A graffiti artist and clothes designer will be offering children the opportunity to celebrate Halloween with a more alternative experience this year.More ‘diverse’ than an American imported holiday..?
Blingwear UK will be running a “Hip Hop Halloween” event on Tottenham High Road, providing both spooky and street activities for young children.
The event on October 31 will include a rap/poem workshop…AIIIEEEEEEIEEEEE!!!!!!!!
School “champions” from Barnet and Haringey have been recognised for their work to…Get pupils skilled up in reading, writing, and sums?
… promote safe travel in their schools.*sighs*
STARS (Sustainable Travel: Active, Responsible, Safe) is a TfL programme that supports schools with school travel plan activities that help young people adopt safer and sustainable ways of travelling.OK, well, let’s look at the detail, shall we, before we jump to the conclusion that it’s all a pile of lefty bollocks?
Ms Wishart used innovative projects including planning and running scooting lessons with her Year Two pupils, and has encouraged sustainable travel through the programme since 2007.
Her hard work has helped achieve a 12 per cent reduction in car use, according to TfL.OK, never mind whether that’s even in her remit as a teacher. Any idea how she's supposedly done this …?
Ms Nath has used a creative approach at Moss Hall Infant School, such as her pupil scooter dance that was performed at the Annual Barnet Dance Festival.
She also led a successful campaign including pupils, councillors, governors and parents to get a new zebra crossing installed and a 20 mph zone outside the school.Hopefully all in her own time..? Not in school time?
Mr Pollard and Ms Doyle have taught young people in Haringey with very little confidence to become totally independent travellers, understanding the different bus numbers and reading a timetable.I…
"I can appreciate, for example, that Minaj wishes to ridicule the objectification of women, but I have to admit to some difficulty in seeing exactly how this is achieved by writhing around slathered in baby oil and pouting at the camera, patting the rear of a shapely bikini-clad dancer or crawling on all fours around a seated man, however ironic the intention."Honorable runner-up is The Stigler at Mark Wadsworth's blog with some sage travel advice:
"The way I avoid being detained by a bunch of bastards in Iran is simple: I don't go to Iran. It's very simple. And if my employers asked me to, I'd tell them to piss off."
Police will not marshal Canvey’s annual remembrance parade as a result of police cuts.Well, of course!
A former police officer received a £2,000 police payout after officers unlawfully raided his home on suspicion of harassing Essex’s highways chief.
Ken Mason, of Great Ranton, Pitsea, had written several emails to Rodney Bass expressing his unhappiness with the county’s part-night lighting scheme. But the messages led to Mr Mason wrongly being accused of sending hate mail to Mr Bass’s home address.
He was arrested and his computer was seized, but he was later released without charge.They should have to pay that £2000 out of their own pockets. That’ll be more effective than any retraining.
A police spokesman said: “This is a serious incident which has left somebody with a nasty injury.”I’ll say! The photo looks like the poor old girl has suffered a shark attack!
Officers said it attacked the woman’s right forearm after she mistook it for a neighbour’s dog and reached to pet it.
The victim was taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital before being transferred to Royal Preston Hospital for specialist treatment.
Officers said the dog’s owner was not arrested and agreed to hand the pet over to the police and a council dog warden to be put down.Because, let’s face it, he can always get another four-legged assault weapon pretty cheaply.
Ivor Bould, chairman of Fleetwood Neighbourhood Watch, said: “Ever since the demolition of the high-rise flats in Blackpool people have moved down here and the number of dogs has trebled.
“It’s frightening because, looking at some of them, I’m not 100 per cent sure they’re not status symbols.”
The attack bears a resemblance to one that happened in South Shore last week, when mechanic Rob Lloyd warned ‘a child could be next’ after a husky-type dog attacked his chocolate Labrador.Long past time the council and police started clamping down on chavs and their mutts, then.
Nanu Miah, 35, of no fixed address, admitted pointing a 12-inch bread knife towards shop assistant Wendy Hayes in Martins, in Whitmore Way, on Wednesday, June 10.
Basildon Crown Court was told that Miah, who has 49 previous convictions for theft or attempted theft, had only been given a suspended prison sentence the morning he carried out the terrifying robbery.
He had admitted shoplifting at Basildon Magistrates Court earlier that day and magistrates agreed not to lock him up.Well, why should they? He’s never going to be pointing a breadknife at them, after all…
Mathew Dance, mitigating, said that some of the money went towards buying more drugs.Errr…. That’s not really mitigation, is it?
He said: “Miah is a man who has had a problem with substance misuse. He is addicted to crack cocaine and heroin and has homelessness issues.
“He understands it was foolish and is deeply remorseful.”Of course he is. He probably was all 48 other times, as well.
Judge David Owen-Jones, sentencing, told Miah: “Within a very short time, having been made the subject of a suspended sentence by a magistrates court, you were at it again but more seriously.
“You branded the knife in a threatening fashion towards Wendy Hayes, who was by herself. It must have been a terrifying ordeal for her.
“She was clearly vulnerable and the threat must have had a scarring effect on that lady.
“You have an appalling record for dishonesty and you committed this crime to fund a drug habit.”
He handed Miah a three-year prison sentence and will be released on licence after a year-and-a-half.Which doesn’t sound long enough, but is probably the best the judge could do, sad to say, under the present system.
The Echo requested Miah’s mugshot, from Essex Police, but a spokesman said none had been taken.Really? Guess Miah isn’t the only one in this tale with ‘an appalling record of dishonesty’…
When you lend rooms to the homeless, expect cheers of approbation; when you explain why they are homeless, expect howls of execration. This is not to diss what Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs have done – far from it. Allowing homeless squatters to stay in the building they are turning into a luxury hotel is a true act of kindness in a sector characterised by cruelty.So It’s ‘cruelty’ that I haven’t got a fleet of Ferraris (or a seven bedroom mansion) is it?
