G4S In £24m Apology For Overbilling Taxpayers

Security firm G4S has apologised and offered to repay more than £24m after it overcharged taxpayers for the electronic tagging of offenders.

The company admitted its part in the scandal - currently being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office - which included bills for monitoring criminals who had died.

But it insisted an independent review it commissioned had "not identified any evidence of dishonesty or criminal conduct by any employee".

G4S refused to co-operate with a forensic audit of its work - and that of fellow contractor Serco - which a public spending watchdog revealed had already cost the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) more than £2m.

The firm said it now accepted it had "wrongly considered itself to be contractually entitled to bill for monitoring services when equipment had not been fitted or after it had been removed".

The admission was branded "staggering" by Labour MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee.

Mr Vaz has called for all G4S contracts with the Government to be reviewed "immediately", and for the firm to be "banned from bidding for any more".

"Contracts of this kind need to be conducted in good faith and represent value for money," he said.

G4S said: "This billing practice ... was not consistent with the contract or G4S's values and the company has apologised to the Ministry of Justice and issued credit notes totalling £23.3m for amounts incorrectly billed between 2005 and May 2013.

"A further credit note of £0.8 million will be issued for billings for the period from June 2013 to date."

The MoJ would not be drawn on whether it would accept the G4S offer. A spokesman said: "The Secretary of State has been clear: we are determined to secure a refund for the taxpayer."

The MoJ said it would not comment further until a criminal investigation was completed. 

G4S said it was ready for further negotiations with the MoJ if the audit concluded that it had overcharged by more than the sum offered.

The company said there was no evidence that its errors extended to any of its other Government contracts. It has faced repeated criticism of its performance, not least over security for the 2012 Olympics.

Labour MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "The admission of G4S today is staggering.

"The company refused to co-operate with the Government, which led to the referral to the SFO, and that should have rung alarm bells. It represents serious corporate failure.

"Contracts of this kind need to be conducted in good faith and represent value for money. Every G4S contract with the Government needs to be reviewed immediately, and they should be banned from bidding for any more."

An audit by big four accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), launched in May, revealed that overcharging began at least as far back as the start of the current contracts in 2005 - but could have dated as far back as the previous contracts in 1999.

Auditors discovered the firms had charged the Government for tagging offenders who were back in prison, had had their tags removed, had left the country or had never been tagged in the first place but had been returned to court.

The Government has handed over material from the PwC audit of Serco to the Serious Fraud Office while G4S was referred to it after declining to take part in the audit, which included looking at email trails between top executives.

The revelations sparked a Government-wide review of all contracts held by Serco and G4S. G4S UK and Ireland chief executive Richard Morris will face questions from MPs over the scandal tomorrow when he appears before the Commons public accounts committee.

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Supermarkets Taken To Task Over Offers

By Poppy Trowbridge, Business And Economics Correspondent

Some of Britain's biggest supermarkets have been accused of running so-called special offers that often see customers "paying over the odds".

Consumer group Which? analysed more than 70,000 grocery prices and found examples of what they call misleading multibuys and dodgy discounts.

Richard Lloyd, executive director, told Sky News: "People are at best paying what they would have done, or often we have found paying over the odds, paying extra when they think they are getting a discount. That can't be fair.

"These special offers simply aren't special at all. That is why we need to see the rules change to force the supermarkets to play fair."

One example found by Which? was a Sainsbury's special offer for Carex Aloe Vera & Eucalyptus Moisturising Antibacterial Handwash, where the item was priced at £1.80 for seven days, then was on offer at "was £1.80, now 90p" for 84 days.

Ocado sold a 12-pack of Beck's beer as "was £12.19, now £9" for almost a month but had only sold the item at the higher price for three days.

Asda increased the regular price of Muller Light Greek Style Yoghurt from £1.50 to £2.18 before it went on a "two for £4" offer, costing shoppers £1 more.

Shoppers are being urged to look carefully at special offers

It also increased the price of Uncle Ben's Express Basmati Rice from £1 to £1.58 before offering for "two for £3" and then returning the rice to £1 when the offer ended.

With inflation having outpaced average wage growth for about five years, rising food prices are one of the top worries for consumers.

Which? wants the Government to make the rules for special offers simpler, clearer and stricter.

