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Police should visit each victim of crime no matter how minor the offence, the home secretary says.
New injunctions against gangs and action on wheelclampers included in Alan Johnson's crime bill
New antisocial behaviour injunctions - dubbed gangbos - aimed at tackling teenage gang members as young as 14 are to be introduced as part of the new crime and security bill, the home secretary disclosed yesterday.
The civil injunctions will include bans on meeting other gang members, wearing gang colours, going to certain locations or even having a violent dog in a public place.
Breaching a gangbo could require the offender to report to the police regularly, obey a curfew enforced by an electronic tag or attend anger management courses.
Similar measures aimed at curbing the activities of adults over 18 who are being sucked into gang culture became law last week but the new proposals will apply to 14- to 17-year-olds.
The provision emerged when the new crime and security bill was published yesterday by the home secretary, Alan Johnson.
He said the legislation would help tackle a range of issues which can affect individuals and neighbourhoods, whether it was antisocial behaviour causing misery to residents or young people engaging in violent gang behaviour.
"I want to help those most at risk; preventing the cycle of crime and violence. The new measures are tough, but they also include measures such as help to leave a gang and compulsory parenting orders when a young person breaches an asbo," said the home secretary.
Further details also emerged in the crime and security bill of a proposed new regime to license private wheelclamping companies. A statutory code of conduct will place a cap on fines, prevent cars being towed too soon after being clamped and an independent appeals process for motorists who feel they have been unfairly clamped or fined.
The bill's publication coincides with the launch today of a £1.9m national advertising campaign explaining the policing pledge - what the public can expect from their local force in England and Wales.
The policing pledge includes a promise to answer 999 emergency calls within 10 seconds, for neighbourhood policing teams to respond to all messages within 24 hours and to send a patrol out to non-emergency calls within an hour if the caller is vulnerable or upset or it is about an issue that is a pre-agreed community priority. The police should also be able to offer an appointment within 48 hours to anybody who wants to talk to them about a non-emergency matter.
The pledge promises that dedicated beat officers will spend at least 80% of their time on patrol.
The television, radio, leaflet and press advertising campaign is to be followed by new guidance to police forces from the Ministry of Justice, which encourages them to name and shame recently convicted criminals in each neighbourhood.
The Dorset police is pioneering the scheme with a Behind Bars feature on its website.- http://www.dorset.police.uk/Default.aspx?page=2716 - , which gives details on local offenders who have recently been jailed, including their photograph, name, offence, the length of their prison term and when they were sentenced.
Louise Casey, the Home Office crime adviser, said they needed to be sure there was very clear guidance to all police and local authorities about information they could release about convicted criminals so it was proportionate to what they had done.
FOR most people, sleepwalking is a minor annoyance, affecting roughly 2 per cent of adults. But for some, the effects can range from the embarrassing to the outright dangerous
A DISABLED teenager denied access to his bank because there was no wheelchair access yesterday won a landmark victory for disabled customers.
A "DEVOTED husband" who strangled his wife in his sleep walked free from court yesterday after prosecutors withdrew their case against him.
JOHN Carlin, owner of the Allerdale Court Hotel in Cockermouth town centre: "I have lived here for 15 years and have never seen anything like it. At two o'clock, it wa
TRIBUTES were paid last night to a policeman who was swept to his death as raging floodwaters of "biblical proportions" demolished the bridge on which he had been sta
THE head of the Commons committee that deals with MPs' expenses abuse dismissed as "akin to Harry Potter" an allegation that his wife banned him from the constitu
GORDON Brown has been accused of a stitch-up with French president Nicolas Sarkozy over the surprise appointment of Baroness Ashton as the European Union's foreign policy
HEALTH officials are probing the first British case of a drug-resistant strain of swine flu spreading from person to person. Doctors have already come across several strains o
HOUSE prices are predicted to fall next year as one of the country's biggest lenders warned of a rising unemployment prolonging the recession.
HUNDREDS of civilians and servicemen stood shoulder to shoulder in Wootton Bassett yesterday to pay their last respects to two heroes who died in Afghanistan.
The BBC's top female newsreaders have laid on their most risqué dance routine yet for Children In Need - gyrating to Beyoncé's songs Crazy In Love and Single Ladies.
Top names from the worlds of TV, music and theatre are taking part in this year's Children In Need show.
A body found after a bridge collapse in what the Environment Agency says is "unprecedented" flooding is missing Pc Bill Barker.
Floodhit communities were coming to terms with the devastation wreaked by a "biblical" deluge and batten down for a weekend of rain.
The UK apologises to Spain after the Royal Navy uses a buoy with Spanish colours for target practice off Gibraltar.
The British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates appeared in television footage tonight showing them surrounded by gunman and pleading for help to free them before they are killed.
Looking nervous and subdued, Paul and Rachel Chandler said their captors were "losing patience" and feared they could die within a week.
The couple were filmed for Channel 4 News on Wednesday and the footage was broadcast tonight.
Mr Chandler said they were "unharmed and in reasonable physical health" but urged the Government to start negotiations over a ransom.
