Busted: "People will have to get over their perceptions of us" - BBC News

Image copyright Busted

Image caption Busted as they are now in 2016 - Matt Willis, Charlie Simpson and James Bourne

As former boyband Busted return with a surprising new sound, channelling Daft Punk and 1980s movies, they tell us why its time for people to change their perceptions.

Charlie Simpson, Matt Willis and James Bourne found fame and legions of young fans as Busted in the early 2000s, thanks to hits like What I Go To School For, Crashed the Wedding and Year 3000. But once a punk rock boy band, not always a punk rock boy band, apparently.

"Yeah we have a past," admitted Busted at the recent press launch of their first new album in more than a decade, Night Driver. "But we have a future too."

After an acrimonious split in 2005, when Simpson left to concentrate on his other band Fightstar, the band patched things up last year to announce 2016"s Pigs Might Fly reunion tour. But they also decamped to LA to try and write a new album, channelling "grown up" influences like Skrillex and the 1980s movies they watched as kids.

""I"m very glad we did," Charlie Simpson told the BBC. "It was the first time we"d really just been together without any pressure from anyone and I think we"re just really proud of the result."

The influence of Daft Punk"s collaborations with Nile Rodgers is also clear to hear on new single On What You"re On, while the video (and the album"s name and artwork) owes plenty to Nicolas Winding Refn"s stylish Ryan Gosling movie Drive.

"Back in the day, we made the music that we made because that"s what we were into at the time," added Matt Willis.

"We made this record because that"s what we wanted to make right now. We didn"t aim it at anybody, we just kind of made it."

Image copyright PA

Image caption Busted as they were in 2004 - James Bourne, Charlie Simpson and Matt Willis

Did you feel like you had nothing to lose by getting in the studio together?

Charlie: That was it - we were all so happy just to be in a room. I mean that was a big step for a start, just for us to be in the room together with some guitars. It was all just very natural, just a free flowing process, we didn"t really stop to think about it.

James: If we liked the way it sounded we just kept going. If we weren"t feeling it in the moment we didn"t finish it.

Charlie: We were getting in the studio at 10am, coming out at 8,9 pm and these songs were really being recorded on day-by-day basis.

Who are you most nervous about hearing it?

Charlie: I think it"s the old fans I"m most apprehensive of - seeing if they"re going to come with us on this new journey. I"ve got a feeling that they are. The people I"ve shown that were Busted fans back in the day absolutely love it. It"s always nerve-wracking releasing any music, regardless of what it is. But you can"t make music for other people, you have to be happy with yourself.

Matt: This is the exact album that I want to be on. Sometimes I listen to bands and I"m like, "man, I want to be in that band!" And now I can hear my album and I"m like "I want to be in that band". And it"s the coolest thing, it"s like "that"s me!".

Image copyright Busted

Without wanting to sound rude, there"s definitely an element to your new sound that"s a bit more "musically credible" than Busted in the old days?

Charlie: We have ten years of experience and this album is who we are now. I don"t feel it"s like we"re "trying to do" anything. People"s perception of what Busted is and was - obviously people have to get over that initially, because this is a very different thing.

But the music is our weapon, the music is what"s going to do the talking and people either will come with us or they won"t, but I believe in this music enough to believe that it will change people"s perceptions.

James: They will come or they won"t, but you know what? The door"s always open.

Did you ever think about changing your name and doing a different project entirely?

Charlie: That is an interesting question. We never actually thought about that.

James: No. For all of us, being in a band that wasn"t Busted would be weird. The whole point of a band name is so that people know who you are, and we are Busted. The three of us together are Busted, so that"s the label - it"s just a label.

Charlie: If you think of any bands that change their sound, they didn"t change their name because of their sound. Many bands have gone on huge musical journeys.

I"m not comparing us to Coldplay in any way whatsoever, but if you listen to their album now and you listen to Yellow, they are effectively a different band. I guess the difference with them is they"ve evolved over time.

James: We weren"t there to evolve in front of people"s faces. You didn"t see a transition.

Charlie: But we still evolved as people though - we evolved hugely.

Image caption Busted were a regular feature on kids TV like The Saturday Show in their heydey

You are planning some more live shows later this year - how do you think "the two Busteds" are going to gel?

Charlie: Good question! We should have thought that through earlier!

Matt: That"s going to be a real sticky point - how do we make these two bands co-exist?

Charlie: That"s going to be the hardest part of this whole process, but with the old songs we are going to reinvent them a bit. We did for the [reunion] tour, the songs sounded different on the tour.

James: Songs are songs and they can be done so many different ways. People cover songs every day, but the songs exist always. So maybe there"s a way that we can make some of them not feel like they"re completely alien to what we"re doing now.

