Met ticket fraud report finally appears

A couple of weeks ago the Mirror suggested the government was sitting on a report from Operation Podium for dubious reasons:

Last month we revealed that Operation Podium, which was set up to stop ticket touts disrupting the Olympic Games, has warned of a "policing void" when it is shut down.

MP Sharon Hodgson, who has been campaigning for new legislation to regulate and tackle touting, asked the Home Office and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to put copies of reports they had received from Operation Podium in the House of Commons Library.

But Sports Minister Hugh Robertson and Home Office Minister James ­Brokenshire told her the documents "contain sensitive information which cannot be published".

Which is strange, because the one we wrote about states it is "not protectively marked" and is suitable for publication.

Well, the report - or parts of it - has now been published.

It's worth remembering as you read the details that Operation Podium's main remit was to police Olympic ticket fraud, and is about to be wound down. So a conclusion that ticket fraud is rife, and something must be done could have an element of job creation involved.

Still, here's what the Met team say:

Detective Superintendent Nick Downing, who leads Operation Podium, said: "Experience shows that fraud is the most prevalent form of ticket crime and causes the greatest harm - conservatively estimated at £40 million per year. Criminals involved in this are also highly likely to be involved in other crimes.

"We also know that it is extremely under reported, and there is a lack of public awareness and understanding which means that people find it difficult to distinguish between an authorised, unauthorised or fraudulent websites. For these reasons it is important that ticket crime is properly tackled and the awareness is raised on how the public can take steps to protect themselves from becoming a victim of these crimes."

I'm a bit lost as to what other forms of ticket crime - beyond fraud - there is. That time the people rolled an Anfield post box round and round to get Cup Final tickets out the slot?

I'm not totally sure I buy the idea that ticket fraud costs £40m a year, either. It's hard to put a figure on these things, but Retail Research suggested that all credit card fraud across all retail sectors in 2011 amounted to £120million; it seems unlikely that ticket fraud occurs often enough to reach one-third the level of every dodgy Switch and Visa transaction in a UK shop.

Cocked Bloc: Festival dissolves in confusion

It sounded like a lovely idea: take over the Pleasure Gardens in Victoria Docks, London. Get a load of acts, from Snoop to Battles. Have some on boats, and some on dry land.

That'd be a great festival, right?

Today's message from Bloc suggests things didn't pan out:

By now everyone will have heard that Bloc 2012 was closed due to crowd safety concerns.

We are all absolutely devastated that this happened, but the safety of everyone on site was paramount.

Given the situation on the ground, we feel that it was the right decision to end the show early.

Bloc will not open on Saturday 7th July so please don’t come to the site.

Stand by for full information on refunds.

By most accounts, they're lucky that they're only facing a financial disaster, as last night went badly, badly wrong. Dummymag have done a great job of tracking how things fell apart.

Police closed down the festival at a quarter to one this morning, as too many people turned up:

The problems seemed to stem from a confusion over ticketing, reportedly handled by the extremely unfortunately named company Crowdsurge. One person we contacted, who wishes to remain nameless told us “there was a shambles getting in when it opened. No one seemed to have the right ticket, and security didn’t know the correct ones.”

Blogger Jamila Scott told us that by later on, this confusion had resulted in “two-hour” queues, so long that people burst over the fence. “People surged toward the front and jumped over the barriers by the toilets. There was then a stampede, with scores of people jumping over. Security went insane, screaming and shouting to try and stop it. Eventually though, they gave up and let anyone in.” She reported that no-one had checked her ticket.

There seems to be confusion over whether there had been over-selling of tickets, although once people stop having their tickets checked that becomes a moot point.

A massive crush of people, security losing control, and water. We're lucky we're writing about a festival error. I hope the Health & Safety Executive will be starting an investigation.

Blanco family, CPS unimpressed by Doherty NME interview

In the NME last week, Pete Doherty made some large claims about the night that Mark Blanco died.

It was a bit odd that the paper didn't attempt to push him a bit - particularly, on the idea that the Met Police has a video which shows Blanco falling to his death which clears him.

It was even more surprising that, having gifted a large chunk of space for Pete to put his case, the NME didn't bother to contact either the Met or the Blanco family to put a counterpoint. You know, in the interests of not looking so desperate for a Doherty exclusive that they'd let him say anything - however incredible - with barely a mutter.

