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A teenage girl shot in an apparent botched gangland attack in north-west London was cradling her 11-month-old baby when she was hit, police said.

Jessica Chrichlow, 18, suffered face, neck and chest injuries when a teenager armed with a shotgun fired into a crowd of young people.

Her infant son was “hugely fortunate” to escape injury, said detectives. But two sisters standing next to her, named locally as Alex, 19, and Sammy, 17, were injured. It is not believed the three victims were the intended targets.

Police are investigating whether the attack, on the Mozart estate in Queen’s Park, is linked to escalating postcode gang violence in the area. In the 48 hours before Thursday evening’s shooting, there had been three or four clashes believed to be gang-related, the Guardian has learned.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Foote, leading the investigation, said: “There was a group of girls in the back garden and they were interacting with a large group of boys. It appears that a man has gone towards the crowd and discharged a single shot.”

The gunman shouted “motherfuckers” as he fired, then fled to join three other youths, all with hoodies covering their faces and on bicycles. Police said the youths in the large group appeared aware something was going to happen because they ran off just before the shot was fired.

Jessica’s mother, Isabel, said her daughter, who is in a “stable condition”, was undergoing surgery on her face, neck and chest. “I want everyone to know that this boy has put a bullet in her heart. She was holding her baby in her arms. He was covered in blood. My daughter was on the ground bleeding,” she said.

The 17-year-old girl was discharged from hospital on Friday and her sister was said to be in a “stable condition”.

The investigation is being led by Trident detectives, who combat gun crime in the black community.

The Mozart estate, once a 1970s concrete jungle nicknamed “crack city”, has seen an increase in serious youth violence in the past 18 months. On the edge of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Brent boroughs, it has seen postcode wars break out between rival gangs; in particular those from South Kilburn and Ladbroke Grove are said to have targeted Mozart.

Fabian Sharp, community co-ordinator for the Paddington Development Trust, said stabbings, muggings, abductions and kidnappings were frequent as certain youths tried to make it a no-go area. “There is a group of young people who have decided one of the best strategies they can employ to try and keep themselves safe is to ‘big up’ the reputation, the notoriety, that the Mozart estate once had,” he said.

As part of a £30m refurbishment programme 15 years ago, parts of the estate were demolished and rebuilt in a bid to tackle crime. “It was a quick win, £30m, knock it down, rebuild it, paint it, make it look nice and pretend the problems are over,” said Sharp. “But they failed to tackle the social issues.”

A new generation of young people were now “using whatever techniques they can think of to try and protect themselves”.

“So whether that’s restoring the notorious reputation of Mozart, or making it a no-go for people from outside, or hanging out together in a group – call it gangs if you like – it makes them feel safer. It’s frightening for a kid growing up, I think, anywhere in London, and here’s no different.”

Westminster city council said serious youth violence incidents in the borough saw a 49% increase rising from 197 to 309 incidents in 2010-11. There were 133 incidents for the first few months of 2011-12.

Earlier this month the council approved a £1.5m plan to tackle the problem, with measures including a gang information desk, to monitor social network sites including Facebook, YouTube and BlackBerry Messenger, and a dedicated gang worker. It intends to establish a cross-border gang mediation programme with neighbouring Kensington and Chelsea and Brent boroughs. It is to lobby for extra government funding for such projects at the Conservative party conference in Manchester next week.

Karen Buck, Labour MP for Westminster North, who visited the Mozart estate after the shooting, said recent clashes had included one boy being stabbed 13 times who was “very lucky to be alive”, and another “kicked into a coma”. Though police had not established if the shooting was gang-related, she said: “The perception is that it’s part of postcode violence that’s been getting progressively worse over the last couple of years.”

Calling for “high-level cross-borough policing”, she said: “There’s a sense gangs are a Hackney or Lambeth problem. And people don’t quite believe leafy Westminster and Kensington have this problem. And they do”.

Stop-start funding for youth service projects was “too inconsistent”, she said. “There is good work being done, and we know a lot of the answers to this. But it’s on far too small a scale.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/30/teenage-girl-shot-holding-baby-london

Today is the first Sabbath following the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. It a special Sabbath which takes its name from the opening verse of the biblical passage read in synagogue on this day: “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have fallen because of your sin” (Hosea 14:2). The Hebrew word for return is shuvah, hence the Sabbath is known as Shabbat Shuvah or the Sabbath of Return. Traditionally on this day rabbis devote their sermons to the theme of repentance, encouraging their congregants to take advantage of the propitious time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), which falls eight days later, by repenting and making amends.

