Bored judge quits bench
A High Court judge is to resign from the Bench and go back into practice, breaking the unwritten rule that becoming a judge is a one-way street. Mr Justice Laddie, 59, will become the first judge to resign from the High Court in 35 years.
A specialist in intellectual property, he has spent 10 years in the Chancery Division but had told friends that he no longer found his work “stimulating”.
He is joining Willoughby and Partners, a firm of solicitors that specialises in patents and designs, trademarks and copyright. He felt lucky, he said, to have the opportunity of a new career “when I still feel there is plenty of drive left in me”.
He added: “From the isolation of the Bench I will be returned to the fun and mutual support of working in a team.”
Advertisement
The possibility of judges returning to private practice was floated by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, before the general election. But Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, was strongly opposed.
Master mastered
Chess Grand Master Michael Adams fell at the first hurdle in his bid to beat the most powerful chess computer in the world. Mr Adams, 33, ranked No 1 in Britain, and No 7 in the world, lost his game against Hydra, which can calculate 40 moves ahead, after 33 moves. The game, the first in a six-match tournament, lasted 3hrs 6mins.
Legal aid is to be scrapped for divorcing couples who insist on going to court over financial disputes if they can fund legal action themselves with a private loan.
Advertisement
The proposal is intended to encourage out-of-court settlements and is expected to save £6.3 million over three years. It is part of a wider package of reforms to the £2.1 billion legal aid scheme which is expected to save £56.3 million over the same period.
Cheadle poll
By Greg Hurst
The Liberal Democrats are expected to move the writ this week for a by-election in Cheadle, Manchester, on July 14, the first test of support for the party since the general election. Patsy Calton, the marginal constituency’s Lib Dem MP, died from cancer three weeks after increasing her majority to 4,020 on May 5.
Radio 1 for US
Radio 1 is to be heard across the United States in a deal with the satellite network Sirius. The station will be broadcast with a time-shift so that Americans can also listen to Chris Moyles at breakfast, Scott Mills in the afternoon and Pete Tong on a Friday night. Sirius, which is available on subscription, will broadcast Radio 1 within weeks.
Advertisement
Happy eater cure
Laughter over lunch is proving to be a successful treatment for anorexia nervosa, a mental health problem that has proved difficult to treat. The “lunch party” therapy, developed at the Maudsley Hospital in London, brings together sufferers and their families for group therapy. Research on the initiative is due to be published this year.
Degree of riches
Britain’s leading self-made millionaires are now collectively worth more than £5 billion. The celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay and the fashion designer Karen Millen are among the 25 entrepreneurs who feature on the third Vocational Rich List, which ranks the wealth of people who don’t have a degree.
Advertisement
Scottish Tories back McLetchie
David McLetchie, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, won the backing of his party’s MSPs yesterday in the continuing controversy over his taxi expenses. At a weekly group meeting, he was given “total and unanimous backing”, a party spokesman said. The MSPs had gathered in a Holyrood committee room where, the spokesman said, Mr McLetchie was the first to raise the issue. The episode, a “minor part” of the meeting, lasted “minutes”.
Death row date
US prosecutors who must decide before September 1 whether to retry a Briton on death row or set him free meet today to discuss his fate. Edinburgh-born Kenny Richey has been in jail for 18 years but his death sentence for killing a child in an Ohio fire was overturned in April by a federal appeals court.
Yachstman dies
Advertisement
A yachtsman in his 50s, believed to come originally from the Inverness area, died after becoming caught in the propeller of the Siesta as he tried to free her from a sandbar off Essex, watched by his son and a crewmate. His family were travelling from Spain, where he had been living, to identify him.
Call for tenfold rise in car tax
Car tax should rise tenfold to force drivers to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, Sir Jonathon Porritt, the Government’s senior environmental adviser, says. He wants the top rate to increase from £165 to £1,800 from 2008, with even drivers of small cars paying £900.
He said the increase was needed to help to meet the Government’s target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2010.
