http://www.thisisjersey.com/2009/05/14/airports-novel-anti-terror-move/

Nice to see our airport security doing such a grand job, how dare this woman even think of taking a book with a picture of a gun on the cover onto a plane. Does she not realise how distressing such an item would be to any right thinking person, I hope they added her details to the relevant database and took her DNA for future reference. This act of bravery by our security forces rates up there with the bravery shown by the security personel who, with no thought of their own safety removed a comic, from a young child trying to board a plane, which in an example of total thoughtlessness to public feelings and safety had a small plastic gun taped to the front as a free gift. I don’t know about anyone else but I feel much safer knowing that airports are protected by such a high calibre of staff, and that such wonderful examples of common sense are an example to us all in these times.

Police order tourists to delete photographs of bus station | Politics | The Guardian

Since when did this become illegal? Even the Met claim not to know of any law making this illegal. I hope the officers concerned were properly disciplined for exceeding their authority. I presume they were actual police officers and not as in the Enfield park incident those jumped up traffic wardens or PCSOs. So are police officers now making the regulations up on the fly? The tourists should be thankful they weren’t citizens of our glorious nation otherwise they would probably have been detained, fingerprinted, and had their DNA taken to be illegally filed before they were finally released with no charge. The public appear to be slowly losing faith in our police and incidents such as this the pre emptive arrest of eco protesters and the police behaviour at the G20 protest followed by the misleading of Ian Tomlinsons family over the cause of his death are not helping.

IPCC chief slams tactics of G20 police at demo | Politics | The Observer

G20 protests: how the image of UK police took a beating | Politics | The Observer 

Whodunnit: community baffled by severed feet washed up on shore

Five have been found since August but police are no nearer solving the mystery

• Dan Glaister in Vancouver
• The Guardian,
• Saturday June 21, 2008

Even on a bright, breezy summer’s day, there is something uninviting about Savage Road. Its single lane track runs straight as an arrow before stopping at the water’s edge on Westham Island, 15 miles from central Vancouver.

At one end, a farm shop offers honey, fresh eggs and prawns. Nearby is a rod and gun club. Beyond the flattened delta landscape, mountains shimmer on the horizon.

At the far end of Savage Road stands a boat yard. Hulking pieces of rusted machinery lie close to a concrete ramp leading to the water. It was here on Monday that the couple who own the yard found something not entirely unexpected in the water: a severed foot.

“We were just walking out in the morning, when we saw a shoe floating in the water, right there,” the man, who preferred not to give his name, recounted two days later.

“We thought: Oh no, there’s another one. Any time you see a shoe floating in the water, you kind of dread what you’re going to find.”

“We flipped it over with a stick and saw it was all yellow inside,” said the man. “You could see there was a foot in there. It was pretty nasty. And it stank.”

The man pointed across the water to a radio tower on another island, perhaps a mile away.

“That’s where they found the one last week,” he said.

The two feet encased in training shoes are merely the latest chapters in a whodunnit that has the locals in this fishing and ferrying community buzzing.

Five human feet have washed up on the island coastline around Vancouver since August last year, including two in the last four weeks. All but the one on Westham Island have been right feet; all but one appear to have been male and all have been wearing trainers – Reeboks, Nikes and Adidas. The first four were all size 12.

The most recent find made front page news in Canada: The Mystery of the Feet was the Vancouver Sun’s take on the story, while the normally staid National Post tried British Columbia’s Sixth Foot of Separation, following it up with the quizzical, Why Is it Always Feet? The Province, a somewhat racier local tabloid, took a more optimistic slant: Sixth Foot Raises Hopes, it proclaimed.

But the most recent foot turned out not to be human at all. A prankster had stuffed an animal paw into a trainer and then planted it on the beach. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were not amused.

“Whoever is responsible for this took the time to ensure that the remains were set up to closely resemble human remains,” said Inspector Brendan FitzPatrick. “Many families with missing loved ones are closely watching and wondering if it is their loved one who has been found. The insensitivity shown to the families and the victims involved is unbelievable.”

One of the first on the scene at Campbell river was Kirsten Stevens, whose brother was one of five men who died when their seaplane crashed three years ago minutes away from the site. Her brother’s remains were the only ones found.

“We are so frustrated,” she told the Globe and Mail. “This is the same spot where the plane took off from. It’s a constant reminder of the lack of closure.”

DNA profiles of the first three feet, found last year, do not match any missing-person cases, according to the coroner’s office. While the evidence has been gathered, there are few clues to the origin of the five feet.

“The big picture is that there are body parts washing up all over the place all the time,” said Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a retired oceanographer-turned-beachcomber who is writing a book about flotsam and jetsam to be published next year titled The Floating World.

But this, he admits, is different. “I’ve never come across a time when we’ve had five of one kind at one time. It’s highly unusual.”

Ebbesmeyer got his start in the world of flotsam thanks, coincidentally, to Nike shoes. His interest in tracing the movements of ocean-borne objects was piqued by the loss in 1990 of 80,000 Nike shoes when five containers rolled off a ship in heavy waters off Alaska.

But shoes with feet in them are a different matter.

“The shoe is going to protect the foot pretty well,” Ebbesmeyer said. “Most shoes float, and sneakers tend to float sole up, so that would protect them from birds.”

Theories about the origins of the feet abound. Some suggest that they belong to victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami, or that they may be from the victims of maritime or air accidents.

Others point to the large numbers of missing people in British Columbia. According to police there were 2,371 people listed as missing in the province at the end of May, with gang-related crime, drugs and homelessness all contributing to the problem. The exploits of a Vancouver area pig farmer, Robert Pickton, loom large. Pickton was convicted last year of the murder of six women, and according to the prosecution at his trial confessed to the murder of 43 others.

