Morgan told the Old Bailey: “Over a period of nearly three years, they sought to gather information for the benefit of Russia, an enemy of the UK, about various targets, both people and locations, of particular interest to the Russian state.”
The operations
Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev investigated the Salisbury poisonings for an investigative journalism group called Bellingcat, identifying the poisoners as coming from a Russian military unit called GRU29115.
As a result of his activities, Grozev was placed on the “wanted” list by the Russian Interior Ministry, the court was told, and targeted by the ring.
Read more from Sky News: Daniel Khalife ‘entered new phase of spying’ Trainee nurse guilty of suicide bomb attack plot
The court also heard they targeted a man called Roman Dobrokhotov, a Russian national living in Britain who founded a media outlet called The Insider.
He had been forced to flee Russia in August 2021 after he was arrested and his passport removed.
The spy ring is said to have conducted surveillance at Patch Barracks, a US military Base in Stuttgart where they believed Ukrainian military forces were being trained in late 2022.
The court heard how in London, they planned to stage a demonstration outside the Kazakhstan embassy, in order to pretend they were in possession of genuine intelligence about those responsible, which they would then pass on to the Kazakhstan intelligence services, in order to try to gain favour on behalf of Russia.
They are also allegedly targeted Kazakhstani dissident Bergey Ryskaliyev.
Another target was Kirill Kachur, a Russian national who was living in Montenegro before he left the country in 2021 and was designated as a “foreign agent” by Russia, the court heard.
Mr Justice Hilliard adjourned the trial until Monday.
A man accused of spying for Iran allegedly added a misspelling of the word “secret” to a publicly available document in an attempt to please his Iranian handler.
Daniel Khalife, who has admitted escaping from Wandsworth prison, wrote “secert” instead of “secret” on the front page of a document which could be found online, Woolwich Crown Court has heard.
He allegedly sent his contact three documents about military doctrine on 30 December 2021, a week before his arrest.
The notes leaked by Khalife were “useless” and would cause the Iranians to “seriously question” his role as a spy, his trial was told on Friday.
The 23-year-old is accused of spending more than two years passing secrets to the Iranians while serving with the Royal Corps of Signals but denies the charges, saying he only handed over fabricated documents in an attempt to become a double agent.
Image: Daniel Khalife after his arrest. Credit: MPS
The prosecution alleged there was a “step change” in Khalife’s activity two years into the relationship with the Iranians when he came under pressure to provide real information.
But the court was told that of the documents sent by Khalife, from Kingston, southwest London, the first was available online and similar documents to the other two were also on the internet.
He changed their classification to “secret” on the front page but misspelt it on one of the documents as “secert”.
Leaked info would be found ‘gathering dust on a shelf’
Frank Ledwidge, an expert in military capabilities, history and strategy, who served with the Joint Services Intelligence Organisation, said about the first document: “By 2021 when it was delivered to the other side, it would be of virtually no use for reasons of context.
“It is obsolete, it is getting out of date for reasons of the structure of army, the units in place then are not in place now, and the way people discuss military language and concepts.”
Speaking about the second document, Mr Ledwidge told the court: “My opinion is that I fail to understand why this is before the court.
“It has been out in the world since day one in 2011 and discussed by scholars and invites comment.
“If I went to an army base I would probably find it gathering dust on someone’s shelf.”
Read more: Accused ‘endangered Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’ Khalife says it was ‘foolish’ to have his ‘skillset’ in prison
‘I would seriously question my source’
A handwritten list of the surnames and first initials of special forces soldiers – which Khalife is also accused of leaking – would not be of use because “the primary targets of Iranians are dissidents and Israelis,” Mr Ledwidge told the court.
He added: “If I were an Iranian intelligence officer, I would seriously question my source’s degree of access and motivation.
“Two of the attributes of a good agent are access – ability to get good information – and motivation to do that – money or other things.
“If you have someone delivering documents purporting to be one thing but are another that would reduce that and challenge, perhaps terminally, the usefulness of that individual to their agent handler.”
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Khalife escaped from prison under a food catering van on 6 September last year, causing a nationwide manhunt.
He denies committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state, eliciting information about members of the armed forces and perpetrating a bomb hoax.
A woman died from a heart attack after she was raped by a stranger while unconscious on a park bench, a court has been told.
Warning: This article contains details readers may find distressing
Natalie Shotter, 37, had been on a night out before she was sexually assaulted and killed on a park bench in Southall Park, west London, jurors heard.
Mohamed Iidow, 35, is on trial accused of rape and manslaughter. He has denied both charges.
Ms Shotter died of a heart attack caused by Iidow raping her “again and again”, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC told jurors.
The court was shown CCTV footage of Ms Shotter sitting on a bench with a different man when, the prosecution says, Iidow walked past and looked at them.
He then left the park and drove away, before returning later, jurors heard.
The prosecutor said Ms Shotter was lying down and showing “no clear movement” for around 30 minutes before the defendant approached her “nonchalantly”.
During the alleged attack, the victim was “deeply unconscious”, she said.
Ms Morgan continued: “What was the defendant doing there, what was he seeking to do, walking up and down the paths in the middle of the night and thinking about what his objectives must have been – seeking out a vulnerable woman to rape.”
Jurors were shown CCTV which, the prosecution said, showed the defendant moving Ms Shotter’s body into different positions as he raped her.
Ms Morgan told jurors: “She was not dead at the time when the defendant was orally raping her, it will be a matter for you to consider – that this defendant went to the park for a reason.