Charlie: We will always play some of the old songs. We"re not just going to not play old songs. But there will be a transition period as we move on.

We"re going to start writing our new record soon.... in the next six months. And before long, there"s going to be two albums, and then you"ve got the same amount of albums that are new and old. And then you do a third one and suddenly your new stuff outweighs your old stuff, so you end up just becoming that band anyway.

So you"re already thinking about your third new album together?

Charlie: We are in a way, because we finished this album six months ago and we"re going on to think about new songs.

Matt: If you listen to this record there"s a progression. We were discovering new things as we were making it. So the next record"s going to be even more fun again because we get to explore a few other avenues which we kind of touched on.

We can"t wait to go back into the studio, we had such an amazing time. This is the most excited I"ve been about anything I"ve done creatively ever, so I can"t wait to do more.

Busted"s album Night Driver is out on 11 November. On What You"re On is out now.

Related Topics

• Music

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37512366

Vote for Britain"s best new building: Outhouse - BBC News

Media captionRiba Stirling Prize shortlist 2016: The Outhouse, Forest of Dean

Outhouse is one of six UK buildings to be shortlisted for the 2016 Riba Stirling Prize for architecture. A select line-up of judges will decide the winner, but the BBC, in partnership with Riba, is inviting you to vote for your favourite. Find out about the other buildings here.

---

This vote requires Javascript.

If you are viewing this page on the BBC News app, tap here to vote.

---

What is it and where?

A concrete house in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. designed by Loyn & Co as a home for two retired artists. The low-lying building is embedded in the side of a hill and its roof is a field. It is the first private house to feature on the Riba Stirling Prize shortlist for 15 years.

How much did it cost?

Undisclosed.

What was the vision?

To replace an existing house with a sustainable, energy efficient live-work space, blending into the landscape. The footprint of the site is much bigger than before, partly because of the client"s requirement for two artist"s studios and a gallery-like space. But cutting into the side of the hill and building underground means its visual impact is much reduced.

Image copyright Charles Hosea

What have people said about it?

"This low-lying, super-modernist house also looks back to a classic model, a kind of glamorous retro-moderne. It"s rare for a private house to appear on this list, which itself shows its quality." Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times, July 2016

"It"s hard to see much in the architectural concept that wasn"t better done in Mies van der Rohe"s Tugendhat house, in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1930." Rowan Moore, Guardian, July 2016

"We"re pretty sure you"ll all want to live there." Tom Gibbon, Gloucestershire Echo, July 2016

Explore the other buildings on the shortlist

• Blavatnik School of Government
• Newport Street Gallery
• City of Glasgow College, Riverside Campus
• Weston Library
• Trafalgar Place

BBC Riba Stirling home page

Find out more about the BBC Riba Stirling Prize partnership

Credits: Video by Richard Kenny and Dave O"Neill

---

Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.

Related Topics

• Architecture

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37442091

Operation Julie: How I infiltrated a drugs gang - BBC News

Image copyright Stephen Bentley

Image caption As Steve Jackson, Stephen Bentley lived out of the back of a van during the surveillance operation

At the age of 29, Stephen Bentley, a fresh-faced detective, turned himself into Steve Jackson, a dope-smoking, hard-drinking hippy. His time spent undercover with a gang making and distributing LSD helped bring down two criminal networks - but ultimately at huge personal cost to himself.

The drugs ring he infiltrated for two years in the mid 1970s had its origins in the counter-culture of the 1960s. It involved doctors, scientists and university graduates.

Liverpool University chemist Richard Kemp had been recruited in 1969 by Cambridge author David Solomon to manufacture LSD, initially at least as part of a social experiment to bring about world peace through "mind-expansion".

They turned to London businessman Henry Todd to handle sales, but by 1973 the group had fallen out, and Kemp and Solomon moved production from Cambridge to west Wales, creating two distinct networks.

Image caption Operation Julie smashed two drugs networks in Cambridge and Wales

In 1975 police were alerted when evidence of hydrazine hydrate, a key ingredient in the manufacture of LSD, was found in a Range Rover belonging to Kemp after it was involved in a fatal crash near Machynlleth, in west Wales.

An operation was set up to smash the drugs network. It was run in secrecy by Operation Commander Dick Lee, as a precaution against corruption in the Metropolitan Police and loose tongues in provincial police stations.

Mr Bentley was handpicked for the potentially dangerous undercover mission by Commander Lee, who regarded the young Liverpudlian as a "talented, friendly and intelligent detective".

Although, as Mr Bentley now recalled, there was "no training manual" for infiltrating a drugs cartel.

