Thai Murders: Reward Offered By Police

Thai police are offering a reward of more than £13,000 (700,000 baht) in an effort to catch the killers of two British tourists, as a group of footballers were questioned by officers investigating the murders.

The bodies of David Miller and Hannah Witheridge were found on a beach on the island of Koh Tao on September 15.

A blood-stained garden hoe, which is thought to be the murder weapon, was discovered nearby.

It is believed at least three men were involved in the attack.

A group of Thai footballers are the latest people to be questioned by detectives, amid fears the hunt for those responsible for the murders has stalled.

A police officer searches for clues near where the bodies were found

A spokesman for the Royal Thai Police confirmed DNA samples have been taken from "more than eight" footballers who reportedly threw a late-night party at the nightclub where the victims were on the night they died.

Officers are awaiting the results.

Police colonel Kissana Phathanacharoen said a reward of 700,000 baht - which is roughly £13,300 - was now being offered for information.

"We're trying to narrow our inquiries and collect more evidence," he said. "We're encouraging the public who many have information to come forward.

"We're checking DNA but this is not the only thing we are looking at to prosecute the suspects."

Hannah Witheridge seen on CCTV in the hours before her death

Post-mortem examinations revealed that Ms Witheridge, 23, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, died from head wounds, while Mr Miller, 24, from Jersey, suffered severe blows to the head and subsequently drowned.

Ian Miller, David's father, earlier this week said he thought his son might have intervened to help Hannah during an argument.

"It has become clearer and clearer that it is quite likely David was stepping in to help a girl who was in trouble," he told the Daily Mail.

Around 150 police have been sent to the island to try to find the killers.

Koh Tao is popular with tourists

In light of the killings, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan has instructed police forces to fit more security cameras in tourist destinations, and wants more streetlights in these areas to deter criminals, the Phuket Gazette reported.

A group of Burmese migrants interviewed by officers after bloodstains were found on their clothing were eliminated from inquiries last week.

No matches were found between them and DNA found on Ms Witheridge and a cigarette butt at the scene.

Police have previously said they were looking for three Westerners who were seen playing a guitar near Sairee beach.

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Britain's Role In Fight Against IS Explained

Codenamed Operation Shader, the British military action now under way sees UK warplanes swap their surveillance role in Iraq for combat missions.

There are six Tornado GR4s based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, and on missions they will be armed with Paveway and Brimstone missiles capable of hitting moving targets.

Having carried out reconnaissance missions over Iraq for the last six weeks, the pilots know the terrain well.

The combat operation is directed out of Qatar from the Al Udeid airbase - shared by both the British and US.

The man heading the RAF mission is Air commodore Al Gillespie, but it is the US directing the growing coalition air operation in Iraq, which also includes Australia, Denmark, and France.

Former RAF navigator John Nichol, who flew in the 1991 Gulf War, told Sky News: "The Americans will be telling each different nation what the target list is, where to patrol, what sort of weapons might be needed, and then they will be launched into the air."

While the Tornado aircraft is 40 years old, Mr Nichol said: "It's been hugely updated. The big updates are the weapons systems.

"When I was flying it was very much what I would call 'dumb bombs'. The weapons that this GR4 deploys are all precision-guided, very, very accurate munitions."

The planes take around two hours to reach northern Iraq from Cyprus

While the planes are capable of flying quicker than the speed of sound, on patrol the planes would travel at around 300-400mph to conserve fuel.

The Tornados fly in pairs and take around two hours to reach northern Iraq from Cyprus.

The two-man crews can be on board for up to eight hours in the cramped cockpits.

The on-board technology allows them to operate at low level, day or night and in poor weather.

During the recent reconnaissance missions the jets often refuelled in mid-air by connecting to fuel lines from an RAF Voyager plane - like "trying to refuel your car on the motorway at night, at 600mph, when the petrol station is doing 600mph", according to Mr Nichol.

The Tornado planes will be armed with precision-guided weapons

The crews are highly skilled and normally very experienced, who have flown many times over Iraq in previous deployments.

Mr Nichol said: "These are young men and women. They are trained to do a job. They want to do the job.

"I compare it to a firefighter. You never want to see anyone's house burning down but its your job to put those flames out and that's what they are getting a chance to do.

"Some of them are battle-hardened veterans, but you have the younger members there as well.

"There's an excitement about what you are going to go and do but a reality and a knowledge of what the cost could be as well."

In the absence of IS command and control centres, he believed  the air crews would be looking at the ground in "real time" for targets.

