Levi Bellfield goes on trial at Old Bailey accused of 13-year-old Milly Dowler’s kidnap and murder nine years ago Schoolgirl Milly Dowler disappeared from a suburban street in broad daylight “in the blink of an eye” when she was snatched by a “predatory and violent” man who went on to murder two other young women and tried to kill a third, a court was told. Levi Bellfield, a 42-year-old former wheelclamper and bouncer, has gone on trial at the Old Bailey nine years after Milly’s abduction and murder resulted in a major missing persons inquiry and a nationwide police investigation. He is charged with the 13-year-old’s kidnap and murder and the attempted abduction of another schoolgirl, 11-year-old Rachel Cowles, the day before Milly “disappeared in a flash”. Describing “every parent’s nightmare”, Brian Altman QC said Milly disappeared as she walked home from school after sharing some chips with friends in the cafe at Walton-on-Thames railway station, in Surrey, on 21 March 2002. The “slim, pretty and intelligent” teenager was wearing her school uniform when she vanished. Six months later, her unclothed and decomposed body was found by mushroom pickers in Yateley Heath Wood, Hampshire, 25 miles away. Bellfield, formerly of West Drayton, west London, had been living in a flat yards from the road where Milly was last seen, Altman said. He told the jury that the day before Milly disappeared, Rachel Cowles was walking home from school when she was approached by a man in a red car in Shepperton, Surrey. The man tried but failed to trick her into getting into the car. The court heard that Milly, whose real name was Amanda, took a train from Weybridge, where her school was, and got off at Walton-on-Thames rather than her usual stop at Hersham to spend time with her friends before leaving to walk home. “Within moments of leaving the station to walk along the road, just a few minutes after 4pm, she vanished – gone in the blink of an eye,” Altman said. The “entirely innocent and quite ordinary diversion to a station cafe to buy some chips with some school friends was a decision that was to cost Milly her life, because it meant taking a fateful journey along Station Avenue where … her abductor and killer was soon to strike”, he said. “Milly had simply disappeared in a flash from a street in a suburban town in broad daylight.” Her parents suffered for six months the “excruciating agony” of not knowing her fate, until her body was found. Bellfield was living with his partner, Emma Mills, their two children and a Staffordshire bull terrier dog in a rented flat in Collingwood Place, yards from the spot where Milly was last seen alive. They were house-sitting for a friend in West Drayton at the time of Milly’s disappearance, but there was evidence Bellfield was in the vicinity of the flat on that day, the jury heard. A red Daewoo Nexia car he was using at the time was captured on CCTV leaving the access road to their rented flat 22 minutes after what the prosecution say was Milly’s abduction. The day before, at around the same time, there was an attempt to abduct Cowles in Shepperton, “a mere nine minutes drive and a 3.3-miles car journey north of Walton”, Altman said. She was approached by a small red car driven by a man resembling Bellfield. The driver told her he had just moved in next door and asked if she wanted a lift. “Sensibly, she did not accept,” Altman said, adding that the driver may have been spooked by a police car driving past. Years later, Rachel failed to pick out Bellfield at an identification parade, the jury heard. “The prosecution say there can be no doubt that Levi Bellfield, and no one else, was responsible for both [crimes],” Altman said. The jury heard that Bellfield was convicted in 2008 for the murders of Marsha McDonnell in 2003, and Amelie Delagrange in 2004, by striking them over the head with a blunt instrument, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy in 2004, by deliberately running her over in a car. The offences were “all committed by him within a period of just over two years” of those he is currently charged with. In the cases of Rachel and Milly, there were “such similiarities between the offences that the chances of them having been committed by two or more men working independently of each other can safely and sensibly be excluded”, Altman said. He said that although the offences for which Bellfield was convicted were committed after Milly’s murder and the attempted abduction of Rachel, it “makes it more likely that he is the man who committed those [earlier] offences too”. Bellfield denies the charges. The case continues. Milly Dowler Crime Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …An Austrian Olympic team swimmer is recovering after nearly being buried alive on a Florida beach. After three weeks of training at Pompano Beach, Jakub Maly and his friends dug a huge hole at the beach—”big enough to bury a golf cart,” according to a Fire Department spokeswoman. But…