His first operation was watching Plas Llysyn - an imposing mansion house deep in central Wales, where Kemp and his girlfriend, Dr Christine Bott, were suspected of producing LSD.

Although most surveillance was "utterly boring", a decision was made to surreptitiously break into the property. It meant a trip to the local Woolworths to buy house breaking tools - hammers, screwdrivers and rubber gloves.

This covert break-in provided evidence of an acid factory in the cellar.

In July 1976, Commander Lee"s next plan was for Mr Bentley, along with fellow officer Eric Wright, to infiltrate what appeared to be a community of drop-out hippies, who lived in the village of Llanddewi Brefi. One individual - Alston Hughes, known as Smiles - was a key figure in LSD distribution.

They were given fake IDs - Steve Jackson and Eric Walker - and a cover story of auctioning second-hand cars. They also claimed to be searching for a lost brother who had absconded from court and joined a hippy commune in Wales.

Faded jeans and cheesecloth shirts became their uniforms. The pair stopped shaving and cutting their hair and lived out of the back of a Transit van - with some psychedelic flowers painted on the side, to add to the flower-power hippy image.

"I had a job to do but I was getting good money, and living a carefree life," says Mr Bentley. "I was able to throw off the shackles of being Stephen Bentley and become a completely different person, with a different outlook on life, different standards, and different scenery.

"The freedom in itself was a high. It was exhilarating.

"Who was Steve Jackson? He was really me in a live stage play, but instead of being in the West End it was real life."

Image copyright Stephen Bentley

Image caption Stephen Bentley now lives in the Philippines

However, that level of freedom was not without cost. A "constant, unrelenting awareness" of the vital importance of not being found out - both for the importance of the operation and his own personal safety - piled pressure on him.

On top of that, the officers had virtually no contact with their families back home.

"My cover of being a used car dealer enabled me to get home to my wife for a day or two every so often but I was forced to hide indoors. People would have asked too many questions about the radical change in my appearance."

When it comes to what attributes are needed to be a successful undercover officer, Mr Bentley is quite clear.

"The first quality is to be likeable. That breaks down most suspicions. I don"t think many people believe a police officer is capable of being a genuinely nice guy while the second is to be prepared to be reckless and take "them" by surprise."

In order to fit in as Steve Jackson, Mr Bentley had to adopt new habits, and that included taking drugs.

"The over-riding feeling was fear. I was worried about smoking dope and taking cocaine, but those fears subsided as I took more and didn"t end up in the gutter," he said.

---

Operation Julie 1976-77

• Involved more than 800 officers from 11 forces in one the UK"s biggest ever anti-drugs operations
• On the 26 March 1977, 120 suspects were rounded up in raids across England and Wales, including chemist Richard Kemp, and distributor Henry Todd
• It smashed two LSD production and distribution networks thought to have been supplying up to 90% of the UK"s market in the drug
• One million LSD tablets were seized, along with enough crystal to make 6.5 million more
• After a trial at Bristol Crown Court, 15 defendants were given jail terms adding up to more than 120 years
• It was named after Sgt Julie Taylor, one of the undercover police officers involved
• Immortalised in The Clash"s song Julie"s Been Working for the Drug Squad

---

Many of the gang were also heavy drinkers and he had to keep up.

"I was drinking for England. It was a minimum of five or six pints a day and three or four shots. On a heavy day it would be 12 to 15 pints and who knows how much whisky.

His book, Undercover Operation Julie - The Inside Story, documents everyday life as he won the confidence of the gang members.

The pair set out to build trust and socialise with key members of the hippy community - offering their services clearing trees (Eric Wright could use a chainsaw) or helpfully putting their van to use offering to move people"s furniture.

On one comic occasion an upright piano went hurtling out the back of a van while the gang attempted furniture removal after a drinking and cannabis-smoking session.

With the local police unaware of the operation, on another occasion he enhanced his deep cover by directing drunken abuse against a village constable.

The truncheon-wielding PC chased the hippies from the pub, although as Mr Bentley recalls, the officer"s "athleticism had long gone" so they were able to out run him.

By then, Mr Bentley was so assimilated into the group that they gave him the nickname "cop killer" - because of his abuse of the officer.

One key gang member he built a "perfect" relationship with was Smiles. But this friendship almost undermined the whole operation.

"Really, when I look back, I wonder how I kept it together," he says. "There was one occasion that stands out.

Image copyright Stephen Bentley

"I was sat cross-legged with Smiles in his living room. Through smoking cannabis and drinking I came very, very close to losing self-control and confiding in him who I was, mainly because I really liked him. It was just sheer willpower that stopped me."