The consumer group says if these changes are not made swiftly, it will consider using its formal legal powers to ensure the practice is tackled.

In the meantime shoppers should look carefully at the special offers, Mr Lloyd added.

"Make sure that you are not getting misled into buying something that you think is a good deal when that is just not the case," he said.

The British Retail Consortium, which represents the supermarket industry, said in a statement: "Across the tens of thousands of promotions available every day, regrettably, occasional errors do slip through.

"Retailers work very quickly to rectify these mistakes whenever they are found."

Both Asda and Sainsbury's also issued statements apologising for what they called pricing errors.

Sainsbury's said: "We are absolutely committed to fair and transparent promotions and carry out regular audits and thorough training on this."

Asda's statement said: "We take pricing seriously, and we've recently employed a new team within the business that looks at all aspects of our pricing process and pricing practices in store and online.

"Sometimes mistakes can happen, but we would never deliberately mislead our customers ... "

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Teenager Held Over Luton Man's Stabbing

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a father was stabbed during a suspected burglary.

Tony Abrahams, 47, suffered serious injuries after he confronted intruders in the early hours of Saturday at his home in Wellfield Avenue, Luton.

The teenager was arrested in London and taken to Luton for questioning, Bedfordshire Police said.

The suspected burglary happened in Wellfield Avenue, Luton

Three men, described by Bedfordshire Police as black and in their twenties, are believed to have forced their way into the victim's home at about 3am.

Speaking after the incident, Detective Constable Mo Hussain said a man was "attacked and stabbed" by the offenders, who then fled the scene.

He added that the victim's wife and daughter, believed to be Catrina, 52, and Jade, 23, raised the alarm after finding Mr Abrahams injured.

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Boris Johnson Wants Cyclist Headphone Ban

Boris Johnson has said cyclists who wear headphones should be banned from the capital's roads.

The London Mayor said those who chose to take to their bikes while listening to music were an "absolute scourge".

His comments came after a man in his 60s became the sixth cyclist to be killed on London's roads in two weeks. He died after a crash with a lorry on Camberwell Road in southeast London on Monday afternoon.

"I'm very alarmed about cyclists wearing headphones," Mr Johnson told BBC London 94.9.

"I would not be against a prohibition or ban on cyclists wearing headphones.

"Call me illiberal, but it makes me absolutely terrified to see them bowling along unable to hear the traffic."

The recent spate of cyclist deaths has sparked calls for better road safety measures for cyclists, as well as demands for cyclists to take more responsibility for their own safety.

Cyclist Chris Boardman has called for HGVs to be banned from London's roads during rush hour or, he said, more cyclists will be killed.

The former Olympic gold medallist said London should follow Paris, where lorries are only allowed on the roads between 10pm and 7am. No cyclists were killed on the French capital's roads last year.

Chris Boardman has called for a lorry ban

In an open letter to Mr Johnson, he wrote: "When I rode alongside you to help you launch your vision for cycling in March this year, you made a verbal promise to look at the successful experiences of Paris and many other cities in restricting the movements of heavy vehicles during peak hours.  

"London has an opportunity to emulate and surpass Paris and to lead the way for the other ambitious cycling cities across Britain. Let's not waste this opportunity to do something now. The longer we delay, the more lives will be lost."

There have been 14 cyclist deaths on London roads so far in 2013. HGVs were involved in nine of them, accounting for 64% of the fatalities even though they only make up less than 5% of traffic.

One of London's top police officers has urged cyclists to take more responsibility for their own safety as he launched a new initiative that will see 2,500 officers reinforcing traffic rules in the city's most notorious blackspots.

Chief Superintendent Glyn Jones said: "I think the more vulnerable you are, the more careful you need to be - even if the law is on your side.

"It is no comfort to a grieving family, but yes, the more vulnerable you are, the more care you need to take."

His comments echo those made by Mr Johnson last week when he told Nick Ferrari on LBC 97.3: "Some of the cases that we've seen in the last few days really make your heart bleed because you can see that people have taken decisions that really did put their lives in danger.

"You cannot blame the victim in these circumstances. But what you can say is that when people make decisions on the road that are very risky.

"Jumping red lights, moving across fast-moving traffic in a way that is completely unexpected and without looking to see what traffic is doing - it's very difficult for the traffic engineers to second-guess that."

