Heartbreaking: Paul McCartney just announced divorce over his.......

Heartbreaking: Paul McCartney just announced divorce over his…….

disobeying an officer — as part of a deal that was accepted on Friday by a military judge.

“The judge, under the terms of the plea deal, sentenced Travis to one year of confinement, reduction in rank to private (E-1), forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable dash board About our ads

The US soldier who ran across the border from South to North Korea last year was sentenced Friday to one year in confinement and dishonorable discharge after pleading guilty to charges of desertion and assault.

Pvt. Travis King pleaded guilty at a court martial in Fort Bliss, Texas, to one count – or specification – of desertion, one count of assault on a noncommissioned officer and three counts of disobeying a superior commissioned officer, according to a statement from the US Army Office of Special Trial Counsel.

return King. He was ultimately taken by a Swedish convoy to China, where he met the US ambassador to China and the US defense attache on his way back to the United States.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

Terms/Privacy PolicyPrivacy dashboardAbout our ads
Advertisement

Up next
The Telegraph
Sisters’ lives ruined after they posted intimate photos of father’s mistress online
Samuel Montgomery
Fri 20 September 2024 at 10:35 am GMT+1
3-min read

Eleanor and Sophie Brown with their mother Sarah
Eleanor and Sophie Brown with their mother Sarah. The sisters posted private images of the woman who had an affair with their father
Two sisters have ruined their lives by posting naked photos of their father’s mistress on an escort website, with one facing jail and the other losing her job as a police officer.

Eleanor and Sophie Brown posted private intimate pictures of the woman, who had an affair with their father, Geoff, a decade earlier.

The sisters also added the telephone number of the woman’s husband, which resulted in him receiving several calls from men.

Eleanor, 24, of Morley, West Yorks, is facing a prison sentence after she admitted disclosing private photographs without consent midway through her trial at Leeds Crown Court. Sophie quit her job with the police.

The court was told last week that Eleanor had uploaded photos to the escort website in 2022 along with the phone number of the former mistress’s husband for people to contact.

These actions were said to have caused the woman “a deep, sickening feeling of complete panic” and affected her husband’s business.

Geoff Brown, the sisters’ father, conducted an affair with the woman more than ten years ago while both were married, the court heard.

The affair was discovered by the family in 2015 when Sarah Brown, who is still the wife of Geoff and the sisters’ mother, found intimate footage that the woman had shared with her husband.

Geoff Brown and his wife Sarah in India
Geoff Brown and his wife Sarah. The couple are still together following an affair Geoff had more than 10 years ago
Eleanor began targeting the woman seven years later, posting “derogatory comments” about her on the website of her husband’s business and sending him intimate photos of his wife directly via WhatsApp.

She also contacted the couple’s daughter and told her: “I will make sure your mum is never allowed to forget what she did to my family.”

Meanwhile, Sophie resigned from her role as a patrol officer with West Yorkshire Police after she was found guilty of gross misconduct. A disciplinary hearing in April banned her from policing for life.

At the hearing, it was revealed that the sisters had planned to post the naked photographs on Gumtree and were going to advertise sexual services for £5, but settled instead on using an escort website.

While Eleanor carried out many of the actions, they were “initiated and encouraged” by Sophie, the panel was told.

During Eleanor’s trial, the prosecution described the actions as “a mean and calculated effort to cause distress in an act of revenge”.

Eleanor initially denied two charges of sharing private sexual photographs without consent, but changed her plea to guilty before she was set to give evidence in her own defence.

over the top crime drama. The ingredients are an ex-rock star, an unsolved murder with the victim found at the bottom of a well; alleged wrongful imprisonment and an innocent man’s three-decade fight for justice.

The M.E.N. reported in 2017 that he said he had finally been told there is no case against him. Now, after an ill-fated and torturous legal action through a multitude of Spanish courts, his lawyer is to submit a case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg next month, seeking £4.6m in compensation from the Spanish government.

Guitarist Gary Owens on stage with heavy metal band A II Z.
Guitarist Gary Owens on stage with heavy metal band A II Z -Credit:MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
The guitarist’s band – A II Z – made the UK heavy metal charts in 1980 and played with supergroups like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. It would be his pursuit of stardom which ultimately lead to his life spiralling into a nightmare that began playing in pubs, schools, and clubs in Stockport and took off with a two-album record deal with Polydor.