The second part, in this week's paper, doesn't get much better. Doherty sounds off on the various qualities of London against Parisian heroin while "smoking something". When he tells Jamie Fullerton that in Paris, when you score

"it's like China White"

the response is a weak

It's a better class of heroin in Paris?

as if this was a bit with Alex James banging on about cheese.

Once the interview is over, in the epilogue, Fullerton suggests that Doherty's ongoing drug use is "disappointing", which is an odd choice of word for a man who has been brain-twanging all the way through his talk with the paper. Rather an understatement.

Meanwhile, Jamie Doward for The Guardian has been doing the research the NME chose not to, following up Doherty's tale of the night Mark Blanco died.

First, there's a perspective from Blanco's mother:

Blanco's friends and family have attacked the claims as a desperate attempt to rewrite the past. "Mark was a pacifist who would never raise a hand to anyone," said Sheila Blanco, Mark's mother. "Pathetic, tawdry PR stunts such as these strengthen even further my resolve: to secure justice for my son and to expose anyone who has obstructed the protracted investigation into his tragic death."

And then a quick call to the Met about the video which puts Pete into the clear:

The Met has referred questions about Doherty's claims of video footage to the CPS. Last year the CPS said in a statement that "CCTV footage did show several individuals later leaving the same building that Mr Blanco had fallen from and passing his body, but this evidence does not shed any light on how Mr Blanco fell or who, if anyone, may have been responsible".

So, no film, then. Quite an important point for the NME to not mention, surely?

Our suspicions were first aroused when he claimed emphatically to not have killed the deputy

A few weeks ago, Will Self claimed in the New Statesman that the Met's armed police had placed themselves beyond reproach. Not by behaving well, but by letting it be known if any one of them was ever properly punished for breaking the rules, they'd all walk. That sort of beyond reproach. If they were firemen and said that, it'd be all over the tabloids before you could fact-check.

It's perhaps this apparent belief that they're untouchable which gives the backdrop for the claims that an armed officer had dicked about hiding song titles and lyrics in evidence at an inquest into the death of Mark Saunders.

If it wasn't so horribly inappropriate, there'd be something almost mesmerising about a news story which unites songs by Chris DeBurgh and The Membranes.

The "independent" Police Complaints Commission is carrying out an investigation. It'll be interesting to see if anything solid comes of it.

Feargal Sharkey does some good

It's not all about trying to protect four outdated companies being head of UK Music - Feargal Sharkey has also been campaigning against the Form 696 which London venues are supposed to fill out "voluntarily" when they put on an event. The Met have backed down - a little:

Today Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Martin, the head of the Yard's clubs and vice unit, announced that venues would no longer be asked for details of the music style. A requirement to provide the telephone number of the performing artist will also be dropped and an independent "scrutiny panel" will be set up to ensure that the form is not misused, Martin said.

"We have listened to the concerns about the form and we have now dropped the question about which type of music will be played – it really does not add anything," he said. "There were things on the form that we did not need. My only aim with this form was to make sure that if people went to music events then they stayed safe there and got home safely."

Sharkey says - correctly - that the changes don't go far enough and suggests there still seems to be some sort of profiling going on in the questions that remain:

He said it was clear that the altered version continued to target musicians from ethnic minorities and he objected strongly to a question which asks about the "make-up of the patrons".

"What is the club owner going to say: 'White, middle class Londoners'. I don't think so," Sharkey said. "These changes raise more questions than they answer. You have to ask how many violent crimes are linked to live music anyway.

"Why should the Met get the details of performers 14 days before an event. These changes will do nothing to alleviate the concerns of disenchanted young artists."

This seems to be a far more serious question than if EMI are losing the odd sale here and there, and a genuine threat to the creative future of the country. If anything is going to smother new bands, it's this suspicious-administrative approach. This is what Sharkey should be concentrating on right now.

O'Neal festival stopped after stabbing

I'm not a crowd control expert, but is cancelling an entire festival because of one incident really the best move to make?

A teenager got stabbed in the leg at the Southwark Park Festival, and - rather like a grumpy primary school teacher - it's been decided that that one piece of trouble is going to spoil it for everyone, and the whole thing has been pulled. Alexander O'Neal and all.