"This is our 27th day in captivity. So far we have been provided with adequate food and water and facilities and so we are unharmed and in reasonable physical health. Mentally we are under great stress and threatened.
"Our kidnappers are losing patience, they are concerned that there has been no response at all to their demands for money.
"We ask the Government and the people of Britain and our families to do whatever you can to at least open negotiations with these people about money so that perhaps our lives can be bought back."
He said: "I have no doubt that they will not hesitate to kill us, perhaps between a week or so of now if there is no response.
His wife said: "We are very concerned about the future. Our captors are very impatient.
She continued: "We are also feeling very much under threat now that these people themselves won't hesitate to take our lives."
The footage show the couple surrounded by armed men pointing rifles and machine guns at them. It is the first time they have been seen on camera since they were kidnapped.
Channel 4 said that their family had agreed that the film should be broadcast.
The Chandlers said their captors had told them that a terrorist cell was looking for them and that they could "sleepwalk to a tragic end".
The Chandlers disappeared on October 23 as they sailed from the Seychelles in their 38ft yacht Lynn Rival towards Tanzania.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said tonight: "We are aware of the video. Any such video will be distressing for the family."
She said that the couple were innocent tourists and the Government sought their immediate release, but that "substantive concessions" would not be made to hostage takers.
Great Ormond Street Hospital failed to answer senior doctors' justified concerns about the clinic which failed Baby P according to two secret reports.
• Interview comments criticised as dangerous
• Agent says words were taken out of context
When the supermodel Kate Moss, in a rare online interview this week, told readers that one of her mottos was "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels", the fallout was instant, vitriolic and damning.
Susan Ringwood, chief executive of Beat, an eating disorder charity, said Moss's words were "potentially very dangerous" because they were strongly associated with pro-anorexia websites. "This phrase is often used as one of their 10 commandments or mantras. And it is young women between the age of 12-20 who are the most at risk from anorexia, which is unfortunately the same group that could be influenced by celebrity culture."
There is already evidence that Moss's comments have found some sympathetic ears within the "pro-ana" community. One blogger wrote: "Its kinda true, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels - exactly. But that's not gonna make me anorexic! At least I don't think so. I just ate 700 cals …Thank goodness for [the] encouragement, or i swear i was on my way to the toilet bowl."
One user of Twitter said Moss should be able to say what she wanted. "Did it really come as such a shock? C'mon," she wrote, adding: "Anyways, she's right."
According to Ringwood, anorexia - which accounts for 10% of eating disorders in the UK - has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, with 20% of cases resulting in death. A recent comparison of young women in recovery from anorexia and those who continued to resist help found very little difference between them, she added. "One day they could feel strong enough to ask for help, the next they may feel too worthless. Anything that might encourage them to take a more negative view could stop them getting the help they need."
Pro-anorexia websites, which often display pictures of emaciated looking women to provide "thinspiration" to users and tips on how to fool doctors and falsify weight, outnumbered recovery sites five to one, she said.
"These sites are toxic and very dangerous. While some are run by girls with anorexia there is a clear link to pornography and evidence that there are people who get sexual gratification from grooming young girls and getting them to post pictures of themselves online."
Moss's words, which appeared on fashion news website WWD, have also provoked a fierce backlash from eating disorder survivors as well as several figures public figures. Television presenter Denise Van Outen, said the model was "talking out of her size zero backside", adding "Having been in the industry for so long, she knows the impact her comments will have on vulnerable young women."
The vast majority of people tweeting about the subject were critical of Moss's comments, with one user wondering whether "Kate Moss's skinny tastes like chocolate?", while MrsGerrard wrote: "HATE kate moss. perfect example to teenagers? ha! BS! she doesnt even know the meaning of beatiful! (sic)"
Some recovering anorexics were dismayed at her choice of the heavily-loaded phrase. One blogger, who according to her profile is a eating disorder survivor, wrote: "Seriously, Kate Moss has saddened, frustrated and annoyed me. Like the pro-ana mvmt needs more spokespeople."
Another regular user of pro-anorexia websites, who did not want to be named, called the comments irresponsible. "She's making unhealthy attitudes and behaviours seem somehow attractive," she said. "A lot of young girls see her as some kind of an icon so promoting these kinds of attitudes is really inappropriate. It really made me angry when I heard about it."
A spokeswoman for Moss's model agency Storm said her comments had been taken out of context, and there was little suggestion that the model would apologise. "This was part of a longer answer Kate gave during a wider ranging interview which has unfortunately been taken out of context and misrepresented," she said. "For the record, Kate does not support this as a lifestyle choice."
The Liberal Democrats are calling for a "traffic light" system on advertisements that use air-brushing, and a ban on airbrushing in adverts aimed at children. Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone said the storm created by Moss's comments reflected a desire for change in society.
"We have to find some way of making this a fair battle," she said. "One the one hand you have the giants of the fashion, beauty and diet industries who make people feel bad about themselves in order to sell things to them, and on the other you have normal people who want change."
