Police find three young children alone in house

Three children have been taken into care after police officers found them hiding under a bed in the house where they had been living alone for two weeks (Ross Parry writes).

The mother of the children — two girls and a boy aged 11, 6 and 5 — was allegedly on honeymoon with a wealthy Austrian barrister. The police found them after receiving a tip-off from a neighbour.

Their father, Parvez Sadiq, 43, said that Simten Sadiq, 33, whom he claimed was still his wife under English law, moved out of the family home in Leeds more than two years ago when she fell in love with a college lecturer. In April Mrs Sadiq and the couple’s three younger children moved into the council house where they were found.

Officers from West Yorkshire Police went to the terraced property on Saturday evening. All three children appeared to be fit and well. They were taken into protective custody and placed in temporary foster care. Police said that they had been in contact with Mrs Sadiq. Leeds social services said that before this weekend it had not received any reports or allegations of neglect.

Blue shark bites back after being caught by angler

An angler had to have extensive reconstructive surgery after being bitten by the blue shark that he had just caught.

Stephen Perkins, 52, was preparing to pose for a photograph with the shark when it clamped its multiple rows of razor sharp teeth round his forearm. His wounds were bleeding so severely that an RAF helicopter was called to airlift him to hospital from his boat Serenity two miles off the west coast of Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel.

After the operation for crush and ripping injuries, Mr Perkins, from South Glamorgan, said: “The scariest bit, to be honest, was going up in a helicopter. It won’t put me off fishing again but I will remember to pick the shark up by the blunt end in future.

“We don’t harm the sharks when we hook them. We just take a picture and put them back in the water but the one I got was pretty lively.”

Blue sharks, smaller relatives of the great white, can grow to 13ft (4m) in length. Numbers have been increasing in British waters but most visitors are young and rarely more than four of five feet long.

Headmaster who stole donations to buy cars is jailed

The former headmaster of a preparatory school who stole £64,000 from parents to buy sports cars was jailed for ten months yesterday.

Barry Hoar, 56, was head of Barfield School in Farnham, Surrey, for 16 years until he was found to have kept cash donations intended to benefit the pupils. He bought cars including a Bentley and an E-type Jaguar, claiming they were intended for the pupils to learn about vehicle maintenance in a “car club”.

Hoar, from Torpoint, Cornwall, used the cars himself, and kept the £44,000 proceeds when he sold them. He had offered parents discounts on school fees for the cash donations. At a hearing this year he pleaded guilty to 30 counts of theft.

Sentencing Hoar at Guildford Crown Court, Judge Peter Moss said: “You have been living a lie. You stood in high esteem and you have taken a high fall. Your offending is inexplicable; the only explanation is that you were rewarding yourself for a job well done.”

John Burrowes said in mitigation: “He accepts responsibility unconditionally. He has of course lost his good character. When he took over the school was struggling. Mr Hoar breathed life into it — he turned the school around.”

Tories confirm £2m tax break for heirs

Parents will be able to pass up to £2 million tax-free to their children under Conservative proposals to reform inheritance tax, it emerged last night (Sam Coates writes).

The Tories confirmed that a move by the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, in his Pre-Budget Report to allow a husband and wife or civil partners to combine their tax-free allowances if one of them died would also apply to the £1 million allowances proposed by George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, at the party conference last year. Previously couples needed the help of a specialist tax lawyer to combine the allowances.

Nimrod crash victims ‘had rights breached’

Lawyers are examining the implications of a writ accusing the Ministry of Defence of breaching the human rights of two servicemen killed on a Nimrod surveillance aircraft over Afghanistan in 2006 (Michael Evans writes).

Ministers have apologised for “shortcomings” that led to a fireball engulfing Nimrod XV230 after a fuel leak, and the ministry has accepted that the 14 victims’ families will get compensation. The writ from two of the families accuses the MoD of breaching the article in the European Convention on Human Rights guaranteeing the right to life. The MoD could not comment.

Police race case fails

Commander Shabir Hussain, who accused Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, of passing over ethnic-minority detectives for promotion in favour of a “golden circle” of white colleagues, has lost his claim of racial discrimination at an employment tribunal in London.

Airgun victim dies

Rashid Ullah, aged 18 months, has died in Birmingham Children’s Hospital a week after being shot in the head with an airgun in the garden of his home in the Washwood Heath area of the city. His grandfather said that he was shot by his five-year-old sister. Police are treating it as an accident.

National treasure

The Rolling Stones’ tongue and lips logo has been bought by the Victoria and Albert Museum for £50,000 in an online auction. The original artwork was sold by John Pasche, 63, who was paid £50 in 1970 to design it. It was one of the “world’s most instantly recognisable symbols of rock and roll”, the V&A said.

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