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Death In Custody: Cops Face Criminal Probe

A criminal investigation is under way into 10 police officers and staff involved in the detention and restraint of a man who later died.

Terry Smith, 33, who was reported to have been acting strangely and been only partially clothed, was held under the Mental Health Act on November 13 and taken to Staines police station in Surrey where his health deteriorated.

He was taken from the station to St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey, where he died.

Mr Smith's death prompted an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

The police watchdog said eight Surrey police officers and two staff from the force who were involved in Mr Smith's detention and restraint are now under criminal investigation.

IPCC commissioner Jennifer Izekor said: "A week on from Terry Smith's detention we have made good progress in our investigation, but we would still like to appeal for help from any member of the public who may have seen something.

"At this stage we consider there is an indication that potential criminal offences may have been committed including gross negligence manslaughter, misconduct in public office, and/or offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

"We will also be considering whether any potential disciplinary offences have been committed. We will keep the numbers of police personnel subject to investigation and potential offences under review.

"Our investigation is examining the detention of Terry Smith by officers, his removal in a police van to Staines Police Station, and his time spent in custody before being taken to hospital at 1am on Wednesday.

"The investigation includes looking at the length of time Terry Smith was restrained and the methods used by police.

"It is important that families and the public have confidence in how we investigate such tragic cases. I am meeting the family to extend my condolences in person and inform them how the investigation will be taken forward."

House-to-house inquiries last week led the IPCC to a number of witnesses but a renewed appeal was made to anyone else with information to come forward.

Surrey Police said the officers and staff involved in the IPCC inquiry have been temporarily removed from operational duties.

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Cyclist Tweet Is My Biggest Regret - Driver

By Rachel Younger, East of England Correspondent

A driver who tweeted about knocking a cyclist off his bike has said sending the message is the "biggest regret" of her life.

Emma Way, who was convicted of failing to stop after a crash and failing to report an accident but cleared of driving without due care and attention, clipped cyclist Toby Hockley on a country road in Norfolk last May.

She was fined £337 and given seven penalty points on her licence when she appeared at Norfolk Magistrates' Court.

The case came to the public's attention when the 22-year-old posted a tweet which read: "Definitely knocked a cyclist off his bike earlier. I have right of way. He doesn't even pay road tax!"

She ended her message with the hashtag #bloodycyclists.

Way, who has since left Twitter, sent this message hours after the crash

Mr Hockley told the court he was riding with a friend through Rockland All Saints, near Thetford, and had slowed down to about 18mph for a bend when a car came around the the corner "on my side of the road".

He said he ended up in a hedge, bruised, scratched and stung by nettles, after the car's wing mirror clipped his right arm.

He told the court there had been "quite a loud crunch" but admitted he had not come off his bike.

Jason Sexton, who was riding with Mr Hockley, told the court he had been riding just in front of his friend and had shouted to warn him about the approaching car before pulling into a lay-by.

He told the court he had also shouted at the driver, adding that his friend had been "as far across (on the road) as he could be to avoid traffic".

The crash happened in the village of Rockland All Saints, Norfolk

Way, a former trainee accountant from Watton, Norfolk, admitted her wing mirror had clipped Mr Hockley's bike with a "donk" but claimed he had been on the wrong side of the road, leaving her with nowhere to go.

She said she felt the collision had been his fault, telling the court: "I saw he had slightly wobbled. I hadn't hurt him. He was fine. I just carried on."

Asked whether she had thought any damage or injury had been caused, she replied: "No. I would definitely have stopped."

Way, who lost her job over the tweet, said she had been annoyed by the cyclist and sent the message on the "spur of the moment".

Asked by the defence to rate the stupidity of the post on a scale of one to 10, she replied: "I'd score it at 11."

"It was ridiculous and stupid and I apologise to all cyclists," she added. "It is the biggest regret of my life so far."

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Jobs At Risk As Tie Rack Exits High Streets

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

The owners of Tie Rack will on Wednesday begin shutting down the chain's UK shops in a move likely to spell the death of the brand on British high streets.

Sky News has learnt that Tie Rack's investors have decided to bring the curtain down on the well-known retailer's remaining 44 UK stores, more than 30 years after the company was founded.

The move could threaten up to 200 jobs.