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Shailendra Kumar Upadhyay, 82, dies on Mount Everest while attempting to become oldest person to climb mountain An 82-year-old former Nepalese foreign minister has died on the slopes of Mount Everest while attempting to become the oldest person to climb the world’s highest mountain. Shailendra Kumar Upadhyay was descending from a camp on the lower slopes of the8,850m (29,035ft) peak when he collapsed on Monday evening. The death – the first of this year’s climbing season – is likely fuel charges that there is insufficient regulation of candidates attempting the ascent of the world’s highest mountain. Uphadyay was climbing with a non-profit-making expedition organised by a local campaign group for the rights of the elderly, but in recent years many top climbers have claimed that expeditions are accepting unsuitable members, particularly if they are high-profile, sufficiently wealthy or both. Upadhyay was trying to break the record set by a Nepalese climber who scaled Everest at the age of 76. The former diplomat’s climbing companions gave him water and oxygen but were unable to save him. It is believed that he died of acute altitude sickness, which is difficult to treat and is a common cause of death among mountain climbers. Upadhyay was not an experienced mountaineer, according to reports in Kathmandu. A 6,050m peak that he had climbed in preparation for his attempt to scale the highest mountain in the world is considered an easy “trekking” summit which is not technically demanding nor particularly high relative to the major mountains of the region. Upadhyay was also reported to have completed several multi-day high altitude treks. According to Wangchu Sherpa, an official from the Nepal Mountaineering Association in Kathmandu, Upadhyay had arrived at the Everest base camp in mid-April and had been waiting for good weather to start acclimatising for his ascent. “A doctor provided by a local trekking agencies did a thorough health check-up,” said Wangchu. “He was declared fit and fine.” The exact circumstances of Uphadhyay’s death are unclear but it is understood the climber had developed breathing problems after climbing through the broken and crevassed glacier above base camp to reach “camp 1″ at the height of 5,700m. Climbers on the most-used route via the South Col usually stop at least four camps on their way up the mountain. “Upadhyay was returning to the base camp when he suddenly fell ill and passed away,” Tilak Pandey, a government liaison officer at base camp, told the Guardian by satellite phone. Though some drugs can ease symptoms, descent to lower altitudes is the only sure treatment for altitude sickness. May is considered the best time to climb Everest and, this year 26 expeditions consisting of 251 climbers are scheduled to attempt its ascent. Summit attempts are usually launched towards the end of the month. Currently, mountaineers are making repeated ascents of the lower slopes of the mountain to acclimatise themselves. Uphadhyay was a member of a team organised by a local private non-profit making association. He lived in Kathmandu. According to Pandey, the liaison officer, Upadhyay’s body was brought into base camp on firm ground below the vast Khumbu glacier on Monday morning to be flown to Kathmandu. “Now weather is good here,” Pandey told the Guardian by satellite telephone. Upadhyay served as Nepal’s foreign minister from 1986-90 and was the country’s representative to the UN from 1972-78. “I am proud of being a part of such a noble event to turn it in to a grand success,” Uphadhya had said before embarking on Everest. More than 3,000 climbers have scaled Everest since it was first climbed by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Sherpa in 1953. According to Nepal’s ministry of tourism and civil aviation, 704 climbing permits have been issued to 83 expeditions for dozens of different peaks in the Himalayas in the 2011 climbing season. The largest number of applications to climb Everest is from the US followed by India, the UK, Japan and Australia. The permits will bring in more than £2.25m in mountaineering royalties for the poverty-hit nation. The fee for climbing the world’s highest peak ranges from £17,000 to £48,000 per expedition, depending on the number of members and the route. So far this year, the Nepalese government has collected fees totalling £1.5m for Everest. There are also long-standing concerns about the environmental damage caused by large numbers of climbers, their support teams and the waste they leave. Mount Everest Nepal Mountaineering Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
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Six girls aged between 12 and 18 receive 10 lashes each for attacking head of orphanage Six orphan girls aged between 12 and 18 have been flogged in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of attacking the head of their orphanage, an official said. The girls received 10 lashes each at a women’s prison in Medina, Islam’s second holiest city. “The order against the six orphans is a legitimate court order,” Mohammed al-Awadh, the public relations manager at the ministry of social affairs, told Reuters. “The ministry does not have the right to interfere in a court order.” He gave no details of the ruling but the Arabic-language newspaper Okaz said the girls had been convicted of “acts of mischief” and attacking the director of the orphanage. The girls defended their actions, saying they were harassed by the director, Okaz reported. International human rights groups have criticised the Saudi justice system for applying corporal punishment for petty crimes, as well as limb amputations for thieves and beheadings for murderers under its strict interpretation of Islamic law. Saudi officials say the practice is widely approved by Saudi society and is a deterrent to crime. In January 2010 a teenage girl was sentenced to 90 lashes and two months in prison for hitting her school principal on the head with a cup when she took away her mobile phone. Awadh said the ministry would continue to care for the girls after the floggings were carried out. “What it will do is rehabilitate and take care of the girls’ social wellbeing, which is part of its duties and responsibilities.” Saudi Arabia Middle East guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A US study has discovered higher reports of cancer among gays, and researchers are at a loss to explain why. The study of more than 120,000 Californians found that gay men were twice as likely as straight men to report a cancer diagnosis, which occurred, on average, a decade…