So extreme has the housing crisis become that scarcely anyone would claim to be unmoved by the condition of those at the bottom.*raises hand* Me! I’m unmoved.
But the major cause of the housing crisis? We just don’t want to know, and it’s not hard to see why. The major cause is a spectacular failure to tax those who own property.*looks at council tax demand*
This is, in theory, a free country, and I’m not proposing that those who have more than they need should be forced to move. But in the midst of an acute housing crisis, you would expect fiscal policies to help match supply to demand. Current taxes do the opposite.Well, actually, you are proposing that they be forced to move, aren’t you? By demanding that they be priced out.
The exemption from capital gains tax for main residences, inheritance tax breaks, a grossly unfair and regressive banding of council tax: all create powerful incentives to pour your money into a bigger house than you need and then hold on to it.What absolute politics-of-envy bollocks from this fruitcake! Hardly surprising that the hard-of-thinking in the CiF commentariat are lapping it up.
Surely the logical response is a tax on hoarding, calibrated to the rate of occupancy. A variable council tax is the simplest way of doing it: the more spare bedrooms you possess, the more you pay.I bet we’d soon see a host of exemptions and clarifications for the great and good, eh, George?
You say these things at your peril.And yet you aren’t swinging from the nearest lamppost, George. Nor do you even have to read the comments of your detractors.
When I first proposed such measures, in 2011, they were greeted with fury. In the Daily Telegraph my idea was pronounced “far closer to fascism than the ethno-centric populism of the European radical Right”. Curiously, when the government proposed a similar measure – the bedroom tax – aimed not, as I proposed, at property owners but at the poorest households (tenants on housing benefit) , the same people were delighted.Yes, George. Because they don’t own their own property, they are expecting everyone else to subsidise them!
In a recent debate in the Guardian Joan Bakewell, who is almost the transcendental form of English liberalism, and whose own house, she says, is “worth millions”, argued that it would be “mean-spirited” to encourage “old people living alone in big houses … to sell up and make room for young and aspiring families”. I would argue that holding on to such houses while families are homeless is, in aggregate, far meaner.Where are they supposed to go, George? Will you be there on the doorstep to remind Doris & Bert that the lovely home they’ve grown up in and now have to leave for a small one-bed flat in Hackney is much better placed in the hands of the Hussains, just arrived from Syria with their fourteen kids?
But not even Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party will champion such obvious solutions, for fear of alienating people who bemoan the problem but don’t really want it solved.You mean, ‘voters’? Well, fancy that!
A church which had been meeting in a Chadwell Heath office without planning permission has been allowed to stay.
Kingdom Power Bible Church has used LCCM House in Chadwell Heath Industrial Park, Kemp Road, for the past four years, and have now been granted retrospective planning permission to change the building’s use to a place of worship and community centre after councillors voted unanimously at a development control board meeting on Monday night.I wonder if a white Anglican or Catholic Church would get the same treatment if they squatted in a building fort four years?
When a child is the subject of a child protection plan, the social worker only has to see the child once every two weeks. How can social workers redress the inequalities in our society when they barely have time to see the child?
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Social workers work within the thresholds for intervention set out for them. The focus is on the child and their need for protection, not the social injustice that may have led to that family being in the position they are.
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The role of the child protection social worker in today’s world is not to strive to redress the imbalance of our society.Well, who on earth ever told you that it was, for heaven’s sa…
Isabelle Trowler, the government’s chief social worker for children and families, said recently that social justice is at the heart of what social workers do. I was at the meeting where she made these comments, and they made me think, because I disagree. I don’t disagree that it should be, but I disagree that it is.*sighs*
Police officers have urged ministers to call time on 24-hour licensing , after three-quarters of police officers and 50% of ambulance staff told a survey they had been injured while handling drink-related violence.A survey run by the emergency services?
Respondents to the survey by the Institute of Alcohol Studies…Ah. I guess we (the taxpaying majority) can safely ignore it, then.
… said there was a culture of fear among emergency service workers about being attacked when dealing with alcohol-related incidents.Part of the job. Like fishing dead bodies out of rivers and being in the front lines of riots.
The move had changed policing forever, a sergeant told the survey. The majority of police time was now spent “dealing with the fallout from the night time economy,” he said. “No longer are we able to patrol residential areas to catch burglars etc.”Wait a minute, I thought you were bleating about not doing that due to those awful Tory cuts? Now it’s because you’re too busy with drunks?
Katherine Brown, the director of the Institute of Alcohol Studies, said: “Our report shows how alcohol takes up a disproportionate share of emergency service time, costing taxpayers billions of pounds each year.
…
Brown said: “Police officers we spoke to would far rather be dealing with burglaries than Friday night drunks. We call on the government to better support our emergency services and implement policies to ease this burden, such as minimum unit pricing for alcohol.”OK, 1) that cost is more than offset by the billions of pounds taken in alcohol taxes, and 2) the EU has already ruled that minimum pricing is a no-go, you collective punishment-loving moron!
Police in London are urging shopkeepers to refuse to sell eggs and flour to under-16s in the run-up to Halloween in case they use them to target the homes of elderly and vulnerable residents.They might want to make bloody pancakes, or be buying shopping for someone else, though? What sort of idiot demands that they be inconvenienced anyway?
Labour councillor for King's Cross Jonathan Simpson dismissed suggestions the initiative is an overreaction.
"The police don't send out letters lightly," he said. "I don't have a problem with it. It may inconvenience some young people but it is probably a week or so and I would rather that than have a vulnerable or elderly resident attacked.
"I wouldn't want an elderly or vulnerable resident to be faced being pelted in a violent way at any time of year. It is a way of preventing that."Another way of preventing that would be to round up all the elderly and vulnerable and lock them up for a fortnight. Why not try this? What’s that? They have rights? Why, yes. Now you get it…
‘The Student Union isn’t in the business of protecting people from ideas they don’t like.’*sighs* Remember when going to university meant something?