But while she welcomed debate around the issue, she feared the consequences would be far from positive. "Kate Moss is such an icon that I worry that it is her words that will stick in their minds."
As an anorexic teenager, I never went anywhere without the slogan "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" written in a notebook or on my hand.
I had found the words in a women's magazine, along with yet another editorial designed to persuade women readers that shrinking our bodies would improve our lives, and I adopted them as a mantra to help diminish the terrible hunger I felt inside. I was ferociously hungry, not just for the food I was avoiding, but for love, learning and adventure - all the good things in life that felt out of my reach.
Like most anorexics, my eating disorder was not a girlish fad or a diet gone wrong but a private, violent strategy for exerting control on the body when life felt beyond my control. Eating disorders can strike people of all ages and both genders, but for young women like me, growing up in a society which demands impossible perfection and peddles airbrushed beauty, eating disorders pose a particular threat.
I soon discovered that skinny tastes of nothing at all. Living with an eating disorder is a bland, cold, joyless experience. But it took me five years to let go of the idea that in order to be loved, I had to take up as little space as possible. Discovering feminism was the turning point for me - meeting inspirational women made me brave enough to risk imperfection, to speak with my own voice. As I put on weight, my confidence grew, and I became desperate to taste all the flavours of life and learning that I had denied myself for so long.
Now that I am recovered, I keep a different notebook in my desk drawer. On the inside cover, I've written in bold red letters: "Things that taste better than skinny feels." Whenever something new and exciting happens in my life - a life that is immeasurably more whole than the half-life I lived as an anorexic - I add it to the list. All sorts of things turned out to taste better than skinny feels: graduating from university, having the energy to dance all night in grunge clubs, having sex without physical shame, getting my first commission as a freelance journalist. Whenever I feel frightened, whenever I'm overwhelmed by messages that I can't be happy or successful at a normal weight, I look at that list and remember the sweeter taste of freedom.
Laurie Penny
A British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates say via video footage that they fear they may be killed within a week.
Senior Foreign Office officials have claimed more than £90000 in taxpayerfunded expenses in just three months.
Historic heirlooms of the family of the Duke of Kent realised more than £2 million at auction at Christie's almost double what was expected.
Union may suspend talks if no headway made over modernisation plans
The postal dispute could reignite next week if Royal Mail continues to stall over peace talks, sources close to the Communication Workers Union have warned.
The two sides began negotiations under the auspices of mediation service Acas this week but it is understood that little headway has been made. "So far, it's been a case of talks about talks," one source said. "If no progress is being made you can't rule out the union going back to strike action."
Next Thursday, the CWU will review what progress has been made after it called off strike action earlier this month in order to try to thrash out an agreement with Royal Mail over its modernisation programme.
If the union believes that the two sides are no closer to reaching a deal, it is expected to suspend the talks.
Further strike action before Christmas could also be announced as the ballot for industrial action which was passed by CWU members last month still remains in place.
The Guardian has also learned that Roger Poole, until recently the chairman of the Northern Ireland Parades Commission, has been appointed by the two sides to act as an independent mediator.
Poole, also a former assistant general secretary of the Unison union, began mediating on Thursday.
Four more days of talks are due next week, culminating in Thursday's review when the CWU - as well as Royal Mail and Poole - will assess how well negotiations are progressing.
Earlier this month, the two sides reached an "interim agreement" where the CWU committed to calling off industrial action in return for holding talks under Acas to agree how to implement a long term modernisation programme of the business.
This would cover the introduction of "walk sequencing machines" next year, the impact of modernisation on postal workers' workloads, pay and job security. The two sides have also committed themselves to local reviews of practices to resolve local disputes.
But it is understood that Royal Mail union members in London, where the industrial action was the most severe, remain particularly concerned over Royal Mail practices.
Royal Mail is far less efficient than its rivals and postal workers have to spend hours each day sorting mail by hand before beginning deliveries.
The company is introducing automatic sorting machines but the union argues that managers are using modernisation to push through working practices resulting in unreasonable workloads and hours for staff. There is also concern that the changes will lead to thousands of redundancies.
The interim agreement allows for a "period of calm" with the "intention of both parties to make significant progress by early December with the aim of concluding a final agreement by the end of 2009".
Police rule out stranger attack but reject honour killing theory despite misgivings by Asian women's groups
Every day, staff at Sunrise Radio were greeted with a smile from Geeta Aulakh, the receptionist who had dreamed as a young girl of working for the first independent 24-hour Asian station.
For four days this week, her chair has been empty and, in a painful series of conversations, her colleagues have been sharing glimpses she gave them of the pain hidden beneath her warmth.
It is in the particularly horrific death of Aulakh that the secrets of her life are emerging. Police believe what spilled out on to the street in Greenford, west London, on Monday evening was the violent culmination of something hidden in Aulakh's recent past.
Senior sources believe the 28-year-old was held down by more than one assailant and struck repeatedly with either a sabre or a machete as she went to pick up her two sons from their childminder. Aulakh was just 100 metres away from her young children, on a quiet street lined with unremarkable postwar terraced houses, where residents fear burglary or car crime, not the sort of scene they experienced that night.