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Social work leaders say reforms proposed by Munro to free child protection teams from central control may be threatened by cuts to services Social workers should be freed from excessive bureaucracy and box-ticking to give them more time to do vital face-to-face work with families and at-risk youngsters, according to a major overhaul of child protection. The government-commissioned review of safeguarding practice by Professor Eileen Munro (pdf) recommends that centrally imposed targets and regulations are scrapped, and that children’s social workers are given freedom to exercise their professional skills and judgment. Among its 15 recommendations it calls on ministers to establish a national chief social worker to advise ministers, and says councils should be obliged to ensure “sufficient provision” of early help services such as Sure Start and family support schemes. Munro was commissioned last year by the education secretary, Michael Gove to look at a system he said was too bureaucratic, unaccountable and obsessed with procedures and targets. The report found that safeguarding had indeed become overly dependent on procedures and paperwork, with frontline professionals spending over 60% of their time in front of computer screens. Munro said: “A one-size-fits-all approach is not the right way for child protection services to operate. Top-down government targets and too many forms and procedures are preventing professionals from being able to give children the help they need and assess whether that help has made a difference.” The report says a better balance between guidelines and procedure on one side and professional expertise on the other must be sought: “Helping children is a human process. When the bureaucratic aspects of work become too dominant, the heart of the work is lost.” Social work leaders welcomed the report but warned that the pressures of spending cuts to local authority children’s services at a time when demand on child protection services was rising could make the reforms difficult. Most children’s services in England suffered cuts of between 15% and 25% for 2011-12, with the axe falling most harshly on early help services. The children’s minister Tim Loughton said he welcomed Munro’s “thorough analysis of the problems” but would not formally respond to its recommendations until later in the year. The report’s recomendations include: • Local services should be freed from government targets, national IT systems and regulations, and allowed to design their own services and procedures. • Inspection of safeguarding services should be unnanounced, and should look at all services, including police, health and education, as well as social work. • The government should work with health professionals, such as the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, to ensure that the NHS reforms do not adversely impact on effective safeguarding partnership arrangements. • Every local authority should employ a principal child and family social worker – a senior manager who is still actively involved in frontline work – to report the views of professionals to management. Nushra Mansuri, professional officer for the British Association of Social Workers and the College of Social Work (BASW/CoSW) said: “These recommendations are like music to the profession’s ears. BASW/CoSW has long campaigned to relieve social workers of the unbearable bureaucracy and administrative overload that prevents them working directly with people who need their services and it’s a huge relief that this has come at a time when social workers are under extraordinary added pressure from deep funding cuts.” Matt Dunkley, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, called on ministers to accept the report’s recommendations in full. He warned that the changes would take time and resources to get right, and said the government had to invest extra cash to protect early help services: “If local authorities and their partners are to invest in early help, in developing the workforce and in developing a broader vision for providing help to children and families, central government will need to provide additional funding to make this possible.” Sir Paul Ennals, chief executive of the National Children’s Bureau said: “This report comes out at a time of unprecedented pressure within children’s services. Whilst most authorities have protected social worker posts from their cuts, many services which contribute to keeping children safe are closing. Professor Munro stresses that early help is vital to keeping children safe, and proposes that local authorities should be given a duty to provide early help. This seems like shutting the stable door too late. The funding available for early help has been reduced by 22% since March 2010.” The report insists on the importance of keeping the local authority director of children’s services role, responsible for both schools and children’s social care, and introduced under the last government. It is estimated that around a fifth of council social work departments in England have either diluted the role or added extra responsibilities to it. Child protection Children Social care Public sector cuts Patrick Butler guardian.co.uk