The suggestion that there may be a criminal element connected with the appearance of so many feet is bolstered by the conclusion of Ebbesmeyer and other oceanographers that the feet have most probably been carried down the Fraser river – which flows from the Rocky mountains before reaching the Pacific Ocean at Vancouver – swelled by the spring snow melt.

“This is such a highly improbable situation it begs the question of foul play,” said Ebbesmeyer.

The police are refusing to speculate.

“It is a unique situation but that doesn’t mean there is a link between them all,” said a Delta police spokeswoman, Sharlene Brooks. “Our forensic investigation will help us identify them, then hopefully we can establish the circumstances of death and determine if this was accidental or a criminal act. We’re treating it as a criminal investigation until we have reached that determination. That’s the prudent thing to do. We’d do that regardless of whether it was a foot.”

Back at Westham Island, the man who found foot number five has few doubts about its origin.

“This is coming down from the river, no question about it,” he said. “There’s someone doing this all right. Think about it: if they tied a chain around someone’s ankle and threw them overboard, the foot would just pop off. That could explain it. Maybe they got a lot of bodies stored up in a container and they got washed out. We don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff goes on over there,” he added, nodding toward the city.

One person’s misfortune, however, did bring him some reward.

“This is private property you’re on,” he said. “We’ve had just about everything here the last couple of days, helicopters, boats, TV. We even took a photograph and sold it to the TV for $800. If they can afford to fly people around the world to look at this, there must be some money for a photograph.”

Greedy gorgers force strawberry farmer to end pick-your-own offer

By Amol Rajan
Friday, 20 June 2008

A family fruit farm has stopped allowing people to pick their own strawberries because customers were eating too many of the fruits without paying.

Hacker’s Fruit Farm, near Cambridge, has offered locals the chance to pick their own strawberries for 40 years.

But Mark Spight, who runs the farm, said that he was getting sick of watching people eat up to £15 worth of strawberries with clearly no intention of paying for them.

“The cheek of people was unbelievable. People were treating it like a giant open buffet. We’d expect to make about £40,000 during the strawberry season but we lost £10,000 of that to greedy gorgers,” Mr Spight said.

“One woman came up to the counter, covered in juice on her trousers, up her arms and even in her hair. But she handed over a punnet with four strawberries in,” he added.

Mr Spight said he had even spotted one family “sitting in the field with a bowl of water to wash them in and a bowl of cream that they then dipped them in.”

The farm has grown strawberries for 85 years and enjoyed its heyday in the mid-1980s, when the fruit covered 20 of its 35 acres. In time, however, competition from supermarkets in Cambridge has caused the size of the farm to diminish to just four acres, with the rest rented out to grow wheat.

Mr Spight took over the farm five years ago from his wife Hayley’s father and two uncles. They, in turn, had inherited the farm from their parents.

Now, however, with a gloomy economic climate and food prices around the world inflating fast, Mr Spight can no longer afford to be lenient in enforcing his “pick your own” policy.

He claims it was costing his family up to £225 a day. “Children would play in the fields ripping up the green fruit and throwing them at each other but the parents would get defensive if you confronted them. It’s vandalism. You wouldn’t do that in Tesco.”

Mr Spight’s strawberries, which cost just £1 for a pound, are now being replaced by rows of berries, including gooseberries, loganberries, tayberries and currants.

The berries’ acidic taste will mean they, unlike the strawberries, will continue to be sold on a “pick your own” basis.

“We still allow ‘pick your own’ for the berries as they are far too sharp for people to gorge themselves on,” Mr Spight said. “But we will only allow in people who look likely to behave.”

www.giftsafari.co.uk

You’re nicked: Traffic warden tickets … a police car

09th June 2008

This brave traffic warden could be taking the law into his own hands by slapping a parking ticket on a police car.

These pictures were taken after the eagle-eyed warden spotted that the car, belonging to Merseyside Police, illegally blocking off an alleyway in Liverpool City Centre.

With no thought for his own future safety, the attendant leapt into action to make his move on the vehicle.

After noting down the offence, he boldly slapped the penalty charge notice on the windscreen before making a calm getaway, showing that not even the long arm of the law is safe from the scourge of the hawk-eyed wardens.

Scroll down for more

The traffic warden prepares to dish out his fine for the illegally parked police car

Taking no prisoners, the attendant plants his ticket firmly on the window

Merseyside Police officers were in for a surprise when they returned to their vehicle

www.giftsafari.co.uk

Phone spies: Town halls using anti-terror powers to bug residents’ calls and emails

By James Slack
05th June 2008

Town hall snoopers used controversial anti-terror powers to delve into the phone and email records of thousands of people last year.

They wanted to check for evidence of dog smuggling and storing petrol without permission – and even to trace a suspected bogus faith healer.

In one case they were inquiring into unburied animal carcasses.

Some councils are allowing middle-ranking staff to authorise covert operations under the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which is intended for use ‘in the interests of national security’.

Council spies: Local authorities are using anti-terror laws to spy on residents just like the film, The Lives of Others

Many of those spied upon will have no idea they have been subjected to surveillance, as those who are innocent have no right to know.

Last night Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: ‘This is a stark demonstration of how the surveillance society has got out of control with the improper use of very broad powers – powers that the public would expect to be used only for serious crime and security threats.’

Using Freedom of Information laws, 152 local councils were asked if they were using the power to intercept details of who a person phoned or emailed plus when and where the call took place.

The answers revealed that town halls looked into the private data of 936 individuals and only 31 councils did not use these powers at all.

If the same pattern were repeated across the remaining 322 councils, it would make a totalof around 3,000 people having their phone and email records accessed by bureaucrats.

Outraged: Jenny Paton and Tim Joyce were spied on because Poole Council wrongly suspected they were lying about living in a particular catchment area

The Freedom of Information requests also revealed the range of offences councils have used the anti-terror law to probe.

Kent County Council carried out 23 telephone subscriber checks as part of probes into storing petrol without a licence and bringing a dog into the UK without putting it into quarantine.

