Ticket tout sentenced for tax evasion

A London ticket tout had been handed a suspended prison sentence after failing to pay nearly £200,000 in tax. Donald Tiffin, of Park Road, Hampton Wick, had deposits of more than £915,000 in his own bank account and a further £656,000 had been paid into his girlfriend’s account.  The 63-year-old earned the cash by selling a range of tickets and packages to events including Wimbledon, the Champions League and the 2009 British Lions tour of South Africa and HM Revenue & Customs said the 63 year old failed to pay a total of £193,000 in income tax and VAT. Tiffin had admitted two counts of cheating the public revenue. He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, for failing to pay income tax, and to 18 months, also suspended for two years, for failing to pay VAT. He was ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid community work and a compensation order in the sum of £193,000 was issued when he appeared at the Old Bailey.

http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/10783627.Ticket_tout_failed_to_pay___193k_in_taxes/

Anti-Putin Pussy Riot members sent back to prison “in act of political repression”

Back in February we reported that all four members of Russian female punk rock quartet Pussy Riot had been arrested after performing ‘Putin has Pissed himself’ in Red Square and then on the 27^th March we reported the feminist punks were in more trouble - after an unsanctioned performance of their punk prayer "Virgin Mary Mother of God Expel Putin!" in Moscow's St Basil's Cathedral of Christ The Saviour. Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a public supporter of President Putin, said the band do the "devils work" and state television denounced the women's actions as "disgusting". Rather alarmingly three members of ten members plus collective, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (23), Yekaterina Samutsevich (19) and Maria Alehina (24), remain in prison on charges of hooliganism which could eventually mean a seven-year sentence. They were denied bail at a July hearing by the Khamovnichesky Court and having been in prison for five months already, now face for six more months in custody while the trial progresses. The Guardian reports that many Muscovites were happy enough to see a tough response to the band's irreverent act of rebellion, which was aimed at President Vladimir Putin, but with no trial date set, no signs that they will be released and opposition to Putin spreading, support for the trio has grown, even among those who at first condemned them. Now the country’s arts community is voicing its opposition and now 100 cultural figures who signed an open letter last week calling on the state to release the women, in an indication that popular unease at their plight is growing. Amnesty International has also called for the three women’s release.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/30/support-pussy-riot-trio