A closing-down sale is expected to begin on Wednesday, according to insiders, with the UK shops expected to have shut their doors for the last time by the end of the year.

Tie Rack is controlled by an Italian company called The Fingen Group, described on the retailer's website as "a conglomerate with business interests in retail and real estate".

Grant Thornton, the accountancy firm, is understood to have been asked by Tie Rack's owners to canvas prospective buyers of the overseas shops.

The current shareholders will retain ownership of the Tie Rack brand online, said one source.

Negotiations are also underway with British airport operators about Tie Rack retaining a presence at some of them, although the fate of those discussions is uncertain.

Tie Rack is one of dozens of high street retailers burdened by underinvestment, high overhead costs and changing consumer behaviour in recent years.

Tie Rack floated on the London Stock Exchange during the 1980s and saw more than £1bn of orders for just £12.5m-worth of shares, expanding to a peak of 450 stores in 1998. Since then, the chain has been in serial decline as it failed to keep pace with more fashionable competitors.

At its largest, Tie Rack had shops in 31 countries, including the US, Canada, France, Belgium, Spain and Ireland.

Ties now account for about only 20% of sales with the majority accounted for by other accessories.

Accounts for the business show that for the year to January 31, 2012, Tie Rack's turnover was £68.1m, with a £pre-tax loss of £6.8m.

Tie Rack, whose Rolling Luggage fascia will be unaffected by the store closures, could not be reached for comment.

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Stafford: Cover-Up Hospitals Face Penalties

Stafford Hospital: The Victims

Updated: 1:45pm UK, Tuesday 19 November 2013

By David Crabtree, Midlands Correspondent

The families of three patients that died at Stafford Hospital have spoken of the neglect and failings there.

It was March 2010 when 61-year-old Alan Nash walked into Stafford Hospital for a routine colonoscopy.

Inquiries were already underway into a scandal, which suggested that between 2005 and 2008 up to 1,200 patients may have died needlessly.

As a result the Nash family believed the standards of care would be high. But Mr Nash's bowel was perforated and he died the same day.

His daughter Marie Hillman said: "We felt that all eyes would be on Stafford Hospital so there would not be any mistakes. Obviously it is one of the biggest regrets I have that we talked him into going."

His wife Jenny Nash: "I don't exactly know where the room is where they do the colonoscopy. But I was just sitting in the waiting room and it is not a big area anyway.

"I did hear. It was just like somebody had been punched in the stomach where you get that gasp, if you like and it was quite loud. I think that is when they actually perforated it."

Ms Hillman said: "He had gone into hospital for a routine diagnosis. It was just like a nightmare. A nurse said to me, you will probably find that this happened at home. This happened before he came in.

"And I thought there is no way. Dad walked into the hospital, there is no way this happened at home."

The family thought that they were trying to blame Mr Nash and "pass the buck".

His wife said: "I wasn't with him at the time, I was outside. I didn't know he was going to die."

Ms Hillman maintains that there has been no apology at all.

She said: "We would like more answers. We would like reassurance that steps have been put in place that would prevent this from happening to somebody else. But we haven't had that as of today."

In the case, the hospital did not accept that it had breached its duty of care.

Doreen Duff had already suffered a stroke before she moved to Stafford and came under the care of the local hospital.

She developed asthma and other complications and used the Accident and Emergency on a number of occasions before she was admitted. Doreen was 64 when she died in 2008.

Her husband James Duff said: "The A&E department was just chaotic. You couldn't get a doctor. If you did see one they would go off once they had seen you and they wouldn't come back until they had time again. Short staffed, rude, very, very dirty.

"At one time she was discharged from A&E and was back in A&E within an hour. She suffered more strokes and was eventually paralysed from the neck down and couldn't speak.

"When Doreen went in she was quite a bubbly person and had quite a good quality of life. She had lost the use of her left side but she had still got all the right side and she was as bright as a button.

"When she came out she was paralysed from the neck down, couldn't speak and everything had just gone. That was just because of the care she received in Stafford Hospital, a lack of care. Not giving her medication, not given the proper fluids and left in a bed that is wet, in your own faeces.

"After what we have all been through, the relatives of these, the care still isn't as it should be. They are still getting complaints coming through."

Deb Hazeldine suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder because of her 67-year-old mother Ellen's death from the hospital superbug C-difficile at Stafford Hospital.

