Dear IRR News subscriber,

This week, we republish a submission by Frances Webber, a retired immigration barrister, to a government consultation on ‘tackling illegal immigration in privately rented accommodation’. We also have a report on responses to the government’s ‘go home’ campaign.

The Crown Prosecution Service has ruled out further action against Kieran Beresford, who killed a man with a single punch following an argument about racist comments, unless there is ‘new and compelling evidence’. Charlie Bowers, who was branded a coward and a racist, has been jailed for four years for stabbing a Polish man in the back in an attack in Dover.

Met chief Bernard Hogan-Howe is supporting a police officer known only as ‘E7’ in his legal challenge to a verdict returned by a retired judge at the public inquiry that there was no lawful justification for the shooting of Azelle Rodney in 2005.

And finally, we are urgently seeking a volunteer to help in compiling a database of deaths of asylum seekers and migrants in Europe over the past two years which are attributable to asylum or migration policies of exclusion. The work will involve some research using the internet and print sources, and data entry into a spreadsheet. We anticipate that the volunteer would come in once or twice a week, initially for a month. We are also in need of a volunteer to help with translations from German for the European Research Programme. This could be the same or a different person. Please email: info@irr.org.uk with a personal statement.

Harmit Athwal

Editor, IRR News