The recent Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) Symposium in Brighton saw many Trading Standards Officers rewarded for their outstanding contributions to the service and the prestigious Touchstone Award was amongst these. The award was presented by Andrew Hinds of F. Hinds, former Chair of the National Association of Jewellers (NAJ) and a member of British Hallmarking Council (BHC).

The impressive sterling silver award was won by Shared Regulatory Services (SRS) (Cardiff, Bridgend and Vale of Glamorgan) for their ongoing hallmarking enforcement projects. Their application comprised two parts: proactive visits to 21 jewellers; and thorough follow up to a single complaint. The first activity revealed four premises selling un-hallmarked goods and a fifth offering counterfeit goods as well as some un-hallmarked items. Fake Louis Vuitton and Chanel items with a potential retail value of £25,000 of were seized from one store.

Subsequently an exhaustive investigation following a complaint about an eBay seller led SRS to expose a trader selling mis-described, un-hallmarked jewellery, counterfeit jewellery and unsafe cosmetics. The business partners in the eBay seller are currently awaiting sentencing for numerous offences amounting to twelve charges each.

The range of activity and offences uncovered in Touchstone Award applications demonstrates that a hallmarking offence is frequently the tip of the iceberg. Birmingham Trading Standards’ application for their intensive 2 year “Operation Egyptian” concerning fake gold bangles was felt to be such a significant case that the British Hallmarking Council honoured the team led by Sajeela Naseer, Gary Singh and Mick Davies with a Special Award during the “Institute Celebrates Success” session earlier in the day.

Unscrupulous online traders competing with legitimate sellers and “bricks and mortar” retailers have created additional significant new problems for enforcement, particularly as Local Authorities are cutting budgets and reducing resources drastically. The collaboration between the NAJ, Assay Offices, the BHC and Trading Standards is crucial to the future of the legitimate jewellery industry.

Presenting the award, Andrew Hinds told Trading Standards officers:

The jewellery industry represents 1% of the UK economy and employs 60,000 people, hence our desire to see it protected. Global trading via the internet has increased the vulnerability of consumers, and this is especially true in jewellery due to misleading and fraudulent descriptions. This makes your enforcement role more important than ever before.

We recognise the challenges facing your service. We have made our concerns known to Government and will continue to do so.

Applications for the 2020 Touchstone Award open in January 2020 when full details will be published on the British Hallmarking Council website.

For more information or additional comment, please contact Sue Green, British Hallmarking Council Secretariat, at britishhallmarkingcouncilsec@gmail.com.

Photo credit: Simon Callaghan.

A new UK aid package is to help promote media freedom in developing countries around the world, International Development Minister Harriet Baldwin has announced today (10 July 2019).

One programme will look at creative ways for independent media outlets in countries such as Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Sierra Leone to develop better business models, by helping them for example to cut production costs and find new funding streams.

Another will encourage community groups and journalists to work together to develop strong, independent media outlets in countries, where historically journalists have enjoyed less freedom.

2018 is the worst year on record for violence and abuse against journalists during which more than half of the journalists were deliberately targeted. There was also a 15% increase in such killings since 2017, according to Reporters without Borders.

Over 1,000 professional journalists have been killed for doing their job around the world in the last 15 years.

This, combined with political and commercial pressures, has led to a global crisis in independent media outlets in developing countries.

International Development Minister Harriett Baldwin said:

At a time when journalists are attacked in record numbers, and too many independent media organisations are collapsing or threatened by political interests, today’s aid package could not be more crucial.

UK aid will help media experts, charities, the private sector and academics, to pioneer bold new approaches to keeping media outlets free and independent, and give them the power to report the truth.

This is in everyone’s interests. If people are able to hold their governments to account using reliable information, they can better understand their rights and demand better services, such as healthcare and education.

The Governments of the UK and Canada are co-hosting the Global Conference for Media Freedom today and tomorrow (10 and 11 July 2019) which aims to defend media freedom and improve the safety of journalists across the world.

