Actress’s brother killed
The actress Deborah Kerr’s brother has been killed in a road-rage incident. Police have charged a man with murder after the death of Ted Trimmer, 78, a retired journalist, who had been posting a letter to a friend who had helped him to recuperate from a stroke.
Miss Kerr, 83, who starred in The King and I, was said to be devastated.
Advertisement
Mr Trimmer died after being allegedly punched in the face in Birmingham by a van driver. The man charged, 55, from Redditch, Worcestershire, who is alleged to have driven off after the incident on Monday, will appear before Birmingham magistrates.
Family of canal boy devastated
The family of an eight-year-old boy who drowned in a canal said they were devastated by his death.
Nathan Stewart got into difficulty while swimming with a friend in Muirtown Basin, Inverness, on Monday. Emergency services were unable to resuscitate the schoolboy and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Nathan’s grandmother, Marie Stewart, said yesterday that the boy was irreplaceable. “This is a tragic accident, which has devastated the entire family.”
Advertisement
Police said that the other boy was in a stable condition in Raigmore Hospital, Inverness. A third child was also involved in the incident but had not entered the water, they said.
Dismissal claim
A curator at Mellerstain House, near Kelso, told a tribunal that he is seeking compensation for constructive dismissal after his employers, the Earl and Countess of Haddington, found family heirlooms in his flat. The couple’s lawyer denied they accused Tony Ashby, 65. of theft.
Tourists on mend
Thirteen elderly tourists from Yorkshire and Lancashire are still in Norwegian hospitals with injuries caused in a stampede of horse-drawn carts on Monday. None has life-threatening injuries. The tour operator, Bibby’s of Ingleton, North Yorkshire, said all 49 passengers would be returning home soon.
Advertisement
Eye in the sky
A miniature airship with a digital camera is being used to help experts to assess damage to the 90ft high windows of Truro Cathedral after a masonry fall. Images from the Skycell airship will allow architects to decide what remedial work is required in the £3.5 million restoration of the cathedral.
Student killed
A university student who planned to dedicate her life to charity work in Africa was killed when her car collided with a lorry on the A68 near Earlston, in the Scottish Borders. Hazel Scott Aiton, 21, of Legerwood, had recently returned from Namibia, where she worked at a school for rural children.
Yorath banned
Advertisement
Terry Yorath, the former international footballer and manager, was spared a prison sentence for knocking down a woman when he was more than three times the legal drink-driving limit. Yorath, 54, was given a 12-month community rehabilitation order, fined £500 and banned from driving for 30 months.
Flight fire
An aircraft passenger set fire to a pornographic magazine at 30,000ft because it “offended” him, Lewes Crown Court was told. David Mason, 45, a mental health patient from Surbiton, Surrey, admitted endangering the Norway to Gatwick flight on February 12 by lighting torn-up pages under his seat.
‘Charles’ spared
Charles Haslett, 48, the official double for the Prince of Wales at his 50th birthday celebrations, escaped a driving ban at Weymouth, Dorset, because he said it would end his career. He was fined and given costs of £285. A speed camera caught Haslett, of Wakefield, doing 81mph in a 70mph zone.
Advertisement
Home from home
A pub owner in South Wales recruited a waiter from Patagonia after local adverts failed to attract any applicants. Wendy Tardioli, of the Glamorgan Arms near the Loughor Estuary, was “inundated” after e-mailing friends in Argentina. There is a large Welsh-speaking community in Patagonia.
‘Fun gun’ warning
A company that advertised a replica gun in its mail-order catalogue as giving “hours of family fun without danger” was criticised as irresponsible by the Advertising Standards Authority. It disagreed with Modern Originals, based in Altrincham, Cheshire, that the gun, which fires 6mm pellets, was not dangerous.
Flood donations
A fund set up to help the victims of flood-ravaged Boscastle has already raised £30,000. Eight days after a wall of water ripped through the village on Cornwall’s north coast and destroyed homes and businesses, donations are pouring in to a disaster-relief fund set up by the Red Cross.
Court computers
Judges at Worcester Combined Court have been equipped with computers and internet links as an initial step in a £300 million government project to modernise the court system. All crown courts and three quarters of civil and family courts are to have the technology by March 2006.
War game winner
The 1966 World Cup Final football has been voted the most important sporting ball in history. It beat the one Jonny Wilkinson kicked to snatch victory in the Rugby World Cup final last year. The survey was by Imperial War Museum North to mark its exhibition The Greater Game: Sport, War and Peace.
Boy, 9, arrested
A boy aged nine has been arrested during a police crackdown on housebreaking. The nine-year-old was one of 21 people arrested by police investigating break-ins in East Lothian and Midlothian. Another boy of about the same age is still being sought in connection with the break-in.