Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Kite marks the spot for quality food
A SCHEME to crack down on the £12billion-a-year food fraud racket will see products such as honey and whisky stamped with kitemarks to verify them.
In a world first, the British Standards Institute has launched the Kitemark for Food Assurance to authenticate the most “faked” food and drink.
The move is designed to prevent top-notch products being adulterated with cheaper ingredients and sold as the real thing by unscrupulous traders.
Honey maker the Scottish Bee Company is the first to earn the award after satisfying 30 criteria.
Co-founder Suzie Millar, said: “We’re over the moon.
“Provenance, purity, responsibility and sustainability is so important.”
ONLOOKERS who stood back and filmed a savage attack on two police officers have been labelled cowards.
Video on social media shows a male officer being pinned down and kicked while his colleague is pushed and kicked when she intervenes. Several people surround the pair, swearing and filming as others laugh. At least one took a selfie during the alleged assault.
One man with a baseball bat, who later gave his name as Kemran, 23, appeared to try to defuse the situation, acting as a shield for the fallen officer. The father-of-one said: “I saw a lone officer needing help and knew if anything bad happened the whole estate would be given a bad name.”
John Apter, national chairman of the Police Federation, described the scenes as “truly stomach churning”. He said: “It is disgusting behaviour from those who attack the officers, those who film what’s going on and those who do nothing. They are cowards, the lot of them.” Mr Apter said last year there were more than 30,000 assaults on police in England and Wales. He added: “Many of them are videoed. It’s almost like a hobby for some now to video an attack and then put it on social media.”
SICKENING
Mr Apter said he raised the incident personally with Home Secretary Priti Patel, who tweeted: “Sickening, shocking & disgraceful.”
It began when a member of the public, who claimed to have been assaulted, flagged down the police in Hackney, East London.
A spokesman said: “As an officer attempted to speak with those involved, one of the men resisted and a struggle ensued. A number of other people became involved while the officer was on the ground.”
Both officers suffered minor injuries in the incident, at around 3.30pm on Wednesday.
A boy aged 13 and three men aged 20, 32 and 34 have been arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker.
The Metropolitan Police tweeted: “Officers should be able to go about their work protecting the public without fear of abuse or attack.
“Being assaulted isn’t ‘part of the job’.”
A witness, who gave his name as Mukir, 38, said the scene looked like a “mad street fight”.
He added: “I saw these fellas surrounding a man on the floor, some were kicking and hitting him.”