This new support will build on DFID’s existing work to protect media freedom in developing countries, which has already helped to:

• give 283.5 million people in 15 fragile, poor and conflict affected countries access to TV, radio, and online outlets, whilst supporting 135 stations to strengthen their content to help citizens understand their rights and hold government and other power holders to account
• support media and research institutions to improve the environment for small and medium sized Nigerian media enterprises to work in
• ensure public debates on independent media can take place during free and fair Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government elections in Sierra Leone in 2018

Notes to editors

Today’s new UK aid package of up to £15 million will be provided by the Department for International Development. This includes up to £12 million for a consortium led by BBC Media Action to help existing media improve their business models. Up to another £3 million will go on the Aswat Horra programme, headed up by The Institute for War and Peace Reporting, which will support media outlets in countries where a free media is less established.

DFID is strongly committed to developing strong and free media institutions as a vital part of achieving Global Goal 16, to support peace, justice and strong institutions.

The new programmes come on top of an announcement for £12 million made in March 2019 for the PROTECT (Protecting Rights Openness and Transparency, enhancing civic transformation) Programme which aims to improve media freedom within developing countries. In total, DFID has committed up to £27 million to protect media freedom this year.

Summary

Shortly after 09:00 hrs on Saturday 1 September 2018, a London Underground Jubilee line train travelled between Finchley Road and West Hampstead stations with doors open at ten passenger doorways. The train, with approximately 30 passengers on board, reached a maximum speed of 62 km/h during the 56 second journey between the two stations. No-one fell out of the train and nobody was injured.

When the train stopped at Finchley Road station, some of the doors on the train, which was operating in automatic train operation mode (ATO), opened without being commanded to do so by the train operator. The operator’s controls did not allow him to open any doors, nor close any doors. It is likely that the door behaviour was due to control system overload caused by faults elsewhere on the train. While dealing with the door issue, the train operator operated a switch, bypassing the door interlock circuit that was intended to prevent the train departing with doors open. He then did not notice that some doors remained open when departing from Finchley Road station and travelling to West Hampstead. The train operator’s actions were probably influenced by:

• a sudden increase in his workload from the low level associated with automatic train operation
• fatigue from his sleeping pattern; and/or
• low blood-sugar levels from a prolonged period without food

An underlying factor was that, unlike some other London Underground trains and contrary to London Underground standards, the type of train involved in the incident could be driven with the door interlock circuit bypassed without an audible warning being provided to the train operator. A possible underlying factor was that the training of train operators did not adequately prepare them to manage the sudden increase in workload caused by the need to deal with faults, under time pressure, on trains operating in automatic mode.

Recommendations

The RAIB has made four recommendations addressed to London Underground. These include improvements to door control systems on Jubilee line trains; better training to help train operators respond correctly when sudden increases in workload occur while operating trains in automatic mode; raising train operator awareness of the adverse effects on safety from insufficient sleep and inappropriate eating patterns; and improved management of train faults.

The investigation also identified three learning points relating to the incident. These concern making sure that training, rules and procedures highlight the safety implications of operating sealed switches; understanding that careful checking that the correct switch has been operated when attempting to rectify technical faults is more important than timekeeping; and the importance of staff managing their work/life balance so that safety performance is not adversely affected.

Simon French, Chief Inspector of Rail Accidents said:

This very unusual incident highlights the stresses which Underground train operators can be subject to when something goes wrong. A technical fault which developed suddenly and without warning created a situation which the train operator had never encountered before. His attempts to solve the problem led him to isolate a safety circuit and move off without checking that the train doors were properly closed. In fact, ten sets of doors along one side of the train were wide open as the train ran the full distance to the next station. It is fortunate that there was no-one close to the doors at the time.

The rise of automatic operation has greatly improved the reliability of train services, but it has reduced the amount of engagement the train operator has with the on-train systems and equipment, which have become ever more complex. It is rare that an operator has to deal with a technical problem in service and understandable that, as in this case, they may sometimes be unsure of what steps to take. It is therefore important that operators are given the best possible training, and that the effectiveness of their response to problems is assessed as part of the company’s competence management system.

