Private album
Royalty: Thousands of people logged on to the official royal wedding website last week to coo over old photographs of Britain’s princess-to-be. The Middleton family, who had previously been very protective of their eldest daughter’s privacy, uploaded several photos, including one of three-year-old Kate climbing rocks in the Lake District, see above.
On Shrove Tuesday, at her third official engagement with the prince, Kate showed off her pancake-tossing skills by attempting a difficult flip at a charity fundraiser in Belfast.
Tycoons on bail
Banking: Two British-based tycoon brothers were arrested on Wednesday as part of a fraud investigation into the collapse of Iceland’s top bank.
Robert and Vincent Tchenguiz, who had built up a financial empire specialising in property and leisure, were questioned after dawn raids across London. The Iranian-born pair were among seven men held in connection with the fall of Kaupthing, one of three Icelandic banks that failed at the height of the credit crunch in October 2008.
The Serious Fraud Office said it was investigating why vast sums were withdrawn from the bank days before it folded.
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Released on police bail on Wednesday night, the brothers said: “We are co-operating fully with the investigation and are confident that we will be cleared of any allegation of wrongdoing.”
Millionaire’s stake
Betting: Steve Whiteley, a heating engineer from Devon who rarely goes to the races, won nearly £1.5m at Exeter racecourse on Tuesday. He put £2 on the Tote’s popular Jackpot bet, in which all six winners must be predicted after using his free bus pass to go to the races with six friends. The crowd was boosted by hardened gamblers trying to win the Jackpot, a Tote bet that had been rolling over for more than a week, but Whiteley “selected his horses at random”.
Two serious contenders fell in the fourth race, a third was unseated at the final fence. “My mate said to me, there’s only seven people in the whole country who are still in, and you’re one of them,” said the 61-year-old.
The last choice in his six-race accumulator, Lupita, had never won before. “I’m not a horse racing man: I only go once or twice a year. I’m a heating engineer. Well, I was,” Whiteley concluded.
Pensions anger
Savings: The armed forces, the police, civil servants, firefighters and NHS staff will have to work until they are at least 60 and will lose their final-salary pensions under reforms announced on Thursday.
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A report by Lord Hutton to overhaul the £30 billion-a-year public sector pension bill contains more than 30 recommendations. They include raising the retirement age from 60 to 65 for many professions, workers being asked to contribute an extra 3% of their income to their pension pot, and final salary pensions being replaced with pensions based on career average earnings.
All state employees in Britain will be affected, raising the prospect of nationwide strikes. Brian Strutton, national officer of the GMB union, said “Many of [Lord Hutton’s] conclusions are questionable and will infuriate public sector workers. It . . . might well light the blue touch paper for industrial action.”
Darwin freed
Prison: The wife of the back-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin was released from jail on Wednesday. Anne Darwin was sentenced to 6½ years in July 2008 after a jury found her guilty of six counts of fraud and nine of money laundering. Her husband, a former prison officer, faked his death in a canoeing accident to allow his wife to make fraudulent insurance and pension claims.
She was released from Askham Grange prison, near York, after serving two years and eight months. It had been reported that John Darwin wanted to divorce his wife for a woman called Lorraine Forbes, with whom he struck up a friendship after she wrote to him in prison, but he has broken off that relationship and says he plans to remain at his wife’s side.
Carry on Libya
Diplomacy: According to the foreign secretary, William Hague, the humiliating capture of an SAS team in Libya last week was the result of a “serious misunderstanding”.
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Six SAS soldiers and a Foreign Office official were eventually freed last Sunday night after being captured by rebels in Benghazi, eastern Libya. They had been dropped off by helicopter on a mission to establish contact with forces opposing Colonel Gadaffi’s regime. Challenged by farmers, they were forced to open bags containing weapons, reconnaissance equipment and multiple passports before being handed over to rebels.
Libyan authorities released intercepted phone calls showing the botched operation had a distinctly amateur feel to it. “I didn’t know they were coming,” the ambassador to Libya, Richard Northern, said when a rebel leader suggested it had been unwise for the group to land in a helicopter.
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Lily’s secret
Celebrity: Lily Allen, the pop singer, admits she suffered from an eating disorder in a documentary due to be aired on Channel 4 this week. “I used to vomit after meals,” she told the cameras in Lily Allen: From Riches to Rags.
“There was a point last summer when I’d say I had an eating disorder,” Allen, 25, declares. “It’s not something that I’m proud of. But I’ll tell you what: a lot of people would come up to me and tell me how great I looked. And I’d be on the cover of every magazine. People going, ‘Wow, Lily looks amazing, look at how much weight she’s lost’ ... But I wasn’t happy, I really wasn’t.”
Last Wednesday, however, the singer, pictured above, distanced herself from the documentary. “We started filming it a year ago,” she tweeted. “I feel like a completely different person than the one in the programme.”
Cult leader guilty
Crime: A man has been found guilty of leading a “satanic” sex cult from his home in a Welsh seaside town. Colin Batley, 48, from Kidwelly, was the self-styled high priest of the group, which operated from a number of homes in a cul-de-sac.
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Swansea crown court found Batley guilty of more than 35 offences against children and young adults. Three women, including his wife, Elaine, were also convicted of sex-related charges.
Experts warned that the cult could have turned up in any community. “Sadly it’s something I’ve heard of year after year in the 32 years I’ve worked in this field,” said Ian Haworth, general secretary of the Cult Information Centre. “People fall under the control of a leader who does with them as he chooses.”
Con man faces jail
Fraud: In one of the worst “boiler room” scams Britain has ever seen, a con man persuaded 2,300 pensioners to buy shares that did not exist. Richard Pope, 53, faces up to 20 years in an American jail after admitting to taking part in the international fraud, which netted more than £100m. One victim alone lost more than £800,000.
As Pope, originally from St Albans in Hertfordshire, pleaded guilty to his part in the conspiracy at a Florida district court, detectives condemned him for leaving a trail of pensioners destitute.
“The [victims] thought they were going to be able to look after their families for years to come. For some of these people there will be no closure,” said Detective Superintendent Bob Wishart, of the City of London police, who jointly led the investigation.
Peace at last
History: In what is believed to be the largest repatriation of human remains from any British museum collection, the Natural History Museum is to return the bones of 138 men and women to the Torres Strait Islanders in Australia.
Most of the remains — from a jaw to full skeletons — have been in England since the mid 19th century. Some came back as sailors’ souvenirs, some were collected by the surgeon of the British survey ship Rattlesnake, some were bought or traded among the first European visitors.
“They are our people and they are coming home — this is a wonderful moment for us,” said Ned David, a community leader. “When I spoke to one of the elders on the phone I could not hear any words, just sobbing.”