During his undercover assignment, Mr Bentley continued to get on well with Smiles. He said: "I was relieved not to be involved in his arrest, but I went to see him in the police cells at Swindon.

"I"d shaved off the beard. When he recognised me he just said "No hard feelings". I felt very emotional. Close to tears. He felt like a brother."

In February 1977, with evidence against the gang already gathered, the undercover pair were pulled out.

Raids on 87 addresses in Wales, London, Cambridge and France between March and December 1977 would eventually turn up laboratory equipment, more than 1m in cash and shares, and enough LSD for 6.5 million doses.

In 1977, that amount of LSD was worth in the region of 100m, which would be around 650m in 2016 - some 138m more than the huge Scottish cocaine operation brought to justice earlier this year.

Although he won a promotion, Mr Bentley became alcohol-dependent, continued to take cannabis and his second marriage broke down.

It is something he largely blames on his undercover work.

"I believe I was treated so badly, that it still rankles now," he says. "I was a good copper and enjoyed the camaraderie of being part of a crack detective team. I loved the job and resigned while suffering from severe depression.

"My drug habits would never have happened without my exposure on Op Julie."

Image copyright PA

Image caption The gang was responsible for about 90% of the LSD production in the UK

While Operation Julie was deemed a success - a total of 120 arrests were made, resulting in 15 convictions and prison sentences totalling more than 120 years - Mr Bentley thinks the long term impact was "negligible".

He believes it was a missed opportunity to develop specialist undercover police work.

"The surveillance and undercover techniques honed during the operation were lost," said Mr Bentley. "Infiltration is highly specialised and should have become a career option to avoid the transition back to normal policing.

"Op Julie was special because it surmounted this parochialism and proved what could be achieved by a de facto national squad.

"The establishment didn"t want to know."

He maintained a national squad of undercover specialists could have helped beat the influx of cheap heroin into the UK during the 1980s.

He also believes the reputation of undercover policing has been ruined by the Metropolitan Police which targeted protest groups, left wing MPs and family justice campaigners in an era that is now subject to the Pitchford inquiry.

Mr Bentley branded tactics used by Met Police undercover officers, including Mark Kennedy - who had a four-year relationship with an environmental campaigner - as "absolutely disgusting".

"I don"t even agree with infiltrating protest groups," he says. "I don"t think the police have a right to get involved unless they"re causing serious damage, or letting off bombs.

"In those days the big problem was drugs but if we had set up a national squad then it could have been the forerunner of one capable of tackling organised crime and terrorism.

"We still have a massive problem with that, and it is international, not just in the UK and the USA. I"d still advocate for the setting-up of a national squad now."

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-37439797

Tributes paid to Rangers fans" coach crash victim - BBC News

Image copyright Ryan Rowe

Tributes have been paid to a 39-year-old man who died after a coach carrying Rangers fans overturned in East Ayrshire.

The man has been named by family members as Ryan Baird, who was originally from Northern Ireland.

His cousin, Louise Evanne Baird, said he was "amazing" and would be "sadly missed".

Police Scotland said a further 18 people were taken to hospital, and three were seriously hurt.

The crash happened at about 13:15 BST on Saturday on the A76 by the Crossroads Roundabout near Kilmarnock.

The coach was taking the Nith Valley Loyal Rangers Supporters" Club to Ibrox Stadium, where Rangers were due to play Partick Thistle in the Scottish Premiership.

"Deeply saddened"

Mr Baird"s partner Sarah Hughes, paid tribute to him, saying he had loved the club.

The Nith Valley Loyal Rangers Supporters Club posted on its Facebook page: "The club would like to thank everyone for their good wishes & concern at this sad time."

RangersLinfieldFC tweeted: "We have been informed that the man who sadly passed away was a Rangers and Linfield fan named Ryan Baird from Larne, Northern Ireland, RIP."

In a club statement, Rangers said it was "deeply saddened" by the crash, adding: "Our profound condolences go to the gentleman who has died and our thoughts are with his family.

"We are also thinking of those who have been injured and taken to hospital."

Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson said: "Everyone at the football club and every member of our Rangers family is thinking of all of those caught up in this terrible accident.

"Clearly this is a deeply distressing time and the board extend our deepest sympathies and concerns."

Rangers assistant manager David Weir said he was sure the club "will be very supportive in regards to anything they can do to help the situation".

Celtic also passed on their condolences in a club statement, saying: "In relation to news of today"s accident involving Rangers supporters on their way to the match, everyone at Celtic sends our sincere condolences following the death of a supporter."

One passenger said the bus, which had 37 people on board including the driver, had "swerved" before landing on its side on a grass verge.

