April 2011 Archives

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has successfully prosecuted a waste company for the death of a 61-year-old woman in 2007.

Brighton resident Anne Smith died after she was hit by a refuse vehicle reversing in Brighton city centre in the early hours of the morning.

BBC presenter Andrew Marr has joined the leagues of the rich and famous taking out what are now commonly known as 'superinjunctions'.

The so-called 'rich man's gag' has been criticised frequently over the past few years, as more and more people - more often than not celebrities and sports personalities - have made us of the injunctions to protect their privacy.

Recent statistics recorded by the British Crime Survey and police statistics in England and Wales have revealed a reduction in crime levels in 2010 as compared to previous years. According to police statistics, the number of crimes has decreased by 6%. The British Crime Survey similarly reports a decrease over that period, although of a lesser 3%.

The British Crime Survey statistics come from surveys of thousands of people. The police statistics come from police reports across England and Wales.

Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) has released figures from its study on third-party damage to the electricity network. The figures reveal that in the past decade ten people have died after making contact with power lines.

And, in just the last year, 19 electricity-related injuries caused by contact with the electricity network have been reported.

Despite the number of violent injuries that appear in newspapers across the UK, a surprising figure has emerged from recent research conducted by Cardiff University.

The annual study by the university's Violence and Society Research Group has found that the number of people treated in hospital after violent injury has fallen in England and Wales, based on recent figures from 2010.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has said the Government is consulting with Commonwealth countries as to whether the laws on royal succession should be changed.

The effect of the change under discussion would be that female heirs would have equal standing to be able to ascend the throne. Other aspects of reform would also be considered.

In a tragic medical negligence claim, a case has been taken against Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children on behalf of an 11-year-old girl who has been left with extensive brain damage after a botched operation.

Maisha Najeeb tragically had glue injected into her brain, rather than dye as intended, because the syringes were not properly labelled and were mixed up in the operating theatre.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled finally that UK prisoners must given the right to vote under UK law. The UK government has now exhausted its appeal avenues, with the ECHR dismissing the UK government's request for an appeal against its original decision made in October 2005.

As a result, the UK has six months in which it must draw up proposals to end the ban on prisoners voting.

A Moldovan woman has received a "groundbreaking" settlement from the Home Office the day before her case was due to be heard in the High Court.

The Moldovan woman was a repeated victim of sex trafficking, having been kidnapped at the age of 14 and continually trafficked and re-trafficked until she was 21 years of age.

In the latest instalment in the Irish banking fiasco, Allied Irish Banks (AIB) has announced it will cut over 2,000 jobs. The proposed cuts come after AIB posted a record €10.4 billion net loss on continuing operations for the previous year. This was a huge increase in loss from the €2.3 billion loss reported in 2009.

The large number of redundancies is part of a major restructuring of the bank that was expected by analysts to come following the announcement of the loss. In the current economic climate, such a large number of employees made redundant in Ireland could make it difficult for them to find new employment easily.

AIB, in a statement released this morning, said that the redundancies "will take place on a phased basis over 2011 and 2012".

A couple have lost their four-year battle against their local council over their right to continue living in a luxury three-bed house designed to look like an ordinary farmyard barn from the outside.

Developer Alan Beesley and his wife Sarah have been living in their luxury barn for nine years. It was built on greenbelt land at North Brook Meadow, near Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. Beesley obtained planning permission from Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council in 2001 to build a standard farmyard barn.

The structure looks like a normal barn from the outside; it does not have windows, has a slanted roof and is surrounded by farm machinery. However, inside there is a house with three bedrooms, two of which are en-suite, a gym, living room, study, and a garage.

Stephanie Bon, 37, claims she was fired from the Colchester branch of Halifax, which is part of the Lloyds Banking Group, for posting a comment comparing her salary to that of the new chief executive, António Horta-Osório, on Facebook.

Bon was employed as a HR assistant at the branch and she received a £7-an-hour wage. After hearing about the £13.5 salary, bonus and benefit package that the new chief executive would be receiving, she posted: "LBG's new CEO gets £4,000 an hour. I get £7. That's fair' on Facebook.

Bon claims her managers then told her she had put the company down with the comment and fired her.

The president of the Law Society Linda Lee has written a letter to the Daily Mail in response to an article that appeared in the paper on Monday 4 April 2011.

The newspaper featured an article with the headline 'Now we have more lawyers than police thanks to legal aid." It included Law Society figures that show the number of solicitors and barristers in the UK has risen in the last ten years. In addition, the article said there are currently 165,000 lawyers in the country and 142,363 police officers.

The article then went on to discuss the number of lawyers employed by local authorities, the average starting salary of a trainee lawyer, the Law Society's Sound Off For Justice campaign against the government's proposed cuts to legal aid, and votes for prisoners.

The Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is due to unveil reforms to the pension system in Parliament today. The Green Paper has been put together after he condemned the current system, calling it "complex" and in "crisis".

Iain Duncan Smith's radical proposals include introducing a flat-rate £140-per-week pension for all pensioners. This will raise the current £97.65-per-week pension that they currently receive.

However, the proposals also abolish means-tested credits that over half of all pensioners receive. OAPs can receive up to £132.60-per-week under the current system.

Heather Ilott has successfully challenged a previous court ruling that meant she could not claim part of her mother's £460,000 estate which had been entirely bequeathed to three animal charities. The Court of Appeal said Ilott is entitled to an inheritance as it had been "unreasonable" of her mother not to make a provision for her daughter in her will.

Melita Jackson died in 2004 at the age of 70. She had written her will in 2002 and left an accompanying letter explaining why she had not left anything to her daughter. The two had become estranged after Ilott eloped at 17 and the relationship had never been repaired.

Ilott approached the District Court after her mother's death when her will was revealed to leave her entire estate to three animal charities: the Blue Cross, the RSPB and the RSPCA.