What does “return” in this context actually mean? On the most basic level it means a return to God. When one commits a sin, one is distanced from God. Repentance then is the act of returning to God. On a deeper level, though, repentance can mean a return to one’s self.

Many of us live fragmented lives. We rush about trying to make a living or raise a family, which in today’s climate are both becoming increasingly difficult. Our focus tends to be on output; long hours at work, time-consuming commutes and responding to the demands of clients, colleagues or managers. Consequently we are left with very little time for any meaningful input such as personal learning and development, cultivating relationships and just thinking and reflecting. As a result we lose touch with who we really are, what we are truly capable of and what matters most in life. This tragic fragmentation of self can lead to behaviour that conflicts with one’s deepest principles. Repentance then is a process of returning to one’s deepest self and rediscovering the moral bedrock of one’s value system.

But how does one begin to put together a fragmented life? How does one recover the lost inner self? The answer is by contemplating higher-order questions. The types of questions we routinely contemplate in the course of our busy lives are what can be termed as lower-order questions. These are questions that begin with what and how and that have relatively clearcut, straightforward answers. Higher-order questions on the other hand begin with why. Why am I here? Why do I have the gifts and talents that I do? While the particular answers to such higher-order questions can be deeply subjective, Judaism at least provides a framework for considering them by asserting that every single life is imbued with unique purpose. Such as the following passage from the Talmud: “A human being creates many coins from the same die and they are all identical; the Supreme King of Kings, the Holy One blessed is He, coins all people from Adam’s die and not one looks like another. This is why every person must say ‘The world was created just for me’.”

The Talmud is not encouraging narcissism. On the contrary, it is calling on each individual to recognise his or her uniqueness and as a result to make a distinctive contribution in life. It is not a lesson about taking; it is a lesson about contributing and doing something extraordinary with one’s life. In other words, identifying that which is unique in us leads us to think less about what we need and more about what we are needed for.

Returning to one’s true self through higher-order questioning is what the Sabbath of return is all about. One needn’t be Jewish to appreciate its importance and recognise its potential positive impact on our lives and society.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/sep/30/shabbat-shuvah-sabbath-of-return

“It was an amuse-bouche; a palate cleanser,” muttered one soignee guest in French as she left the Dior show at the Musée Rodin in Paris.

As cuisine-meets-couture analogies go, this was pretty accurate. This was the first Christian Dior ready-to-wear collection designed without input from John Galliano – the designer found guilty of racism and anti-semitism.

The purpose of this show was to remind the industry and wealthy customers that beautiful, tasteful clothes are at the heart of the brand, not scandal. As a result, the collection was inspired by the Dior classic shapes of the past. In fashion parlance this is known as “respecting the house codes”: in layman’s terms it means sticking to what you’re known for.

Dior’s famous “bar” coats with nipped-in waist, full bouncy gazar knee skirts, slim belts and embroidered silks were all give airtime on the catwalk. But the end result was a little too prissy, a little too Miss Dior walking her manicured miniature pooch up the Avenue Montaigne. All a bit too beautifully tame.

The collection was designed by Bill Gaytten, Galliano’s long-time collaborator. For Gaytten – charged with producing a collection for one of the world’s most recognisable fashion houses in the full knowledge he isn’t going to get the top job (although he has been appointed designer at the John Galliano label) – this was a tough gig.

His couture show for Dior in the summer, when he again played substitute designer, had been panned by the critics. What Gaytten’s beautifully crafted clothes did on Fridaywas serve as a reminder of the potential for great fashion Dior has. What the label needs now is a designer to believe in, because believable clothes aren’t enough on the catwalk.

Gaytten attempted to modernise the shapes so the look was not too retro: buttery leather skirts in red and beige looked more “now”, with leather having enjoyed a fashion renaissance in recent seasons. There were leather cloche hats too – but these looked too clumsy for the catwalk.

The silk and organza dresses were as elegant and flattering as any Dior collection, while the eveningwear in pale mint and oyster was delicate and beautifully executed, if a little lacking in spirit.Off the catwalk, rumours had long been swirling that a successor to Galliano would be announced during Paris fashion week. But the brand’s chief executive officer Sidney Toledano said an announcement is still “weeks away”. After such a turbulent six months, Dior is keen to control the timing.

Despite the silence from the suits, the gossips continues. Marc Jacobs, the superstar designer with the power to turn imagination into hard cash and the personality to take on fashion’s most watched role, remains the favourite.