Police Scotland said: "We can confirm a 39-year-old man has died following a serious coach crash on the A76 near Crossroads Roundabout.

"A report will be prepared for the Procurator Fiscal.

"Eighteen people are receiving treatment in hospital, three of whom are in a serious condition.

"This includes seven men under 20 years of age. Three men and three women aged between 30 and 59 and five men over 60."

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-37532766

The people risking arrest to stop the badger cull - BBC News

Image caption Saboteur Jay Tiernan uses night-vision equipment to find and confront marksmen shooting badgers

Last month the government approved the culling of badgers in seven new areas of England. BBC News spoke to two people from the legal - and illegal - sides of the campaign to stop it.

Dressed in camouflage, Jay Tiernan scans the Cornish countryside with night-vision kit, searching for "sharp shooters" killing badgers. The animal rights activist has risked being arrested or accidentally shot since the cull started last month.

He gave BBC Inside Out South West exclusive access to the world of the saboteurs.

"It does sound very scary - going out to stop some people who"ve got high powered rifles," he says.

"Sometimes farmers pop up and they"re a bit angry and they"re screaming and shouting, but we"re not there to have arguments with farmers. I"m there to stop badgers from being killed."

Image caption Jay Tiernan travels more than 1,000 miles a week to free badgers and destroy the traps they are caught in

Image caption He says he often has run ins with the police while undertaking his saboteur tactics

Culling is part of the government"s 25-year strategy to eradicate bovine TB, which it says costs the taxpayer 100m every year.

Mr Tiernan does not believe the science behind the government"s plans stands up to scrutiny and travels more than 1,000 miles a week to try to save badgers.

However, the National Farmers" Union (NFU) condemns the actions of the saboteurs, labelling them a minority who resort to "harassment and intimidation to achieve their aims" and points out those culling badgers are acting within the law.

Tonight, Mr Tiernan has travelled to north Cornwall. He has already been thrown off one farm for trespassing. He was looking to free badgers from cages and destroy the traps.

At night he uses thousands of pounds worth of night-vision and thermal imaging equipment to search for marksmen shooting badgers in fields.

He then uses torches and makes enough noise to let the marksmen know he is near - making it unsafe for them to continue.

Image copyright Thinkstock

Last year he was given a suspended sentence for breaching an injunction stopping him from intimidating and harassing farmers.

He says he owes the NFU 120,000 in legal costs, but has no plan to stop carrying out what he calls "direct action".

"I couldn"t sleep at night, I couldn"t stay at home knowing that"s going on in the fields of England," he says. "I"ve got to do something about that.

"Public support isn"t what we need. What we need is more people going out into the field and people need to know what we are doing is effective. Are we stopping the killing of badgers? Yes we are."

Later in the night Mr Tiernan"s tactics are not welcomed by another farmer who blocks him in - sandwiched between two tractors.

Mr Tiernan is detained on the private road for two hours and the farmer will not talk to him.

He said: "This won"t put me off, it shows I"m getting under their skin - good."

Around midnight the police release Mr Tiernan and the farmer later says he was concerned about strangers being on his land late at night and thought we might have been thieves.

He said he was not opposed to the badger cull.

Image caption Anti-cull saboteurs trespass on farms and destroy badger traps

Meanwhile, armed with a flask, some cake and a torch, health worker Jenny Pike is fighting the cull on the right side of the law.

She is part of a growing number of badger patrol groups that have sprung up since the cull began.

After she finishes work she travels the 100 mile round trip from Plymouth to north Devon to walk public footpaths in the cull zone with other campaigners.

Image caption Jenny Pike travels more than 500 miles a week to go on patrol

Unlike Mr Tiernan she does not trespass or destroy traps.

However, this does not mean that there are no conflicts with those in favour of the cull.

"Tensions are running high," she says. "I"ve heard of threatening behaviour and cars getting blocked in."

She says she became involved when the cull was introduced in Somerset in 2013.

"I just imagined the badgers that come to visit me in my garden and thought I"m not going to stand for that," she says.

"It"s the most controversial policy that has been, it does divide communities."

Her group looks for wounded badgers and walks public footpaths in the cull zone in the hope any marksmen will be unable to shoot with members of the public nearby.

Badger cull targets for 2016

• Devon: Minimum 3,358, maximum 4,558
• Cornwall: Minimum 2,173, maximum 2,950
• Gloucestershire: Minimum 1,691, maximum 2,628
• Dorset: Minimum 1,672, maximum 2,350
• Herefordshire: Minimum 872, maximum 1,183
• Somerset: Minimum 75, maximum 544

Source: Natural England

She said: "We never know where shooting is going on, we just try and do what we can and hope we are in the right place at the right time."