Officers from Thames Valley Police approached the magazine stand while it was unattended and took all 150 copies ‘to assess whether the content was obscene’.And when they'd determined that they weren't (you needed them all to do that? Have you never heard of sampling?) were they all returned?
Keren David has been appointed ‘Patron of Reading’ at Highgate Wood School in Crouch End, Haringey.
The former journalist for the Independent will work with the schoolchildren over the next three years, encouraging them to read for pleasure as part of their education.If the name sounds familiar, then yes. She’s an author. Handy, eh?
The Year 9 students at the school will also be working on her first book, “When I Was Joe”, published in 2010.Fancy that!
“What you read when you are a teenager is very important. They will be able to talk about what they enjoy and why, as the books become part of you.”“And you’ll buy more of my books as a result. Whoops! Did I say that out loud?”
A group of hunters thought they were great shots when they killed a couple of elk but they were really just buffoons.
It turned out the animals were actually in a zoo at the time, according to The Local.
The group somehow managed to fire through a barrier at the enclosure after their dogs tracked the elk in Norway.‘Elk’ in Norway are moose.
During a generally unpleasant four years, the basic message appeared to be that the government was simply not that interested in anti-Muslim hatred. In fact, to my knowledge, and despite increased concern over extremism and disillusionment among British Muslims, the government has still not undertaken any research into what causes Islamophobia and what might be done about it. How does the government hope to foster trust and support among communities if it does not appear to take their grievances seriously? … The success of Britain’s counter-extremism strategy will ultimately hinge on its ability to engage across all communities and inspire their trust. Working in this way, in sharp contrast, is only likely to fuel their disappointment.From ‘The Independent’:
The Prime Minister unveiled further measures to protect children and youngsters from being radicalised in a speech on Monday, including plans to close down mosques where extremist meetings have taken place. However, the Muslim Council of Britain challenged Mr Cameron, asking: “Do such mosques really exist?” Dr Shuja Shafi, the organisation’s secretary general, questioned how proposals to ban extremists from mosques and from using the internet would work in practice. “By whose definition are they deemed to be extremist?” he asked. “We cannot help also detect the McCarthyist undertones in the proposal to create blacklists and exclude and ban people deemed to be extremist,” Dr Shafi added. He said the Government's counter-terrorism strategy was based on "fuzzy conceptions of British values" and risked "alienating" the very Muslim communities that are needed to confront the likes of Isis and Al-Qaeda.I’m tired of the ‘alienating Muslims’ excuse being trotted out as if that was something we needed to be wary of.
David Cameron has vowed that Britain will "never give up" the values of freedom of speech as he pledged to stand "absolutely united" with France after the Charlie Hebdo attack.
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"… we must be very clear about one thing, which is we should never give up the values that we believe in and defend as part of our democracy and civilisation and believing in a free press, in freedom of expression, in the right of people to write and say what they believe.
"These are the things we are defending. We should be very clear on this day that these values that we have are not sources of weakness for us, they are sources of strength."David Cameron on British values:
Cameron will tell the NSC: “…Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights regardless of race, gender or sexuality.
“We must say to our citizens: this is what defines us as a society.”The Metropolitan Police on the streets of London:
Chinese democracy activist and Tiananmen Square survivor Shao Jiang, 47, was arrested in the street outside London’s Mansion House where a reception was being held for visiting Chinese Premier Xi Jinping.
Campaigners say Dr Jiang was “brutally manhandled” by police officers after he attempted to block the motorcade by standing in front of it - in a scene reminiscent of a famous image of a lone protestor standing in front of Chinese tanks used to crush peaceful protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.
He was holding two banners, which read “End autocracy” and “Democracy now”.
After his arrest and overnight detention police searched his home and took away computer equipment.Aha, but blocking traffic is not on, you say! That’s not freedom of speech.
Two Tibetan women were also arrested by police after they attempted to wave Tibetan flags at the passing motorcade. The two women, Sonam Choden, 30, and Jamphel Lhamo, 33, were also dragged from the scene.
According to one eyewitness, the police at first assured the two they weren’t being arrested but then an order countermanding that came and both were arrested.Who ordered the arrest, and on what grounds?
Other protesters have expressed “shock” at how peaceful demonstrators are being treated by police. After agreeing a position with police for a peaceful demonstration outside Buckingham Palace protesters were surprised to find the position had been moved to a less prominent place where they could be obscured by pro-Chinese supporters.
When they tried to move they were “subjected to aggressive bullying by Chinese men carrying huge flags which they used to cover and hide ours.”Who ordered the change of position? Is the Met trying to embarrass the government?
Dexter Everand James, 48, was arrested after police were called to Beaconsfield Parade in Beaconsfield Road, Mottingham, and found the body of a dead dog.
The dog had allegedly been tied to railings outside a flat with a rope around its neck. The incident happened at around 6.50pm on Tuesday, and was witnessed by several people who were around the busy parade of shops at the time.Nuke the place from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
A 15-year-old has gone missing from her home on the weekend after refusing to tell anyone where she was going.Any pictures of her to help with the sear...
Destiny Fossey from Burgess Hill was last seen leaving her home address in St Andrews Road on Sunday at around 2pm.
Missing persons co-ordinator Heather Mackay said: "We are concerned about Destiny because of her age. Please contact us if you have any information which can help us find her and make sure she is ok."You should be concerned about other things, love.
The RSPCA is appealing for information after a fatally injured horse was left to die in a farmer’s field.
The piebald gelding was discovered collapsed in the far corner of a farmer’s field in Stifford Clays Road, Orsett, Essex, on Saturday.
It is thought the horse may have been pulled to where it was dumped as it had injuries to it’s left leg, left flank and left leg which are consistent with him being dragged.Hmmmm....
The horse was microchipped but it wasn’t registered to an owner.Hmmmmm again.....