Six of the 16 checks carried out by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council were intended to identify and locate a bogus faith healer.

Lewisham Borough Council’s 18 checks included six on a rogue removal firm and one on a rogue pharmacist.

Bolton Council requested subscriber details for a mobile phone number in connection with a probe into unburied animal carcasses.

Warning: Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said surveillance was ‘out of control’

Snoopers at Birmingham City Council carried out 89 checks, the most in the survey.

Councils insist they are using the powers properly to investigate or prevent a crime.

But opponents said it proves RIPA, passed in 2000 by Labour to regulate spying and surveillance by police and the security services, is far too widely drawn.

Civil rights group Liberty said: ‘You can care about serious crime and terrorism without throwing away our personal privacy with a snoopers’ charter.

‘The law must be reformed to require sign-off by judges, not selfauthorisation by over-zealous bureaucrats.’

RIPA also allows undercover council staff to watch individuals.

Operations can be justified on the grounds of anything from national security to ‘protecting public health or public safety’, ‘preventing a crime’ and ‘protecting the economic well-being of the UK’.

This can cover dog fouling and even putting out a sack of rubbish on the wrong day.

The latest findings follow a string of alarming examples of how the anti-terror power is being used.

Poole council in Dorset spied on a family because it wrongly suspected the parents of abusing rules on school catchment areas.

Enlarge

Officials in Derby, Bolton, Gateshead and Hartlepool admitted using covert spying techniques to deal with dog fouling, while Bolton spied on suspected litter louts.

Officials in Kensington and Chelsea used RIPA powers to spy on a resident suspected of misusing a disabled parking badge.

Conwy council in Wales spied on an employee who was working while off sick.

Mirza Ahmad, chief legal officer at Birmingham City Council, said: ‘We are committed to putting citizens first and will use whatever powers exist, where appropriate, to catch rogue traders, doorstep criminals and scam artists who prey on some of the most vulnerable in our society.’

The Home Office said a person investigated using the Act would not be told by a council. It would only come to light in the event of a prosecution.

www.giftsafari.co.uk

You can’t preach the Bible here, this is a Muslim area

(What a community policeman told two Christians)

By Steve Doughty and Andy Dolan
02nd June 2008

Readings from the Koran: Naeem Naguthney

Two Christian preachers were stopped from handing out Bible extracts by police because they were in a Muslim area, it was claimed yesterday.

They say they were told by a Muslim police community support officer that they could not preach there and that attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity was a hate crime.

The community officer is also said to have told the two men: ‘You have been warned. If you come back here and get beat up, well, you have been warned.’

A police constable who was present during the incident in the Alum Rock area of Birmingham is also alleged to have told the preachers not to return to the district.

It comes amid growing concern over the development of Islamic ‘no-go areas’.

The preachers, Americans Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham, are demanding an apology and compensation from West Midlands Police.

They say their treatment breaks the Human Rights Act, which guarantees freedom of religious expression.

The preachers, who have the backing of the Christian Institute pressure group, say they will take the force to court for breaching their human rights if they don’t receive an apology.

They have accused the officer, PCSO Naeem Naguthney, of behaving in an ‘aggressive and threatening’ manner. A complaint by their lawyers said he interrupted as they spoke to Muslim youths about their beliefs.

Mr Abraham, 65, who was born a Muslim in Egypt and is a convert to Christianity, said: ‘He told us we were trying to convert Muslims to Christianity and that that was a hate crime.

‘He was very intimidating and it concerns me that somebody holding his views can become a police officer, albeit at PCSO level.’

Mr Cunningham, 48, a fellow American Baptist missionary, said: ‘He realised we were Americans and then started ranting at us about George Bush and American foreign policy.

‘He said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said he was going to take us to the police station.’

Mr Cunningham added: ‘I am dumfounded that the police seem so nonchalant. They seem content not to make it clear that what we were doing was perfectly legal. This is a free country and to suggest we were guilty of a hate crime for spreading God’s word is outrageous.’

Outraged: Arthur Cunningham

Seeking an apology: Joesph Abraham

According to a complaint by the men’s lawyers, Mr Naguthney summoned two other officers in support, one of whom, a full constable, is said to have told the men not to return to the area.

Mr Naguthney, 30, was recruited as a community support officer last year after being unemployed for eight months.

Earlier this year, he had a prominent role at a conference to launch the West Midlands branch of the National Association of Muslim Police. He gave a reading from the Koran before the audience heard a recorded contribution from Gordon Brown, a speech from Home Office Minister Tony McNulty, and contributions from several chief constables.

Mr Naguthney declined to discuss the row.

His brother, Nadeem, said: ‘Naeem is a community man, that is why he joined the police.’

The Alum Rock area was at the heart of a terrorism inquiry last year, which ended with the conviction of local resident Parviz Khan for plotting to kidnap and behead a British soldier.

A senior Church of England bishop, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, warned recently that it is hard for non-Muslims to live and work in some areas where radicals and clerics are trying to impose an Islamic character.

A West Midlands Police spokesman said an investigation into the complaint had concluded that the PCSO had acted ‘with the best of intentions’ when he ‘intervened to diffuse a heated argument between two groups of men’.

A statement added: ‘Following this investigation, the PCSO has been offered guidance about what constitutes a hate crime and advice on communication style.’

www.giftsafari.co.uk

Spirited away: Meet the psychics with an uncertain future

Tomorrow, the Government brings in new laws cracking down on the activities of professional psychics. Does this spell the end for a secret world of Ouija boards, ‘aura cameras’ and flying ectoplasm? Archie Bland travels to The Other Side in search of answers

Sunday, 25 May 2008

Wild thing: Oephebia says she can read animals’ minds © Jean Goldsmith

Colin Bates puts his fingers to his temples, and frowns. “As I have just been gently sitting down and blending with the spirit world,” he says, “I have a lady coming forward who was a great-grandmother.” One or two people in the audience nod gravely. “She listened while ‘Danny Boy’ was played just now, and I know she would very much sing these old songs while she was still very much here.” Total silence. Who is she? “I do believe this woman would connect around the name of Harry… Harold… Harry.”