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Father's Death Blamed On Fridge-Freezer Timer

A coroner says manufacturers should be stopped from keeping safety concerns secret after a father died in a fire caused by a faulty fridge-freezer.

Santosh Benjamin Muthiah managed to save his two young daughters - aged three months and three years old - by passing them to neighbours through a window at his North London home.

However the 36-year-old was overcome by smoke and died two days after the fire.

The faulty Beko fridge-freezer

A wide-ranging number of recommendations put forward by London Fire Brigade and Hertfordshire Trading Standards – including forcing manufacturers to reveal emergency safety concerns in a public database - were backed by coroner Andrew Walker.

Under the proposals, failure to report faulty products could lead to unlimited fines and even prison sentences.

Lawyers acting for Mr Muthiah's family said the changes "would stop manufacturers keeping safety issues secret".

Mr Walker blamed a defrost timer on the family's Beko fridge-freezer as he recorded a narrative verdict at North London Coroner's Court for the death in November 2010.

Manufacturer Beko was aware of a possible safety issue as far back as 2003, the inquest heard, but failed to rectify it.

However, Mr Walker said a produce recall may not have prevented the blaze.

Clayton Witter, former managing director at Beko, said the concern had been judged as not adequate enough to warrant a safety recall despite a "serious risk" to safety.

The victim's wife, Dr Jennifer Benjamin, said the family had been unaware of any safety concerns.

The inquest heard that manufacturers can currently be fined £5,000 for faults, compared with an average cost of £11m to recall a white goods appliance.

A statement issued by Dr Benjamin after the inquest read: "We sincerely hope that this legal exercise results in changes to prevent incidents of this nature in the future."

A spokesman for the Business, Innovation and Skills Department said: "We are yet to receive the coroner's report in this particular case but when we do we will, of course, carefully consider the recommendations and respond in due course."

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First-Time Buyers To Get 20% Off Under Tories

Young first-time buyers will get a 20% discount on their new homes, under plans announced by the Conservatives.

David Cameron has set out plans to build tens of thousands of new homes on commercial "brownfield" land, reserved for first-time buyers, under 40.

As Tories begin gathering in Birmingham for their annual conference, the PM said a Conservative government would implement the plan if they were re-elected in 2015.

Homes built under the proposed Help to Buy: Starter Homes scheme would be exempt from a range of taxes, lowering their price by 20%, say Tories.

First-time buyers have been priced out of many areas, especially in London

In an interview with The Sun, Mr Cameron said the programme would deliver 100,000 starter homes over the lifetime of the next parliament.

"We want to help more young people achieve the dream of home ownership so today as part of our long-term economic plan I can pledge we will build 100,000 homes for young, first-time buyers," he said.

"We will make these starter homes 20% cheaper by exempting them from a raft of taxes and by using brownfield land.

"I don't want to see young people locked out of home ownership.

David Cameron says the new homes would be exempt from some taxes

"We've already started to tackle the problem with Help to Buy mortgages - and these new plans will help tens of thousands more people to buy their first home."

The Conservatives said the homes would be built on brownfield land already zoned for development but no longer needed for industrial or commercial use.

Such land is not normally made available for housebuilding and can be bought more cheaply than other land, and the savings will be passed on to the buyer.

Public sector land which is surplus to requirements will also be brought into the scheme.

At the same time, the Conservatives said that the properties would be exempt from most of the taxes imposed on new homes.

These taxes include the social housing requirement and the community infrastructure levy.

Some future regulations such as the zero carbon homes standard will also not apply to properties built under the scheme.

The announcement is intended to set the tone for the party's final annual conference before the country goes to the polls next May.

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Vauxhall Recall: Warning Over Corsa Steering

Recalls By Carmakers On The Rise

Updated: 11:25am UK, Saturday 27 September 2014

The recall by Vauxhall of around 3,000 vehicles because of a steering problem is just the latest in a series of headaches for motor manufacturers.

Last year, manufacturers recalled 868,605 vehicles to dealerships to fix potentially life-threatening defects - up from 665,000 in 2009.

However, the increase does not necessarily mean cars are more prone to faults, but that firms are acting more quickly to deal with problems - anxious to avoid damage to their brands.

Here are just some of the major recalls seen in the past year or so.

:: Only this week US car giant Ford put out a recall on around 850,000 cars in the US over a "potential issue" with airbags.

:: Ferrari has recalled more than 3,000 of its £200,000 luxury sports cars because a fault with a latch means anyone trapped in the boot would not be able to get out.

:: General Motors recalled more than 220,000 cars to correct a brake defect that could increase the risk of fire.