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• Railway disputes during Olympics to be referred to Acas • London Underground says this month’s tube strikes off Boris Johnson faces calls to seal a no-strike agreement with the RMT trade union for the 2012 Olympics after Network Rail struck a deal that reduces the threat of industrial action next summer. News of the deal came as London Underground declared that two weeks of walkouts by tube drivers , due to begin next Monday, had been called off. The RMT denied the claim. Network Rail and the RMT have agreed that any industrial dispute that arises during the games will be referred to the Acas conciliation service, with no walkouts taking place during those discussions. Network Rail said: “If there is a dispute, either existing or new, during the timeframe of the Olympics it will automatically be referred to Acas for resolution and no industrial action can be taken whilst we are still negotiating with Acas.” An RMT spokesman denied that the agreement constituted a no-strike deal because it “recognises the continuing right to withdraw labour”. Under the agreement, RMT members carrying out extra shifts during the Olympics and Paralympics between 27 July and 9 September will receive up to £500 in additional pay. It is understood that the deal applies to about 800 Network Rail staff who will work extra hours during the games. In a further deal that settles a long-running dispute with signallers and clerical staff, about 10,000 Network Rail employees will receive a 5.2% pay rise this year – 0.5% above inflation – with a further pay rise of RPI plus 5% next year. Bob Crow, the RMT general secretary, said: “The package recognises the important role that transport workers will be expected to play during the games and rewards them financially while protecting their union rights at the same time. At this time of austerity we think that £500 extra payments and 10% on the basic represents a good deal and proves that strong union organisation can deliver for the members.” The Network Rail deal triggered calls for a similar arrangement at Transport for London, with the tube network expected to bear much of the strain of millions more journeys during the games period. Caroline Pidgeon, chair of the London assembly transport committee, said: “They are going to have to come up with something for the Olympic Games. We cannot have disruption when we have the world looking at us.” Johnson, the London mayor, has said he will not meet Crow while TfL is in dispute with the RMT. The two have yet to meet because the union has been in some form of dispute with TfL since Johnson was elected. Johnson has urged the government to consider legislation that would limit strikes by barring any walkout not backed by a vote in which more than 50% of the workforce took part. The mayor reiterated his demands last week after RMT-affiliated tube drivers voted for two weeks of walkouts over the sacking of two drivers. London Underground said the action had cancelled after TfL reinstated one of the drivers in the wake of an employment tribunal . Eamonn Lynch, a Bakerloo line driver fired for breaching safety guidelines, was found to have been unfairly dismissed. He will return to TfL in a “non-driver role”, TfL said. Mike Brown, head of London Underground, said: “As we’ve always said, there are established mechanisms in place to deal with individual disputes, and that is the process that has been followed here. Following a meeting with the RMT leadership this morning the RMT have withdrawn their threat of industrial action, and we have avoided significant disruption for London.” RMT denied that the walkouts had been called off. “The strike action in the victimisations dispute on London Underground has not been called off,” said a union spokesman. “We have not received confirmation of any potential offer from London Underground as a consequence of earlier talks. If and when any written confirmation of any offer is received it will be considered by our executive and a statement will be issued by the RMT.” Rail transport London Transport Trade unions Boris Johnson London politics Olympic Games 2012 Dan Milmo guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Investigators have discovered a sophisticated drug cartel tunnel linking Mexico to Arizona, complete with lights and a ventilation systems. The tunnel connects an abandoned building in Noglaes, Mexico, to Nogales, Arizona, and is 15 feet underground. “This tunnel is more sophisticated than other discovered tunnels,” said an investigator. “They chiseled…