The medium pauses, and looks expectantly at his audience. It is Open Week at Arthur Findlay College, “the world’s foremost college for the advancement of spiritualism and psychic sciences”, and the room is full of people who hope to see proof of life after death. But no one moves, apart from the organist, who is trying to get from his stool to a more comfortable spot as stealthily as possible.

“Who can take this connection?” Bates asks. Then, with a business-like sweep back to the podium, he cuts his losses, and points at a fragile-looking pensioner called Audrey. “Do you have a husband in the spirit world?” Yes, she does, and Bates is away, swiftly establishing that the deceased wants to say hello, that he had medical problems shortly before his death, and that his widow looks at old photographs when she feels lonely. References to a local corner shop and watch are off the mark, as is an anniversary date; but the significance of a shared sofa clinches the deal. Bates moves on to an undertaker linked to the name Jones, and 40 minutes later, over a cup of tea and a biscuit in the refreshments tent, Audrey wonders whether her nephew wasn’t called Harry after all.

Audrey is not the only satisfied customer at the college. Emily Bishop has her scoliosis soothed by a Reiki healing session; Kerry Wyatt gains new insight on her work problems. A full day of psychic demonstrations has cost only £15, although private readings are extra. Listening to the punters’ experiences in the gardens of Stansted Hall, the country pile that oil magnate and paranormal investigator Arthur Findlay bequeathed to the Spiritualists’ National Union when he died in 1964, I find it hard to think that spirits could be anything but benevolent, or witches anything but white.

But while the law doesn’t believe in evil apparitions, it has a robust faith in the reality of snake-oil merchants. And although it’s hard to see any of the mediums on show at Stansted Hall as much more harmful than an adolescent experiment with a Ouija board, no one denies that there are some crooks in the realm of the paranormal. Since 1951, such individuals have been mainly dealt with by the Fraudulent Mediums Act, which requires the prosecution to prove the intent to deceive. Since juries are generally unable to read minds, that condition has meant that solid cases are rare; only 19 guilty verdicts have been returned in 57 years.

The list of the convicted seems to demonstrate that, as things stand, only the most startling charlatans can be held to account. In 1988, for instance, a clairvoyant called Jonathan Beale, who doubled as head of a lonely hearts agency, was sentenced to six months for taking £4,600 from a jilted wife and promising to cast spells that would lead to her husband’s return. It worked for a day, the unfortunate woman testified, but her beloved left again in the morning.

It could be said that we are more in need of protection from the likes of Beale than ever. Even as mainstream religiosity collapses, popular belief in the more outlandish elements of a piecemeal spirituality is astonishingly strong. Some 58 per cent of us believe in premonitions; 38 per cent believe in guardian angels; and a hardcore quarter have visited a psychic or medium, which goes some way toward explaining why it’s a £40m-a-year industry, and the baffling popularity of Most Haunted Live. A sceptic might argue that it’s less the Beales we need protecting from than ourselves.

Tomorrow, the Fraudulent Mediums Act will be repealed and replaced by general consumer protection legislation that many say will do just that. The Crown Prosecution Service, which has not traditionally expended a great deal of energy on tarot readers, will cede responsibility for policing the spirit world to the Office of Fair Trading. Anyone taking money for psychic services will be barred from aggressively targeting the vulnerable. And, crucially, complainants will no longer have to demonstrate deliberate malice to have a chance of success. In short, psychics and mediums will be judged on a par with door-to-door salesmen and second-hand car dealers.

As might be expected, the most voluble reaction from the psychic community has been of dismay. The Spiritual Workers Association, an organisation founded specifically to fight the change, gathered 5,000 signatures to a petition which argued that spiritualists were victimised by the change in the law in a way Christians never could be. It had no effect.

“We don’t have any objection to the new regulations in themselves,” says Carole McEntee-Taylor, the organisation’s co-founder. “But by repealing the Fraudulent Mediums Act as well, they’re taking away the statutory recognition of genuine mediumship. People fought for 100 years to get that ‘ law through Parliament.” Worse, since spiritualist churches routinely charge for entry – solely, McEntee-Taylor says, to cover the costs of venue hire and travel – they will be vulnerable to malicious complaints from the aggressively sceptical.

One can hardly blame spiritualists who claim persecution. Their profession has not exactly been immune to ridicule, and it’s not hard to imagine a long line of naysayers with the will to complain. But it’s for precisely this reason that another strain of opinion within the ranks of the clairvoyant insists that the legal change will work in their favour, eliminating the loose cannons who give the industry a bad name. The Spiritualists’ National Union, the best-known umbrella group in a broad field in which its position is roughly analogous to that of Monty Python’s People’s Front of Judea, has come down strongly in favour of the new rules. It argues that no one who works responsibly will have anything to fear.

“We get very few complaints about our mediums,” says Duncan Gascoyne, the organisation’s president. “It’s the others outside in the sticks, who claim to be mediums and aren’t, who cause all the trouble. If [the new rules] help to clean the movement up, they’re in our interest.”

The question, then, is this: what exactly is a bad psychic? To a non-believer, Colin Bates might seem like one who might warrant the occasional grumble, relying as he seems to on cold reading, persuasion and a scatter-gun approach to common human characteristics that seem less like clairvoyance and more like an enormous game of Guess Who. But while this is not exactly endearing, it is not dishonest, either – and instead of consternation, it brings comfort. Certainly no one seemed to be complaining at Stansted Hall, and no harm was done: the hourly rate for entertainment, if that’s your sort of thing, works out very reasonably indeed.