"I will never get over it," said Ms Hazeldine who admits that she still struggles to cope more than six years after her loss.

She said: "My mum was diagnosed with bone cancer in March of 2006. She had some aggressive chemotherapy and unfortunately she suffered a fall at home.

"She didn't sustain any injuries at that point and she was taken into Mid-Staffs where she was told she would need physio and rehabilitation just to get her back on her feet."

Her mother was put onto an open ward despite a family request for her to have a side room or an isolation wing.

"She very quickly contracted C-diff and MRSA. She died from C-diff. She was sitting in a bed in a ward and I was sitting opposite her. We were chatting and faeces fell and covered half of the floor. Obviously it was at visiting time and other people were looking across. My mum just started to quietly cry.

"She was mortified that she was in this state. I looked for a nurse and pressed the buzzer and after about five minutes nobody came.

"I got down on my hands and knees and I started to clean it. I couldn't let my mum sit there like that. 

"When she died we had a call from the undertakers that stated that mum had so many hospital infections that the hospital said she had to be buried in a sealed body bag because she would contaminate the ground she went into.

"Even now we are hearing of complaints that there is lack of support on the wards, these families are still raising the same concerns as I was raising six years ago, of having to go in and support their loved ones.

"I don't understand that six years on, I really don't understand that."

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Police 'Routinely Massaging Crime Figures'

Police officers are failing to record rapes and child sex abuse offences in an attempt to improve performance figures, MPs have been told.

Officers use techniques such as "cuffing", "nodding", "skewing" and "stitching" to make figures look better, the House of Commons Public Administration Committee has heard.

One serving officer told MPs rapes and child sex abuse offences were being recorded as "crime-related incidents" or "no crimes".

He said he estimated rapes and serious sexual offences were being under-recorded by around 25% because of the manipulation of figures.

Metropolitan Police constable James Patrick - who is currently awaiting disciplinary proceedings - said he became concerned after joining the force in 2009 and finding robberies being logged as "theft snatch" in order to get them "off the books".

He said: "The extent of this in the borough I was initially in was large. They were showing in some reports... a 400% increase in street robberies. If you looked at the same reports a couple of days later, robberies would be static, but theft snatch would have increased by a large amount."

The committee chairman, Bernard Jenkin said he was "shocked that apparently such manipulation of police statistics could possibly happen on such a wide scale and become so institutionally prevalent".

Bernard Jenkin said massaging figures was 'institutionally prevalent'

Former West Midlands chief inspector Dr Rodger Patrick - no relation to the constable - drew the committee's attention to a number of practices he said were commonly employed to improve crime statistics.

The first was "cuffing" crimes to make sure they did not appear in figures. To do this police officers would describe multiple incidents as a single crime, record thefts as lost property or simply decide they did not believe complainants.

Another technique was "nodding", where an offender might admit a number of offences in return for inducements such as being charged for less serious offences which would result in a reduced sentence. Dr Patrick said: "Sometimes inducements in the form or sex, alcohol or access to meals are offered."

He described "skewing" as where forces put resources into those areas measured by performance indicators. He gave the example that to reduce burglary, forces might put resources into burglaries at the "cost of investigating something like rape or child protection".

Another practice was "stitching" where suspects were offered cautions when there was not enough evidence to convict them of a crime or recording that an informal warning had been dealt out without the offender ever having been informed of it.

Mr Jenkin said: "This is a really savage thing to say, that we can't trust the leadership of our constabularies to measure their own performance. This is what we pay our Chief Constables to do."

The Metropolitan Police said: "The Metropolitan Police Service is committed to ensuring crimes are accurately recorded and has put in place robust processes to ensure crimes are neither over- nor under-recorded."

Kent Police Deputy Chief Constable Alan Pughsley insisted that, despite a damning report into the way his force recorded crime statistics, mis-recorded offences were often "honest mistakes".

Earlier this year a watchdog warned that Kent Police were more interested in chasing targets than helping victims after it found one in 10 crimes were under-recorded.

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) concluded that an institutional bias existed in the force towards chasing numerical targets for solving crime and that led to some officers focusing on categories of crime.

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Flowers Quit Council Over 'Adult' Content

The scandal-hit former boss of the Co-op bank previously quit as a councillor over "inappropriate" content found on his computer.

More follows...

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