The Guardian understands that detectives have been given a detailed account of the attack by a handful of key witnesses.
In the frenzied assault, Aulakh was struck repeatedly around the head with the sabre-like weapon. She fought for her life, sustaining a serious wound to her right hand which severed it from her arm, leading to speculation that it was cut off deliberately in some sort of religious ritual. The suggestion is a distraction, sources say. The wound was a classic defence injury against an assault with a long, extremely sharp weapon.
The choice of location was deliberate, police believe. They say it was no random attack, but a planned assault by more than one assailant on a woman whose regular routine was known.
The nearness to her children is, again, no coincidence. "We are not talking about a stranger attacker here who she does not know. It is complicated but what you are looking at is a fairly closed group of people," said police.
Around the corner from where Aulakh was trying to fight off her assailants, her childminder, Safeen Arif, heard nothing but was growing worried.
"She was so devoted to her boys, she would do anything for them," said Arif. "She would always call me if she was going to be late. That's why I started ringing her on Monday when she didn't arrive, but no one answered her phone."
Like colleagues at Sunrise Radio, Arif knew Aulakh as a happy, warm person who had separated from her husband and was seeking a divorce, but was getting on with her life, trying to do the best for her children.
It is only now as people talk about her murder that some friends are sharing conversations in which Aulakh suggested she was frightened and felt harassed but did not specify who was causing her sense of feeling terrorised.
Dr Avtar Lit, her boss at the radio station, said: "She was a very private person. What is emerging now is that Geeta did share with some of her female colleagues that she felt frightened and harassed, but she didn't reveal a great deal, and little bits of what she said are coming out now."
Born Geeta Shinh, she grew up in Southall, west London in a middle-class family with two brothers and two sisters. When she was 17, she met husband-to-be Harpreet, known as Sunny, and the couple fell in love.
However, her mother, who worked in a GP's surgery, and her father, a warehouseman, were unhappy about the match as Harpreet was unemployed and seemed to have no prospects.
It is unclear if there was a rift with her family, but friends say the young couple decided to put some space between them and relatives, leaving the UK to spend some time in Belgium.
Despite her parents' early misgivings, the marriage produced two boys, now 10 and eight. Three years ago this week, when she was back in London, Aulakh obtained the Sunrise Radio job in Southall. "She was a very important part of the office, always smiling, always helpful," said Lit. "She once told me that she'd grown up listening to Sunrise and it was her dream to work there when she was an adult."
But there were some signs of something amiss within her personal life. During one argument at home in September 2002, she had been concerned enough to dial 999 late at night. When officers arrived, she refused to file a complaint and the incident was marked as "no crime".
The same happened last October; officers arrived at her home but no complaint was filed and "no crime" was recorded.
By last October, Aulakh had separated from her husband and is understood to have been living in a council house in Greenford.
Myrah Mistry, who knew her for 17 years, said: "She wasn't happy, so she left. He was trying to get back with her but she didn't want to. I think she was thinking about divorce - she was going down that road. He used to call her quite often, he would sometimes come into the radio station."
On Monday night, Aulakh left work at 6.15pm with two female friends. She walked to Southall railway station where her friends boarded their trains and she got on to her bus, which made its way north to Greenford, where she was due to pick up her children from her childminder in Braund Avenue. Only two days, before she had celebrated her youngest son's eighth birthday.
Police are studying CCTV footage from Southall station and the bus to see when she might have been followed by her killers. But, so far, the trail of images stops once she gets off the bus and heads towards the childminders.
At about 7pm, her death and its brutality was marked by nothing more than the kind of sound often heard on a London street and quickly dismissed - a single scream overheard by a schoolgirl as she sat in her bedroom doing her homework.
Three and a half hours later, Aulakh's mother, Nardesh, arrived at her bedside in Charing Cross hospital. She cried out her daughter's name twice before Aulakh died.
In their investigation into the murder, detectives are probing every aspect of Aulakh's past, attempting to unpick the secrets she guarded so closely. They say they have ruled out a so-called honour killing as a motive but admit that the circle they are investigating is one close to Aulakh herself.
For many who work in the field of violence against women and "honour" crime within the Asian community, the revelations emerging about Geeta's life are all too familiar.
Sudharshan Bhuhi, who runs a 24-hour helpline for Asian women, said: "It is very early for the police to steer away from 'honour' crime, they should not shy away from using the words," she said. "What is coming out about her is typical of the women we talk to.
"As an Indian woman and a Sikh myself who runs an Asian specific organisation, I know it takes much longer for women from my culture to be able to state these feelings of fear and act on them. All this fear is coming out now, after her death and all we feel here is immense sadness that another human life has been lost unnecessarily."
Nowhere is the issue of classifying emergency calls to police as "no crime" more controversial than in domestic disputes. While police have not said domestic violence was a factor in Geeta Aulakh's death, they were called twice to her home and twice marked the incident as "no crime". By their very nature domestic disputes involve a relationship in which one party is vulnerable, afraid of the other and therefore reluctant to stand up publicly and accuse them of assault.