So perhaps the question should be recast to consider responsibility. Like the doctor, the sensible psychic’s first rule is probably to do no harm, and while there may be no such thing as a good medium to the ardent materialist, the contrast between those who have a code and those who don’t – between the tactful and the terrifying, the reasonable and the rip-off – is obvious to anyone. Under that scheme, it may be people such as Warren Caylor who should be worrying.

Like all physical mediums, Caylor performs his “experiments” in the dark, and in an era of infrared cameras and miniature recording devices, he is one of the few to still be plugging away. Caroline Smith and Michelle Skyrne went to see him last year, after hearing from a friend that he might be able to help them contact loved ones on the other side. Caroline’s father had died of cancer, and Michelle’s boyfriend, a soldier, had been killed in Iraq just two months before; £30 each from 80 audience members seemed like a lot of money, but they had heard he had a connection. So they took off all their jewellery and went through the compulsory metal detectors and took their seats, and watched Caylor being strapped into his chair, the better to guarantee he couldn’t move during the séance. Then, to combat the risks of ectoplasm, the lights went off.

Ectoplasm, as any physical medium will tell you, is the crucial thing that distinguishes the gifted few from the rest of us. A kind of ethereal, intestinal goo that can manipulate the restrained visionary’s surroundings, it looks – in Caylor’s pictures, at least – an awful lot like toilet roll. Light is said to force the stuff back into the body at dangerous speed – indeed, the legendary Helen Duncan, queen of the physical mediums and the last woman to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act, is said to have died from complications resulting from a sudden ingestion of ectoplasm when the police raided one of her shows with torches.

This is one explanation why Smith and Skyrne found themselves in the pitch black, waiting for a message. Unfortunately for the medium, just as the spirits started to send luminous signs of their presence, enough light from a passing car got in through cracks in the window panels for his audience to see him out of his seat, the bindings removed, waving a pair of what looked suspiciously like glowsticks. This is another explanation.

Caylor, sensibly enough, did not hang around long enough for Skyrne or Smith to demand a refund. They considered going to the police, but decided that their chances of success were too slim for it to be worth bothering with, and they were probably right. With the Office of Fair Trading in charge, cases will be treated in the context of other reports of fraud, rather than in isolation, as they tend to be at present. Given enough complaints, someone such as Caylor might eventually be held to account.

Smith is, not surprisingly, in favour of the change. “I just wanted to speak to my dad,” she says, her anger still fizzing. “I really wanted to believe. But this man made a mockery of the whole thing. It was just laughable, like a ‘Punch and Judy’ show. That’s what was so upsetting.”

The fact that both she and Skyrne continue to believe in the possibility of psychic connection with the dead is, if nothing else, a remarkable testament to the resilience of faith. It is true, as many psychics will tell you, that there isn’t much you can do to convince someone who’s made their mind up that it’s all nonsense; it is worth pointing out that it’s not all that easy to unconvince someone, either. At Stansted Hall, still glowing from her reading, Audrey remains resolute. But what about the watch, I wonder. What about the phantom corner shop? Isn’t it all the same as the glowsticks, in the end? Audrey sighs and tilts her head. “I suppose if I didn’t believe I wouldn’t see the difference,” she says, and her still-unnamed husband’s ghost is plainly close at hand. “But I know what that was. And it certainly wasn’t fraud.” n

The animal translator

Oephebia, 45, south London

‘I’m hoping to refine my parrot communication skills in the future’

This change in the law is a minefield, but for people who are genuine, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. Some of my colleagues charge an arm and a leg, and they’re rubbish; I’m concerned about that. Some people charge £120 an hour. They give us all a bad name. Of course we have to earn a living, but you have to be reasonable. The people who need your gift are not necessarily the ones with a lot of money.

Working with animals is very different to working with humans. Even if they’re having problems, they tend to be simpler. They don’t get embroiled in love triangles. It’s usually a matter of helping them let go of a trauma from the past.

One dog I worked with used to go ballistic at the oven all the time. It was bizarre. It turned out that when he was young he had been made to fight, and he had been kept in a container outside with a lot of other puppies, and it had a grill in it. So naturally the oven made him anxious. I helped him and he’s still a bit strange, but he doesn’t go ballistic now.

I have an African pygmy hedgehog myself. She’s called Zoe. She’s a little madam, but her thoughts are very basic. It’s food, it’s no bath, and it’s cuddles. She’s an amazing creature. She lives such a simple life, totally in the present. Sometimes I think I could take a leaf out of her book.

I used to have a parrot, too. But he wanted to be free. I didn’t realise at first but I’ve got my suspicions that he was raised in the wild, I got that vibe after I bought him. So now he’s in a sanctuary in Lincolnshire. I visit him sometimes. He’s got a girlfriend and he’s having the time of his life. I’m hoping to refine my parrot communication skills in future.

www.animalscantalk2me.com

The psychic artist

Su Wood, 60, Gwynedd, Wales

‘When my drawings are accurate, people cry – it’s such strong proof’

If I tune into the spirit world, I become aware of faces. On a rainy Monday night in January 1991 I knew I had to draw what I was seeing, and I haven’t stopped since.

I would look into the audience and I would see the spirit standing next to the person they knew. Now they don’t come through so strongly. I just get told the way to draw the face.

It’s understandable that it’s become harder. The spirits were holding my hand, I assume, to encourage me, like when you learn to write at school. But teachers don’t hold your hand forever.

When it’s very accurate, some people cry; it’s such a strong piece of proof. Still, I never promise I can make contact. All I can do is make myself available, and if the spirit chooses to show itself to me, that’s wonderful.

Since 2002 I’ve worked with an aura camera too. It gives you a picture which shows a person’s aura in various colours around their head, then I use my psychic abilities to interpret that. People confirm straight away that the readings are accurate. They come back year after year after year.

It still won’t make me rich, though. It makes me laugh when people say that we do this for money. For an hour session I get paid £6 and provide my own acetate and pens. I used to be a counsellor and now I’d probably earn more at McDonald’s. You don’t do this for the money. You do it because you know it’s going to help people.