Inspector Brennan added: “It is a horrendously cruel thing to do to abandon an injured horse. I would really like to hear if anyone knows who left this horse.”Until someone tells you, and you decide it's not politically correct to continue...
Vets were forced to put down two abandoned young horses after they were discovered in a "horrific state" collapsed and dying in a country lane in Orpington.
RSPCA officers are appealing for information after the skewbald male pony, thought to be a yearling, and the four-month-old bay foal were found in Shoreham Lane on the evening of October 12.The comments give you a clue...
Corbyn’s vegetarian credentials also helped convince her he was worthy of her support.
She said: “As soon as I found out he didn’t eat meat it made me interested in him because I think it automatically shows an awareness of the world and it’s a type of compassion that I can relate to. It’s a sign that someone has escaped that ignorance of where their food comes from, and that’s really important.”Ahahahahahahahaha!
In court on September 1 Judge Stead accepted that Chendjou-Tamba had not been driving badly for a protracted period of time or travelling at excessive speed and so sentenced him to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years and ordered him to do 150 hours unpaid work.
Chendjou-Tamba, of Langley Drive, Deane, was also banned from driving for four years after which he will have to take an extended driving test.
But Cameroon-born Chendjou-Tamba flouted the court's decision, and at 5am the morning after the sentence hearing he climbed behind the wheel of his Toyota Corolla — the same vehicle involved in the collision — and drove to work.*sighs*
This was confirmed when police viewed the company's CCTV and saw him driving into the premises.
Chendjou-Tamba pleaded guilty to driving while banned and breaching a suspended prison sentence. Judge Stead activated the suspended prison sentence, jailing Chendjou-Tamba for 18 months.Well, at least he didn't just give him another suspended sentence. That's what they usually do.
Mr Taylor's wife, Rebecca said she was shocked that Chendjou-Tamba had driven again. She said: "Part of being remorseful is facing up to the consequences of your actions.
"At the time we just wanted the right verdict. We weren't bothered about him going to prison because we thought he was remorseful.
"This has completely thrown us. He dragged us through the whole court process, which was painful enough, and this has just brought it all back.
"I am shocked because he came across as an honest man."Well, his brief no doubt made it seem as if he was. But then, that's his job.
Tujmal Akram was so intent on staring at the screen of the phone on his lap that he did not notice 78-year-old Mildred Florence crossing Thicketford Road, Tonge Moor. Jailing Akram for two years at Bolton Crown Court, Judge Timothy Clayson slammed the driver for looking at the phone and wearing earphones to listen to the device.
He said: “This was a persistent course of bad driving during which you deliberately chose to be distracted by your mobile phone, the situation being made even more dangerous by the use of earphones.”
He also banned him from driving for two-and-a-half years.Is that all?
The court heard how Akram, who drives (Ed: Wrong tense, surely?!?) for Moor Lane based Adams Taxis, had picked up two young people and an older woman from Bolton Station at 8.45pm on March 3.
But Lindsay Thomas, prosecuting, said that throughout the three-and-a-half-minute journey the passengers, 15-year-old Libby Jeffery and her 20-year-old brother Matthew Salvin, noticed Akram continually looking down at a mobile phone on his lap.And...that didn't make them pause? Didn't make them think 'Hmmm, seems I got in the wrong cab'?
At the scene of the collision Akram, of Ernest Street, Deane, initially denied having used his phone, telling police: “The lady walked straight into the road.”
But he later pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving. His phone revealed he had been accessing Google Maps during the journey and may have been reading text messages, although he did not make a phone call until after the collision.*sighs*
Andrew Nuttall, defending, said Akram was “utterly remorseful.
He said: “He accepts that he was wholly wrong in using his phone. His recollection is that he was trying to turn the thing off. He accepts the Crown’s case that he must have been fiddling with the phone for longer than he believed at the time.”
He stressed that Akram, a married father-of-one with no previous convictions, had worked hard as a taxi driver since coming to the UK in 2001.
“He is a hard-working, decent man who never intended to cause any harm,” said Mr Nuttall.No. On ALL counts.
Parents are concerned for their children’s safety after a lollipop lady is thought to have been hit by a car at an unmarked school crossing.That's more like it.
The patroller for Southwood Primary School in Dagenham has not returned to work since suffering bruising more than two weeks ago.
As a result, children have been tackling the crossing alone – until an enquiry by the Post prompted the appearance of a replacement traffic enforcer yesterday. It is unclear whether this is a long-term measure.Oh, no! Won't someone think of the kiddiewinks!
“It’s an accident waiting to happen,” said concerned parent Lisa Sands, who takes her seven-year-old son, Dylan, to school via the Wood Lane and Keppel Road junction.
“If the lollipop lady doesn’t have a chance, what chance do the kids have?”Wait, if she takes her brat to school, he's not 'tackling the crossing alone', is he?
With no proper crossing, parents and pupils rely on a traffic island and the council-employed lollipop lady to make it to the other side.
“There can be 15 or so of us at the island,” Lisa, 40, explained.A group of 15 Dagenham chavmums ought to be able to stop an eighteen wheeler in its tracks!
“When she [the lollipop lady] isn’t there, it’s really hard to get across.” Lisa made a complaint to the council a fortnight ago, but says she is still waiting for a response.
“At the moment it’s such a problem [as] we have to walk the long way round,” she added.Oh, poor thing!
Majid Akhtar, of Sneinton Dale, was at King's Mill Reservoir, near Mansfield, on September 10, 2012, when it is believed he entered the reservoir. He was found in the water by two dog walkers and could not be resuscitated. He was 28.
Mr Akhtar, who had a mental age of four, was on an activity trip from Springwood Day Centre, Mapperley, when he decided he wanted to go for a walk round the lake after a lunch break – instead of going back out on a boat with the rest of the group. His carer, Nikki Deaney, went with him.Whew! That's lucky, because someone like that could easily come to harm. So... how did he come to harm?