Often the presence of children in a household can result in a woman calling the police to an incident involving a partner and then being reluctant to pursue a complaint for fear of what will happen to her children, retribution by her partner, and financial implications should she have to move out.
A review by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary revealed recently that more than a third of cases of violence sampled had been wrongly categorised as not warranting further investigation.
"What they are supposed to do is refer them at least to the community safety unit and they are supposed to refer them to other agencies," said Hannanah Siddiqui, of Southall Black Sisters. "999 calls to potential domestic violence incidents should not be 'no crimed' and simply not investigated."
A review by the Association of Chief Police Officers called for a better bridge between the police and the civil law so that victims can be protected even if they cannot be persuaded to file a complaint against an abusive husband or partner. There also needs to be consideration of a new offence of a "course of conduct" and a determination to pursue perpetrators of domestic violence even when the victim withdraws her complaint, the review said.
Pull out part of a Tory defence "revolution" being drawn up by Dr Liam Fox the Shadow Defence Secretary.
Easyjet apologises after fashion photographs shot at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin were published in its in-flight magazine.
• Missing police officer named as Bill Barker
• Hundreds evacuated as riverbanks burst
A policeman swept away during devastating flooding was trying to save lives by directing motorists off a bridge across a swollen river.
PC Bill Barker, who would have been 45 tomorrow, was praised by the prime minister, Gordon Brown, as a "very heroic, very brave man".
His body, still in uniform, was found on a beach today. The father of four went missing after a bridge in Workington collapsed amid what the local MP described as the kind of flooding seen only "once every 1,000 years".
Barker went missing when Northside bridge, on one of the main routes into Workington, collapsed at about 4.40am.
It is one of two bridges to have collapsed in the town, where conditions are described as "extremely dangerous" after torrential rain caused rivers to burst their banks.
Assistant Chief Constable Jerry Graham said: "He was directing motorists off the bridge, saving lives, when the tragic incident occurred."
Cumbria police Chief Constable Craig Mackey said Barker had served with the force for 25 years and described him as "a wonderful police officer and a real family man".
"Bill is a hero who died saving the lives of others and our thoughts are with his family at this devastating time," said Mackey. "He was a much-loved friend, colleague and an inspiration to everyone he knew - he will be sadly missed."
Barker's wife, Hazel, said he was her "best friend, my forever friend, and an amazing dad".
"I have the comfort of knowing that Bill died doing the job he loved, and the fact that he was helping others is just typical Bill," she said. Brown said: "He was a very heroic, very brave man who will be sorely missed by everybody who was close to him.
"I think we owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for the service he has shown."
Severe flooding has caused the evacuation of hundreds of people in Cumbria, which saw record levels of rainfall. The Environment Agency's gauging station at Seathwaite Farm recorded 314mm in the 24 hours up to 12.45am - a record for England. More than 200 people were forced to leave their homes in Cockermouth. Twenty-five people were still being winched to safety in the area, where both rivers had burst their banks and were running through the town, Cumbria police said.
Chief Superintendent Steve Johnson said: "We currently have helicopters taking people from Derwent Mills, where we have 25 people between the age of 85 and two years of age who have been sheltering there overnight.
"We still can't get to them through the floodwaters so they are now being rescued making use of helicopters.
"Some of them are infirm, some of them are vulnerable and they need medication and they need help."
The armed forces were called in to help emergency services cope. Police said all but 10 properties in Cockermouth had been searched with no further casualties found. Police and armed forces were trying to reach the remaining buildings.
Residents said they feared more rain tonight would bring renewed flooding.
Alan Smith said: "The thing with the River Cocker is it can fall as quickly as it can rise.
"It's come down four feet from last night but the fells are sodden, and if we get any more rain it will just come straight off and into the river and the level will rise again."
The Environment Agency said Cockermouth and Keswick had been hit the hardest. Its Floodline service has received more than 12,000 calls from members of the public over the last 48 hours and issued more than 43,000 flood alerts via phone, text, email and fax.
"We have seen unprecedented rainfall, with what we believe is a record amount for a 24-hour period in England," said the agency chairman, Lord Smith. "Towns and villages across Cumbria have been evacuated with floodwater driven by heavy rainfall, saturated ground and swollen rivers."
The Workington MP, Tony Cunningham, said the flooding was "of biblical proportions" and on a scale seen "once every 1,000 years".
He told Sky News: "The scale and the force of the devastation in Cockermouth is huge.
"I went down to the bridge last night and I've never seen the river Derwent as wide as it was. The force of the river was absolutely incredible. This is a stone bridge; to wash away a bridge of that size and dimension is incredible."
Emergency 999 calls made from some flood-hit areas were not getting through, the police said. People in Workington, Cleator Moor and Harrington were advised to call 0845 330 0247 to reach all emergency services. Police have opened a casualty bureau to deal with concerned members of the public seeking news of friends and relatives. People are advised to call 0800 056 0944 or 0207 158 0010.
