By Clare Jerrom and Reg McKay.
Police may have ‘contaminated’ vital Sarah clue
Vital evidence linking the man accused of murdering Sarah Payne to the eight-year-old may have been contaminated by the forensic team, a jury was told yesterday.
The forensic scientist leading the team, Raymond Chapman, said it was "possible" that the red sweatshirt seized from Roy Whiting’s van could have picked up the 23cm blonde hair at his laboratories when analysed.
Chapman told Lewes crown court that he was a "little surprised" to spot a number of hairs stuck to the adhesive seal of two evidence bags containing hair brushed taken from the family home in Hersham, Surrey.
He admitted the sweatshirt material easily attracts hairs and he did not know how many hairs had been dislodged from the seals on the bags.
He said no hair was spotted when the sweatshirt was examined under a tungsten light before it was bagged the day after Sarah went missing.
Whiting denied kidnap and murder.
The trial continues.
Source:- The Times Friday 30 November page 7
Climbie council lapses put many children at risk
A catalogue of children have been failed by the social services department in Haringey council, the inquiry into Victoria Climbie’s death heard yesterday.
They included an 11-year-old boy who complained of his father hitting him, but who was not seen by social workers for nearly a year, and a mother and child who were not contacted for two months after the child witnessed a domestic knife attack.
Victoria died in February last year and 128 separate injuries were found on her body. Haringey social workers closed the file on her case the week before the eight-year-old died.
Neil Garnham QC told the inquiry under Lord Laming that evidence from the north Tottenham social services department was "worrying", but the performance at a neighbouring office in Hornsey was "positively frightening".
The case continues.
Source:- The Guardian Friday 30 November page 11
Law lords deny woman right to assisted suicide
A woman will got to Europe to seek the right to commit suicide with the help of her husband after five law lords rejected her appeal yesterday.
The Human Rights 1998 Act did not give Diane Pretty - who is in the last stages of motor neurone disease – the right to kill herself, they ruled.
Immediately after the hearing Pretty said through her husband: "I want to go on. I feel I have no rights. The law lords don’t want to admit that the law is wrong."
Source:- The Times Friday 30 November page 8
Former supermodel claims she was raped by royalty
The former supermodel Karen Mulder has alleged she was repeatedly raped from her childhood until earlier this year.
A French magistrate is to investigate the allegations that the Dutch model was raped by a member of the European royal family and leading figures in the French modelling industry.
Mulder first made the allegations during the recording of a French television programme called Tout le Monde en Parle (Everyone is talking about it). The intention was to revisit claims made by a BBC documentary two years ago that young models were often sexually exploited by leading figures in the modelling business.
Mulder dissolved into tears and said she had been persistently abused from her childhood until last April.
Mulder is currently being treated in a private psychiatric clinic in Paris.
Source:- The Independent Friday 30 November page 11
Scottish newspapers
Biggest hospice wins VAT battle
St Margaret’s in Clydebank, the largest hospice in Scotland, has won a three-year battle to have £150,000 VAT returned by HM Customs.
St Margaret’s, which has an annual budget of £2.5 million of which 75 per cent comes from charitable donations, had been given the bill on after building a new laundry, staff quarters, conference centre and spa for patients.
Source:- The Herald Friday 30 November page 12
Prison numbers increase
The Scottish prison figures are set to reach record highs this year. A general decreasing trend since 1990 has been reversed to a record high of 6,253 for July to September this year, according to provisional statistics issued by the Scottish Prison Service. Clive Fairweather, chief inspector of prisons, has warned of the effects of chronic overcrowding.
Source:- The Herald Friday 30 November page 6
