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News in Brief

Man dies waiting for new hip

A coroner has asked for an investigation after having “misgivings” about why a man needing a hip operation was left waiting in his hospital bed for ten days before he died.

Gareth Wilkinson, 56, from Manchester, died on April 30 after being admitted to the Middlesex Hospital in London on April 21 with a fractured hip.

Westminster coroner Dr Paul Knapman said that evidence had thrown up a number of “misgivings” about who was in charge of the patient’s care, why there was a delay in deciding how to treat him and why he waited ten days for his operation. Adjourning the inquest until July 27, Dr Knapman asked for an investigation into the case and to see whether lessons could be learnt from Mr Wilkinson’s death.

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Simeon Mihaylov, 35, of Earls Court, southwest London, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for running the British end of a £80 million international drugs cartel. Mihaylov, a Bulgarian, entered Britain in 1999 after jumping bail in America.

Passport fiddle

Lucy Denyer, 21, an airport immigration officer of Lingfield, Surrey, was jailed for a year by Croydon Court Court after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to selling a forged passport for £500 to an undercover reporter who was pretending to be an illegal immigrant.

Player for trial

Terrell Forbes, 22, a footballer with Queens Park Rangers, is to face trial charged with the rape of a 15-year-old girl, Judge David Paget has ruled. Mr Forbes, of New Cross, southeast London, who is moving to Swansea Football Club next Saturday, is charged with six other men.

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Gandalf on stage

Sir Ian McKellen is to take to the stage at a village hall to pay tribute to his late sister Jean, who gave him his love of Shakespeare. The Lord of the Rings star, 65, will perform in a memorial at the village hall in Nayland, near Colchester, where his sister lived.

Epidemic test

A mock outbreak of foot-and-mouth will be staged by the Government this month to test how well systems would cope with a repeat of the epidemic of 2001. Exercise Hornbeam will consider vaccination from the outset as a way of reducing the spread of the disease.

Paris pips Prague

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Prague is just behind Paris as the top destination for Britons on weekend breaks this summer, according to a survey by the financial services company Morgan Stanley. Rome was the third favourite city, followed by Amsterdam, Barcelona and Madrid.

Costly gesture

A pensioner who flashed a double V-sign at a speed camera has been fined £100 for not being in control of his vehicle. Frank Benson, 71, from Selside, Cumbria, made the gesture to a camera in Kendal. South Lakeland Magistrates also ordered him to pay £35 costs.

‘Cad’ lieutenant

Two medals which belonged to Lieutenant Guy Collins Vernon Taylor, portrayed as an “unreliable cad” in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, Siegfried Sassoon’s account of his battlefield experiences in the First World War, are to be auctioned at Dix Noonan Webb in London next month.

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School inquiry

Three employees at a school for troubled youngsters have been suspended as part of a police investigation into claims of “excessive and inappropriate” restraint of children. Six other staff at the Kerelaw school in Ayrshire have been redeployed as a precautionary measure.

Camp brawl

Armed police were called after reports of gunfire during a four-hour brawl between hundreds of travellers at a camp in Edinburgh. Road blocks were set up on West Shore Road, which leads to the camp in the Granton area. Two men were left in hospital following the fight.

Armed robbery

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A man fled with more than £10,000 from the Clydesdale Bank in Braehead, Beith, North Ayrshire. after he climbed over a security screen and threatened staff with a knife. The bank is offering a £15,000 reward for information leading to a conviction.