The short-lived renaissance of heavy rock in Britain had waned by the time Gary was living in Spain in 1991. But his impressive career, playing later for the band Tytan and then working as an assistant tour manager for Manchester-based Kennedy Street Enterprises, meant he remained committed to the music industry and was hoping to record a solo album – an ambition which legitimately brought him into contact with a man who would be murdered.

‘A guy with a shotgun tapped on our window’
The ordeal began on April 2, 1991 when a Spanish policeman tapped on the window of Gary and his partner Jayne’s Renault hire car in Tenerife. Fifteen officers surrounded his vehicle outside an apartment in Tenerife, he claims, and as he wound down the window, he claims a shotgun was thrust through it – inches from his face.

Gary said: “We had just got in our car and there was a tap on the window, it was a guy with a shotgun. There were others all armed, we had a quick (court) hearing, the consulate were there. Then we driven at very high speed to the airport on a plane back to Malaga.

“When we got there they took everyone off the plane, then we were escorted down the steps,” he claims. “At the tail of the aircraft there was a line of Guardia Civil, all with machine guns. It was set up like that so they could take photos for the paper.”

Gary Owens with front page of MEN reporting his first realease in October 1993. He was arrested again in 2009 but never charbged. He is now seeking a public inquiry into his case.
Gary Owens with the front page of M.E.N reporting his first release in October 1993 -Credit:MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
He had been arrested on suspicion of murdering a Norwegian businessman Torbjorn Heta. The body of Mr Heta, 33, the owner of a nightclub and recording studio in Marbella, was found down a well.

“I saw the pictures. I had a court hearing where the judge asked me my shoe size, I said six, she said out loud, ‘well it’s not him’ and they sent me out to sit outside on a chair,” he said. “They had forensic evidence that the person who murdered the guy wore size 8 to 9 shoes as they left bloody footprints at the scene.

“I was writing songs, that’s how I knew the dead guy. He had a 24 track recording studio in his basement. I was doing some small gigs and hoping to record a solo album. But I did not need to earn money at that time.”

Despite it all, Gary spent 30 months in high security jails before being released on bail in October 1993, without charge. The M.E.N. was there to witness his release. Twelve people, including Gary, were arrested in connection with the killing – but it remains unsolved.

Gary, now 62, a former Bramhall High School pupil, returned to the UK in October 1995 after being advised by officials in the British Embassy in Madrid to leave Spain. But in 2008, while living in Poynton with Jayne, he was issued with a European Arrest Warrant.

He fought extradition proceedings through the High Court, and Supreme Court, but lost and, in November 2009, was flown back to Spain. Gary says he was put on ‘the railroad’ – moved from jail to jail throughout the country – for several weeks before being granted £5,000 bail in February 2010.

Guitarist Gary Owens in his heyday when playing with band A II Z.
Gary Owens, in his heyday as guitarist with heavy metal band A II Z -Credit:MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
He spent the next six years on bail before being told that no action would be taken against him. It took until December 2016 for him to get the £5,000 bail money back. He has called for a public inquiry into why he was wrongfully imprisoned and aims to sue British and Spanish authorities.

He claims others attempted to set him up for the murder, which he believes was linked to a drugs-related deal which went wrong. For his own safety he was given the name ‘Charles Axon’ while held in custody in Spain, he says.

Gary said: “I had met the man who was murdered as he owned a 24-track state-of-the art recording studio in the basement of his villa. I was being given the chance of recording a solo album there.”

But about a month before his first arrest, Gary claims he was warned at gunpoint by three men – who he believes were the killers – to get out of Sitio de Calahonda, a small town near Marbella, in the wake of Mr Heta’s murder.

He believes British drug gangs were involved in the murder. Gary wrote to former prime minister, David Cameron, and then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Foreign Office officials demanding an investigation.

‘For 25 years I’ve been accused’
He said: “For 25 years I have been for compensation from the Spanish government after being imprisoned twice in 1991 and 2009 in connection with the murder of a Norwegian businessman in Spain. Mr Owens was never charged with any offenceMore

“So I paid a gypsy woman money to bring me a hacksaw and just cut the bars in my cell, got out, and booked into a hotel down the road. I was there for about seven days with my feet up. Then there was a knock at the door and two guys with their guns out – but pointing them at the floor. Then I was sent to Malaga prison.

“When I got to the old Malaga prison the warden had been told to handcuff me to a bed in a cell that was within another cell. I was there for seven days when the governor of the prison saw and said they were letting me go.”

But delays in processing ‘paperwork’ meant Gary spent 30 months in custody

In February 2009, when Sir Keir was director of public prosecutions (DPP), the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that no charges would be brought because there was “no realistic prospect of conviction”.