An inquest yesterday heard how Ms Deaney had spent much of the trip on her mobile phone – texting Brynsley Shepheard – despite previous warnings from her employer about the use of her phone at work.
She had met him on a dating site on August 23. She spent more than 19 minutes on the phone in a 34-minute period while supervising him round the lake.*sighs*
Representing Mr Akhtar's family, solicitor Georgina Cursham told the court: "There were a number of exchanges – phone calls and texts – while Ms Deaney should have been looking after Mr Akhtar."
Facing Ms Deaney, Ms Cursham said: "It is likely you were walking for several minutes while on the telephone call before realising Majid wasn't with you.
"I suggest you weren't paying any attention to Majid at all."
Ms Deaney, as she did for nearly all the questions directed at her, said she was not prepared to answer the question for legal reasons.Because, one fervently hopes, legal charges against her are pending.
A fashion designer has been jailed following an adrenaline-fuelled attack on police officers in his cell."Call that a uniform? I wouldn't let my lapdog wear that, dahling!"
Courtney Dwayne Valentine, 32, of Heygate Avenue, Southend, was found guilty of attacking police officers at Southend police station on May 18, after they insisted he take off his glasses – eventually taking them from them from his face after he refused.
Prosecutor Sam Doyle told the court Valentine then decided to fight the officers.If you're wondering if he's a strapping six-foot bodybuilder, wonder no more. He's a skinny little bloke. As will be revealed at the bottom of this post
The defendant swung his hand towards the officer’s face, who felt a stinging sensation to his left cheek, and realised he had been hit.”I bet he barely felt it!
She added the officer in question then hit Valentine in the face with his elbow “as hard as he could” in order to subdue him, hitting him another four or five times, as officers were unable to use pressure techniques to restrain him because he was “full of adrenaline”.Heh!
Valentine’s solicitor Beth Brown told the court her client was not present at the hearing in which he was found guilty because he was homeless at the time and was not informed of the date, but had intended to plead guilty.Yes, yes. Of course he did.
She added: “He was diagnosed with schizophrenia by a doctor who has signed him onto benefit but, to his credit, he isn’t somebody who sits at home, claims benefits, and doesn’t try to get work – his interests are in fashion and clothing design and tells me he has started his own fashion range.
“He doesn’t have an income, but intends start his own business.”So the fashion designer bit was all fantasy?
Bench chairman Michael Jones sentenced Valentine to eight weeks’ imprisonment, mentioning his previous convictions for assaulting police officers, adding “You obviously have an issue with the authority of the police.”He has issues all right...
Year 9 and 10 pupils at Beauchamps High School, Wickford, were set the exercise as part of studies connected with JB Priestley’s play, An Inspector Calls.
The drama, set in 1912, involves the suicide of a young woman, Eva Smith, and the factors which led her to take her life. For their homework, 13 and 14-year-old GCSE pupils were asked to imagine Eva’s final journal entry ….Oh, oh…!
…a request which prompted an angry response from parents and relatives of pupils. The older sister of one girl wrote: “My sister is reading An Inspector Calls at school and for her homework she has to write a suicide note from the girl in it.
“I’m fine with the fact that, yes, the girl writes it, but why are teachers thinking it's acceptable to get 13-year-olds to write them as if they were the girl?
“Personally, I think this is so wrong and feel really uncomfortable knowing they think this is normal.”But (so far, anyway) the head hasn’t yet been forced into an apology.
However, headteacher Bob Hodges said: “An Inspector Calls is a text which has been set by the exam board, just like Romeo and Juliet and many other pieces of literature.
“With regard to the homework that was set, it was to write Eva’s last journal entry, explaining her thoughts and feelings.
“It is part of the syllabus, looking at the themes of responsibility and the role of every character in the play.
“I am sure every school in the country will be studying something like An Inspector Calls, and this is part of the theme of the text.”
Mr Hodges insisted he had no concerns for any pupils involved who might have had personal connections to suicide.I await the inevitable FarceBook campaign to remove him…
The officer - posting on his personal Facebook page - said he was annoyed about waiting for a train then callously joked that a woman playing the piano at Brighton Station would "be picking her teeth up off the live line with broken fingers".It’s his own personal page, so does it matter?
The revelation is a further social media embarrassment to Sussex Police as it comes the week after two other Sussex Police officers were found to have caused "inexplicable and unnecessary distress" by posting a selfie of themselves at the scene of the Shoreham air crash with an offensive hashtag
Following a formal investigation the chief constable of Sussex Police concluded those two officers should be dismissed.Ah. Yes indeed, good point. Though the selfies weren’t even posted on public sites, so this chap’s punishment should be much harsher, right?
PC Bridger - who has worked as an equalities officer and on the force's LGBT liaison unit and safeguarding vulnerable people - has been spoken to by his managers about the incident and told to apologise.
However, the telling off is not considered an official disciplinary action for misconduct.Well, well, well....
A spokesman for Sussex Police confirmed the force received a formal complaint about the post but added: "It was a personal account and the officer was not posting under his own name or identifying himself as a police officer, but the matter was brought to the attention of the force. "Which rather begs the question....how did the complainant know he was a police officer then?
Barely three months after the shooting of Cecil the lion caused global outrage, a German hunter has risked the wrath of animal lovers once more by shooting dead one of the largest elephants ever seen in Zimbabwe.INCOMING!!!
Conservationists and photographic safari operators in the area expressed their outrage on Thursday night, saying the animal was one of a kind and should have been preserved for all to see.Well, of course they do. I mean, it must have been famous, right?
Louis Muller, chairman of the Zimbabwe Professional Hunters & Guides Association, said the hunter had only realised how large the “tusker” was once he had been shot.
"He told me when he and his client were stalking this elephant he saw the tusks were big but did not realize just how big until afterwards and he saw them close. He is going back to see if he can find the lower jaw and bring it back so we can accurately age this elephant,” he told The Telegraph.