The patrol includes a wide range of people, from nurses to builders to lawyers. Most will not get to bed until the early hours of the morning.

Ms Pike said: "We don"t condone any criminal activity at all and we aren"t into anything like that.

"As long as we can keep ourselves separate from that and keep saying we don"t condone it hopefully people will see it"s not us doing it.

"We"d love to sit round the table with famers to explain the situation but don"t get the opportunity."

Inside Out South West is on BBC One on Monday 3 October at 19:30 BST and on the iPlayer for 30 days thereafter.

Related Topics

• Animals

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-37496499

Blundeston Prison: Inside Reggie Kray"s old prison cell - BBC News

The now abandoned Blundeston Prison once held some of the UK"s most infamous prisoners. Among them were East End gangster Reggie Kray, shoe-bomber Richard Reid and "Lotto Lout" Michael Carroll. BBC News was granted a final look around before it is pulled down.

"It"s a place of wasted time," former guard, Paul Dunn, says poetically.

He has walked around the sprawling carcass of Blundeston Prison, near Lowestoft, in Suffolk, hundreds of times.

For him, the prison is neither a place of mystery, intrigue or excitement but of sadness, where countless hours of human life were spent in largely unproductive seclusion from the world beyond.

Image caption Two old prison beds - loaned for a theatre performance - stand by the main gate to the prison

A deafening thud lingers in your ears a few seconds after you pass through the gloss blue wooden outer gate.

On the other side is a small courtyard where prison vans would stop to unload their human cargo.

"One of those is Reggie Kray"s old bed," Mr Dunn quips, pointing to a pair of prison beds placed to one side.

It is only after I"ve taken a photograph that I realise he was joking. It turns out the bed frames had actually been loaned out to a local theatre company.

Image caption Prisoners arriving at Blundeston would disembark here and then walk down this wire-fenced alley before being processed

Image caption Beyond this gate lies the wing where mental health services were provided

Image caption A gate to one of the exercise yards for one of the wings

Image caption The grills around the windows were to prevent inmates either throwing items down onto people below or lowering contraband to fellow prisoners by string

Image caption The prison had its own waste recycling centre, housed beyond these gates. Some visitors were jokingly told these outhouses were the prison stables

Opened in the early 1960s, HMP Blundeston was once home to up to 500 inmates but, since closing three years ago, is now being demolished to make way for housing.

Within months of its closure, nature decided to move in. Buddleia shoots from concrete cracks attracting butterflies to this most unlikely of sites.

Foliage and razor wire compete to glisten beneath the midday sun.

Beyond the all-weather sports pitch lies the prison"s medical block.

Image caption One of the consulting rooms in the medical block

Image caption The chair from the dental room has been removed. Only the plumbing pipes remain

In the pinkish dental room there"s a gaping hole in the floor, from which a pipe pokes out. This is where the dentist"s chair once sat and, given they cost thousands of pounds each, it has been salvaged.

Head into the older wings of Blundeston and the light levels tumble, sounds echo and the temperature drops.

This is what comes to mind when people say "prison".

Cells here come in three flavours here - single bed, twin bed and four bed.

There are peep holes even into the toilets to help catch people abusing illicit drugs.

Image caption Most of the prison doors are painted bright red

Image caption One of the old CCTV monitors remains in a guard room

Image caption Inmates used toothpaste on the walls to put up pictures and posters

Many of the cell walls have peculiar blotches of black mould growing on them. Close up, the walls have a whiff of sweetness.

"They were not allowed Blu Tack," explains Graham Horton, who organises tours of the prison. "So they used toothpaste instead to put up pictures and posters."

The mould feeds on toothpaste. And while nearly all of the posters have been removed, a few fragments - where the paper has fused with the toothpaste - remain.

Most - you can tell by the abundance of healthy skin hues - were of naked or scantily clad women. But just occasionally you spot a drift of crayon - perhaps by a child, for dad.

Mr Horton says the tours of Blundeston have been "brought to life" by the former prison guards who have volunteered to take about 1,000 people so far around.

But there have been a number of unusual requests for access too, he explains.

Paranormal groups have asked to spend time inside. As have engaged couples wanting to use the abandoned facility for weddings (not granted).

Image caption The remnants of one of the prison"s old kitchens. The message is clear: one meal per man

Many of the wings of the prison are littered with spent firearms shells.

These, and a peculiar cast of diminutive cardboard human targets, are remnants of police training exercises.

