Recently in Scotland Category

UK banks will lend £190 billion to businesses while cutting their own bonuses, the government has announced.

The good news comes as many firms have struggled to raise funds and survive the financial crisis.

£76 billion of lending is to be allocated to the Business Growth Fund, which will be set aside for small or medium-sized UK businesses.

A new government-funded scheme, in which low-level offenders will swap tough manual labour for a prison presentence, is being piloted in Scotland.

The move will see offenders taken from the dock, assessed and ordered to work with a community payback team.

Criminals will work under the supervision of community service and social work staff. The team will be responsible for allocating each offender to a community reparation project.

Businesses in the UK face the threat of losses and even bankruptcy in 2011 as the latest figures show the economy shrank in the last three months of last year.

Construction slumped 3.3 per cent compared with the third quarter in 2010, while services shrank 0.5 per cent.

The news sent the pound sliding and shares fell in the City.

Scottish defamation law is under review after a landmark petition by a Scottish couple has led to a Scottish government consultation paper.

The campaign was led by James and Margaret Watson. They are the bereaved parents whose daughter, Diane, was killed in a playground row at a Glasgow school 20 years ago. It is believed their surviving son, Alan, committed suicide after reading a news story alleging Diane was a bully.

Scottish defamation law differs from the law in England and Wales. Legal expert David Banks, writing for the Guardian, says:

Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi has warned the family of the Lockerbie bomber will sue the UK prison services over his 'neglect' in a Scottish jail.

Colonel Gaddafi told the news about the proposed civil rights law case to staff and students at the London School of Economics via video link on 2 December.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was released from Greenock prison on compassionate grounds in August 2009 after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

A former store manager at Lidl initiated tribunal action for unfair dismissal this week claiming the supermarket chain unlawfully sacked him after he accidentally hit and damaged a co-worker's vehicle.

Amir Hamza, 24, worked at the company's store on Cartersfield Road, Waltham Abbey for four years. Lidl sacked him in mid-November for gross misconduct after he failed to report the damage.

When confronted about it, Mr Hamza denied he was involved, before finally confessing when he was shown CCTV evidence and witness statements.

"I didn't realise," he said. "I had a CD player on in the car and didn't notice hitting anything. When they told me they had witnesses, I said fair enough and took responsibility."

A senior council executive sacked during cancer therapy launched claims for libel, unfair dismissal, disability discrimination, and sex discrimination against her former employer this week.

Jeanette McGarry earned £123,000-a-year as director of housing environmental and neighbourhood services (HENS) at Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

Shortly after assuming her position in June 2009, however, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She asked to work part-time while she completed her treatment, but the council refused and instead put her on "gardening leave".

Then, to compound matters, on the day she returned home following surgery she received a dismissal letter. The council's chief executive, John van de Laarschot, also issued a statement questioning her performance and conduct as HNES director.

A Scottish primary school teacher looks set to be struck off the teaching register after she helped set up a website advertising 'naughty schoolgirl' uniforms for adults, reports the Press and Journal.

Linda Ross, 58, of Strangs Ley, Forfar, lost her job as deputy head teacher at Dundee's Longhaugh Primary School in October 2008 after education bosses learned about her involvement with the site -- www.lindaross.co.uk -- run by her husband Vic.

Mr Ross established the website in 2007 to help teachers deal with stress and highlight the abuse they suffer.

He allowed adverts to pop up on the site, however, selling "adult" costumes and underwear. One such ad featured a model wearing a "see-through crop-top and plaid miniskirt with a matching tie and gloves", according to the Scotsman. Other items for sale included a kinky policewoman's outfit, complete with handcuffs.

The four-year battle over the inheritance of a 287-acre parcel of farming land in North Yorkshire moved to the Court of Appeal this week. The land comprises Potto Carr Farm near Northallerton and is valued at £2.35m.

The former owner of the farm, Joyce Gill, died in August 2006, aged 82. Thirteen years before her death, she and husband John Gill -- who died in 1999 -- signed "mirror wills", which stated that if one of them died the farm and all their savings would pass to the other; and upon the death of the last surviving spouse, the farm would go to the RSPCA.

As a consequence of this arrangement, the couple's daughter Dr Christine Gill received nothing.

Dr Gill challenged her mother's will, however, and last autumn Leeds High Court ruled in her favour. The court said her "bullying" and "domineering" father had coerced her mother into changing her will to leave the farm to the RSPCA.

A giddy young banker who was dismissed for gross misconduct after she boasted on Facebook about the size of her severance payout launched a legal challenge for unfair dismissal this week.

23-year-old Katie Furlong used to work as a debt officer for Royal Bank of Scotland in Telford in Staffordshire. On September 2, following the bank's takeover by Santander Group, she received a call from her manager informing her that she was being laid off and would receive a severance payment of around £6,000 ($9,500/Ä7,000)

Moments later, at 5.58pm, Ms Furlong posted the following comments on Facebook:

Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose has launched a $20m lawsuit against Activision, the makers of the Guitar Hero video games, according to NME.

He claims the company "spun a web of lies and deception" to persuade him to licence the Roses' tune 'Welcome to the Jungle' in Guitar Hero III.

The focus of his ire centres on Activision's alleged breach of a promise to exclude all references to the band's former guitarist Slash and his new band, Velvet Revolver, in the game.

According to a report in the Daily Express newspaper, Ray Wilkins was sacked by Chelsea because of bust-ups with billionaire owner Roman Abramovich and chief executive Ron Gourlay -- and not, as previously reported in the Guardian, because first-team players were 'unconvinced by his ability'.

A former night porter at the college of Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford University appeared before an employment tribunal this week claiming he was unfairly dismissed because he 'knew too much' about student indiscretions at the college.

In a story evoking Tom Sharpe's novel Porterhouse Blue, Terence Greenwood, 65, said he enjoyed a close relationship with students at Lady Margaret Hall and made many friends during his time working at the college.

The popular porter fell out with his supervisor Lawrence Le Carre, however, for covering up student misdemeanours. In one incident, for example, a student got so drunk one night he soiled his own bed. Mr Greenwood refused to reveal the identity of the student to Mr Le Carre, which led to an argument in which he was told he was wrong to keep quiet.

A Glasgow employment tribunal has ruled that managers at Stirling University who laid off 100 workers on fixed-term contractors without consulting union representatives broke the law. The university now faces having to pay around £500,000 in compensation to the workers affected.

Paul Chambers, the 27-year-old accountant from Doncaster convicted under the Communications Act for tweeting a joke about bombing Robin Hood Airport after it closed during heavy snow, has decided to appeal to the high court.

Chambers has already lost one appeal to the crown court against the conviction and incurred around £3,000 in fines and legal costs. The expense of a further appeal initially seemed to put him off pursuing a further challenge.

Tens of thousands of people have rallied to his cause on Twitter, however, using the hashtags #IAmSpartacus and #TwitterJokeTrial -- including celebs such as Davina McCall, David Mitchell, Dave Gorman, Graham Linehan and Marcus Brigstocke. And Stephen Fry even offered to pay his fine ("Whatever they fine you, I'll pay", he tweeted).