One of Britain’s most notorious gangsters used Facebook to threaten his enemies while serving a 35-year sentence in a maximum security prison, it emerged on Sunday.
Colin Gunn, an underworld boss who helped plot the murder of two grandparents, sent messages to 565 “friends” after being transferred to a prison where he said officials had a relaxed attitude to social networking.
“I will be home one day and I can’t wait to look into certain people’s eyes and see the fear of me being there,” Gunn wrote in one message, the London Sunday Times reported.
In another, he said: “It’s good to have an outlet to let you know how I am, some of you will be in for a good slagging, some have let me down badly and some will be named and shamed, fucking rats.”
Gunn, 42, was jailed in 2006 for the conspiracy to murder Joan and John Stirland, who were tracked down to the Lincolnshire seaside village of Trusthope, where they were killed in cold blood. Joan Stirland’s son, Michael O’Brien, had killed a friend of Gunn’s.
The Ministry of Justice said it was “extremely concerned” that Gunn had access to Facebook because prisoners were banned from accessing social networking sites. Prisoners are only meant to have access to the Internet for educational purposes and under close monitoring.
However, many are believed to be logging on through telephones and other gadgets smuggled into prisons.
“We are extremely concerned that prisoners are able to update Facebook and other social networking sites either through illicit technology or via outside contacts,” an ministry spokesman said. “The Public Order Act 1986 created offenses dealing with causing harassment, alarm or distress. We will not hesitate to refer to the police any published material that appears to breach this.”
“We recognize that it is deeply distressing for victims and their families and friends and we have made it clear to Facebook that we do not think it acceptable or appropriate for these sites to remain active, something Facebook agrees with,” the spokesman said.
Gunn’s Facebook site has now been shut down, a source said.
The latest Internet breach comes after Jade Braithwaite, jailed for knifing to death Ben Kinsella, 16, used Facebook to taunt his victim’s family.
Earlier this month, relatives of victims of violent crime called for the introduction of electronic antisocial behavior (restraining) orders, or “E-Asbos” to stop convicted killers bragging online.
Gunn was jailed with his brother David. The two considered themselves kings of the Bestwood housing estate in Nottingham, England, from which they ran their drugs and extortion rackets. They boasted they had made millions from drug deals and drove around in powerful cars, jewelery dripping from their necks and wrists.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate