BBC record fine
Media The BBC has been fined a record £400,000 after it was found
guilty of “faking winners and misleading the audience” in phone-in
competitions. Ofcom, the media watchdog, said BBC producers on eight
television and radio programmes – including the Jo Whiley show on Radio 1
and the 6 Music show presented by Russell Brand, pictured above – had run
competitions they knew the entrants had no chance of winning.
One of the worst offenders was the Liz Kershaw show on 6 Music: listeners were
invited to phone in or text competition entries in 17 programmes that were
prerecorded. The show was fined £115,000.
Last year’s Comic Relief telethon, Sport Relief in 2006 and Children in Need
in 2005 were also found to have run bogus competitions. The BBC said it
accepted Ofcom’s findings and had “put in place an unprecedented action plan
to tackle the issues raised”. Ofcom could have imposed a fine of up to £2m
but decided not to as it saw no evidence that the BBC had tried to make
money from the phoney phone-ins.
Bills to rise 35%
Energy British Gas announced on Wednesday that it was raising gas bills
by 35%. Centrica, its parent company, said the increase was necessary to
restore “reasonable profitability”. The following day the multinational
revealed that it makes £5m a day. The decision came a week after EDF Energy
announced that it was raising gas prices by 22% and electricity by 17%, with
more suppliers expected to follow suit.
Labour MPs condemned the “grotesque” profits made by such companies and their
shareholders, and by the end of the week Alistair Darling, the chancellor,
said he was thinking of imposing a windfall tax on energy firms.
So how does Centrica justify the latest price rise? It blames dwindling
reserves and rising oil prices. On Monday a committee of MPs had said it was
“clear there are problems in the energy markets at all levels” and warned
that higher fuel bills would have serious consequences for millions of
people – especially the elderly.
Five deaths
Child abuse The remains of at least five children have been discovered
at a former care home on Jersey but police have said it is unlikely that
anyone will be charged with murder. Detectives found 65 milk teeth and 100
bone fragments from children aged between 4 and 11 at Haut de la Garenne but
said it was impossible to determine the cause or date of death because the
pieces were too small. A child sex abuse investigation has been under way at
the former care home since 2006. So far, police have excavated four
“punishment rooms” in the cellar, where they came across a bloodstained bath
and the words “I’ve been bad for years and years” scratched onto a wooden
post. Establishment figures are among the 100 suspects.
DNA injustice
DNA Innocent people should have their details deleted from the national
DNA database, according to a “citizens’ inquiry” sponsored by the Human
Genetics Commission, a government advisory body.
Britain has the largest DNA database in the world, which includes an estimated
100,000 profiles of children. The commission found widespread public
distrust of the system, which collects and keeps genetic material from
anyone who is arrested, even if they are not convicted of a crime. More than
three in four young black men have their DNA on the database, but only 22%
of young white men.
The Home Office said the database had helped the police to solve more than
40,000 crimes a year, but one member of the inquiry panel called it the
“first step towards a totalitarian state”.
Sikh girl’s victory
Courts A Sikh schoolgirl has won the right to wear a religious bangle,
or kara, to school. Sarika Watkins-Singh, below, was excluded from Aberdare
girls’ school, Rhondda, in November last year for “persistent defiance” of
its no-jewellery policy. For nine weeks she had been segregated from other
pupils, eating alone and sitting in a classroom copying out notes, with only
a teaching assistant for company, while her friends were in lessons. She was
even accompanied to the lavatory by a teacher to make sure she did not bump
into other children in the corridor. When she still insisted on wearing the
kara, which Sikhs consider a “handcuff to God”, she was suspended. The High
Court ruled that the school was guilty of religious discrimination. After
the verdict, Watkins-Singh said she was a “proud Welsh and Punjabi Sikh
girl”.
Hacker loses case
Computers Gary McKinnon, a self-taught computer expert once called “the
world’s most dangerous hacker” by authorities in the United States, has lost
his appeal to the House of Lords against extradition to America.
Accused of breaking into 97 US military computers, stealing 950 passwords and
deleting files, he faces a 70-year jail sentence if convicted.
McKinnon, 44, began hacking computers at 14 on an old Atari 400; soon he was
spending eight hours a day sifting through military documents. “I treated it
a bit like a job,” he said.
American officials said he could be treated as a terrorist if he failed to
cooperate with their investigation. McKinnon, though, insisted that he was
no criminal mastermind: slack security and the use of blank passwords had
made accessing the secret information “ridiculously easy”.
Facebook fracas
Internet A teenage girl was punched to the ground at a water fight
organised on the Facebook social networking site. The attack, in revenge for
throwing a fizzy drink at another reveller, sparked a full-scale fight. Nine
people were arrested at the event in Kensington Gardens, west London, on
Wednesday.
It was the second time in a week that Facebook was associated with violence.
On Monday it removed a game that allowed users to “virtually” stab each
other. The game, Shanking, was part of the SuperPoke! application, which
usually allows users to send greetings through cyberspace.
It has been heavily criticised by the families of stabbing victims. John Knox,
the uncle of Rob Knox, the Harry Potter actor who was stabbed to death in
May, said: “Why would a social networking site for teenagers put something
like this forward? And they deliberately use the street term ‘shanked’,
which is even worse. They are targeting the kids who are on street corners
carrying knives.”
Schools feel pinch
Education Middle-ranking private schools are the latest victims of the
credit crunch. Six have closed and 12 more are reported to be in trouble.
The news has prompted fears that well-known institutions will have to accept
pupils from “further down the food chain” because many parents can no longer
afford the fees, often in excess of £20,000 a year.
Wentworth College, in Sandbanks, Dorset, is closing after 137 years. It has
blamed a fall in pupils on the “current economic climate”. Wispers school,
in Haslemere, Surrey, and La Sagesse, in Newcastle upon Tyne, are also
closing.
More than half a million British children are educated in independent schools
but John Parker, president of trustees at Wispers, said: “Single-sex girls’
schools are under increasing pressure from the trend towards coeducation and
the demand for boarding is in decline.” Private school fees rose on average
by 39% between 2001 and 2006, while average earnings rose by 18%. Sue
Fieldman of The Good Schools Guide said the discrepancy was the “beginning
of worse to come”.
Streets of shame
Crime Internet crime maps showing the assaults, burglaries and muggings
that have taken place in every street in the country will be published by
the Home Office next year. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has
warned that the information could wipe thousands of pounds off property
prices and turn some areas into ghettos.
The Google Earth-style maps will be advanced enough to identify cash
dispensers, pubs and drug-dealing hot spots. Four police forces publish
online maps, including West Yorkshire which uses dots to show offences
including street drinking and dropping litter.
Coffee to go
Retail How many fashionable coffee shops does the average market town
need? Certainly not 15, say the people of Havant. Residents and traders in
the Hampshire town (population 116,000) are protesting at the opening of a
Caffè Nero. Carol Fletcher, who owns a clothing shop, said: “We want to see
shops opening, not more cafes. We want to see something different in Havant
to attract people here.”
Re:Computer hacking Gary McKinnon. This report should say he has denied deleting any files but merely accessed files concerning UFO's on various military and Nasa computers. Why is media and Lords always complicit with the authorities and fail to report his motive was to discover the truth for all.
Michael Lewis, St Albans, UK