:: Earlier this year, Toyota issued a recall affecting 6.4 million vehicles worldwide and 35,124 in the UK. The carmaker has learned the lessons from the past when it suffered a backlash, after being seen to have responded too slowly to a fault that caused models to accelerate without warning in 2010.

:: Aston Martin recalled 17,590 sports cars in February due to a problem with the accelerator pedal.

:: In 2013, Mercedes recalled 2,540 M-class SUV models in the UK when it discovered a particular floor mat could impede the accelerator pedal.

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Missing Alice Gross: Cops Comb CCTV For Clues

Detectives are scouring footage from 300 CCTV cameras covering a six square mile area in the search for missing Alice Gross.

Police investigating the disappearance of the 14-year-old say the security film is "crucial" to their investigation, as they try to piece together her last known movements.

Police are continuing to search scrubland next to the Grand Union Canal

Some 30 investigators are painstakingly reviewing the material, as dozens more officers continue to carefully search scrubland next to the Grand Union Canal in west London where the schoolgirl was last caught on CCTV.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "This continues to be a massive investigation.

"A range of officers and staff from across the Met are taking part in the ever-expanding search for Alice.

"To date the search has involved the Met's underwater and confined space search team, marine support unit, search dogs, air support unit, Territorial Support Group, local borough officers, volunteer police cadets, visual images identification and detections officers, plus licensed search officers."

Alice has not been seen since August 28

Alice was last seen on CCTV walking along the towpath next to the canal as it passes under Trumpers Way at 4.26pm on August 28 but has not been seen since.

A reconstruction staged by police in the hope of jogging people's memory led to 150 calls from the public.

Alice's family have said "every morning brings new agony" as they made a heartfelt plea for her to return home.

More than a dozen police forces have contributed specialist resources to help with the search.

A range of officers are taking part in the ever-expanding search

Detective Superintendent Carl Mehta said: "CCTV is clearly crucial in our investigation, but we still need the public's help and I want to hear from anyone who saw Alice during the afternoon of the Thursday she was last seen.

"In over 30 years of policing I have never seen such a strong community reaction. This is a community that is totally behind the search to find Alice and bring her home."

Investigators said an area of disturbed earth at Elthorne Park in west London, which runs beside the canal towpath, was no longer of interest.

A police reconstruction led to 150 calls from the public

Prime suspect, 41-year-old builder Arnis Zalkalns - a convicted murderer who served seven years in a Latvian jail for killing his wife - was spotted on CCTV cycling along the same path as Alice on the day she vanished.

He has not been seen since September 3 and has not accessed his bank account or used his mobile phone.

But Det Supt Mehta stressed the Latvian, who was also accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl in 2009, was just "one line of inquiry".

A reward of up to £20,000 is being offered for anyone who has information that leads detectives to find Alice.

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Stand Up: UKIP's Youth Membership Leaps

By Jason Farrell, Senior Political Correspondent

There were many silver heads among the 2,000 strong Doncaster audience listening to UKIP leader Nigel Farage's speech.

But peppering the audience, there were also a number of young faces: perhaps 50 to 75 people in the under-30 age range.

Among them was 22-year-old Jack Duffin, chair of the Young Independence group and UKIP challenger to Boris Johnson to become MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

He told Sky News that UKIP was beginning to attract young voters on many levels: "Education policy, tax policy, our policy on grammar schools all appeal to young people."

He added: "Many are sick of the old parties. Also having a leader who is different and blunt is going down really well."

The Young Independence group has seen membership leap from 1,700 in March this year to 2,600 now.

Mr Duffin claims it is the fastest growing political youth movement in the UK, (although the Generation YES campaign in Scotland would probably beg to differ).

Speaking about Sky News' Stand Up Be Counted (SUBC) campaign, the party leader Nigel Farage admitted he still had "a long way to go" to attract young members and "a lot could be learned from Alex Salmond" and the tone of the Yes campaign.

Jack Duffin, Chair of the Young Independence group

He said: "I think the whole tone of the UKIP campaign is more positive. The youth wing of UKIP is up 50% on what it was last year. There are a lot more young faces at this conference than we've ever seen before."

Click here to visit the Stand Up Be Counted website

UKIP student societies have started up at the universities of Dundee, Bath and Chester.

The Chester branch is run by 20-year-old Dayle Taylor, who is also planning to stand as a candidate for UKIP in Blackburn.

He said: "For me originally, it was the whole question of should we be governed by a parliament in London or a parliament in Brussels, but UKIP is now about much more than that."

