World News joined 0011

[JohnCenaFan28]

The mother of Rhys Jones has described cradling her son as paramedics fought to save his life.

In a witness statement read out at the trial of the teenager accused of Rhys's murder, Melanie Jones described being in a state of "total shock" after her son was shot and added: "I didn't take anything in."

Mrs Jones said she was told of the shooting by the coach of her son's football team.

They then drove to the Fir Tree pub in Croxteth, Liverpool, where Rhys was being treated by paramedics.

She said: "As I arrived at the Fir Tree I saw a number of people, including police and paramedics attending to my son, Rhys. I cradled him while the paramedics dealt with him. I then went with my son to Alder Hey Hospital where he was pronounced dead."

Rhys was killed on August 22 last year as he crossed the front car park of the pub on his way home from football training.

Sean Mercer, 18, of Good Shepherd Close, Croxteth, denies murder.

The prosecution claim Mercer blasted three shots across the car park after targeting members of a rival gang who had strayed onto his turf. The second bullet, the jury has been told, struck Rhys in the neck and the youngster died a short time later.

Mrs Jones, 43, added: "My son Rhys was a happy, outgoing child whose favourite sport was football. Rhys was a very good footballer. Football was his life and he had a very good circle of friends who he played football with. He had a very happy and stable family upbringing. We are a very close family."

Alongside Mercer in the dock are James Yates, 20, of Dodman Road, Croxteth, Gary Kays, 25, of Mallard Close, and Melvin Coy, 24, of Abbeyfield Drive, both West Derby, Liverpool, who are accused of assisting an offender with two boys aged 16 and 17, who cannot be identified. A second 17-year-old boy has been charged with assisting an offender and possessing a firearm and ammunition. All deny the charges.

-Ananova

[Black Widow]

A catering company boss has been banned for life from managing a food company after being found preparing kebabs just feet away from a dead man lying on a sofa.

Police officers called to the Pappu Sweet Centre in Wolverhampton to investigate the sudden death of a worker found Jaswinder Singh, 45, cooking opposite the corpse.

In court, Singh, of Prosser Street, Park Village, Wolverhampton, was fined £3,846 including costs and banned from managing a food business.

The court was also told that a dead rat had been found under a cooking pot and rat droppings were discovered during a health inspection at the business.

Mouldy food and flies were found and employees were seen smoking and spitting on the floor within food areas.

Commenting on the case, Wolverhampton City councillor Barry Findlay said it was one of the worst breaches of the law environment officers had witnessed.

"We are pleased that the council's actions have resulted in the courts banning this individual from ever running a food business again."

The council's Food and Environment Safety Service began investigating the Pappu Sweet Centre in October 2007 following the sighting of a rat.

The business is now under new management.


sky news

[Black Widow]

A CHILD told the Rhys Jones murder trial today that he saw a gunman on a bike fire the shots which killed the innocent schoolboy.

The 11-year-old, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was giving evidence in the trial of Sean Mercer, 18.

The jury at Liverpool Crown Court today heard a taped interview with the young witness who was sitting outside the Fir Tree pub in Croxteth, Liverpool, with his family on August 22 last year, when 11-year-old Rhys was shot.

The witness, who was ten at the time, said: “I was talking and then I saw the lad pointing a gun at something.

“I don’t know what he was pointing at, I couldn’t see. I thought it was nothing because it was light, it was only half seven.

“I carried on talking and then I heard a big loud bang. Then there was a pause and then there were another two shots from the lad.

Fled

“Then he went on the bike and I went into the pub.

“My dad went over (to Rhys) and all the people were around him.”

The boy could not see the gunman’s face but described him as dressed in a black jacket and tracksuit bottoms with a black hood over his head.

The boy said he watched the gunman for about three to five seconds before he fled by cycling down an alleyway.

Mercer, of Croxteth, denies murder.

The prosecution says he blasted the three shots across the car park after targeting members of a rival gang who had strayed on to his turf.

The second bullet, the jury has been told, struck Rhys in the neck and the youngster, who was returning home from football practice, died in his mother Melanie’s arms a short time later.

James Yates, 20, of Croxteth, Gary Kays, 25, and Melvin Coy, 24, both of West Derby, Liverpool, are accused of assisting an offender alongside two boys aged 16 and 17, who cannot be identified.

A second 17-year-old boy has been charged with assisting an offender and possessing a firearm and ammunition.

All deny the charges.


The Sun

[Black Widow]

A SCIENCE teacher who slapped a 14-year-old pupil’s bottom in class and called her a “naughty girl” was found guilty today of unacceptable professional conduct.

Trevor Towers was teaching a Year 10 class at Trevethin Community School in Pontypool, South Wales, when he walked up to the student who was bending over a printer.

The teenager, identified only as Pupil A, was slapped by Mr Towers, the General Teaching Council for Wales (GTCW) panel heard.

He was charged with indecent assault and sexual assault and was bound over to keep the peace after no evidence was offered at a trial at Cardiff Crown Court.

He did not attend today’s Professional Conduct Committee hearing, at the Holland House Hotel, to face the allegation.

The girl sobbed as the Cardiff hearing was told details of the July 2004 incident.

In a statement made to police read out at the hearing, she said: “The paper in the printer had jammed, and I leaned over to try to fix it.

“I then felt a firm slap to my bottom and heard Mr Towers say ’You naughty girl’ to me.

“I didn’t know where to turn. I felt incredibly embarrassed that he had done this to me in front of my classmates."