Jacobs, who currently designs for Louis Vuitton (a brand which, like Dior, is also owned by the LVMH conglommorate), has reportedly been in talks with Dior, along with his business partner Robert Duffy. But sources have told industry paper Womenswear Daily that these talks have been tough and are now at a standstill.

Other names who have been mentioned for the Dior job seem now to have been discounted. Haider Ackermann was judged too edgy for the brand and Riccardo Tisci, the designer at Givenchy which is also part of the LVMH group, was doing too well in his current job to move.

Despite the apparent difficulties in finding a successor, the label can only tread water for so long.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2011/sep/30/post-galliano-dior-wild-side

Sir Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, has often voiced his yearning for a “rebalancing” of the economy towards neglected manufacturing, and he will put the nation’s money where his mouth is next month when the Bank produces a new £50 note celebrating two pioneers of the industrial revolution.

The Bank will evoke the memory of the inventor James Watt and his Birmingham business partner, Matthew Boulton on the new note.

Threadneedle Street announced that the note, replacing one featuring the first governor of the Bank of England, Sir John Houblon, will go into circulation on 2 November. It will be the first to feature two people (in addition to the Queen) and the first to be signed by Chris Salmon, the Bank’s new chief cashier.

Ed Miliband, whose speech to the Labour party conference last week lauded “good” businesses and castigated “asset strippers”, would probably approve.

Boulton, born in 1728, was an entrepreneur who started work in his father’s Birmingham factory making buckles for shoes and knee-breeches, but he later built his own showpiece factory on Handsworth Heath.

He later went into partnership with James Watt, who took the Newcomen steam engine, then the latest design, and made a series of crucial improvements, improving its efficiency and making it more commercial.

By 1800, Watt’s version was outselling its predecessor, and they were shipping it across the world. Boulton and Watt worked together to pioneer the use of the steam engine in the cotton spinning industry; and Boulton also used Watt’s engine to power minting machines, pressing coins at his Soho Mint in Birmingham, to boost the supply provided by the Royal Mint.

The Bank governor chooses who will be featured on bank notes, and appears to be sending a strong message about where Britain’s strengths once lay.

Commercialising inventions, as Boulton and Watt managed to do, has long been seen as an achilles heel of the modern economy, with few boffins possessing the financial nous to build up a successful firm.

Successive governments have tried to tilt the playing field to encourage spin-out firms from universities, and boost in-house research by corporations.

Colin Brown, director of engineering at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, said, “We can learn a lot from the hugely successful combination of Boulton, an entrepreneurial businessman, with Watt, a brilliant engineer.

“Today’s challenges are every bit as great as those faced 200 years ago, and recognising our past engineering greats is an excellent way of inspiring the next generation to follow in Boulton and Watt’s footsteps.”

The Bank invites the public to submit suggestions for historical figures who could feature on banknotes. Some, including William Shakespeare and Sir Christopher Wren, have been taken up. But Sir Mervyn has so far rejected other suggestions, from Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the Canterbury Tales, to more contemporary figures including Sir Jimmy Savile, Mick Jagger and Terry Wogan.

Just two women have so far been selected: Elizabeth Fry, the social reformer, and the pioneering nurse Florence Nightingale.

For many workers, though, the worthy example of these fathers of the industrial revolution will be out of reach – because many people rarely get to see a £50 note, let alone hold on to it for long enough to examine the picture on the back.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/30/50-pound-reward-industrial-revolution

The UK needs to shed the stigma attached to entrepreneurs who rely on benefits after a venture goes wrong, business groups and experts have said. Their comments came after criticism of a property developer’s 16-year-old son who spoke out against coalition welfare cuts at the Labour conference.

Rory Weal’s speech on Monday – in which he said his “entire wellbeing” had been preserved by the welfare state after his family’s home was repossessed – wowed delegates in Liverpool. However, the inevitable media scrutiny of his background – his father was a wealthy property developer before he went bankrupt – brought accusations of hypocrisy and even, in one instance, “champagne socialism”.

But according to experts, far from being a hindrance to entrepreneurship and economic growth, in many cases the welfare state actively promotes them, both through cushioning business people following failures and via schemes such as the coalition’s fledgling New Enterprise Allowance (NEA), which provides a modest state wage to jobseekers trying to start their own business.

It is perhaps small consolation for Weal’s father, Jonathan, but in seeking welfare support during a tough time he shares an experience with some of the UK’s richest people. JK Rowling composed her first Harry Potter novel while she was getting single parent benefits, while financier and Tory donor Lord Ashcroft recalls in his memoir spending several months on the dole during his 20s while he “waited for the next opportunity to come along”.

