Apology by MoD after veteran’s death
The Ministry of Defence apologised over the case of a Gulf War veteran who
died of a heart attack aged 48, two months after his pension was mistakenly
reduced by 60 per cent (Michael Evans writes).
Terry Walker, who had a wife and two children, was awarded a war disablement
pension after serving in the 1991 war. But after it was cut in March,
reducing his income by more than £80 a week, he claimed he faced “financial
ruin”.
Yesterday in a letter to Ted Walker, his father, the MoD offered backdated
repayments of £500. Mr Walker said: “If they think the life of a soldier is
worth £500, then they should start thinking again.”
Money fails addicts
A multimillion pound increase in treating drug addicts has resulted in only a
few quitting their habit. The costs of NHS drug treatment services in
England rose by more than £130 million in two years, yet the number emerging
free of addiction has barely changed from 5,759 three years ago to 5,829
last year.
8-year-old drug users
Children as young as eight are using cannabis, a drugs group claimed. A Home
Office survey showed a 1 per cent rise of 11 and 12-year-old boys trying it.
Debra Bell, of Talking About Cannabis, said the number was being played
down. “It still constitutes thousands of children, some as young as
eight,”she added.
Volunteers save lives
Volunteer lifesavers from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution rescued
thousands of people this summer, figures showed. Lifeboats were launched
more than 3,500 times around the coasts and 8,500 people were rescued.
Volunteer crews also helped more than 200 people hit by the inland flooding.
Skeleton has aged
Britain’s oldest known human remains date back 29,000 years and not 25,000, as
was thought. The age of the Red Lady skeleton, actually the bones of a young
man found in west Wales in 1823, was determined by researchers from the
British Museum and Oxford University using a new technique for dating.
Youngest millionaire is declared bankrupt
An entrepreneur featured in The Guinness Book of Records as the world’s
youngest self-made millionaire has been declared bankrupt (Russell Jenkins
writes).
Reuben Singh, now 31, set up the fashion chain Miss Attitude while a schoolboy
in Manchester. At one time his fortune stood at an estimated £27.5 million.
But he was forced to sell the business for £1 when a secretarial agency that
he set up went bust.
A bankruptcy order was granted at Manchester County Court, which heard that Mr
Singh has debts of £11.8 million. The action was brought by the Bank of
Scotland over his failure to repay a £900,000 loan.
Military collision
A motorist escaped unscathed after his car was crushed in a head-on collision
with an army personnel carrier that was being used for driver training.
The front of the car was completely destroyed in the crash, which occurred in
Melbury Abbas, Dorset. The car driver, a 42-year-old from Blandford, and the
personnel in the military carrier were all unhurt.
Boots fined £10,000
Boots, the high street retail chain, was fined £10,000 at Nottingham
Magistrates’ Court after one of its processing plants polluted a river,
killing hundreds of fish. A fractured pipe leaked chemical and human waste
into a brook by the company’s factory in Beeston, Nottinghamshire.
The Environment Agency was called in after a canal boat owner reported foam in
the water in April last year.
Police papers found
A police document carrying details of a man suspected of downloading child
pornography was found by a couple in a shopping centre. The Northamptonshire
Police print-out was on the ground outside a bookshop in Milton Keynes,
Buckinghamshire. The police said that the document was part of an active
investigation and should not have been in the public domain.
Pink neighbour fined
A woman obsessed with pink fell out with neighbours after painting her garden
wall, fence and front door in the colour, a court was told. Louise Davies,
28, pleaded guilty to harrassment after she was abusive to neighbours who
threatened to report her decoration to the council. She was given a 12-month
conditional discharge and a £60 fine by Plymouth Magistrates’ Court.
Novel has 10 authors
Roddy Doyle and Nick Hornby are among ten award-winning authors who have
collaborated on a children’s novel to raise money for the human rights
charity Amnesty International. Each chapter of Click is written by a
different writer, describing the globe-trotting adventures of a
photojournalist called George Keane. The idea was suggested by Doyle, the
Irish author who won the Booker Prize in 1993.
Blair’s flying squad lands on PM’s turf
Gordon Brown’s political heartland is about to be invaded by the Blairs.
Blair’s shoulder-knot moth, a well-camouflaged creature that occasionally
sports bright pink patches, will soon be taking up residence in Cowdenbeath
and Kirkcaldy.
The harmless insects were first recorded in Britain in 1951 on the Isle of
Wight. Since then they have moved northwards gradually and this year were
seen in Dunfermline and West Fife, the neighbouring constituency to the
Prime Minister’s. “There’s little doubt that Blair’s shoulder-knot will be
in Mr Brown’s constituency soon,” said Tom Prescott, of Butterfly
Conservation.
The growing range of the moth is thought to be because of the proliferation of
conifers, most notably leylandii, which the caterpillars feed on. The insect
is named after Dr K. G. Blair, an entomologist who lent his name to two
other moths, Blair’s wainscot and Blair’s mocha.
Genetics reveal how bats moved home
Greater horseshoe bats originally colonised Britain up to 60,000 years ago, a
study has shown.
They proved such a successful species that they were able to spread out from
their original territory in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean to
every region of the world in which they are now found, including Britain
where they arrived about 40,000-60,000 years ago. Greater horseshoe bats
were widespread across Britain a century ago but suffered a 90 per cent
decline in numbers and are now found mainly in the South West and South
Wales. About 4,000 remain, according to the Bat Conservation Trust.
The research project, started by the National Trust and the University of
Bristol, in conjunction with Queen Mary, University of London, in 2005,
analysed the genetic make-up of greater horseshoe bats from around the world
to find out when the species reached different countries and what routes it
took.
Threatened monkeys found in new habitat
A previously unknown group of one of the world’s rarest monkeys has been
discovered in a Kenyan forest. The discovery of 162 De Brazza’s monkeys –
Cercopithecus neglectus – during a survey of the Matthews Range Forest
Reserve, boosts the known population by a sixth, from about 1,000. It was
the first time that the species had been found east of the Great Rift
Valley.
Iregi Mwenja, of the Samburu Primates Research and Conservation Project, who
led the survey, said: “I was overwhelmed. For the first time in Kenya we
have a population that is stable and not under serious threat. Given that
habitat loss is one of the biggest threats to species, finding a new habitat
is a tremendous bonus.”
De Brazza’s monkeys prefer to live in forest areas along the banks of rivers
and streams. They feed mainly on fruit, seeds, insects, leaves, flowers and
mushrooms.
