Reports from northwest London suggest a strange kind of vandalism is afoot. According to Harrow Council, £15,000 worth of drain covers have been pinched from Pinner and South Harrow over the past fortnight. Some kind of performance art, you might speculate? Could be, although the cast-iron gully grates (which often date back to the time the roads were built) are highly sought-after by unscrupulous metal merchants. With scrap iron fetching a pretty price of......

Harrow Council are letting their young offenders loose on local pensioners. In a scheme matching one "neglected and vulnerable group of people with another" apologetic youngsters are attempting to make up for their misdemeanors by serving community sentences teaching computing basics to older people and introducing them to the wonders of the big bad web. But Harrow should watch out. Seems those possessed of a Freedom Pass are no longer content to be put......

Taking a cue from police investigators and reality TV shows looking to create a scandal, Harrow Council in northwest London has started to use voice risk analysis -- a type of phone-based lie detector -- to try and catch fraudsters claiming unneeded benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions. How does it work? "The technology detects changes in people's voice patterns such as hesitation or avoiding direct questions, and identifies them as a......