Hunt for rapists
Detectives in Scotland are investigating two rapes, one in Edinburgh and one in the Borders. A woman, 19, was assaulted in the grounds of Greyfriars Kirk on Saturday. Another who had been out with friends in Galashiels was attacked after going to Selkirk with two men who said they were from Glasgow.
Bad medicine
A claim in an advertisement that “the person most likely to kill you is your doctor” is baseless and denigrates the medical profession, according to the Advertising Standards Authority. The watchdog was ruling on print advertisements for a book by Vernon Coleman entitled How to Stop Your Doctor Killing You.
Search for a high
Children are sniffing nail varnish and deodorants in a constant search to find products that will give them a high, according to a study by the charities ChildLine and the National Children’s Bureau. It is estimated that 6 per cent of 11 to 15-year-olds have used volatile substances in the past year.
Dolphins rescued
A pod of eight dolphins narrowly escaped being stranded after being trapped at the Hayle Estuary, Cornwall, by five pursuing speedboat drivers. The RSPCA described the drivers, who claimed they believed the dolphins were enjoying the chase, as utterly irresponsible. The dolphins were rescued by onlookers.
Skirts banned
Broadstone Middle School in Poole has become the first in Britain to ban girls from wearing skirts. Female pupils will have to wear the same long grey trousers as the boys. Angry parents said they believed the ruling was introduced because some girls had been wearing their skirts very short.
Stonehenge find
Archaeologists have located the prehistoric quarry in the Preseli Hills in Wales from which Stonehenge’s circle of bluestones was excavated. A team led by Tim Darvill, Professor of Archaeology at Bournemouth University, identified a crag-edged enclosure on Carn Menynas as the bluestones’ source.
A pavilion too far
A team of cricketers from India have been denied visas to play in Britain because of fears that it was a ruse to stay in the country. Britain’s Deputy High Commissioner in India was not convinced that members of the 16-man Genesis team from Bombay would spend a year’s salary to play just two weeks of cricket.
Four charged over girl’s death
Four teenagers appeared in court accused of the manslaughter of a girl aged 15.
Aimee Wellock was found unconscious by her mother in a field yards from her home in the Allerton area of Bradford, on June 7. Shortly after, she was pronounced dead in hospital.
Claire Carey, 19, a 17-year-old girl, a 15-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl were charged at Bradford Magistrates’ Court with manslaughter and affray. The 15-year-old boy also faced a charge of intimidating a witness. All were granted bail, barred from a designated area of West Bradford, and ordered to appear at Bradford Crown Court next Tuesday.
Murder suspect held in Spain
The former boyfriend of Hayley Richards, the pregnant barmaid murdered at her home in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, has been arrested in Spain.
Hugo Quintas, 23, from Portugal, named as the prime suspect, was detained by Spanish police in the Basque region on an international arrest warrant. He had not been seen since June 11, when Miss Richards’ body was discovered at her flat. If Senhor Quintas agrees to return to Britain without fighting extradition, officers from Wiltshire police will fly to Spain to escort him home within a matter of days. But if he decides to contest it, he could face several months in a top-security prison near Madrid before he comes before a panel of three judges at an extradition hearing.
A Wiltshire police spokesman declined to discuss details of his detention for legal reasons but said preparations were under way to extradite him. Detective Superintendent Mike Veale, the senior investigating officer, visited the dead woman’s family to break the news.
Blair excused
Tony Blair was excused from answering a court summons compelling him to appear in the case of the mother-in-law of a sergeant killed in Iraq who refuses to pay her income tax. Pat Blackburn, 53, of Dorchester, asked the Prime Minister to be a witness after she withheld payments in protest against the war.
Body identified
A woman who was stripped and beaten to death before being dumped in a lay-by has been named. The body of Kathryn Lorraine Jones, 45, was found by walkers in Snowdonia, North Wales, on Saturday. Police said they believed she had connections with Leeswood, Clwyd, and and Ellesmere Port, Cheshire.