Free Republic

Criminals have been given a “licence to shoplift” in the UK as police resources are spent elsewhere, warned the head of a major retailer. Dame Sharon White, the chairwoman of John Lewis & Partners, which operates department stores and the upmarket supermarket chain Waitrose in the UK has warned of increased criminality, including shoplifting and assaults on retail workers amid the cost of living crisis. She stated that assaults on employees at Waitrose had doubled since 2020. Citing research from the British Retail Consortium, Dame Sharon noted that there are 850 incidents of abuse or violence at retail stores in...

A campaigner trying to force the BBC to publish an internal report on alleged bias in its Middle East coverage won the latest round of a legal battle yesterday. The Law Lords held by a 3-2 majority that a case brought by London lawyer Steven Sugar under the Freedom of Information Act was wrongly blocked by legal rulings at earlier hearings. The BBC is understood to have spent £200,000 on the case which has been through the Information Tribunal, the High Court and the Court of Appeal. It now returns to the High Court for further argument.

Court upholds ruling on license photo By JAY STAPLETON Staff Writer Last update: September 07, 2005 DAYTONA BEACH -- A local appeals court says the constitutional rights of a Muslim woman who wanted to wear a veil in her driver's license photo were not violated and she must follow the state law requiring full face photos. The opinion reached Friday by the 5th District Court of Appeal affirmed a 2003 order from a trial court in Orlando, which shot down the civil lawsuit filed by Sultaana Freeman of Winter Park, denying her the right to have her license picture taken...

<p>SACRAMENTO (AP) - The Senate's Republican leader predicted Thursday that there will be enough Democratic votes, at least in the his house, to overturn a controversial new law allowing illegal immigrants to get drivers' licenses. But he said a different form of the statute with more security precautions could win support from some GOP lawmakers.</p>

Couple's TV licence trick foiled CRAIG WALKER A COUPLE IN Aberdeen wrapped their television in a parcel of tin foil to try to avoid paying their licence. They believed the silver foil would make their set invisible to hi-tech detector vans. But the couple got a shock when a TV licensing squad came knocking on their door after their state-of-the art equipment picked up the set. The lengths householders will go to dodge paying a licence fee were revealed yesterday by TV Licensing, the firm which detects rogue viewers. A wide range of weird and wonderful excuses were recorded across...

ORLANDO -- Speaking softly from behind a black veil, only her eyes visible as they moved from the face of her questioner to the judge, Sultaana Freeman cited the religious beliefs that have brought her into conflict with the state over her driver's license photo. Freeman, 35, who became a Muslim in 1997 and started wearing a veil full time shortly after that, told Circuit Judge Janet C. Thorpe she is opposed to being photographed or being seen without her veil. It was a mistake that allowed Freeman to be photographed for her driver's license wearing a niqab, a religious...

A PENSIONER on his way to receive an award for 25 years accident-free driving was stopped by police at a roadside check - and then admitted he did not have a licence. Wilibald Schmidt, 77, had been forced to hand over his licence for driving offences a quarter of a century before, but had carried on driving illegally without it, according to a report in the German daily newspaper, Bild. Because Mr Schmidt had not had an accident since 1978, the local motoring club in Essen, Germany, where he was a member, had invited him to receive an award for...