Two locals who were in the pub accompanied Molly and the barmaid in the car. The barmaid’s boyfriend was hiding in the ally next to her house and the two men who accompanied Molly chased him. This was all that Molly witnessed.

The two men returned 15 minutes later and said he had got away. Molly drove back to the pub with the two men in her car.

So, off we went in my car, minus my boyfriend, who went to bed. The two lads said that they would come with us to make sure that the boyfriend wasn’t waiting for us. When we arrived, they found him hiding down the alleyway at the side of the house, and he got the beating of his life after they had chased him for miles. The lads eventually returned, reassuring us that he wouldn’t be back, and they asked me to give them a lift home.

Whitney went to bed, and I gave the lads a lift. Little was said in the car but our adrenalin was high. When we got back to the pub, the coal fire was still burning, and one of the lads tossed in a big stick, explaining that my fella had given it to him for my protection. ‘Oh fuck,’ I thought. ‘I am really in the shit here.’ And I was.

Call me a cynic, but that sounds suspiciously like a load of old bollocks.

A senior manager for Close Protection UK — the firm at the centre of the Jubilee stewards scandal — was passed highly sensitive information from the police national computer, it has been claimed. An officer was forced to quit Greater Manchester Police over the scandal, in which confidential intelligence on criminals was accessed illegally.

Former police officer Georgina Willetts (above left) admitted ‘conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office’ after being arrested over allegations she showed secret files to her husband Craig Willetts (above right) — who was subsequently employed as a senior manager at Close Protection UK.

The revelation comes after Political Scrapbook exposed the criminal past of the firm’s owner, Molly Prince. The former pub landlord — whose shadowy network of companies have creamed millions from the taxpayer — received a 12-month suspended sentence after a man was beaten into a coma with a stick.

With the company accredited with Approved Contractor Status (ACS) by government regulator the Security Industry Authority (SIA), their website has bragged that Craig Willetts played:

“… a key role in achieving SIA ACS status for Close Protection UK.”

Did we mention that they have the fire safety contract at the Olympics?

On Friday, I spoke to one of the 30 unpaid people at the heart of the controversy. This young woman had been made redundant early last year. Eventually, she was referred by her jobcentre adviser to Tomorrow's People, a charity administering the work programme, and persuaded to train for a qualification in security work. As part of her training, she had already worked for nothing, but only once: at a football match, "observing the crowd and making sure there were no issues", with six other people on the same scheme. When she and others were informed about the jubilee weekend, she said, they were at first told they would be paid around £400, "but at the last minute, they said, 'You're not getting anything – it's work experience'."

Sleeping under London bridge, she said, had been impossible: "It was too cold, it was raining, and there were way too many people." She thus started work at 9.30am, having had no sleep for upwards of 20 hours. She put on her work clothes "in public, in the cold". Breakfast – "piddly", she said – had not arrived until 9.15am. The first chance she had to use a toilet, she claimed, was at 2pm. She was supposed to stop work 12 hours after she started, "but me and some other people gave up, cos we were that cold and wet, at six o'clock." She was then told to take the tube to the end of the Central line, whereupon she called her mother and stepfather almost 150 miles away and asked them to come and get her. "I was that distraught. I had five layers on, and I was soaked through. I was having trouble breathing. After standing up for nine hours, I had a back spasm; I could barely walk. I'd just had enough."

"I'm signing on tomorrow," she said, "and I'm asking to be withdrawn from Tomorrow's People. I can't trust them. I don't want to be treated like dirt, working long hours for nothing.

"There's work experience, and there's slave labour. I wouldn't mind work experience for free if it was in good conditions and I was treated properly … not being asked to change in public and having no access to a toilet." (By way of a response, Tomorrow's People supplied the Guardian with a list of contact numbers for other work programme participants who had been taken to London on an unpaid basis; they proved to be either unavailable, or unwilling to talk).

I don't support Workfare, either. And "don't support" is putting it mildly.

The only way I'd support anything like it is if it filled two criteria. One, as you mention above, it's community or not-for-profit work. Two, it payed minimum wage - and not less than a third (maximum) that people are expected to do it for now.

Valued and beneficial work experience I'm in favour of. Nobody should have the fear of sanctions hung over them to work for free in Argos.

Exactly.
Who are all these people who support workfare Tubby?
The only people I've heard in support apart from the government and Mailtards are few Tory donors from the CBI.