We are recommending that London Underground improves the training given to operators, and we think it is particularly important that they get the chance to practise responding to technical faults in a simulated train cab environment. This kind of training has been standard for airline pilots for many years, and I believe that it is time that it was more widely used in the railway industry.

Notes to editors

1. The sole purpose of RAIB investigations is to prevent future accidents and incidents and improve railway safety. RAIB does not establish blame, liability or carry out prosecutions.
2. RAIB operates, as far as possible, in an open and transparent manner. While our investigations are completely independent of the railway industry, we do maintain close liaison with railway companies and if we discover matters that may affect the safety of the railway, we make sure that information about them is circulated to the right people as soon as possible, and certainly long before publication of our final report.
3. For media enquiries, please call 01932 440015.

Newsdate: 10 July 2019

Rogue operators posing as legitimate waste businesses are known to be targeting sites in north Warwickshire, along the A5 corridor. Landowners are being approached by companies or individuals asking to become tenants and to operate a waste transfer facility. Landowners may be shown waste exemption paperwork which appears to show they are legitimate. Once on the land, the tenant allows waste to be illegally brought onto the site.

Landowners are told the waste being processed will be ‘inert waste’ which is soil, stones and the like. However, the waste being brought onto sites is shredded general waste, which looks very different and can be quite smelly. Soil is then used to cover these lorry loads of deposited waste in a bid to disguise it so that it can be more cheaply landfilled. The Environment Agency is sharing information and evidence with HMRC where they have found this happening.

In a bid to stop these rogue operators in their tracks, the Environment Agency, along with Warwickshire County Council is appealing to property and landowners, commercial property agents and trade associations to be on show they are legitimate. Once on the land, the tenant allows waste to be illegally brought onto the site. their guard. With the right advice and checks, landlords can help safeguard themselves against inadvertently harbouring an illegal waste site and potentially causing misery to locals due to issues like dust, odour and noise.

So far, Environment Agency waste crime specialists have successfully disrupted this illegal activity and waste has been removed from the land by those posing as legitimate business. However, the risk to landowners is significant. If waste is left abandoned on their land, landowners are responsible for clearing that waste, which, in extreme cases, could cost several hundred thousands of pounds.

A spokesperson for the Environmental Crime Team with the Environment Agency said:

We’re determined to make life hard for criminals; their illegal activities damage the environment and the economy. We are proactively working to disrupt and stop waste crime.

The Environment Agency stops more than 900 illegal sites a year from operating, and with the vigilance of landowners we can do even more.

Property and landowners, commercial property agents and trade associations are being advised to:

• Carry out rigorous checks on prospective new tenants – land and property owners have a responsibility to ensure anyone leasing their land/premises complies with regulations, so it is essential that you establish how and for what they are going to use the land/property
• Check any empty land and property regularly and make sure it is secure
• It is illegal to store waste on your land without the required permits – you may be committing an offence by allowing waste to be stored on your land or property without the relevant permissions and you could be liable to prosecution and the cost of removing the waste
• Landlords should check before signing a contract that the contract complies with regulations – you can view whether a potential tenant holds the correct permit to carry out waste operations
• The offer of payment to temporarily store waste may be a scam, the waste will likely never be collected.
• Be vigilant and report any unusual behaviour – if you are suspicious of prospective tenants please contact the Environment Agency for more information and advice.

The economic impact of waste crime in England is estimated to be over £604 million per annum. The Environment Agency is working hard to address this. Its specialist crime unit uses intelligence to track and prosecute organised crime gangs involved in illegal waste activity and to ensure any necessary action is taken against them.

Anyone who sees waste crime taking place, or who has been a victim of illegal baled waste deposit, is advised not to approach these people as they can be dangerous. Report it by calling thr Environment Agency incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.