Dead man left note confessing to killing

A note found in a dead man’s home confessing to the murder of a young mother 38 years ago has led to police reopening the case (Adam Fresco writes).

Detectives also found at the home of Harvey Richardson, 77, in Aspull, Wigan, clothing and newspaper cuttings about the murder of Lorraine Jacob, 19. Ms Jacob’s body was found in Liverpool in September 1970. She had been battered, sexually assaulted and strangled.

Cheshire police are also looking at possible connections with the murder of an 18-year-old woman in the county at around the same time.

Detectives suspect that Ms Jacob could have been mistaken for a prostitute.

Soldier killed by blast

A soldier from the 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment has been killed by an explosion in southern Afghanistan. The incident was on Sunday, the Ministry of Defence said. A second soldier was injured. The latest casualty was the 88th member of the Armed Forces to die in Afghanistan since 2001.

Cardinal’s aide sues

Austen Ivereigh, 41, a former senior aide to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, is suing the Daily Mail for libel after it accused him of hypocrisy over an abortion. Mr Ivereigh says that he lost his job as aide to the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales because of the article.

Munitions charges

Two soldiers have been charged with the theft and supply of munitions. Colour Sergeant Garry Graham, 36, and Sergeant Kieran Campbell, 27, were remanded in custody by Folkestone magistrates. A third soldier, aged 27, who has not been named, was also arrested. He was taken to Scotland.

Damages for mother

Nottingham City Council will pay damages to an 18-year-old mother after admitting that it unlawfully took away her newborn son. Baby K was removed by social workers without a court order hours after being born in January. The baby remains in the council’s care and the mother has limited daily access.

Minister appeals for wider ban on alcohol

Hundreds more designated “alcohol zones” should be introduced to help combat drunkenness and antisocial behaviour on British streets, a Home Office minister said yesterday.

Vernon Coaker called on councils to make greater use of existing powers to ban the drinking of alcohol in public. An estimated 500 “designated alcohol zones” exist, where police have greater powers to confiscate drink.

Mr Coaker said: “One piece of legislation that I would like to see used a lot more is designated public place orders. I don’t know why there aren’t hundreds more of these.”

He said that a review of how police dealt with underage drinking was considering whether children caught with alcohol should be given a criminal record.

Illegal immigrants ran giant DVD fraud

Two illegal immigrants at the heart of one of the country’s largest pirate DVD frauds have been jailed at Southwark Crown Court. The operation involved three “factories” and four warehouses across the capital producing DVDs of cinema box-office hits. One of the premises was making 14,000 counterfeits a day – providing a daily income of up to £43,000 – while another produced so many that the equipment burst into flames and sent those working there fleeing for their lives. Xiao Shi, 28, of Edmonton, North London, was jailed for three years and Long Lin, 33, of no fixed abode, was jailed for 15 months.

Sex attack charges

A taxi driver has been charged over a series of sexual attacks. John Worboys, 50, of Rotherhithe, southeast London, was arrested after a number of women told police that they had been entrapped by a driver who told them that he had won money before plying them with drugged wine. He is accused of rape, multiple counts of sexual assault and administering a substance with intent.

Killer’s bail returned

A barrister will not lose the bail bond of £200,000 that he put up for his brother, Garry Weddell, a senior police officer who is thought to have killed himself and his mother-in-law last month while awaiting trial for the murder of his wife. A judge at Cambridge Crown Court agreed with Geoffrey Weddell, from Woking, Surrey, that he could not have known what his brother was planning.

Cancer ‘lottery’ man

A cancer patient who was denied the drug Velcade by a financially struggling health trust has died. John McNamara, who had three children, died of multiple myeloma at 47. The decision by the North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust not to fund the treatment was blamed on the NHS “postcode lottery”. After an appeal by his doctors at St James’s Hospital, Leeds, the trust had agreed to the treatment.

Council tax jailing

A 76-year-old retired soldier has been jailed a second time for not paying his council tax. Richard Fitzmaurice, a great-grandfather from Heacham, Norfolk, was sentenced to 34 days by King’s Lynn magistrates for failing to pay his £1,300 bill. He said: “I am here on a matter of principle for all old-age pensioners.” He was jailed for 32 days in 2006, but freed after three days when his family cleared that debt.

Endless task to end

The never-ending job of painting the Forth Bridge will be finished within four years, Network Rail said. Work to cover the structure with a special paint developed for oil rigs and expected to last at least 20 years will bring to an end an urban myth. Painting the Forth Bridge became a popular figure of speech for any job that seemed to take for ever. In 1998 it entered the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms.

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