It was police advice which led to the early closure. It sounds rather like the Metropolitan Police panicked somewhat. Perhaps it's a pity they didn't advise the G20 to call it a day once there was the first sign of trouble.

Actual digital music crime

The Met Police have arrested a group of djs who allegedly were using stolen credit cards to buy their own music off Amazon and iTunes.

Yes, yes, it's criminal, but at least they weren't unlicensed downloads.

DCI Terry Wilson, from the Met's Police Central e-Crime Unit, said: "This has been a complex investigation to establish what we believe to be an international conspiracy to defraud Apple and Amazon."

I'm sure Terry knows what he's talking about, but I'm not sure defrauding Apple and Amazon was quite the idea - after all, if you've stolen a credit card you can buy anything you like with it. Isn't it more that the alleged criminals were using Apple and Amazon as unwitting money launderers, rather than scamming royalties?

Gordon in the morning: Cops with guns

Okay, I'll give you this one, Gordon - the headline on the story about the Pet Shop Boys' b-side on the execution of Jean Charles De Menezes is pretty good:

Met shock Boys

Gordon, you can tell, can't quite bring himself to celebrate the idea that a pop group can release a song complaining about the erosion of civil liberties:

The chorus voices fears that liberties are being eroded by measures such as the anti-terror laws that followed the suicide attacks which left 52 people dead and more than 700 injured.

Okay, he doesn't come out and say "the Pet Shop Boys are helping the terrorists win", but the implication is there.

NEIL TENNANT and CHRIS LOWE’s most controversial track ever tells how De Menezes was gunned down at point-blank range in Stockwell Underground station after police mistook him for a suicide bomber.

But is that controversial? It might be their angriest song ever; it could well be their most political song ever. But since when did 'the police should be a bit more careful before summarily shooting people' become a controversial idea?

Then again, Smart is writing for the paper which stood applauding the day after the killing with its "one down, three to go" coverage.

Perhaps Gordon's on safer ground sticking to pop froth, like this advice to Cheryl Cole on how to break America:

If she’s going to sing, then she should get her vocal chords in order and blast herself off with a big show.”

The wiser head offering this advice? Mel B.

Career advice from Mel B. It's like civil liberties advice from regular Sun columnist David Blunkett.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet - The terror threat of live music

On The Guardian's Comment Is Free, Sunny Hundal explains why some types of live music are being put under the cosh:

I was, until recently, a regular at a monthly club night before the police suddenly started strictly enforcing ID checks. This wasn't merely to ensure I was above the required 18 years of age. Not only was everyone required to provide visual identification, but they also had to be logged in a computer database – otherwise none of us could go in. Everyone's driving licences were scanned through a machine and recorded on a computer, with no indication of how long the police would store the information for.

When I objected, the (white) club promoter was quite frank with me. He said the police had said they were "concerned" that the venue played "black and Asian music" and hence wanted added security. Any sort of trouble is extremely rare at this night. Yet their reasoning was that if any fight broke out, they could track everyone at the event if necessary.

Form 696 explicitly singles out musical styles such as R&B, bashment, garage or styles including MCs/DJs as examples of genres that have to be stated if put on. It also required event producers to state the likely racial profile of people attending. When accusations of racial profiling were inevitably raised by the music industry, the Met changed the wording to ask who it was targeted at.

George Michael arrested in a toilet

No, no, not that time; this all took place on Friday night, when Michael accepted a caution for possession of Class A and Class C drugs following an arrest in a public toilet on Hampstead Heath.

Tony McNulty was forced to take vital time out of swimming through Labour Party plots to answer questions of a "hang about, aren't you lot meant to be hard on Class A drugs and didn't Michael accept a caution not long ago for another offence and doesn't that mean he's kind of got off lightly?" nature:

Mr McNulty told the BBC: "The biggest message is that drugs are wrong and people will be punished, but it must be right that there is flexiblity in the law."

But the government has the balance "about right" between being tough when it needs to be and providing treatment for individuals "to get off that horrible spiral of drug dependancy and crime", he added.

Aha. So he's afraid that if Michael had been prosecuted, he might have wound up living on the streets, then. (To be fair to McNulty, he did stress he didn't know the details of the case and couldn't really comment on the decision taken at that point and so was giving a general, waffling answer.)