But for most visitors, the most popular cell is 116, where Reggie Kray was imprisoned in 1969 after receiving a life sentence for double murder at the Old Bailey.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Reggie Kray"s first home at Blundeston was cell 116

Image caption Cell 116 was Reggie Kray"s first cell at Blundeston

He and his twin brother Ronnie had controlled the most notorious criminal gang ever seen in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s and had a mafia-style grip on the East End of London.

Reggie Kray died in 2000 of bladder cancer.

"He came straight from the induction unit," says Mr Horton, "across to here (Cell 116) and this was his welcome to Blundeston".

The supporting lattice of the bed is not rubber but solid metal and the bed itself is bolted to the blood-red vinyl floor.

Image caption 116 was a single-bed cell. On the right would have been a chest of drawers

After Blundeston, Kray was incarcerated at Maidstone Prison in 1994 and later at Norfolk"s Wayland Prison.

And while his cell might be the top draw of Blundeston, it is the solitary wing which is the most unnerving.

These cells are stand-alone units within a secluded wing. There"s a gap of about 3ft (1m) between the wall of the wing and the wall of the solitary cell.

Image caption Wall within a wall on the solitary confinement wing

Image caption The wooden bed and stool inside one of the solitary cells

Image caption The view from the wooden bed of the solitary cell

Outside the solitary cells, cast iron ladders rise up and over the cell towards a viewing hole on the roof of the cell.

The reason for these roof viewing holes, Mr Horton explains, is that prisoners were known to smear excrement over the eye-level viewing holes.

There are no switches on the walls or light fittings above. The only light in solitary comes from a window above the bed, which is built into the floor.

When the sun goes down, the cell descends into darkness.

Blundeston has the power to depress, but it can also surprise. There is one wing where large works of art adorn the walls.

They are not hung up, but painted (even the "frames" are painted) directly on to the wall"s surface.

Image caption Painted shutters frame a classical-inspired seascape

And then there"s the church, complete with organ and pipes.

It sits on the third floor and its history is one of both spiritual and physical escape.

One inmate, realising that the security grilles had been recently welded (which weakens the metal, Mr Horton tells us), hid until the end of the service.

He managed to pull the grille back far enough to escape out on to the roof of the prison.

The security grilles of the third-floor church were taken down and remade.

While many of those at HMP Blundeston may have dreamed of breaking out, in recent weeks it has been targeted by people wanting to break in.

A group of suspected teenagers managed to force their way through an outer door only to find themselves confronted with a 10ft (3m) wrought iron security gate.

They then tried to smash through a security window, without success.

"If they"d only given a few quid to charity," Mr Dunn points out, "they could have had a guided tour of the place."

Image caption The damage left by a group trying unsuccessfully to get into HMP Blundeston

• The last tour of Blundeston takes place on 15 and 16 October.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-37449347

Clinton campaign seizes on new report about Trump"s taxes

Washington (CNN)Hillary Clinton"s campaign Saturday night seized on a New York Times report about Donald Trump"s 1995 tax records, in which the Times showed he declared a $916 million loss that could have allowed him to legally skip paying federal income taxes for years.

The revelations threatened to put the controversy over Trump"s refusal to follow recent precedent and release his tax returns at the center of the presidential campaign less than 40 days before the election, after a week in which the Republican nominee has struggled to bounce back from a debate in which most analysts and scientifically conducted polls scored Clinton as the winner.

His campaign vehemently pushed back on the Clinton campaign"s claims that the New York Times report amounted to a "bombshell," saying Trump has a "fiduciary responsibility" as a businessman to pay no more tax than legally required. It also charged that the report proved that the Times and the "establishment media" was merely an arm of the Clinton campaign.

The report, which contains the first detailed tax documents about Trump"s financial empire that have been publicly reported, was immediately picked up by Clinton"s campaign, which has sought to make Trump"s refusal to release his tax returns a major issue of the campaign.

Clinton"s official Twitter account retweeted a link about the article shortly after it was published around 9 p.m. ET, and Brian Fallon, a campaign spokesman, called it a "bombshell."

The Times" report shows Trump that year declared a $916 million loss and lists tax benefits he used after a turbulent financial period for him in the early 1990s. The paper, citing tax experts, said Trump could have used his loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income for nearly two decades.

The paper says it obtained the three pages of documents when they were mailed to a reporter last month. A postmark indicated the documents were mailed from New York City, and the return address claimed the envelope had been sent from Trump Tower.

The paper did not look at his federal return. It obtained one page of his New York State resident income tax return as well as the first page of New Jersey and Connecticut nonresident returns.

In a statement, the Trump campaign said the real estate magnate has a "fiduciary responsibility" to his business, family and employees "to pay no more tax than legally required." It added that Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in other taxes, including property and real estate taxes.

