JPs share judges’ ministry concerns
Magistrates have thrown their weight behind judges’ calls for constitutional
safeguards before they back the new Ministry of Justice, (Frances Gibb
writes).
The 30,000-strong Magistrates’ Association is to attend an unprecedented
“council of war” meeting called by the Lord Chief Justice next week. With
prisons and the probation service now in the same ministry, judges are
seeking guarantees that their constitutional independence is not
compromised.
Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Britain’s most senior judge, said that the
new ministry raised “important issues of principle” that “have been
communicated repeatedly to the Lord Chancellor since January 2007”.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor, said: “Judges have made clear
they did not object, subject to appropriate safeguards.”
Charity bomb link
Eight charities have been linked to the terrorist bombings in Central London
of July 7, 2005, the Home Office revealed. Police investigations uncovered a
financial trail to the charities. A further six charities have been linked
to two subsequent failed terrorist attacks in Britain.
Starved baby
Social workers and health visitors missed numerous opportunities to intervene
to save an 11-month-old girl who was starved to death by her parents, an
independent report concluded. Kimberley Baker weighed 4.5kg (10lb) when she
was found dead in her cot in Swindon, Wiltshire, in 2005.
Huntley sex attack
Police are reinvestigating a sex attack by Ian Huntley, the Soham killer. Last
month Hailey Giblin, 21, from North Lincolnshire, won a civil action against
Huntley. She said that he assaulted her in an orchard in the summer of 1997.
At the time police said there was insufficient evidence to bring a
prosecution.
Road-safety figures
Figures for road deaths were almost unchanged last year. There were 3,150
deaths in 2006, down by 1.6 per cent on the previous year, according to
figures published by the Department for Transport. Deaths and serious
injuries among cyclists rose to 2,420, the highest for four years. Road
traffic rose by 1 per cent.
BNP meeting at university banned
Bath University bowed to public pressure and banned the British National Party
from meeting on its campus next week (Alexandra Blair writes).
Glynis Breakwell, the Vice-Chancellor, and the university board had originally
allowed the meeting to go ahead.
An outcry from staff, students and the local community, and the threat of tens
of thousands protesting against the presence of Nick Griffin, the leader of
the BNP, on campus forced the university to change its mind.
Professor Breakwell and Mark Humphriss, the University Secretary, said in a
statement that permission for the meeting was refused because dangers posed
to academics and students at the start of the exam season had to be balanced
with the wish to preserve freedom of speech.
Briton killed in US
A British man and his girlfriend were shot dead by her former lover in
Orlando, Florida on Sunday. Christopher Levitt, 29, from Leeds, and Alicia
Arseneault, 22, were killed by Timothy Frechau, 23, who broke up with her
two weeks earlier. Frechau later killed himself at his home.
Child DNA records
The genetic fingerprints of more than half a million under16s have been
recorded on the national DNA database, Home Secretary John Reid has said. A
total of 521,901 DNA profiles of under16s have been added to the database
since its inception in 1995. The figures cover England and Wales.
Father's tragic film
Carl Ryan, a TV cameraman, filmed a rescue attempt at sea without realising
that it was his son who had drowned. He found out when he returned to his
studios in Cardiff. Rory Ryan, 30, of Swansea, had been drinking when he
went into the water with a friend, an inquest at Swansea was told. Verdict:
misadventure.
Car ban for Tarrant
The television presenter Chris Tarrant has received a six-month ban after
being caught driving at 60mph on a 40mph road in Bracknell, Berks, last May.
Tarrant, who already had nine points on his licence for speeding offences,
had been caught doing 83mph on the 70mph A34 in nearby Chievley only a month
earlier.
Boat show dispute
Conservationists are fighting plans to stage Europe’s first speedboat festival
on a lake richly populated with wildlife. Ecologists do not want the owners
of Castle Howard, Malton, North Yorks, to host the Thundercats World
Championships on their Great Lake in June because it will disrupt breeding
birds.
Vicar of Dibley wins
The Vicar of Dibley was named best comedy at the Rose d’Or
international TV festival in Switzerland last night. Other British winners
included Ben Elton, who picked up the lifetime achievement award, the BBC’s Not
Going Out (best sitcom) and Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire
(reality TV).
Teacher jailed for abusing young girls
A supply teacher who groomed underage girls on the internet and then filmed
himself having sex with them was jailed for six years yesterday.
Anthony Mulhall, 32, who taught in Merseyside, would contact his victims in an
internet chatroom for teenagers and arrange to meet them after lying about
his age.
Liverpool Crown Court was told he had sex with four girls, aged 14 and 15, and
used his mobile phone and video camera to record the abuse.
Jailing him, Judge David Boulton said: “You became a systematic sexual
predator of young girls, of children in some cases.” Mulhall, of Wavertree,
Liverpool, pleaded guilty to a total of 19 offences.
CT scan danger
A radiologist concerned about the overuse of CT scans intervened at the
hospital where his 23-year-old daughter was being treated because so many
scans were being done. Steven Birnbaum said in the British Medical Journal
that in young patients the radiation exposure from scans can be dangerous.
Son accused
A man appeared at the Old Bailey accused of murdering his house-bound father,
a renowned art historian. Professor Lee Johnson, 81, an expert on the French
artist Eugène Delacroix, died in a fire at his Hampstead home last July. His
son Michael, 48, was remanded in custody until next month.
Dog on cliff saved
A dog was rescued by an RAF helicopter crew after spending two weeks trapped
on a cliff ledge with only a dead bird for food. The Staffordshire bull
terrier survived by drinking from a waterfall that runs down the side of the
100ft (30m) cliffs at Combe Martin, near Ilfracombe, North Devon.