Simon Cowell and Dragons’ Den star Peter Jones have admitted to stints in their late 20s of returning home to their parents after business ventures went belly up.

US tax data shows that during the economic crunch of 2008 almost 3,000 people both declared annual incomes of $1m-plus and received unemployment benefits.

“There is a stigma throughout society about having to go on to welfare and that’s something business owners might feel as well,” said Andrew Cave of the Federation of Small Businesses. “But it is quite clearly a stage that a lot of businesses owners will have gone through. When you have a recession there’s then a peak in business start-ups – a lot of people will use benefits as a stepping stone to what they have always wanted to do.”

The “smart use of welfare benefits” can directly stimulate entrepreneurship, he said, for example with the NEA’s Thatcher-era predecessor, the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, which in 1992 helped 36,000 new businesses start up. Three-quarters of them were still going 18 months later.

UK business people enjoy other, less direct, windfalls from welfare provisions, Francis Greene, associate professor of enterprise at Warwick Business School, said – not least freedom from the responsibilities of their US counterparts to think about health insurance schemes for themselves and their employees.

“Lots of business owners don’t realise the hidden costs of what they would otherwise have to provide for their workers. What they tend to see is just regulation. The thing about regulation is that it’s a two-edged sword. Yes, it can be inhibitive to business but it can also be beneficial,” he said. “There is a huge crossover between business and welfare.”What US entrepreneurs do enjoy, according to popular business belief, is a culture in which some measure of failure, or even a bankruptcy or two, is seen as a valuable part of the learning process.

The truth is subtly different, according to Marc Ventresca, a lecturer in strategy and innovation at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, and an expert in what he calls the “fail early, fail often” world of Silicon Valley tech start-ups.

The principal differences across national boundaries, he argues, are more institutional – for example if bankruptcy laws allow you to start again easily, and whether access to venture capital means you have lost outsiders’ money rather than that borrowed from friends and family.

Silicon Valley is particularly forgiving of failure, he added, given the fast-moving and interconnected nature of that business community. “In the US, particularly in the hi-tech area, people do fail, and that’s not a stigma in the same way [as in the UK]. But it’s a piece of insight for everybody: you tried something and it didn’t work and then you regroup and do something else.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/30/labour-welfare-state-economic-growth

He has battled an insane half-human, half-flesh mutant called Jennifer, crashlanded in Nazi Germany and met up with his old foes the Cybermen in the series so far.

But tonight Doctor Who will take time off from saving the Earth – and himself – to pay tribute to one of the show’s most popular actors, Nicholas Courtney, who died this year after playing the Doctor’s companion, Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, over a period of more than 40 years.

In The Wedding of River Song, the 13th and final episode of the current series, the Doctor – played by Matt Smith – learns of the death of his former colleague in a phone call from the nursing home where the fictional brigadier spent his last days.

“I’m afraid Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart passed away a few months ago,” the nurse tells the Doctor. “It was very peaceful. Talked a lot about you, if that’s any comfort. Always made us pour an extra brandy in case you came round one of these days.”

The Doctor takes a few moments to compose himself as his mind turns towards his own fate during the episode in which the identity of the astronaut seen shooting the Doctor in episode one of the current series is finally revealed.

Doctor Who’s executive producer, Steven Moffat, said of the decision to include the tribute to Courtney’s character: “In a story about the Doctor going to his death, it seemed right and proper to acknowledge one of the greatest losses Doctor Who has endured.”

Courtney made his first Doctor Who appearance in 1965 opposite William Hartnell, as the doomed space security agent Bret Vyon, but returned three years later to play Lethbridge-Stewart, when the Doctor was played by Patrick Troughton.

In a memorable moment in the 1971 story The Daemons he spots a murderous gargoyle figure and instructs a subordinate: “Jenkins, chap with wings there, five rounds rapid!”

Courtney made regular appearances alongside subsequent doctors Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy until 1989, when the show was cancelled by the BBC.

After its revival in 2005 viewers were told his character was in Peru until he was revived again for The Sarah Jane Adventures, a Doctor Who spinoff for the CBBC children’s channel in 2008.

Courtney died after a long illness at the age of 81. Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith, died in April. The final series of her Sarah Jane Adventures begins on Monday on CBBC.

The BBC will be hoping that Saturday’s finale boosts the viewing figures for the main series which so far has performed well. According to the consolidated overnight ratings this series is averaging 7.6 million viewers an episode, up on last year’s series average of 7.3 million.

There has been a generally good critical reaction to the series, the sixth since Doctor Who returned in 2005 and which ran for seven episodes with a mid-season finale before a run of six.

