News in Brief

The case, which ends today, is being heard by Richard Mawrey, QC, who presided at the trial of six Labour councillors jailed for corruption during local elections in Birmingham four years ago.

Walker is freed by 38 emergency staff after becoming stuck in a hole

A walker triggered a major rescue operation involving 22 firefighters and three separate emergency services crews when he became stuck in beach mud (Alexi Mostrous writes).

Luciano Vitiello was on the beach in Dorset when he stepped into the quagmire and began to sink. As he tried to free himself, he sank deeper and within seconds he was three feet down. Two boys on the beach tried to help but they also started to sink.

When his wife, Kathy, called the emergency services, twenty-two firefighters, seven coastguards, six police officers and two paramedics – from two counties – arrived at the scene. It took them two hours to free Mr Vitiello, an architect, who was taken to hospital. The couple, both 55, of Barking, East London, were visiting their son in Bournemouth.

Mrs Vitiello said: “One moment we were walking side by side, the next he just stepped in this hole. Every time he tried to lift one leg out, the side he was putting the pressure on just went down deeper and deeper.”

Richard Coleman, of Dorset Fire and Rescue Service, said: “There were quite a few of us . . . A couple of other people had been stuck earlier in the day but were able to be released. This gentleman was far too stuck.”

Look out for cocaine at the seaside

Families on half-term trips to the seaside have been asked to look out for shipments of drugs after two packages containing cocaine worth £2 million were washed up on beaches in Cornwall.

The packages are thought to have been thrown overboard by drug runners trying to avoid detection in the Caribbean, and been swept across the Atlantic by currents.

Police have no idea if more drugs will be washed ashore but have asked the public to report any finds.

The two packages, each containing about 50kg of cocaine, were found at Bude, north Cornwall, and at Carleon Cove, near Helston, 50 miles to the southwest.

The second consignment was found by two marine biologists who recognised goose barnacles on the outside as a species native to the Caribbean. The drugs were wrapped in layers of cling film, tied together with webbing and encased in plastic sacking.

A Customs spokesman: “There have been finds like this in the past but it is pretty rare. It sounds like quite a sizeable package, which is most unusual.”

Ethnic-shortlist plan for more black MPs

A report calling for ethnic minority-only shortlists to boost the number of black and Asian MPs is being considered by the Government.

The report, Operation Black Vote, commissioned by Harriet Harman, the Minister for Equality, is expected to recommend a change to race-relations laws so that the shortlists could be introduced in some seats at future general elections. Black and ethnic minority MPs make up only two per cent of all MPs. Keith Vaz, the Labour MP, introduced a Bill in the House of Commons last week to give parties the option of creating ethnic-minority shortlists to address a deficit in the democratic process.

2 million foreigners working in Britain

The influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe over the past four years has boosted the number of foreign workers in Britain to more than two million (Ben Quinn writes).

The number of British employees has dropped by half a million at the same time as the 75 per cent increase in workers from overseas, according to the Labour Force Survey. The figures were contained in a letter from Karen Dunnell, the National Statistician and director of the Office for National Statistics, to the Conservative MP James Clappison. They recorded that the number of foreigners in the workforce increased between 2001 and last year by 864,000.

Full steam ahead for new locomotive

The first mainline-ready steam locomotive to be built in this country for 48 years will be tested on the tracks in April.

Volunteers from the A1 Trust have spent 18 years manufacturing the 170-tonne A1 locomotive at a cost of £3 million, which they have raised themselves. They revived the 1940s-designed Peppercorn A1, all 49 previous examples of which were scrapped in the 1960s. The A1 is being assembled in Darlington and will be tested on the Great Central Railway Line in Leicestershire before being allowed on to mainline tracks in the summer.

ASBO review urged

Asbos are a badge of honour among some children, says a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research, Make Me a Criminal – Preventing Youth Crime. It calls for an urgent review. It says there is little evidence that Asbos work, and some evidence that they do not work at all.

Call for fewer exams

The headmaster of Eton College has called for an overhaul of the examination system. Tony Little said the number of GCSEs taken by teenagers should be cut by half to no more than five or six. He was speaking after research showed that English children face more tests than pupils in many other countries.

Migrant broke neck

An illegal immigrant repeatedly slammed his head against a wall, breaking his neck in three places, to avoid being deported. Amadov Nyang, a 34-year-old African, was being held in a cell at Tinsley House immigration removal centre, near Gatwick. Last night he was on a ventilator in hospital.

Label seeks monks

Universal Music, the record company whose artists include Amy Winehouse and Eminem, is advertising for monks to record an album of chants after the popularity of the Halo computer game. Dickon Stainer, from Universal, said: “It’s going to be a challenge. You can’t open Yellow Pages and call a monastery.”

Rape victim’s park ordeal

A woman was dragged into a park, raped and frogmarched to a cash machine by the assailant to get money for him.

The 19-year-old victim had been walking home in Oxford at 8.30pm on Saturday when a youth jumped off his bike and attacked her, Thames Valley Police said. The rapist, who fled when she shouted to staff at a pub near the cash machine, was aged 16 or 17, 6ft, and wearing dark clothing with a baseball cap.

Infant drowns in pool in Spain

A British infant, Molly May Counsell, aged 18 months, drowned in a neighbour’s pool after wandering off from her home near Orgiva, in southern Spain. Her parents, Lucy Counsell, 34, and John Richards, 61, were unable to revive her.

Headless body murder charge

Mohamed Boudjenane, 45, from Kilburn, North London, was charged with murdering a man whose headless body was found behind a shopping centre in Kilburn. Another man and a woman were also being held by police.

Hip robot helps with operations

A surgical robot is having clinical trials at Warwick Hospital, Bath Hospital, Truro Hospital and the London Clinic. The Wayfinder uses 3-D technology to help surgeons to plot correct incisions and angles in hip resurfacing.

‘Drifter’ generation

Britain has a growing generation of alienated, drifting young men who are reaching adult life without being equipped for it, a senior Tory will say today. Chris Grayling, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, will also criticise footballers who set a bad example. He will say: “We have a generation of young men growing up outside any kind of real social structure.”

MP benefits anger

Pressure to overhaul the £23,000 second home allowance for MPs is growing after it emerged that 44 MPs are legitimately renting out one property while the taxpayer pays the mortgage costs or rent on the second. Mark Todd, MP for Derbyshire South, called on the House of Commons authorities to abolish the allowance and instead buy a block of flats in London for MPs.

Toddler is run over by father

A 17-month-old toddler died after she was knocked down on the driveway of her family home by a car driven by her father. Greta Davison was taken to hospital in Ledbury, Herefordshire, on Tuesday, but was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

Angus Davison, a fruit farmer, was believed to have been driving the vehicle. A West Mercia Police spokesman described the incident as a tragic accident.