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Co-operative Energy will offer a single variable tariff in a bid to simplify a ‘baffling and bewildering’ market The Co-operative has entered the energy market with a simple, single tariff designed to be consistently fair and competitive. The Pioneer tariff, named after the Rochdale pioneers who founded the first co-operative in 1844 , has a variable rate and no penalties for switching to a different provider. Co-operative Energy also promises that new customers will not receive preferential treatment over existing customers with cheaper price offers. The company describes the multi-tariff offerings of other energy providers as “baffling and bewildering”, and says it will challenge the big profits made by the other companies by including a twice-yearly profit-sharing deal for all its customers, who will own the business. Electricity will be sourced from low-carbon generators, including from renewable energy sources such as wind and hydro, and the Co-op’s aim is for the carbon content of its electricity to be less than half the national average by April 2012. Co-operative Energy’s Nigel Mason said: “It is time this industry had a radical shake up. Customers have been bamboozled by complicated tariffs and confused by changing prices and unfair contracts, and it has to stop. “We are determined to provide a fair and transparent service for Co-operative Energy customers and to let them share in the profits. We are campaigning for long-overdue reform in the energy industry.” The Co-op says the big six providers rely on customers not knowing how much they are paying for their energy. According to research carried out by Consumer Focus in 2010, 57% of electricity and 59% of gas users do not know how much they pay per unit. The Co-operative Energy website has a price comparison tool so customers can compare their current energy costs with those of the Co-op. Joe Malinowski, founder of energy comparison website TheEnergyShop.com , welcomed the Co-op’s entrance into the market, particularly as it is offering its own products rather than white labelled versions of the big six providers. “On price it is not the cheapest – and it is not likely to get much business via the comparison websites – but it is a sensible long-term price for those who are unlikely to keep an eye on how much they are paying.” An average user buying gas and electricity from the Co-op on a monthly direct debit basis will pay £1,023 based on today’s prices, compared to an average of £1,041 across all variable rate tariffs, according to TheEnergyShop. Malinowski particularly liked the deal’s single unit price: “There’s a serious risk that people might actually understand what they are paying for their energy.” The Co-op’s move follows the scrapping of the market’s cheapest variable rate deal, WebSaver 11 by British Gas, while npower withdrew the cheapest fixed-rate deal, Go Fix 5, and replaced it with one 4.2% more expensive, according to price comparison site Energyhelpline.com . It predicted that prices could rise by 15% by the autumn and Mark Todd, director of the website, said: “The cheaper deals are being pulled so quickly it is difficult to keep up. “Over the past month there has been a bonfire of some of the best deals on the market. The outlook is very bleak and consumers need to act quickly if they want to snap up the cheapest deals or opt for a fixed-rate tariff which will protect them from further price rises.” Energyhelpline currently recommends fixed-rate deals such as EDF’s Fixed S@ver v2 , which is fixed until October 2012. Energy bills Household bills Consumer affairs Utilities Jill Insley guardian.co.uk
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Self-taught seismologist Raffaele Bendandi never predicted an 11 May quake, but workers and schoolchildren are taking day off Well, so much for the Eternal city. On Wednesday, Rome will be razed to the ground by an earthquake that will shatter more than 2,000 years’ worth of monumental architecture including the Colosseum, the Pantheon and St Peter’s. That, at least, is the fear of hundreds of thousands of Romans, spooked by the reputed forecast of a self-taught seismologist who died more than 30 years ago. The daily La Repubblica reported that applications from the capital’s public employees for a day off – and, presumably, out – were 18% higher than for the same day in 2011. Education officials were said to be expecting school attendances to be down by a fifth as parents decide it is better to be on the safe side. The panic was set off by claims that Raffaele Bendandi, the “earthquake prophet”, forecast a devastating tremor that would rip through the capital on 11 May. Bendandi, who was knighted by Mussolini, is said to have predicted several disasters, including the Friuli quake of 1976, which claimed almost 1,000 lives. Reports of his forecast have gained credence from the awesome rumour-mongering capabilities of the internet; the fact that Rome is undeniably on the edge of a seismic region, and the lingering recollection that a non-specialist predicted the earthquake that devastated the central Italian city of L’Aquila two years ago. But, according to the head of a foundation set up in Bendandi’s honour in his native town near Bologna, it is all an urban – indeed, very urban – legend. “I can state with absolute certainty that in Raffaele Bendandi’s papers, there is no prediction of a earthquake in Rome on 11 May 2011,” Paola Lagorio, the president of the Osservatorio Geoficico Comunale of Faenza, said last month. “The date is not there. The place is not there.” Italy Geology Natural disasters and extreme weather Europe John Hooper guardian.co.uk
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