Children as young as 14 could be banned from wearing gang colours or having violent dogs, under government plans.
Police are treating dog mess as a crime priority by launching patrols to catch owners who let their pets foul the pavements and issuing them with £50 fines.
Prosecution drops case against chronic sleep disorder sufferer who killed wife during bad dream on holiday
A "decent and devoted" husband who strangled his wife while he dreamt she was a intruder has been cleared of murder after the Crown Prosecution Service accepted he had not been in control of his actions but was not a danger to anyone else.
Father-of-two Brian Thomas killed his wife, Christine, as he was in the throes of a nightmare about a "boy racer" who had broken into the camper van they were sleeping in. Members of the jury at Swansea crown court wept after they were ordered to formally acquit Thomas, who had suffered "night terrors" for about 50 years without ever being treated.
Experts said afterwards that about 2% of the population in the UK suffered from the condition, also known as pavor nocturnus. It was possible that many other similar attacks were carried out, though not with fatal consequences, and so went unreported.
Thomas, a retired steelworker from Neath in south Wales, will be advised to seek treatment for his condition. Friends and family said he was devastated by the loss of his beloved wife of almost 40 years. In court he was described as a "broken man" who might try to harm himself. Since he was a child Thomas had been prone to sleepwalking and other sleep disorders. At home he and his wife slept in separate bedrooms but shared a double bed when they went away in their campervan.
Thomas, 59, used to take tablets for depression but stopped taking them when he and his wife, 57, went away in their van because they made him impotent.
In July last year the couple went on one of their regular jaunts in their camper van. They parked up in a carpark in the seaside village of Aberporth, west Wales but were disturbed by "boy racers" performing wheelspins and handbrake turns at 11.30pm.
They drove to the carpark of the Ship Inn in the village where they settled down for the night. But later Thomas made a 999 call saying he had strangled his wife in his sleep.
He told the operator: "What have I done? I've been trying to wake her. I think I've killed my wife. Oh my God. I thought someone had broken in.
"I was fighting with those boys but it was Christine. I must have been dreaming or something. What have I done? What have I done? Can you send someone?"
At first police were sceptical but friends and relatives told detectives they were a loving couple. They enjoyed regular nights out, watched rugby together and had booked a Mediterranean cruise to celebrate their forthcoming 40th wedding anniversary. Tests carried out on Thomas, some while he spent 10 months in prison on remand, confirmed he suffered from night terrors.
At the start of the trial the prosecution said it was a "unique" case. It accepted Thomas should be found not guilty but initially called for a special verdict of not guilty due to insanity, which would have meant he could have been held in a secure psychiatric hospital. The law dictates that this is a verdict that cannot be determined by anyone other than a jury, which is why the case had to go to court.
But in the end the CPS decided to offer no more evidence and the jury returned a straightforward verdict of not guilty.
The judge, Mr Justice Nigel Davis, told Thomas: "You are a decent man and a devoted husband. I strongly suspect that you may well be feeling a sense of guilt. In the eyes of the law you bear no responsibility. You are discharged.
"All of us who have been in court and who listened to the 999 call know exactly what your feelings were when you found that your wife was dead."
Iwan Jenkins, the chief crown prosecutor for CPS Dyfed Powys, defended the handling of the case, saying: "This has been a unique case with a unique set of circumstances. We have a duty to keep cases under continuous review, and following expert evidence from a psychiatrist it was suggested no useful purpose would be served by Mr Thomas being detained and treated in a psychiatric hospital, which would be the consequence of a special verdict in this case."
The jury had been told that Thomas's sleep disorder meant he was in a state of "automatism" - his mind was not in control of his body. It is possible he had suffered particularly severe night terrors because he had come off his regular medication."
Members of his family cheered as the verdict was returned. Speaking outside the court, Thomas's brother, Raymond, said: "He's a gentle man and always has been. He's a good man. Christine and Brian loved each other." He said it was wrong that his brother had been held on remand.A neighbour from Neath, Anita Gore, 75, said: "There is nothing that he has to feel guilty about - it is just all so tragic."
As many as 10% of children in the UK suffer from pavor nocturnus. Most grow out of it but at least 2% of adults carry on having terrible, vivid dreams.
Chris Idzikowski of the London Sleep Centre was an expert witness in the Thomas case. He said it was known for people to attack partners while having a nightmare. Most cases went unreported because usually no lasting damage was caused and those involved were often embarrassed to discuss it with outsiders.
Both pavor nocturnus and other conditions such as REM sleep behaviour disorder, often a violent episode during the rapid eye movement stage of sleep, can be controlled with drugs.
In 2005 a man from Manchester, Jules Lowe, was found not guilty of murdering his father, Eddie, due to insanity while he was sleepwalking. He was sent to a psychiatric hospital.
In 1998 chef Dean Sokell was jailed for life after battering his wife Eleni to death in an attack at their home in Paignton, Devon, that began while he was asleep.