"We checked everywhere and this elephant has never been seen before, not in Zimbabwe nor Kruger. We would have known it because its tusks are huge. There have been five or six giant tuskers shot in the last year or so, and we knew all of them, but none as big as this one.”Ah, Well, so much for that idea!
A motion calling for all schools in the county to have individual traffic management plans will be discussed at an Essex County Council meeting on Tuesday, after angry scenes between parents and residents.And I expect the teachers and their unions will scream blue murder and declare that they didn’t join the profession to be parking wardens.
Laindon Park councillor Mark Ellis and Wickford Crouch councillor Nigel Le Gresley believe Essex County Council should reinstate its school travel planning team, which was disbanded in 2012.
Mr Ellis said: “It is something we have in common across the whole borough and every school suffers from problems.
“We want a system where every councillor will be involved with each school and have a specific traffic management and travel policy which brings everything together.
“At the moment, all the various groups have different ideas to tackle the same problem.
“My background is in construction, where on every site you need a specific traffic management policy, but with schools at present there is nothing like that.”And there shouldn’t be.
On discovering the results of the investigation Jess said: “I’m shocked that it was a proper tattoo removal. Someone has actually sold that… I want my arm back, my normal arm.”You thought a kit would remove the tattoo on your arm, but not your skin? Hmmm...
Director of the Trading Standards Institute Christine Hemskeerk said: “This is a really serious risk and consumers should definitely not be using this.”
“I have to admit at the moment Trading Standards hasn’t really done enough to raise awareness for consumers because this is a fairly new product. But now we know that there are issues out there – hopefully we can get the message out there to consumers that they should not be buying these products.”Lady, there's nothing in the world that could get through to this sort of consumer, trust me!
A mass brawl on Southend seafront saw several people sprayed with a noxious liquid.
Fighting broke out between two groups of yobs just after midnight on Sunday morning in Marine Parade. Men and women were involved in the fracas which saw several people punched and others showered with a substance which left them with red, blotchy and stinging faces.
When police arrived, a group of men scattered and ran up Pier Hill into Alexandra Street, High Street and York Road.Where they were promptly collared by our brave boys in bl…
Despite police chasing them on foot, officers were not able to catch the men or make any arrests.*sighs*
Chief inspector Simon Anslow, district commander for Southend, said: “On Saturday night, we saw a real celebration in Southend with the Purple Flag festival, which was brilliantly attended and enjoyable for thousands of people.
“It greatly saddens me that three hours or so after the celebration, a group of individuals have seemingly attacked another group of individuals, causing so many people to be hurt.”So you have a festival and it attracts crowds and then there’s violence. Hmmm. What was the festival for?
The Purple Flag festival, which was held to celebrate the work to ensure nightlife is safe for revellers, finished at about 9pm and there is no suggestion the attacks were linked to the event.You…. You couldn’t make it up, could you?
She asked Lewes Town Council to change the railings so it could not happen again, but said she was told by a council clerk “the likelihood of a child of Freddie’s size simply falling through without lodging part-way is extremely remote.”
In an email shown to The Argus, the clerk added the staircase “cannot be modified to meet modern regulations, as it is a nationally significant example of Jacobean workmanship.”
He added wedding officials planned to avoid using the landing where possible and would advise guests about supervising children.*sharp intake of breath*
So there I was, bashing out a hot take on my MacBook Air on a sunny terrace, when I took a sip of my takeaway coffee and my heart sank. The barista had put milk in it. That ruined my whole morning. What a terrible world. But I know, right? First world problem!Wow! Finally, some self awareness in a ‘Guardian’ columnist…
But why do we speak of “first world problems”, exactly, and what might we unintentionally mean when we do?Oh. I spoke too soon. The Royal We is being sprinkled around again:
For a start, the phrase is an anachronism, since we no longer talk about the “third world” .‘We’ don’t? I can assure you we do. You might mean ‘we’ as the Guardianista watercooler crowd, but that’s not the whole world, thank heavens.
That implies there might be something smug in the modern usage, as well as a hint of enjoyable transgression in using language that is not “politically correct” .I’m not sure that correcting someone attempting to control the language is ‘enjoyable’, so much as necessary…
Some may wish to retort that worrying about the political implications of the phrase “first world problem” when used by rich people is itself a first world problem. But repetition of language that implies an unspoken attitude to others will often help that attitude to harden within us. And that’s everyone’s problem.Nope! It’s still your problem. Yours, and all the other SJWs.
Rather than point out that Barnett plainly had more reason than most, given his profession, his fulfilled family life and impressive CV, to know what he was doing – from the moment he resumed fare dodging after a caution to the moment he ran away from a suspicious ticket inspector – the judge in this case, Olalekan Omotosho, opted for mercy.*blinks*
Mr Floy, who has a background in economics, now plans to produce further maps including one based on the ratio of bicycle repair shops to £1 stores.The hipsters are coming!
The owner of the car, Delesia Rattray told the Daily Mail she was stunned to return to her car to find the window smashed in and a note from the police to call them.
She had taken her 10-year-old sister, who owns the doll, to visit their mother in the A&E department.
"When I rang they said they had thought the doll was a baby in the front seat. Someone had phoned them to say there was a baby in the car. Some nurses had come out and agreed that it was a baby.
"The doll does look a bit real, like a baby a few months old, but if you look at the hands, which weren't inside the blanket, and feet you can tell it isn't.
"I can understand why they broke into the car if they really thought there was a baby inside."Nurses..? Nurses couldn’t tell the thing wasn’t real!?
I went to live on Angell Town for a week this summer to understand what it’s like to live on a troubled estate.I hope you were insured by the 'Standard'..!
Over dinner Golda suddenly proclaimed: “I am thinking of buying this house, David. Foxtons say it’s worth half a million.