“He would not have sought to have sex with a dead body for over 15 minutes, he was having sex with someone he knew was alive but was deeply unconscious and therefore he was raping her.”
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Ms Shotter’s body was found in Southall Park by a passer-by in the early morning of July 17 2021, the court previously heard.
Swabs taken from Ms Shotter’s mouth area matched DNA samples taken from the defendant, the court heard.
A placard held by a woman at a pro-Palestinian protest depicting former prime minister Rishi Sunak and ex-home secretary Suella Braverman as coconuts was “racially abusive”, a court has heard.
Marieha Hussain, 37, of High Wycombe, pleaded not guilty to a racially aggravated public order offence at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
As the trial began, about 40 pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the building.
Image: The trial is taking place at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London. Pic: iStock
Prosecutor Jonathan Bryan told the court the term “coconut” was a “well-known racial slur which has a very clear meaning”.
“You may be brown on the outside, but you’re white on the inside. In other words, you’re a race traitor – you’re less brown or black than you should be,” he said.
He argued Hussain had “crossed the line between legitimate political expression” and moved into “racial insult”.
“We say that the placard was abusive, it was racially abusive,” he told the court.
“There were people present who were likely to have been caused harassment, alarm and distress by seeing what was on that placard.”
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An image of the placard, held by Hussain at a pro-Palestinian protest on 11 November, was shown in court.
It showed cut-out pictures of Mr Sunak and Ms Braverman placed alongside coconuts under a tree.
Defending, Rajiv Menon KC, said the placard was a “political criticism” of Mr Sunak and Ms Braverman.
He told the court: “What she is saying is Suella Braverman – then home secretary, sacked two days after – was promoting in different ways a racist political agenda as evidenced by the Rwanda policy, the racist rhetoric she was using around small boats.
“And the prime minister was either quiescing to it or being inactive.
“It was a political criticism of these two particular politicians.”
Read more from Sky News: First images of historic private spacewalk Spurs star charged by FA over racist joke Holly Ramsay and Adam Peaty engaged
Metropolitan Police communications manager Chris Humphreys told the court that images come to the attention of the police service if the force’s social media account is “tagged in the post”.
He added the force “actively monitors” accounts that frequently post protest-related images.
Mr Menon told the court the image of the placard had been posted by an X account with the username Harry’s Place.
He asked Mr Humphreys: “Are you aware that Harry’s Place is a secretive political blog headquartered in Washington DC that has a particular interest in opposing any criticism of the Israeli state?”
Mr Humphreys replied: “I know Harry’s Place is an anonymous political blog.”
Andrew Tate will be allowed to leave Romania while awaiting trial on charges of human trafficking, a court has ruled.
The controversial influencer and his brother Tristan can travel within the EU without restrictions while awaiting the trial, the Bucharest Tribunal ruled. Until Friday, the Tates had been banned from leaving Romania where he is awaiting trial.
The decision is not final and can be appealed by prosecutors.
Read more: Who is Andrew Tate?
Tate, 37, was charged in mid-2023 along with his brother for human trafficking, rape, and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.
Two female suspects from Romania have also been charged as part of the case.
They have all denied the allegations against them.
In a post on X on Friday, Tate wrote: “I’m free. For the first time in three years I can leave Romania.”
He also referred to the charges as a “sham case” before advertising a platform that says it teaches the skill of money-making.
Image: Andrew Tate (right) and his brother Tristan in Bucharest in May. Pic: AP
Tate, who has almost 10 million followers on X, repeated these sentiments in a video that accompanies the post and adds: “The process is the punishment, in the end I’ll be innocent.
“My judges decided… I’m allowed to leave Romania, so do we take the (Ferrari) SF90 to Italy, the (Maserati) MC20 to Cannes, the (Ferrari) 812 Competition to Paris, where do I go?”
The Tate brothers, both former kickboxers with dual US and British citizenship, were held in police custody during the criminal investigation from late December 2022 until April 2023 to prevent them from fleeing the country or tampering with evidence.
They were then placed under house arrest until August, when courts put them under judicial control, a lighter preventative measure.
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From March: What next for the Tate brothers?
“Andrew and Tristan are still determined to clear their name and reputation; however, they are grateful to the courts for placing this trust in them,” the brothers’ lead defence lawyer Eugen Vidineac said in a statement.
Romanian prosecutors have said the Tate brothers recruited their victims by seducing them and falsely claiming to want a relationship or marriage.
Read more: Football club defends decision to refund Tate donation Tate to regain access to supercars and properties Tate’s request for ’emergency visit’ to London rejected
They said the victims were then taken to properties outside the capital Bucharest, and through physical violence and mental intimidation were sexually exploited by being forced to produce pornographic content for social media sites that generated large financial gain.
In a separate case, Tate was served at his home in Romania with a civil lawsuit lodged by four British women after a claim was issued by the High Court in London, according to a statement released in May by McCue Jury & Partners, the law firm representing the four women.
The four allege Tate sexually and physically assaulted them and reported him to British authorities in 2014 and 2015.
After a four-year investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service decided in 2019 not to prosecute him.
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The alleged victims then turned to crowdfunding to pursue a civil case against him.
In a third case, the Tate brothers also appeared in March at the Bucharest Court of Appeal after British authorities issued arrest warrants over allegations of sexual aggression in a UK case dating back to 2012 to 2015.
The appeals court granted the British request to extradite the Tates to the UK, but only after legal proceedings in Romania have concluded.
Tate, a self-described misogynist, has gained millions of fans by promoting an ultra-masculine lifestyle that critics say denigrates women.
