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Home Office in the media

https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/10/24/home-office-in-the-media-thursday-24-october/

Home Office in the media: Thursday 24 October

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Home Office in the media

Today's leading stories include the incident in Grays involving 39 fatalities, and cyber crime reporting.

Grays incident

There is widespread coverage this morning in print and broadcast, including on the Today Programme, Sky and ITV, covering the 39 bodies found yesterday in the back of a lorry in Essex. On broadcast, it is noted that last night two properties were raided in Northern Ireland in connection with the incident and that the identification of the bodies will take time. 

The story is also covered widely in the papers including The Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Sun, Guardian and the Independent.

Comments made by the Home Secretary in Parliament yesterday on the incident can be found here:

The Home Secretary has also tweeted:

Priti Patel MP @patel4witham

This morning I met officers from Essex Police to express my thanks for their response to the tragic incident in Grays & receive an update on the investigation. I stand behind them as they continue their work to establish how this horrific event came to happen.

Cyber crime backlog

The Telegraph, the Guardian and the Today programme comment that thousands of reports of cyber crime were quarantined on a police database instead of being investigated because software meant to protect computer systems branded them a "security risk".

The articles note that the backlog stretched to around 9,000 reports of cyber crime and fraud at one point, with some of the cases dating back to October last year. The reports had been made to Action Fraud and handed to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, run by the City of London Police.

A Government spokesperson said:

Cyber criminals cause misery, and the Government is working with industry, law enforcement and regulators to reduce the number of victims and ensure they get support and advice.

We welcome this report, which highlights that investment from the Government has created an effective response. However, there is more to do and we continue to work with law enforcement to ensure they have the capabilities they need to bring the perpetrators to justice.

We have invested more than £200million since 2010 in the response to cyber crime and are funding specialist units in each of the 43 police forces across England and Wales. 

 

 

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