The 27-year-old admitted murder on the basis that he had woken up to find he was hitting his wife with a claw hammer - but then, while awake, carried on and finally stabbed her to silence the screams.
Another high-profile case turning on the concept of automatism was that of the guitarist Peter Buck of the band REM. He was acquitted of attacking BA staff on a transatlantic flight to London in 2002. The court accepted he had no recollection of the incident because he was suffering from non-insane automatism at the time, brought on by combining alcohol and a sleeping pill at the start of the flight.
Health officials in Cardiff say a Tamiflu-resistant strain of swine flu has spread between hospital patients.
A man who carjacked a mother-of-four leaving her fighting for her life is found guilty of deliberately running her over.
Gordon Brown should demand the "immediate" return of the Lockerbie bomber to serve his sentence in a Scottish jail - because he is still alive exactly three months after his controversial release according to an American senator.
Rajinder Singh says he supports far-right party's anti-Islam stance
A Sikh man who has campaigned for the BNP in support of its anti-Islam stance has been put forward to be the party's first non-white member.
Rajinder Singh, who is in his late 70s, has twice lent support to Nick Griffin during the British National party leader's court appearances and appeared in an election broadcast for the party in 2005. There have been suggestions that he could stand as a BNP candidate at next year's general election.
Singh, who came to Britain in 1967, used to pen a regular column for the party's Freedom newspaper and has spoken at BNP meetings where he has been vehement in his criticism of Muslims, talking about his experiences at the partition of India in 1947. He was born in Lahore, which became part of Pakistan after partition, and blames Muslims for the death of his father during the bloody split of India.
The BNP's senior members voted last weekend to hold a party-wide ballot on whether to allow non-white people to join. That followed the party's agreement to a court order last month to use all reasonable endeavours to revise its constitution so that it did not breach the equality bill in the face of a challenge to its membership policy by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Martin Wingfield, the communications officer for the party's two MEPs and the its prospective parliamentary candidate for Workington, wrote on his blog in support of admitting non-whites, and Singh in particular. "I say adapt and survive and give the brave and loyal Rajinder Singh the honour of becoming the first ethnic minority member of the BNP," wrote Wingfield.
Singh, a former teacher from Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, said he would be "honoured" to become a full member of the BNP.
"I got in touch with the BNP on certain core policies that appeal to me," he told the Independent. "I also admire them since they are on their own patch and do not wish to let anyone else oust them from the land of their ancestors."
In 2001, after the September 11 attacks on the US, he said he wanted to set up an Asian Friends of the BNP group to act as a supporting body and conduit for funds for people sympathetic to the party's anti-Islamic stance.
A BNP spokesman said he would be "quite happy" to have Singh as a member, adding that the retired teacher recognised that he was a "guest of ours". "We have always maintained it's not really about skin colour, it's about ethnicity," he said. He emphasised that the party's membership list, suspended following last month's court order, remained closed for the time being.
Olevels could be reintroduced to English schools as growing numbers of pupils take the traditional exams overseas.
An cortege conveying the bodies of two soldiers killed in Afghanistan is the 100th repatriation procession through the Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett.
Three months after the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, American families of victims question medical advice
Three months after the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the families of American victims of the Lockerbie bombing have reignited a row over the medical advice that allowed him to be freed early from his 27-year sentence.
Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds from prison in Greenock on 20 August after the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, received advice that he was terminally ill with prostate cancer. It was said that the Libyan, who was convicted of carrying out the bombing, only had three months to live.
Relatives of the victims have been monitoring the release, counting down the days; today that three-month period passed.
Rosemary Wolfe, the president of Justice for Pan Am 103, which represents families of the 270 people who died, and who opposed the release, said: "It does not surprise me that he is alive and well. It was a major mistake for the Scots to let him go. It is just horrible."
Today a Democratic senator in New York called for the "immediate" return of the Libyan former intelligence agent to prison in Scotland.
"The bottom line is Megrahi should have never been released in the first place but it would be even more outrageous if he were to be able to live a long and free life after his release," said Charles Schumer, in a letter to the prime minister, Gordon Brown.
Megrahi has been treated at Tripoli's medical centre but has not been seen in public since September, when he was photographed in a wheelchair, coughing badly, looking frail and surrounded by visiting African MPs.
His brother, Mohammed, said 10 days ago Megrahi was in hospital but it is not clear whether he is still there or being cared for in the family's villa in the Dimashq suburb of the capital.
Megrahi's Scottish lawyer, Tony Kelly, said his client was alive, but refused to make any further comment.
"He's very ill," an Arab source close to the case told the Guardian. "His condition hasn't improved. It's just a matter of time."
Libya's state-controlled media has had nothing to say about the convicted Lockerbie bomber in recent weeks except to insist in October that he was alive after an incorrect media report that he had died.
The Libyan government has been anxious to avoid any further publicity since the international row over the hero's welcome given to Megrahi when he flew home.
The importance of the move was underlined by the fact that he was escorted by Saif al-Islam, the influential son and likely heir of the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The negotiations for his release were conducted by one of Libya's most respected officials.
