Today’s news blog features more on the remarkable life story of Sandhurst’s leading Army officer cadet, Kidane Cousland, plus claims relating to an arms fair held in London last year.
SWORD OF HONOUR
The Sun runs a feature on Kidane Cousland, continuing this week’s coverage, who grew up on a Tottenham estate before emerging as this year’s best Sandhurst officer cadet. In doing so he outperformed Oxbridge graduates among others. Writing for the Daily Telegraph, Colonel Richard Kemp says the Army gives a sense of purpose to so many young lives and allows many to realise their potential.
DSEI
The Guardian and Independent cover a court case where a judge acquitted anti-arms protesters who tried to disrupt the Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) event last September. The judge accepted the defendant’s claims that they were trying to prevent greater crimes than their charge of “blocking the highway”, amid claims that arms were being sold illegally.
DSEI refutes the claims of illegal trading and issued a statement in response to the claims which is carried by the Independent. They said:
“HMRC, the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) and other Government agencies, hold responsibility for enforcing the law in respect of UK Export controls at DSEI. As organisers, we take compliance at DSEI seriously and are constantly working with these Government Departments and agencies to refine our compliance processes in order to ensure that they are as robust as possible. As a result of this close cooperation, and the processes put in place, compliance regulations were not breached at DSEI 2015.
“Representatives from HMRC, BIS and other agencies were present in the run up to and throughout DSEI 2015. They had free and totally unrestricted access to all exhibitors in order to undertake checks that all equipment, services, documentation and any other forms of promotion complied with UK, EU and international law. They were supported in this work by an internal DSEI compliance team. These checks took place with reference to products and services classified as Category A under the terms of the Export Control Act 2002.
“DSEI’s activities in respect of compliance, including the attendance of HMRC, BIS and all other relevant Government agencies at the event, are covered by the Memorandum of Understanding signed between Clarion, the Export Control Organisation and BIS. As such our access policies for both exhibitors and visitors have been developed following consultation with a number of government departments.
“All our exhibitors are contractually bound to ensure that they exhibit at DSEI in a manner which is compliant with all relevant arms control legislation. We are explicitly clear that any exhibitors or individuals found to be in breach of compliance regulations at DSEI will be immediately ejected.”
RAF VETERAN
A RAF veteran was kicked to death after police left him at the mercy of his killer, an inquest has heard. This is picked up by the Times, Sun, Daily Express and Daily Mirror. They write that police officers had found Christopher Fields, 37, with blood on his face after being called to a burglary at his home. As the two constables spoke to the victim, his attacker came back to the flat. Believing the pair were friends, the officers left them alone. But moments later Joe Hasledine beat Mr Fields to death. Mr Fields, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was taken to hospital in a coma but died nine days later.
SAUDI TRAINING
The Guardian runs a short article which claims senior military officers are providing training to Saudi forces despite airstrikes on Yemen provoking outcry over civilian casualties. The piece carries a MOD statement on this issue which is below.
UK training helps support continued compliance with International Humanitarian Law. We do not play a role in targeting decisions or military operations.
DAESH
The Times writes that two Britons and one Irish citizen who had been fighting Daesh alongside Kurdish forces in Syria have been arrested in northern Iraq. Joe Akerman, Jac Holmes and Joshua Molloy were reportedly trying to cross the border illegally from Syria when they were detained.
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The Sword of Honour was presented this week to Senior Under Officer (SUO) Kidane Cousland. The Parade marks the completion of a year's intensive training for 172 officer cadets from the United Kingdom and 28 officer cadets from 18 overseas countries. The United Kingdom officer cadets were officially commissioned as officers in the British Army at midnight on the 15th April.