The precise location of Michael's arrest means the suspicion has to be that Michael was given a ticking off rather than taken to court because the cops weren't there to catch drug users, but involved in some other sort of operation. It's almost as if the Met don't want to have to troop their cottaging cops out into the harsh public glare of a celebrity trial for some reason.

Gordon in the morning: Taken badly

Yesterday's big kidnap splash which Gordon (and, to be fair, other media) ran is returned to this morning: it seems the victim isn't happy with Lily Allen for talking about it public:

Officers had put a ban on publicity about the case.

But at the GQ magazine Men of the Year awards in London on Tuesday, 23-year-old Lily praised police for their incredible job.

The kidnapped pal was said to be “livid”.

Ex Scotland Yard Commander John O’Connor said: “It was outrageous.”

The appearance of yesterday's story led to Scotland Yard circulating a reminder about the ban on publicity, which makes it slightly surprising that Smart has decided to return to the tale, repeating everything he'd published the day before. It's also funny that, according to Smart, the alleged victim is raging at Allen alone, and not, say, the editor of a newspaper column who ran the story in front of millions of eyeballs yesterday.

Thank the lord he can get back on to safer ground with the news that Kate Moss has worn a hat.

Winehouse in custody

Amy Winehouse is currently in a police station in East London, explaining those pictures from the Sun of her apparently smoking crack.

The Met Police have released a statement:

"Around 1pm today a 24-year-old woman from the Camden area attended a London police station by arrangement and was arrested in connection with the alleged possession of a controlled drug.

"She remains in custody. This is in connection with an investigation connected to footage passed to the Metropolitan Police on 22 January."

The Winehouse camp have also shared their perspective:

"Amy Winehouse voluntarily attended a London police station today by appointment.

"She was arrested in order to be interviewed and is co-operating fully with inquiries.

"The interview relates to a video handed to police earlier this year."

She's been in the station since one o'clock; seven hours is being very co-operative indeed.

Amy Winehouse in the clear

Despite the News of the World's predictions last December that Amy Winehouse was facing jail hell and would probably kill herself inside, the Met Police have announced that she's not going to face any charges following their investigations.

Black Francis off the streets

Much as we love him, we raise a curious eyebrow that the Metropolitan Police were so scared by the prospects of Black Francis playing a gig in the streets that they feared he might bring London to a standstill.

Citing the twentyfirst century boogerman of Health & Safety, Frank was made to play his "pre-core" gig inside instead.

That's as opposed to an encore, in case you're wondering.

Amy tapes handed over to cops

We're presuming - and we apologise if we're wrong - that the fact the column to one side of the Amy Winehouse story is bylined "By Gordon Smart - Bizarre Editor" implies that, once again, the key showbiz story has been written by someone else today.

The Sun is thrilled that the cops are asking for a look at the Amy Winehouse video:

We handed over a copy at the request of the Metropolitan Police after two officers from the SCD6 Specialist and Economic Crime Command visited our Wapping HQ.

The film was later passed on to Tower Hamlets detectives, who were set to analyse it.

A Met spokesman said last night: “Now we have received the information we will be viewing the footage to ascertain whether any action needs to be taken. We thank The Sun for its co-operation.”

We're not sure that quite stands up the Sun's front page claims:

Exclusive: Star may be charged - Copes seize our Amy film

In fact, it sounds like it should read:

Action of some vague sort might be taken - Sun gives police the Amy film that someone else shot

And while we realise that this isn't exactly a Clive Ponting case, should the paper be handing over stuff like this to the police? Isn't this going to implicate the person who shot the video? Can you square just giving up the source to the cops with best journalistic practice?

Meanwhile, the paper talks to Mitch Winehouse, who thinks it's all for the best:

“No one recognises the problems more than her and seeing images of herself like that may make the difference.

“The moment she says the words, ‘Right Dad go, this is it’, there will be an avalanche of support for her. The plans have been in place for a long time.”

So, she's well aware what her problmes are, but is just waiting for someone to print a picture of her doing crack and hand her over to the cops? It must be heartbreaking to be Mitch Winehouse, but surely he can see that colluding with the Sun in the downfall of his daughter isn't really going to do any good.