Downing Street claims Sir Keir, who quit his role at the CPS in 2013, had no involvement in the decision. However, the Conservatives said it was “yet another instance of failure” of the organisation under his watch, after it also failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile.

Mohamed Fayed died last year aged 94 without ever being prosecuted
Mohamed Fayed died last year aged 94 without ever being prosecuted – STEVE MAISEY/SHUTTERSTOCK
Five women have now claimed they were raped by Fayed and a further 20 said he sexually assaulted them.

Matt Vickers, shadow minister for crime and policing, said: “Keir Starmer is always eager to take credit for other people’s work at the CPS, but whenever something went wrong under his watch it was always someone else’s fault.

“There was a chance to prosecute Fayed while Starmer was DPP but it was not taken. These latest revelations show this was yet another instance of failure.”

Sir Keir said when he was DPP that he was “personally concerned” when it came to any case that might have reputational impact for the CPS which “may be because it’s about a particularly sensitive case”.

He has in the past denied that he was informed when a CPS investigator decided to drop a case against Savile when he was DPP.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “Keir did not handle this case. It did not cross his desk.”

Fayed died last year aged 94 without ever being prosecuted, despite multiple complaints to the police by different women.

By the time the teenager went to the police in 2008 to say that Fayed had groped and kissed her against her will, Fayed had a well-established reputation for sexually assaulting his staff.

In a 1998 biography by Tom Bower, former employees described being groped by Fayed in the workplace and being pestered for sex by him in his homes in London and Paris.

The teenager, who is now in her 30s, told the BBC she had started working at Harrods as a shop assistant in 2007 when she was 14 and saw him as a father figure at first, but he started calling her on her personal mobile and hugging her in the shop.

She said in May 2008, she was asked to go up to the Harrods boardroom, where she claims she was assaulted.

She said: “He started hugging me and getting touchy and feely, rubbing himself against me and he just grabbed my face and tried to put his tongue in my mouth.

“I mentioned I was 15 and said ‘what are you doing?’ and he said I was turning into a beautiful woman and grabbed my chest.

“I pushed him off and he saw I was freaked out and scared and he just got into a rage and started screaming at me.” She reported the matter to the police the same month after telling her parents what had happened and Fayed was interviewed later that year.

Rene Barclay was the CPS’s director of complex casework at the time of the case
Rene Barclay was the CPS’s director of complex casework at the time of the case – IAN NICHOLSON/PA
The case was handled by Rene Barclay, the CPS’s then director of complex casework, whose role included handling cases deemed “high profile”. In 2009 he announced that no charges would be brought.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said on Thursday: “In May 2008, police received an allegation of sexual assault alleged to have occurred in London.

“The report was thoroughly investigated, including examination of CCTV, speaking to potential witnesses and analysis of telephone data.

“Following this, a case was referred to the CPS for consideration, who concluded that no further action should be taken.”

The alleged victim told the BBC she was informed that part of the reason no charges were brought was because she had got the day of the week wrong in her description of when the assault happened.

The CPS said the teenager’s complaint was the only time a file on Fayed was passed on to them by police.

In 2018, 2021 and 2023, after Sir Keir had left the CPS, it provided “early investigative advice” to the Met following complaints made about Fayed, but “a full file of evidence was never received in each of these instances”.

Another woman contacted the police in 2013 and again in 2015 but the CPS say they had no involvement in that case.

In the BBC documentary Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods, women who worked at the department store between the 1980s and the 2000s said assaults happened at the company’s offices, at Fayed’s Park Lane apartment and on foreign trips.

The broadcaster says Harrods not only failed to intervene but also helped cover up allegations against Fayed.

‘Utterly Appalled’
The current owners of Harrods said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations, stressing that the company today was “very different”.

Bruce Drummond, a barrister from a legal team representing several of the women, said: “The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark.”

Commander Kevin Southworth who leads on Public Protection for the Met said: “We are aware of various allegations of sexual offences made over a number of years in relation to the late Mohammed Al-Fayed which were reported to the Met.

“Each one was investigated and, where appropriate, advice from the Crown Prosecution Service was sought. No charges resulted from these investigations.

“As with any investigation, if any further information comes to light it will be assessed and investigated accordingly.”

Agajahub

LATEST NEWS

Heartbreaking: Paul McCartney just announced divorce over his…….

Heartbreaking: Paul McCartney just announced divorce over his…….

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply