A surge in the number of seizures of child-like sex dolls by border officers has led investigators to identify dozens of previously unknown suspected paedophiles. The lifelike silicone dolls, which weigh around 25kg (55lb) and can cost thousands of pounds, are being imported to the UK after being sold by traders on sites including Amazon and eBay, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said. They are a “relatively new phenomenon” in the UK and should be criminalised, said Hazel Stewart, the operations manager at the NCA’s child exploitation and online protection command (Ceop). Border Force officers have seized 123 such dolls in little more than a year since March 2016; seven people have been charged with importing them, including one man who was jailed last month.

The figures were revealed as a judge at Canterbury crown court dismissed an attempt by a barrister representing an ex-primary school governor, David Turner, to argue that a doll he imported was not obscene. Turner, a 72-year-old former churchwarden, pleaded guilty on Monday to importing the child sex doll after the application to dismiss the charge was turned down. Of the seven men charged, six also faced allegations linked to child abuse images. Dan Scully, the deputy director for intelligence operations at the Border Force, said this showed that people who ordered the models, which are primarily manufactured in China and Hong Kong, often committed sex crimes.(theguardian)…[+]

The former head of the US government ethics watchdog has warned that Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest put the country at risk of being seen as a “kleptocracy”.

Speaking to the Guardian, Walter Shaub, who quit this month as director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), condemned the president for using his hotels and other properties for government business in what is in effect a free advertising campaign. “His actions create the appearance of profiting from the presidency, and the appearance here is everything, because the demand I’m making is so much more than ‘have a clean heart’. It’s: ‘Have a clean heart and act appropriately,’” Shaub said.

“The fact that we’re having to ask questions about whether he’s intentionally using the presidency for profit is bad enough, because the appearance itself undermines confidence in government.” He added: “It certainly risks people starting to refer to us as a kleptocracy. That’s a term people throw around fairly freely when they’re talking about Russia, fairly or unfairly, and we run the risk of getting branded the same way. America really should stand for more than that.”(theguardian)…[+]

Four thousand relatives of soldiers who fought in the battle of Passchendaele, which started 100 years ago on Monday, have joined Prince Charles, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Theresa May at Tyne Cot cemetery in Flanders to remember one of the bloodiest chapters in the first world war.

A majority of the 11,961 servicemen buried in the Commonwealth war grave were killed during the 100-day offensive to take the village of Passchendaele, also known as the third battle of Ypres. Tyne Cot, the largest Commonwealth war graveyard, lies on a former German machine gun position between Passchendaele, on high ground to the west, and the Belgian town of Ypres, visible from the cemetery a few miles away.The service will include readings of wartime poems, the diaries and letters of those who fell, including a German officer, and music from the national youth choir of Scotland, the band of the HM Royal Marines Plymouth, the Welsh Guards and the central band of the Royal Air Force, among others.(theguardian)…[+]

A 34-year-old man opened fire in a nightclub in the southern German city of Konstanz on Sunday, killing one person and seriously injuring three others, police have said.

The gunman was fatally wounded in a gunfight with police officers outside the music venue after they had rushed to the scene shortly after the incident at about 3.30am BST. He died later in hospital. The motive for the shooting was unclear. One police officer was also injured in the exchange of fire. The gunman was an Iraqi citizen who had lived in the country for a long time and was not an asylum seeker, a German police spokesman told broadcaster N-TV.

Fritz Bezikofer said police had ruled out terrorism, adding: “The motives of the man who acted alone are unclear. We are still investigating but the circumstances surrounding the events at the disco in the evening before the shooting are a bit clearer and this led us to rule out a terrorism background.”  A witness told local media he saw an attacker with a machine gun, adding: “The club was packed. I would guess there were more than 100 people inside.” The shooting came after a man killed one person and injured six others in the northern city of Hamburg on Friday. Officials said he was an Islamist known to security forces and had mental health issues.(theguardian)…[+]

EasyJet is “urgently” seeking answers after a worker at Nice airport apparently punched one of the airline’s passengers who was holding his baby at the terminal after a 13-hour delay. A photo circulating online appears to show the man, believed to be a special assistance provider at the airport in south-east France, attacking the man in front of other passengers on Saturday. A fellow passenger said the man was struck after families had been held up because of delayed flight EZY2122 from Nice to Luton, with little access to information or space to sit down.Arabella Arkwright, who took the photograph, said the man was holding his baby while his wife vented their frustration to airport staff about the lack of baby food and seats.(theguardian)…[+]