The TV star

Colin Fry, 46, Haywards Heath, West Sussex

‘Not everyone who claims to do what I do is so ethical’

Ten years ago if you’d told me I’d be demonstrating to 3,000 people a night, thanks to my shows on UK Living, I wouldn’t have believed you. Now it’s my life.

If you’re in the public eye, you’re going to come in for more criticism, and you just have to accept that. I try to make things as normal as possible, but there are people who say I overplay the spooky element. What I do know is a lot of people find my work inspirational. If half a dozen people get a message that changes their lives, and thousands more have something to think about, I’ve done my job.

I’ve been accused of fraud, and got into situations I probably shouldn’t. But all you can do is say, “I’m not a fake” and work harder. And we’re all human. How many lawyers come away from a case and think, I messed that up? It doesn’t stop them being a lawyer. I can only tell you that I know what I do is genuine, and the fame hasn’t changed the spiritual side of it. The problem is, a lot of people confuse spirituality with piety. I’m not very patient with the “away with the fairies” lot.

Spiritualists tend to feel a bit persecuted, and this new law won’t help. But in any field of life people are governed by laws. It’s important to realise that this isn’t just directed at mediums and psychics. It’s to control bogus traders in all fields. That’s not such a bad thing: not everyone who claims to do what I do is as ethical as I am.

You can’t change everyone’s opinions, but my shows are constantly sold out. I think my public have already formed their opinion.

www.colinfry.com

The hereditary psychic

Rosa Derriviere, 38, west London

‘I could be a gypsy fortune teller, but I’m progressive’

My grandparents were natural healers, from a town called Benevento in Italy. When I was little we visited my grandmother, who was preparing a healing ritual, muttering this mantra. I justconnected with the energy.

I have been doing it professionally now for 20 years, and running a practice for 15. I still give private readings, but now I do work over the telephone too, on Psychic TV, where you can call in and talk to the psychic on screen. A lot of people don’t understand how you can pick it up over the phone. But once you’ve tuned into the vibration and are connected with your spirit guides, it’s the same.

The TV work is a fantastic platform to show what a modern psychic does. The thing about the psychic world is there are so many different styles. There are still gypsy fortune tellers knocking about. I could do that if I wanted, but I’ve chosen to be progressive.

So I don’t think this new law is going to affect me, but you never know. I don’t believe that my private clients are going to vanish, but sometimes the wires get crossed for everyone. So we have to be really careful.

www.rosaderriviere.co.uk

The spirit host

Ron Gilkes, 70, Barnbury, Oxfordshire

‘Mediums have surplus ectoplasm. The friction can burn them terribly’

Séances have to be in the dark because of the ectoplasm. We’ve all got it, but mediums have a surplus that hangs around the pancreas area. They can extract it from the mouth, but if there is even a spark of light, it shoots back at great speed. The friction can burn them terribly.

I run a place called Jenny’s Sanctuary, for my daughter, who committed suicide 14 years ago, and we’ve never had any problems with that. We do things properly here.

I never make any money out of it. I just provide the space. All I’m looking for is proof of what happens after the death of the body, and I’ve had that all right. I have lost count of the number of conversations I’ve had with my daughter. I’ve had her hold both hands, and give me a kiss on my head. And in the room there’s always this tremendous feeling of love.

We’ve had all sorts come to talk to us: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Judy Garland, Winston Churchill. There’s always a reason they come back: nothing is petty or frivolous in the spirit world. Winston signed his name on a picture we’d left on the floor. Princess Di signed too.

That was all with Warren Caylor, a wonderful medium we developed. He could do marvellous things. But then the bloody idiot brought a Dictaphone into a séance. I still don’t know why he did it. I think he wanted to get a recording of something or other. Yellow Feather, a Native American who visited us regularly, told him to keep it in his pocket, and that’s how it all came to light. I know he’s genuine, but in a public séance someone will say it’s fake.

I can understand why people get angry, because it costs £30 each, and if they haven’t had a good night, they get a little bit peeved.

I don’t take anything, which means the medium can get £1,000. I try to explain to anyone who complains that the mediums can’t do this very often; it takes too much out of them.

Anyway, I’m not bitter about it. I don’t care how much they earn, as long as it’s genuine. That’s the only thing that concerns me.

www.jennyssanctuary.org.uk

Don’t have the gift? Don’t worry!

Seven quick steps to contacting the spirit world

Floating is easy with the lights off. Just put your shoes on your hands, and “walk” around. The ability to throw your voice will help: “I can’t get down!” won’t be terribly convincing unless you sound like you’re near the ceiling.

Drawing out your ghostly friends’ love of music is a simple matter of planning. For an accordion, you’ll need a remotely operated air hose to blow across the reeds; for a violin, resin wire to pull across the strings will do the trick.

Producing ectoplasm is easy if you can regurgitate on demand, tough if you can’t. If you have the knack, swallow some muslin and wait for the right moment; if you don’t, blame the chink of light coming in under the door.

If it’s spirits you’re after, have a Dictaphone and dummy available, preferably one light enough for you to move around from your chair. Also required: strong fishing line.

For slate writing, practice holding a piece of chalk with your teeth, so you can write despite your restraints; failing that, a double-backed blackboard will let you bring out one you wrote earlier.

Get good at escapology, and insist on having a stooge in the house.

Don’t get discouraged: remember what the author of Revelations of a Spirit Medium told us in 1891: “The ranks of the ‘medium’ is overflowing with tricksters and humbugs of the first water.” That could be you, too!