"Forget that Brixton is a crime area, I am sitting on a gold mine!”
But how could she raise the deposit when she worked 16 hours a week as a part-time hairdresser and her income came mostly from working tax credit and child benefit payments?*sighs*
Golda had six children by three absent fathers, none of whom seemed to contribute.Why should they, when the taxpayer is bailing them out?
“We are burying our children on one side of the wall and on the other side, the yuppies are having the time of their lives. This is London, not Afghanistan. It shouldn’t be a war zone but for us, it is.”The 'yuppies', as you call them, are studying hard, working hard and enjoying the fruits of that labour. What are you doing?
Police could not find a record of a complaint of the incident based on the information available.Allow me: “What!? Get involved in a verbal racial bust up between a black woman and someone who claims to be a traveller? Heavens to Betsy, we wouldn’t know where to start! The Diversity Office would have kittens! Best to say we…. ummmm … lost the paperwork. Yes. That’s it. Lost it. It’s the effect of Tory cuts, you know.”
Daniel Forsythe regularly visits the China Jade, along Beaconsfield Road, but he spotted something amiss last week.
Mr Forsythe finished his shift at the Co-op opposite the takeaway shop and ordered a chow mein and chicken in black bean sauce for pick up, costing £8.80.
He returned to his home along Mottingham Road which he shares with his wife, Kirsty, 24, and their 18-month-old daughter Evie.
After taking a few mouthfuls he claims he spotted a screw nestled in the chow mein he’d shared with his daughter.
The 25-year-old told News Shopper: "She was hungry so I’d given her a little bit.
"As soon as I saw the screw I checked the food straight away.
"She had a little plate and I just dived in there with my hands, it was a bit messy."Poor kid would be better off raised by wolves…
MPs are to investigate whether very thin models should be banned from British catwalks, after a petition calling for fashion week health checks reached 30,000 signatures.
Caroline Noakes MP, who heads the all parliamentary group on body image, is to invite senior members of the fashion industry to get their views on whether legislation is needed to protect young models from feeling pressured to lose dangerous amounts of weight.Good grief, I thought the marriage certificate issue was scraping the barrel, but this..!?
Rosie Nelson, a 23-year-old size 8 model from Sandhurst, who has worked on shoots for Vogue Australia and Ben Sherman, started her Change.org petition to call for a law change.
“When I walked into one of the UK’s biggest model agencies last year they told me I ticked all the boxes except one – I needed to lose weight. So I did,” she wrote in her introduction to the petition.Well, then, maybe you are at fault, not them?
An RSPCA spokeswoman said: “We received a call about a horse in Erith.
“Following a vet examination which confirmed welfare concerns, the horse was removed by police and placed into RSPCA care last week.
“She is not microchipped and we do not know who her owner is.“Oh, really? Gosh. What a shocker. Well, there’s just no clue to who might have owned this animal, is there?
“She is now in safe hands at a boarding establishment receiving care.”Yeah, that’s what you said about these horses, too….
The RSPCA spokeswoman revealed this case wasn’t just a one-off.
She said: “The country is in a horse crisis with the RSPCA and other organisations struggling to cope with the number of abandoned, neglected and abused horses.
“We are stretched to breaking point with about 125 places at our equine centres and over 500 horses in our care.”Here’s a thought, then, love; do something proactive with the money that keeps flowing into your coffers from deluded animal lovers and start checking out the sort of horses likely to be ‘unregistered’.
...the stimulation of offence, only ever a click away, is the mood music now. It is tiring, for sure. Do those who live in this semi-aroused state ever get off social media and go outside, where I hear people saying all kinds of offensive stuff? Racist, sexist, homophobic – it’s all on the bus I get on. It’s unpleasant but, on the whole, no one is mortally wounded by speech alone. Public space can be threatening. I have been attacked, raped and abused in my lifetime for just being, not for my “views”. That is part of life for many women. The war on women that sees two women killed a week is not even news – unless there are some sexy pics and gory details of how some shining girl became another bruised corpse, often at the hands of someone she knew. That’s how many women live. That’s how many trans women and women of colour live. My experience is not special; it is, sadly, normal. So, I completely stand by Bahar Mustafa if she used a hashtag that said #killallwhitemen. She may have said other stupid stuff on Twitter – the place where women are tweeted abusive crap day in, day out. If men are seriously fearing for their lives because of this hashtag, they can surely organise a safe space. Indeed, they have; it’s called “most of the world”.
Erica Thomas died in 1984 three days after having a minor foot operation when a junior doctor cut away part of the plaster cast around her leg – freeing an undetected blood clot that fatally travelled to her heart and lungs.
The General Medical Council (GMC) said the doctor’s decision to remove some of the plaster was potential misconduct - but ruled the medic could not face a tribunal because the incident was too long ago.Gosh! What an unfamiliar concept these days, at least in other matters…
Mrs Venner said: “I want an apology for my girl. I want to be able to say I have done the best by her. Back in the 1980s, people didn’t question doctors, doctors knew best. I thought they were doing the right thing.
“When I saw on the news what all the Hillsborough families were going through, I realised I could also ask for all the documents on Erica’s treatment.”Ah, but you see, you don’t get the same fawning treatment as the Hillsborough families, because the police can’t be attacked here, only the sainted NHS, and all nurses are angels of mercy, eh?
After the sentencing, a spokesman for the NSPCC said: 'The judge’s comments in this case send out completely the wrong message and confirm a common view in society that the abuse of a young boy by a woman is somehow less serious than the abuse of a girl by a man.
'The offender in this case has escaped extremely lightly and you have to wonder whether, in the same circumstances, a man would have been treated the same’....but this is one of these times. What was the judge thinking?!?
In a statement, the boy's father said: 'I know he told her he was 15. He looks older than his years. He is sex mad.
'He would have been fully up for this experience and in many ways sees it as a notch on his belt and is totally unaffected by it.'Future sexual predator, right there...