The hope in Tripoli - as in London - is that relations with the UK, focusing on billions of pounds worth of business, investment and oil, can now develop quietly without further controversy.
In an interview earlier this month Gaddafi brushed aside a question about Megrahi's release, saying: "It is a matter of concern for the British, Scots, Americans. We are not really concerned about it."
The British and Scottish governments were braced for the row being rekindled as the three-month date was reached. They have sought to play down the damage done in the US by the release, but there is a lingering resentment in America and a renewed bout of publicity will not be welcomed by the governments.
The British embassy and its consulates in the US received hundreds of letters and phone calls expressing hostility to the release.
Conservatives in the Scottish parliament are pressing MacAskill to publish Megrahi's medical papers as well as the latest updates on his health. Under the terms of the release Megrahi is required to update officials in Scotland every month via a video link on his medical status.
Bill Aitken, the Scottish Tory justice spokesman, said: "Megrahi lost all rights to patient confidentiality when he became Britain's worst mass murderer. Scotland is still sickened by the sight of his hero's return to Tripoli."
At the time of his release MacAskill was at pains to say the three-month lifespan was an estimate. But he relied entirely on a report by Dr Andrew Fraser, the head of medical services for the Scottish prison service, stating that Megrahi's health had declined significantly in the weeks before his release. "The clinical assessment therefore is that a three-month prognosis is now a reasonable estimate for this patient," Fraser said.
Wolfe, from South Carolina, whose 20-year-old stepdaughter Miriam was killed by the bomb aboard the transatlantic flight in December 1988, said she had put in a freedom of information request seeking details of Megrahi's health but had been unsuccessful so far.
"If he was dying, I would want him to stay in prison. I would want him to be made comfortable but not let him go," she said.
Another relative, Susan Cohen, from New Jersey, whose daughter Theodora was killed on the flight, also opposed the release. "Scotland was shameful in this and the whole British government. It is absolutely sickening. I am very angry," Cohen said.
"He is in the hands of Libya and when he is dead, we want to see the body. If he had been in Scotland, we would have at least believed it when told he was dead," she said.
The US ambassador to Britain, Louis Susman, likened the Lockerbie row with Scotland to a "little fight … but you don't get divorced" when he visited Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister and Scottish National party leader, last month.
Lord LloydWebber has paid out nearly £1.5million from his art charity to HM Revenue and Customs to settle a long running row over a gift aid claim on a 19th century masterpiece The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The expenses scandal claimed its latest victim last night when the Tory MP in charge of the Commons standards and privileges committee stood down pending an inquiry into his second home allowance claims.
David Curry quit as chair of the watchdog, after a month in the post, after the Daily Telegraph challenged him on why he had claimed nearly £30,000 on a house he barely used in more than three years.
The development came on a day when Labour rushed to defuse an embarrassing row with Sir Christopher Kelly, the author of the hard-hitting report on MPs' expenses, with Harriet Harman promising to introduce new laws if necessary to implement Kelly's reforms.
The government move came after the chairman of the committee on standards in public life took the unusual step of expressing disappointment on Wednesday night that the Queen's speech contained no references to legislation to implement his proposals. He did so after David Cameron raised the issue in the Commons during the opening exchanges on the Queen's speech.
Harman, the leader of the house, said she was willing to table amendments to the constitutional reform bill, due to complete its Commons stages shortly, if primary legislation to implement Kelly's proposals was needed. She insisted she was not trying to sweep the proposals under the carpet, or going soft on them.
She also said Kelly's recommendation that the code of conduct and register of MPs remain the responsibility of parliament, instead of being handed to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, could also be easily met.
Privately Labour is furious at what it regards as Cameron's exploitation of the issue. The Conservatives insisted 10 issues required legislation.
However last night MPs from all parties were reminded that the expenses scandal could still derail careers when Curry, the Tory MP for Skipton and Ripon, was challenged by the Telegraph over his expenses and within hours stood down from his role chairing a Commons standards watchdog. He now faces a formal inquiry.
In his role of chair he would have been involved in scrutinising the business of the Commons and would have had a hand in overseeing the independent parliamentary standards authority, the watchdog set up to regulate expenses and allowances.
The Telegraph accused him of claiming £28,078 for a second home in which he had at one point had an affair and later been banned from using by his wife.
A condition of Curry's reconciliation with his wife was that he did not use the property, but the newspaper alleges that not long after he moved back into the family home in Essex, he redesignated the Yorkshire property as his second home, in order to claim an allowance on it.
He also said he would stand down from the standards and privileges committee for the duration of the inquiry, likely to run to several months.
"Given the particular responsibilities of the chairman of the committee of standards and privileges", Curry said, "I shall refer my case to the commissioner on parliamentary standards, John Lyon, and will stand down from the chairmanship during the course of his inquiries."
The committee chaired by Curry has come in for criticism recently for supposedly taking a sympathetic position on MPs accused of flouting the old system of allowances and expenses.
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