‘Human bone’ at centre of Jersey children’s home inquiry is actually a piece of wood or coconut shell

By DAVID ROSE – 18th May 2008

Police chief was told about forensic lab finding six weeks ago but kept it quiet

He is being investigated for “abuse of authority” by detectives from outside his force

Firms of lawyers are planning to claim damages for 27 former residents

The “remains of a child” discovered by police investigating allegations of abuse at a former children’s home on Jersey is really a small piece of wood or broken coconut shell, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

The discovery of the fragment in February prompted police to open an inquiry into a possible murder at the Haut de la Garenne home; and this week detectives are set to announce further evidence which they believe shows that another two dead children were buried in the cellar.

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Vital evidence: Dr Tom Higham found that the fragment was not bone but a piece of wood or coconut shell

But Jersey police were told almost six weeks ago that tests by Britain’s top carbon-dating laboratory showed that the original evidence – supposedly a fragment of a child’s skull – was not bone.

The island’s controversial deputy police chief, Lenny Harper, who is heading the investigation, has consistently failed to mention the vital results in public statements since the tests were completed.

Interviewed in the home last Tuesday, he repeated: “It is a fragment of a human body…we don’t know how, when or where that person died.”

Last night Mr Harper admitted that his team had received emails reporting the test results on April 8, including a message that stated: “This one ain’t bone.”

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Eddie the ’sniffer’ dog who allegedly smelt ‘bone’ through several inches of concrete

But he insisted that had “never seen” a letter setting out the findings in more detail, which was addressed to him personally and dated May 1, until it was emailed to him yesterday.

Mr Harper also conceded that “clothing and other items” which he previously said had been found at the home – fuelling speculation that a child’s grave had been unearthed – amounted to a piece of a button and a leather toggle.

However, he said he remained confident that the fragment was bone, based on the opinion of his forensic anthropologist, Julie Roberts, even though she had not been able to carry out detailed tests.

“As far as I am concerned, it was diagnosed as bone, and bone it remains,” he said.

Scientists from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit spent weeks investigating the fragment with the world’s most sophisticated equipment, whereas Ms Roberts had to reach her conclusion in a hurry – between the fragment’s discovery at 9.30am on February 24 and Mr Harper’s Press conference that afternoon.

Deputy Police Chief Lenny Harper was told about the forensic lab finding six weeks ago but kept it quiet

Mr Harper said he hoped to announce the results of new tests this week on further bone fragments and milk teeth unearthed more recently from the Haut de la Garenne cellars.

“We believe the bone fragments are human,” he said. “They have been submitted for DNA testing and carbon dating.”

According to Mr Harper, Ms Roberts identified the newly discovered bones as parts of a tibia from a child aged between eight and 11.

She said some of the teeth appeared to have come from a child of the same age, and others from one aged between five and eight.

The length of the roots indicated they had not fallen out naturally before either child died, and both the teeth and bone fragments appeared to have been burnt. They are thought to date from between 1940 and 1980.

However, the disclosure that Mr Harper did not reveal the results of the tests on the first “skull fragment” may cause serious damage to his high-profile investigation, which is by far the largest in Jersey’s history.

Mr Harper has made influential enemies on the island.

Having mounted a campaign against what he claimed were “corrupt officers” in his own force, he is now being investigated himself for alleged abuse of his authority by detectives from Devon and Cornwall, who were called in by his chief officer, Graham Power.

However, Mr Harper said that two of the five complaints against him had already been rejected as ‘malicious’, adding that he was confident he would be cleared of the others.

Mr Harper is also facing criticism for courting media attention in the Haut de la Garenne case. Last week the island’s chief minister, Frank Walker, attacked the “remorseless denigration of Jersey” in the coverage of the inquiry.

“I am not joining the criticisms of the media. In the main, coverage has been very accurate and objective.”

When he first revealed that his team had found part of a child’s body, Mr Harper had already spent many months investigating allegations of physical and sexual abuse at Haut de la Garenne and elsewhere on the island.

But until this discovery, the case had attracted little interest.

When the Oxford scientists told Jersey’s forensic services manager, Vicky Coupland, that the fragment was not bone, she urged them not to mention their conclusion in public, saying the police hoped to avoid a media row, which risked “detracting from the investigation as a whole”.

The scientists, led by the lab’s deputy director, Dr Tom Higham, were so concerned by Mr Harper’s continued insistence that the fragment was human bone that they wrote to him formally on May 1.

They restated their findings and added that they had been endorsed by a second opinion from a leading bone expert, palaeontologist Dr Roger Jacobi.

“We concluded that the sample was not in fact bone but almost certainly a piece of wood,” the letter said.

“Its curvature may have had something to do with it being misidentified. It appears to be more likely a seed casing or a small piece of coconut. Our conclusion is that this sample is a) not bone and b) not human.”

Dr Jacobi said last night: “I share Tom’s conclusions. I believe it is a piece of coconut shell, such as you might come across on a beach.

“I have been handling bones for more than 30 years, ranging from ones a few months old to those dating back several hundred thousand years. In my opinion, this is not a piece of bone.

“It isn’t like any piece of bone I’ve ever seen: it’s light and porous. It certainly has none of the structures you would find in a human skull.”

Inquiries into “historic abuse” cases are notoriously difficult, as witnesses and forensic evidence are often hard to find. The Mail on Sunday has seen documents showing that evidence of abuse in another Jersey home was ignored in the early Nineties and charges against an alleged abuser were dropped.

In historic abuse cases, police tend to rely on “similar fact evidence”, when several people testify about similar abuse by the same person.

“We do rely on similar fact evidence to a huge degree,” Mr Harper said, adding that “almost all” of those now coming forward were prompted to speak out by the publicity surrounding the case. The danger is that some people may make false allegations in the hope of obtaining damages.

Since Mr Harper’s media blitz began, Jersey law firm Ozannes has been taking statements from former residents of Haut de la Garenne and is planning a class action for damages on behalf of 27 of them with the help of Portsmouth solicitors Dyer Burdett.

Allan Collins of Dyer Burdett said: “It’s widely recognised that traumatised victims of abuse may suppress memories of what they went through in order to be able to deal with life. They have only now come forward because they have seen the home featured on TV, and it has brought it all flooding back.”