Others have more surprising reasons for joining the Party. Youth member Laura Howard said: "For me it's about animals and common fisheries policy.

"Because we are in the EU, it's not so bad now but deep sea trawlers could come into our seas and damage the environment. Also I don't agree with European transportation and the conditions in the European slaughter houses."

She added: "I'm pro-democracy - and I think the EU is anti-democratic."

Nineteen-year-old Brett Rickles told Sky News: "I think the most exciting policy announcement at the conference has been scrapping tax on the minimum wage, as well as the reduction or abolition of tuition fees for people taking science degrees."

A few years ago UKIP was a flourishing, angry anti-establishment party.

The kind of movement you might expect to attract the young.

But for some reason, perhaps the ultra-conservative image, its average age delegate was pushing on retirement.

As UKIP grows up, as well as attracting more Labour voters, it does seem to have a growing youth movement; but it is rising from a very low base.

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Back In Conflict, But This Time It's Different

By Sophy Ridge, Political Correspondent

It has begun. Eleven years after the invasion that marked the beginning of the Iraq War, Britain is again involved in a conflict in the region.

The Government is (rightly) quick to point out why this time, it is different.

The Iraqi government has made a formal request for British help in defending itself against IS and the US-led coalition is broad based, with support from some countries in the Middle East.

Most significantly, British involvement is limited to airstrikes and ground troops have been explicitly ruled out.

The first British jets took off for northern Iraq on Saturday morning and by 4pm UK time it was confirmed that they had returned to their base in Cyprus. Precise details of their mission is not known.

There are just six Tornado GR4 fighter bombers at the RAF Akrotiri base on the island. To put this in context, Denmark is deploying more war planes than Britain.

Denmark has more war planes than Britain in the current conflict

Ken Clarke has previously described the UK involvement as merely "symbolic", and others have argued that if it is so limited, what is the point of getting dragged into a potentially prolonged and complex conflict at all?

At the moment, UK military action is a halfway house.

Britain is not ignoring the crisis over IS and allowing other countries to get on with the campaign alone.

However, the involvement is incredibly limited.

Syria - where IS has its strongholds - is currently off limits. Ground troops are ruled out. MPs may have voted overwhelmingly in favour of airstrikes in Iraq, but many are extremely nervous about committing further.

The halfway house solution may work for the time being, but at some point the Government will have to decide whether the UK is fully in, or if it is out.

:: Watch full coverage on Sky News Sky 501, Virgin Media 602, Freesat 202 and Freeview 132.

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Conservative MP Mark Reckless Defects To UKIP

UKIP Steps Up Bid To Build Four-Party Politics

Updated: 9:45am UK, Saturday 27 September 2014

By Jon Craig, Chief Political Correspondent

Nigel Farage and UKIP are attempting to step up from a party of protest to genuine contenders in four-party politics.

After the European elections in May, they could legitimately claim to have done that, having topped the poll with 27.5% of the vote.

It was the first time since the 1906 general election that any party other than Labour or the Conservatives had come top in a national poll.

Now UKIP is bidding to win its first seat in a parliamentary election, when Douglas Carswell attempts to hold his Clacton seat in a by-election on 9 October triggered by his shock defection from the Conservatives. UKIP is also challenging Labour in another by-election on the same day in Heywood & Middleton.

But while Mr Carswell stands a good chance of turning his 12,068 Tory majority in 2010 into a comfortable win for his new party in Clacton, realistically UKIP will win no more than a handful of seats at next year's general election.

The party had hoped its conference this weekend would be a springboard to victory in the two by-elections next month and then a major breakthrough in next year's general election.

But suddenly, Parliament has been recalled to debate going to war and, with no MPs, UKIP has no influence on that decision and its conference is in danger of looking like a sideshow.

It was all very different after the European elections, UKIP's 27.5% of the vote gave the party 23 MEPs. Labour was second with 25.4% and 18 MEPs and the Conservatives third with 23.94% and also 18 MEPs.

The Greens polled 7.87% with three MEPs, while the Liberal Democrats slumped to 6.87%, winning just one MEP. On that showing, it wasn't so much four-party politics as three, with UKIP replacing the Lib Dems as the third party.

But that was the European elections. Parliamentary by-elections are different and the general election different again. Making a breakthrough is harder, as UKIP has already found.

UKIP's task has been made harder by the fact that many of the 18 by-elections since the 2010 general election have been in fairly safe Labour seats. And while UKIP has come second in five, Labour has held them all comfortably, with one spectacular exception.