Mike claims Thames Valley Police officers first told him they would prosecute the cabbie for driving without due care and attention.Well, one would hope so! Mount a pavement & hit a blind man’s guide dog, you’d expect that if you were a driver. Especially a cab driver…
But this week he received a call saying there would be no charge because it was "a lawful manoeuvre."Wha..? So, it’s open season on the blind now?
And now Mike has been told he could face a claim from the cabbie's insurance for a dent caused when he hit the car.Jesus wept!
A female passer-by who witnessed the event has since written a letter of complaint to the taxi company.So it’s not even the usual police excuse of ‘no witnesses’..?
The incident happened in Valence Avenue at 4.17pm after the youngster got off a bus and crossed the road.
Neighbour Eduardo Marreno Jumenez spotted the collision and ran over to help the boy.Hmm, I suspect ‘crossed the road’ means ‘ran out from behind the bus’.
The 35-year-old, who lives around the corner, said that the incident made him fear for the safety of his own three children.
“It was such a shock to see and so scary that it can happen whenever,” he added.It very, very rarely happens on proper crossings, so as long as you’ve taught them well, you’ve little to fear.
Kerry Smith, Independence councillor for Nethermayne, said the complaints need to be handled carefully as the venue is being used for religious purposes.
He added: “I have been looking into this issue for the past few months, and have been talking to officers. We‘re looking into a number of options.
“This is a sensitive issue, and we need to be careful about how we deal with it.”It is, of course, as a perusal of Farenheit211’s archives would tell you, the perennial problem of pop-up mosques making everyone’s lives a misery.
Up to 60 people visit Kingswood Play Centre every Friday afternoon for Jumma prayers, with between 40 and 50 Muslims returning on Sunday afternoons for workshops.
Stephen Ward, Ukip councillor for Pitsea South East, has been contacted by angry neighbours, as he lives in the road.
He said: “Residents are fed up. It’s a nightmare. There is nowhere left for them to park, and they are struggling to get through the road because it is blocked both sides.
“Children can’t see oncoming traffic when they’re crossing the road or even walk down the path. It’s dangerous. It’s an accident waiting to happen.
“The community centre has a car park, but it obviously isn’t big enough. People visiting the mosque have even tried to park in the doctor’s surgery car park, but they’ve been told to stop.
“I’m worried about racial tensions boiling up. Residents have even gone to the police, but have been told there is nothing they can do.”Well, of course. Even though obstructing the road is an offence, the authorities will run a mile from having to deal with it should it be caused by a certain demographic.
Mohammed Yaqub, from the South Essex Islamic Trust, which rents out the centre for weekly prayers, said he has not been approached by residents.
He said: “The centre has a car park so I wouldn’t say it’s normally a problem. Sometimes if extra people turn up we do have to park on the road because there is nowhere else for the cars to go.
“We were very busy over Ramadam as it is such a special event for us, so parking probably was an issue then.”Or, to translate: “*shrug* What are you gonna do, kaffir, give us parking tickets?”
It is a miserable day beneath the railway arches at Loughborough Junction in south London. The rain pours unceasingly as a steady stream of women arrive to pick up a bag of groceries and a free Costa sandwich from a temporary food bank. It is being run by volunteers who, until August, were paid employees of the now defunct charity Kids Company. Those collecting the bags of food are former clients …Former what..?!?
“It’s not about this food,” said Oluwatosin Jenmi, who is in tears. “It’s about the future of the children.” There have been a number of stabbings in the area – Jenmi said some of the victims were known to Kids Company - and children who would once have been safe at the charity are now at risk on the streets.At risk from other clients of this ‘charity’, perhaps? Not that they are all that safe while there!
Another woman who turned to the charity because of domestic violence said: “A lot of people are suffering. A lot of people don’t have food. The Tory government ganged up on Kids Company because it helped immigrants.”*rolls eyes*
“When I was told I almost fainted,” said Ade Adesile, who doesn’t know how she will manage without her Tesco vouchers. “No, this can’t be true. I think Kids Company should carry on. We are praying for it to carry on.”Oh dear, did someone turn off the free money tap? Well, instead of praying, why not do something useful, like find a job?
Sorayah, 11, was looking forward to going away on holiday with the charity this summer before it closed. “My dad died when I was around six. I was in a bad position. Then I went to Kids Company and they used to help me with that.
“We used to have talks and I found that very helpful. They used to give me nice meals, because my mum couldn’t afford to cook for me. It was like a second family to me, a second home.”How come she couldn’t afford to feed you, then? Was she not claiming Child Benefit? Still, maybe they are right, maybe the closure of this free food and parenting network has caused massive probl… Oh.
One newspaper reported this week that a telephone helpline set up by the government’s children’s commissioner after Kids Company closed had received just two calls.
The charity’s founder, Camila Batmanghelidjh, is dismissive. “Our kids don’t know who the children’s commissioner is, let alone have the commissioner’s telephone number or access to phone credit to be doing the call.”Well, maybe you should be teaching them these things, instead of maintaining that only you can save them from poverty??
Kids Company says it has referred 1,500 cases to local authorities involving an estimated 3,000-4,000 individuals, taking into account family groups.
Both Southwark and Lambeth councils say the number of people requiring their support has turned out to be less than Kids Company suggested.I wonder why? Is it truly ignorance, or is it a desire to be ‘off the books’, where officialdom is concerned?
Peter John, the leader of Southwark council, said “a few hundred names” of young clients deemed vulnerable by Kids Company were handed to the council around the time of its closure.
“It has been a huge task to identify, process and make contact with these young people, but to date the majority have not required support from the council.
“Anyone vulnerable and in need has of course been provided with the support they need from us and other local services, and the government has given the council £82,500 to help with this additional support, and the administration required.”So…did KC truly meet a need, or was it just a cash-cow to be suckled dry by the UK’s ever-present dependency cultists?