Mr Harper conceded that “a substantial number” of those who had made statements had long criminal records. But he claimed that made them more credible because they came forward despite previously “hostile” encounters with police.

He remained convinced that almost all of the alleged victims interviewed by detectives – numbering more than 160 – were telling the truth. “There are only three we’ve got some doubts about,” he said.

But none of them has made specific claims about a murder, raising further questions over Mr Harper’s inquiries. Legal sources in Jersey last night said they feared his investigation might jeopardise the chances of genuine abuse victims getting justice.

His murder inquiry began when Eddie, an “enhanced victim recovery dog”, began barking in the cellar of Haut de la Garenne – the sign, according to its handler, that he had detected the scent of human remains.

By coincidence, the dog, from South Yorkshire Police, is the same animal that supposedly picked up “the scent of death” in the apartment where Madeleine McCann was last seen in Praia de Luz in Portugal.

According to Mr Harper, Eddie smelled the decades-old skull fragment through “several inches” of concrete, which police then smashed through. Eddie had the same reaction at another six locations at Haut de la Garenne but nothing was ever found.

“I don’t believe a dog can pick up such a scent through a layer of concrete,” said Mike Swindells, a former Lancashire officer who wrote the standard sniffer dog training manual.

“It’s really very unlikely.”

In his early media briefings, Mr Harper did not make clear that the first “human remains” consisted only of a single fragment the size of a 50p piece. Doubts were cast over the evidence when it first arrived at the Oxford lab early in March.

The first step in dating remains is to treat the bone with chemicals that separate its soft collagen protein from the harder mineral content. Only the collagen can be dated reliably.

However, the pre-treatment did not produce any collagen. The conclusion was unavoidable: the fragment was not bone.

At the time, a police Press statement admitted scientists had been unable to date the fragment because its collagen content was low. But Mr Harper said this was because it had been found in a “lime-rich environment”, to which Ms Coupland added:

“The experts who tested it said that was why the collagen had degraded.”

In fact, the Oxford scientists and Dr Jacobi say the opposite is true. “If it had been kept in a temperate, lime-rich environment and was actually bone, it would have been well preserved,” Dr Jacobi said.

“It would very clearly be bone, which this is not.

“The Oxford scientist who did the pre-treatment has tested thousands of pieces of bone and she felt instinctively from the outset that this was not bone. She was right.”

Last night Mr Harper angrily denied he had ever knowingly misled the media about his investigation. “That’s not how we do things. We are transparent,” he said.

‘My human rights have been breached’, claims Yorkshire Ripper in first bid for freedom

By STEPHEN WRIGHT -  14th May 2008

Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, is challenging his sentence

Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe is making a legal bid for freedom on the grounds his human rights have been infringed, it emerged yesterday.The 61-year-old, who butchered 13 women and tried to kill at least seven more during a five-year reign of terror, believes he is sane and should be released from Broadmoor top security hospital.

In an extraordinary twist, he is being represented by a female lawyer, Saimo Chahal, who will argue that the Home Office disregarded his human rights because they failed to fix a tariff for his sentence.

A tariff is the minimum length of time that a prisoner is supposed to serve to satisfy the demands for “retribution and deterrence”.

Miss Chahal believes the serial killer, who smashed victims over the head with a hammer and mutilated them, has been misrepresented through ‘untrue’ claims about him and his offences.

When the ex-gravedigger was sentenced to 20 life sentences in 1981, he was told by the judge that he would serve a minimum of 30 years.

But Miss Chahal, who specialises in civil liberties and social welfare as a partner at London-based Bindmans & Partners, believes this tariff was never formalised.

Sutcliffe began his sentence in prison but three years later was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was transferred to Broadmoor Hospital.

Miss Chahal intends to argue Sutcliffe’s case in stages.

First she aims to get him back into the prison system and has requested a reassessment of his psychiatric condition.

A profile of Miss Chahal on the firm’s website confirmed that she acts for Sutcliffe and added: “The Secretary of State is in breach of Article Five of the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) in failing to set a tariff.”

Miss Chahal was named Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year in a 2006 poll for “repeatedly pushing the boundaries of the law on behalf of those with mental illness”.

According to a report on legal website the Black Lawyers Directory, Sutcliffe’s case was referred to Ms Chahal by another solicitor because she “takes on difficult cases”.

The report said: “For Saimo this case raises the issue of how we treat mentally ill people who have committed heinous crimes and she is concerned that there is a huge amount of information in the public domain about this case that is simply untrue.”

Sources said she is confident of securing Sutcliffe’s release by 2011 – a prospect which will strike fear into women.

Olive Smelt, who survived after Sutcliffe attacked her with a hammer as she returned to her Halifax home after a night out in 1975, declined to comment.

But her husband Harry said: “He didn’t give the victims many human rights did he? I’m too old to be appalled I just find it irritating.”

“It is water off a duck’s back as far as Olive is concerned. When you reach a certain age all that matters is waking up in the morning, putting your feet on the floor and getting on with it.”

He added: “He’s where he belongs and that’s it. I don’t think he should be locked up in Broadmoor, it should be a normal prison.”

Starting by killing prostitutes, Sutcliffe he went on to launch attacks on women – mainly prostitutes – at random in the streets of northern England.

Many women in Yorkshire and Manchester were too frightened to go out.

After six years he was arrested by chance in a red light area of Sheffield.

The trial judge ruled he should serve at least 30 years, but Home Secretaries have subsequently said he should never be released.

In 2001, Sutcliffe claimed that psychiatrists at Broadmoor, where he is held, now consider he is no longer a danger.

The Legal Services Commission said Sutcliffe had NOT been awarded legal aid to fund his freedom bid.

A senior police source: “His legal action will be fiercely opposed by the authorities. He remains a grave danger to the public, especially if he does not take appropriate medication. He should remain behind bars for the rest of his life.”