Smack

Her friend, referred to as Pupil B, told police: “I saw him smack Pupil A on the bottom, but he left his hands on her bottom for a couple of seconds.”

Mr Towers apologised to the teenager when the lesson finished, but told her he did not know why she was upset.

He dismissed the incident as end-of-term “banter”, the panel was told, but eventually admitted slapping the girl.

In her statement, the girl, now a receptionist, said: “I felt it was not right Mr Towers should treat me like that.

“I couldn’t understand what I had done to make him pick on me.”

The girl tearfully told her mother what had happened when she returned home and the pair went to the school together the following day, when Mr Towers again apologised.

The girl then reported the matter to police in Cwmbran.

She added: “I found this whole episode very distressing. I didn’t make my complaint to the police lightly.”

Her mother told the hearing today her daughter was so upset she tried taking an overdose before the matter went to court in 2005.

She said: “She has had a lot of problems since all this happened. She even tried to take an overdose.

“When the police took it to court in Cardiff it was just too much for her. She has been terrible over it all.”

Mr Towers, a teacher of 22 years’ experience, was dismissed from the school, which has since closed, in January 2006.

Headmaster Royston Toon told the dismissal hearing at the time: “I found it amazing that an experienced teacher would not understand why slapping a girl would upset her.

“Would I have any trust regarding him being left with children? The answer is no.”

Mr Towers told that hearing: “I said I was really sorry. I couldn’t understand why she was so upset.”

He described the slap as a “silly thing to do”, and said he had no sexual or violent intent.


The Sun

[Swinny]

I kind of agree with both sides in a sense. Yes, he definitely should have done it, it wasn't appropriate, but for her to because that emotionally distraught over it, to the point where she's trying to kill herself, that's just ridiculous.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for posting.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for posting.

[JohnCenaFan28]

The Government has been warned that unemployment could spiral to three million after the biggest jobless rise since 1991 left 1.79 million people looking for work.

Unemployment soared by 164,000, more than 10%, in the quarter to August, while the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance increased for the eighth month in a row.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown vowed to do all he could to keep people in jobs, pointing out that unemployment was higher in America, Germany, France and Italy than in Britain.

The Prime Minister said one way to tackle unemployment and climate change at the same time was to train people to install loft insulation.

He said: "We are training large numbers of additional people to do that work in insulation and that will become one of the unemployment programmes that will grow over the next period of time. So the need to meet climate change goals and cut people's gas and electricity bills will create work."

Unions and opposition politicians pressed the Government to halt its programme of Jobcentre closures and 12,000 job cuts in the Department for Work and Pensions in the face of lengthening dole queues.

In the Commons, shadow foreign secretary William Hague said it was a "grim day" for the British economy, and claimed that a Government promise of £100 million to help retrain the jobless had been previously announced, and would be spread over three years, working out at just £18 for each unemployed person.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "This is extremely bad news, and these figures do not even show the effects of the bank crash. After years when we could take reasonably full employment for granted, we are now in for grim times. This is the next big challenge for the Government."

Vicky Redwood, of Capital Economics, forecast that, at the current rate, the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance would top a million by the end of this year. Total unemployment would rise by 1.5 million to about three million by the end of 2010, she predicted.

Job loss announcements include 800 redundancies in Scotland at US-owned computer chip firm Freescale Semiconductor and more than 500 in Grimsby through the proposed closure of a Mariner Foods factory.

-Ananova

[JohnCenaFan28]

Plans to gather and record millions of pieces of information about everyone's internet and telephone habits have been condemned as "Orwellian".

Measures to allow government agencies access to records of emails sent, websites visited and phone calls made amount to an "exponential increase in the powers of the state", it was claimed.

Police and the security services say terrorists and organised crime gangs are becoming more and more sophisticated in the way they use new technology to evade detection. They fear that without changes to how the government monitors communications data (CD), their ability to break up terror plots and gather evidence for criminal prosecutions could be undermined.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the alternative to collecting more data was an expensive and intrusive "expansion" of surveillance. She pointed to the convictions of the July 21 bombers and Soham killer Ian Huntley as cases where electronic data collection was vital.

She said: "It may well be that the only other alternative to collecting that data would be a massive expansion of surveillance and other intrusive methods of tracking." Ms Smith added: "There are no plans for an enormous database which will contain the content of your emails, the texts that you send or the chats you have on the phone or online. Nor are we going to give local authorities the power to trawl through the database in the interests of investigating lower level criminality under the spurious cover of counter-terrorist legislation."

Measures which allow traditional phone companies to be compelled to provide information such as billing records for phone calls could be extended to other firms under the Data Communications Bill, which will go out for consultation in the New Year. Ministers are keen to stress they are not seeking bulk access to the content of emails or to record people's phone calls.

But opponents of the move fear the growth of the "Big Brother" state and question whether the government can be trusted to record personal information. Labour MP Keith Vaz said he would be asking the Home Affairs Select Committee, which he chairs, to review the proposals. He said: "Extreme caution needs to be taken when considering the extension of the State's surveillance powers."

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said the plans would mean a "substantial shift" in the state's powers. He said: "The Government must present convincing justification for such an exponential increase in the powers of the state."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said the plans were "Orwellian". "This Government has repeatedly shown that it cannot be trusted with sensitive data," he said, adding: "There is little reason to think ministers will be any less slapdash with our phone and internet records."

Gareth Crossman, policy director at Liberty, said: "There are huge dangers in the central collection of vast amounts of intimate information about everyone. The bigger the data haul, the greater the temptation to treat innocent habits as suspicious behaviour."

-Ananova