The News

A police force was last night accused of ‘trampling’ over democracy after detectives allegedly put pressure on a local Tory party to unseat a colleague wrongly accused of a hate crime.

Anthony Stevens, a Conservative councillor in Northamptonshire, was arrested last year after posting an image from a video – first revealed by The Mail on Sunday – of a Christian preacher having his bible wrested off him by police in the street.

The father of two was held for nine hours, during which he was also quizzed about his online support of another politician who criticised gay pride events. Mr Stevens, 51, a member of Wellingborough Town Council, was released and later told that no further action would be taken against him.

But the MoS can now reveal that days before Mr Stevens was arrested, a Northamptonshire Police detective phoned Jonathan Ekins, a former local Tory mayor for Wellingborough, and allegedly told him Mr Stevens should be ‘removed’ as a councillor because of his views.

In a statement to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, Mr Ekins said Detective Constable Amelia Thompson told him Mr Stevens was about to be arrested ‘for a serious offence’. 

Anthony Stevens, a Conservative councillor in Northamptonshire, was arrested last year after posting an image from a video – first revealed by The Mail on Sunday – of a Christian preacher having his bible wrested off him by police in the street

Andrea Williams, of the Christian Legal Centre, who is representing Mr Stevens, said: ‘What happened undermined and trampled on our law, democracy and freedoms on every level’

‘She said in their opinion the police felt that he was not a fit person to be a councillor,’ he said. ‘DC Thompson said Anthony Stevens should be removed from being a councillor.’

It is claimed that in a later call, DC Thompson told him police had learnt Mr Stevens had attended a meeting at the same time as a Labour councillor thought to have complained about his tweets.

This, she said, was a breach of his bail conditions and she warned him officers would arrest Mr Stevens ‘on the spot’ if he turned up at another meeting attended by the Labour councillor. 

Mr Ekins said: ‘My response was, rightly, to remind DC Thompson that she would be welcome to try but that, as chair of the committee, I have the right to … instruct security officials to remove the police for public disruption of a democratically constituted meeting.’ The row has prompted accusations of political interference by police.

Andrea Williams, of the Christian Legal Centre, who is representing Mr Stevens, said: ‘What happened undermined and trampled on our law, democracy and freedoms on every level.’

Mr Stevens, a property developer, was arrested last August and quizzed about tweets from his account, which had 76 followers. One involved a video showing how police had treated Christian preacher Oluwole Ilesanmi (pictured) in Southgate, North London, in 2019

Mr Stevens, a father of two, was held for nine hours, during which he was also quizzed about his online support of another politician who criticised gay pride events

Mr Stevens, a property developer, was arrested last August and quizzed about tweets from his account, which had 76 followers.

One involved a video showing how police had treated Christian preacher Oluwole Ilesanmi in Southgate, North London, in 2019.

An officer snatched Mr Ilesanmi’s bible after the preacher was accused of being Islamophobic. Mr Stevens was also quizzed about tweeting support for councillor King Lawal, suspended by his Tory group after he responded to images of Pride parades by writing: ‘Pride is not a virtue but a sin.’ 

A third tweet shared by Mr Stevens, and raised by police, involved a clip of a man burning a copy of the Koran with the suggestion he should be free to do so.

The Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case four months later but he remains suspended by the Tory party. Last night Mr Stevens said: ‘I don’t think people realise what it’s like to be taken from your house at 8am in front of your wife and kids, held in a police station and called a racist.’

The MoS understands his IOPC complaint was referred to Northamptonshire Police’s Professional Standards Department. The force said: ‘This investigation is subject to a live complaint… we are unable to comment further.’

That was the leading UK stock market index’s 12th fresh closing peak in a month, equalling a record dating back to 1984.

While investors will be cheered by a 9.3 per cent return by mid-May, some FTSE 100 shares have grown by much more – with the top three rising 49 per cent, 42 per cent and 39 per cent, respectively.

We reveal the ten biggest risers in the FTSE 100 this year and look at why these big blue-chip companies have led the way on the UK stock market.

A survey of five million distant solar systems, aided by ‘neural network’ algorithms, has discovered 60 stars that appear to be surrounded by giant alien power plants.

Seven of the stars — so-called M-dwarf stars that range between 60 percent and 8 percent the size of our sun — were recorded giving off unexpectedly high infrared ‘heat signatures,’ according to the astronomers.