But in Bradford West, Labour's shock defeat wasn't at the hands of a flamboyant beer-drinking party leader, but an equally flamboyant teetotal firebrand, George Galloway, who stormed to victory by 10,000 votes.

UKIP came second in Barnsley Central, Middlesbrough, Rotherham, South Shields, and Wythenshaw & Sale East.

It came third in Corby and Croydon North, but fourth in Oldham East & Saddleworth, Leicester South, Feltham & Heston and Manchester Central and fifth in Bradford West and Cardiff South & Penarth.

By far UKIP's best result was in Eastleigh, where in the seat previously held by the disgraced Cabinet minister Chris Huhne, Mr Farage's party fell just 1,771 votes short of defeating the Lib Dems.

While UKIP's Diane James was a strong candidate, Mr Farage faced claims that if he had stood he might have won. Not so, he insisted.

In the most recent by-election, in Newark, a monumental Tory effort saw the Conservatives see off the UKIP threat with a comfortable majority of nearly 7,500.

Now the UKIP leader has opted to fight Thanet South, where the Tory majority is 7,617 and a one-term Tory MP, Laura Sandys, is standing down at the general election. Mr Farage is tipped to win. But how many seats will his party win in 2015?

That may depend on whether any more Conservative MPs follow Mr Carswell into the arms of UKIP. And that could depend on how well he does in his by-election next month. Another question: will Mr Carswell hold Clacton in the general election?

Provocatively, UKIP is holding its party conference at Doncaster racecourse, in Ed Miliband's constituency. Mr Farage claims his party takes votes off Labour and Conservatives in equal numbers.

But the evidence of the by-elections so far in this Parliament suggests UKIP will damage the Conservatives more in the general election, handing victory to Labour in some marginals and merely eating into Labour's majority in its safe seats.

The European elections may have given us four-party politics. But unless UKIP springs a surprise and wins more than a handful of seats at Westminster, we won't see four-party politics after the general election.

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Iraq: British Jets Return From Combat Mission

By Alistair Bunkall, Defence Correspondent

British jets armed with missiles have returned from northern Iraq, following their maiden combat mission with authorisation to conduct airstrikes.

The two Tornado GR4 fighter jets - armed with missiles for the first time - took off from RAF Akrotiri at 8.30am this morning.

In a statement, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that no airstrikes were launched during the seven-hour mission.

"Although on this occasion no targets were identified as requiring immediate air attack by our aircraft, the intelligence gathered by the Tornados' highly sophisticated surveillance equipment will be invaluable," its spokesman added.

"We know that the very presence of coalition airpower over Iraq has a significant impact on IS's efforts to attack the Iraqi people.

"With no effective defence against airstrikes, and knowing the precision with which coalition aircraft can hit them, the terrorists are forced to be much more cautious, keeping their forces dispersed and movement inhibited."

A member of the aircrew prepares to depart on the first mission. Pic: MOD

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has confirmed that US forces have carried out airstrikes on seven targets in Syria, with missiles hitting an IS building and two armed vehicles. Three strikes were also conducted in the Iraqi city of Irbil.

The British pilots in Saturday's mission - one male, one female - were flying over Iraq according to the tasking given to them by US Central Command.

It is thought to have been a dynamic close air support mission, hitting targets if and when they reveal themselves.

The Tornados are being supported by a Voyager refuelling aircraft

Saturday's activity came after MPs overwhelmingly backed action in a vote in the House of Commons on Friday.

Parliament gave approval by 524 votes to 43 (a majority of 481) for Britain to join the US-led coalition in the Middle East.

Prime Minister David Cameron has said Britain is ready to play its part in dealing with IS.

He said: "We are one part of a large international coalition. But the crucial part of that coalition is that it is led by the Iraqi government, the legitimate government of Iraq, and its security forces.

"We are there to play our part and help deal with this appalling terrorist organisation."

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon told Sky News that Britain would select targets "in accordance with the American and international effort that's going on in Iraq".

He added: "There's fighting around these towns - we have to fit in to the day-to-day fighting and see where we can help best."

An RAF pilot at the base on Saturday morning

Meanwhile, Iraq's deputy prime minister has said Islamic State "is not just the problem of Iraq. It is the problem of all countries".

The planes have been at RAF Akrotiri for the past six weeks carrying out surveillance missions over the Middle East.

The US has been carrying out airstrikes in northern Iraq since August and France joined the mission last week.

:: Watch full coverage on Sky News Sky 501, Virgin Media 602, Freesat 202 and Freeview 132.

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