"The only news here is that the more than 20-year-old alleged tax document was illegally obtained, a further demonstration that The New York Times, like establishment media in general, is an extension of the Clinton campaign, the Democratic Party and their global special interests," the statement said.

The Trump campaign statement was notable because it did not directly deny the allegations in the Times report. It also noted that though Trump had paid some taxes, it did not specifically say he had paid income tax.

A central issue

Trump has maintained that his tax returns in recent years are under audit and that he has been advised by his lawyers that it would be unwise to release them while that process is going on. However, there is no legal reason why someone under audit cannot make their tax records public while they are running for office. Candidates for president have released their tax returns for decades.

But by refusing to release his tax returns, Trump, who has broken every other rule of politics during his stunning outsider campaign, has been, in effect, betting that he can outlast the demands of opponents who want to make his tax history a pivotal issue in the end game of the campaign.

The impact of the revelations in the Times story were difficult to gauge in their immediate aftermath.

But they seem certain to keep the issue of Trump"s tax returns and questions about his business prowess -- which are at the center of his public image and rationale for running for the president -- at the center of the campaign over the next week.

Trump has just endured a rough week after scientifically conducted polls and most analysts agreed that he lost the crucial first presidential debate to Clinton. Early polling after the debate also appears to indicate Clinton is getting a modest boost from her performance.

The Republican nominee has also spent the week in a war of word with Venezuelan-born former beauty queen Alicia Machado, who was mentioned in the debate as a woman who had been the victim of unflattering rhetoric by Trump. The feud plays into Clinton campaign charges that Trump harbors prejudice against women and Hispanics -- two crucial demographics that could help decide November"s election.

Will voters care?

The extent to which Trump"s tax controversies will damage him could also take time to play out.

But there is evidence that a majority of voters believe it is important that candidates for president release their tax records.

In a Monmouth University poll last month for instance, 62% of those asked thought it was very important or somewhat important for candidates to show their tax records.

Trump"s decision not to release his tax returns is a complicated issue politically.

On the one hand, conservatives have long viewed the Internal Revenue Service with disdain and it has long been a plank of the Republican Party"s orthodoxy that taxes should be lowered across the board. The GOP also sought to make political capital out of claims that the Obama administration used the IRS to target the tax-exempted status of conservative grassroots and Tea Party groups.

So it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Trump"s core voters, who harbor deep suspicion of the federal government would applaud his efforts to avoid some tax liability -- as long as he acted within the law.

On the other hand, Trump"s appeal in rust belt swing states has been aimed directly at voters who feel they have been left behind by the uneven economic recovery -- and who see Wall Street figures with vast means as able to use legal maneuvers to escape the kind of tax burden that ordinary middle class voters must bear.

So far, Trump has been able to position himself as the scourge of high finance and the New York financial elite -- despite having moved in proximity to such circles for decades. Saturday"s Times report is likely to make it more complicated for him to pull off that feat.

It may also undermine Trump"s self image as a consummate dealmaker and businessman. He repeatedly argues that he has created a "great company" worth billions of dollars and implicitly argued that expertize equips him to manage the US economy and renegotiate what he has styled as global trade deals that disadvantage the United States. Anything that contradicts that image could be politically damaging.

"That makes me smart"

Saturday"s developments come less than a week after Trump appeared to indicate that he had not paid federal income tax over an unspecified period during a debate with Clinton. The Democratic nominee accused the billionaire of refusing to release his returns because he wanted to hide how little tax he had paid.

"That makes me smart," Trump replied, and also said that any tax money he had paid would have been wasted by the federal government.

Later, however, in an interview with CNN"s Dana Bash, Trump said that he hadn"t made such a comment.

"No, I didn"t say that at all," Trump said in the spin room after the debate.

"If they said I didn"t, it doesn"t matter. I will say this: I hate the way our government spends our taxes because they are wasting our money. They don"t know what they are doing, they are running it so poorly."

Trump is also playing with fire in refusing to release his tax returns.

In the last presidential campaign in 2012, for example, Republican Mitt Romney"s resistance to releasing his tax returns was exploited by President Barack Obama"s re-election campaign.

His eventual decision to release tax returns also hurt him when it emerged that because most of his income as a former venture capitalist came from carried income and capital gains, he paid an effective tax rate of only around 14%. Although he was compliant with the law, it was easy for the Obama campaign to portray him as out of touch with the struggles of everyday Americans who have to pay higher tax rates on lower levels of income.

It would not be hard for the Clinton administration -- under pressure from Trump"s appeal in rust belt swing states left behind by globalization and a transforming economy, to make a similar argument.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/01/politics/donald-trump-taxes-report-hillary-clinton/index.html