Natural, and better understood, outer space ‘phenomena,’ as they report in their new study, ‘cannot easily account for the observed infrared excess emission.’

Ever since theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson first proposed the idea at Princeton in 1960, astrophysicists have speculated that advanced extraterrestrials might have constructed massive solar energy collectors around one star or more.

While powering their spacefaring ET civilizations, these hypothetical ‘Dyson spheres,’ would reveal themselves by radiating more heat than usual, the physicist argued.

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Up to five million tonnes of nuclear waste could be buried in a shallow pit beneath the English countryside, according to a new government strategy. 

New plans show that a ‘near-surface’ facility dug less than 650ft (200m) below the surface could be used to hold some of the UK’s less dangerous nuclear waste.

The location for the pit has not yet been revealed, but the Government says a facility could built in England or Wales within the next 10 years. 

The plans are aimed at easing pressure on the UK’s 17 nuclear waste disposal plants which are currently struggling to handle seven decades of accumulated waste. 

However, a solution for the UK’s most dangerous nuclear waste won’t be ready for at least another 25 years. 

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My girlfriend and I are looking to buy a home for £250,000. We are a couple in our late 20s and have a joint income of about £80,000, although we both have chunky student loan debts to pay off. 

We have very little in savings so thought that ruled us out of buying a home for the moment.

But we have recently seen something about 99 per cent mortgages which look interesting. 

What lenders offer these deals and what are the hoops we’d have to jump through to get one? Are they much more expensive than other mortgages? 

SCROLL DOWN TO FIND OUT HOW TO ASK DAVID YOUR MORTGAGE QUESTION  

Mortgage help: Our weekly Navigate the Mortgage Maze column sees broker David Hollingworth answering your questions

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Archaeologists have discovered mysterious structures hidden below the surface near Egypt’s Great Pyramid that could be an unknown tomb built 4,500 years ago.

The team used ground-penetrating radar on Giza’s Western Cemetery, uncovering an L-shaped anomaly that appeared as an entranceway to a chamber below.

The burial ground holds the remains of King Khufu, who commissioned the iconic pyramid, his family members and high-ranking officials, suggesting another elite tomb could be hiding beneath the sands.

The L-shaped structure is up to six feet below the surface and filled with sand, which researchers speculated was intentionally done after it was constructed to block the entrance to the ‘chamber’ nearly 30 more feet below.

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The four parties involved in talks on forming a new, right-wing government in the Netherlands enter the final day of negotiations on Wednesday positive that they will be able to finalise a deal before the midnight deadline.

Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right PVV, left Tuesday’s talks at around 1 am saying that while “we still have work to do”, “I do not see things going wrong anymore.”

VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz, who has been silent in recent days, told reporters that “you can see we all look relieved” while Caroline van der Plas, from pro-countryside party BBB, said much credit needed to be given to Wilders and “this is not going to go wrong”.

NSC leader Pieter Omtzigt was also positive, saying the four parties are a “hair’s breadth” from an agreement. “We have found the basis for an alliance and we have full confidence in it,” he said. The country “needs a new government”, he told reporters.

The talks will resume at 10 am.

No details of the agreement have yet been published and it is unclear if the parties have now reached agreement on government finances, which had proved to be a main stumbling block.

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A three year hunt for patterns hidden in the roars, sighs, and other noises made by Indonesia‘s orangutans has discovered ‘a full spectrum’ of complex vocalizations.

The breakthrough comes hot on the heels of other recent discoveries further revealing the depth of the great ape’s intelligence — including one orangutan’s practice of healing its own injuries with a self-prepared medicinal herb.

The research team reinforced their analysis by testing artificial intelligence (AI) detection methods against the painstaking work of biologists and bioacoustics scientists, employing only their trained ears, intellects and measurement tools.   

The Cornell University-led team pooled together a dataset of 117 recorded ‘long calls’ made by 13 males of one particular species, the Bornean orangutan, employing 46 acoustic measurements on 1,033 distinct pulses detected within those calls.

‘These features would seem to greatly boost the potential complexity of this signal,’ they wrote, suggesting humanity might soon know what the great apes are saying. 

A Cornell-led team pooled together a dataset of 117 recorded ‘long calls’ made by 13 male orangutans – deploying 46 acoustic measurements on 1,033 pulses detected within the calls. The results appear to show higher ‘potential complexity’ in ape calls than previously realized

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