The Guardian’s Doctor Who expert Dan Martin said that episode 10, The Girl Who Waited, was “a damn near perfect episode”.

Smith has signed up for a third series and Christmas special, and there has been speculation he will appear in a fourth series in 2013, marking the 50th anniversary.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/sep/30/doctor-who-tribute-brigadier-actor

Doctors are planning the first clinical trial of ecstasy in the UK, to see whether the drug can be beneficial to the traumatised survivors of child abuse, rape and war.

Ecstasy and other illegal drugs such as LSD and magic mushrooms are potentially useful in treating people with serious psychological disturbance who cannot begin to face up to their distress, some psychiatrists and therapists believe. But because of public fear and tabloid anger about illegal drugs, scientists say they find it almost impossible to explore their potential.

Professor David Nutt, the psychopharmacologist who used to head the government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs until he fell out with the Labour home secretary and was sacked, said: “I feel quite strongly that many drugs with therapeutic potential have been denied to patients and researchers because of the drugs regulation. The drugs have been made illegal in a vain attempt to stop kids using them, but people haven’t thought about the negative consequences.”

Nutt and the Taunton-based psychiatrist Dr Ben Sessa are two of the British scientists who hope to repeat an experiment on patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) undertaken in the US which, although small, was successful and has caused some in the scientific community to think what was until recently unthinkable. It involved 20 people who had been in therapy and on pills for an average of 19 years. Twelve were given MDMA – or 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, the chemical compound found, often adulterated, in ecstasy tablets. The rest had placebo pills but were later also given the chance to take MDMA. Each one had a therapy session, lying back in a reclining chair in a pleasant flower-decorated room in South Carolina, wearing an eyemask.

Sometimes they listened to music on headphones and sometimes they talked to the therapist, all the while thinking about the events that had caused such profound distress that they had been unable to revisit it in past psychotherapy sessions.

The response rate was a remarkable 83% – 10 out of the 12 showed significant improvement two months after the second of two MDMA therapy sessions. That compared with 25% of those on the placebo. There were no serious side-effects and no long-term problems.

“I expected it was going to be effective,” said Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist who ran the US study and carried out the psychotherapy with his wife, Ann. “I suppose we wouldn’t have done it otherwise. But I didn’t necessarily expect we’d find such statistical significance in that number [of people]. That was the icing on the cake.”

The high number of troops returning with PTSD from Afghanistan and Iraq is attracting special attention to the study in the US. Only one of the 20 was a veteran, while the rest had suffered childhood sexual abuse, rape or other kinds of assault. Mithoefer’s next study will be on veterans alone.

Nutt said PTSD is “an extraordinarily disabling condition and we don’t have any really effective treatments. In order to deal with trauma, you have to be able to re-engage with the memory and then deal with it. For many people, as soon as the memory comes into consciousness, so does the fear and disgust”.

Mithoefer said the participants did not appear to have joined the trial in hopes of some sort of high. “I don’t think that was much of a factor at all. Some people were referred by their therapist and had never taken any drugs and were quite anxious about the whole thing and for them it was a last resort.

” Interestingly, several people said after their session: ‘I don’t know why they call this ecstasy’ – because it was not an ecstatic experience. They were revisiting the trauma. It was very difficult and painful work, but the ecstasy gave them the feeling they could do it.”

People spoke of getting past a barrier. One said: “I feel like I’m walking in a place I’ve needed to go for so long and just didn’t know how to get there.

“I feel like I know myself better than I ever have before. Now I know I’m a normal person. I’ve been through some bad stuff, but … those are things have happened to me, not who I am … This is me. The medicine helps, but this is in me.”

Another said: “I have respect for my emotions now (rather than fear of them). What’s most comforting is knowing now I can handle difficult feelings without being overwhelmed. I realise feeling the fear and anger is not nearly as big a deal as I thought it would be.”

Ben Sessa said he hoped to recreate the study in the UK but “with an added twist – lots of neuroimaging”. The only brain scans that have been done are of recreational ecstasy users, whose drugs may be contaminated and who have probably taken other substances, too.The death in 1995 of Leah Betts after taking ecstasy, from drinking too much water in response to a campaign warning ravers of the danger of dehydration, had prevented rational debate or scientific advance.

MDMA, he said, “is not about dancing around nightclubs – it’s a really useful psychiatric drug”.

Nutt said it made him angry that MDMA and LSD had been banned before any doctor could establish their potential benefit. LSD was being tried among terminal cancer patients.

“When I started in medicine in 1969 they were starting to see some interesting data in the use of LSD to help people make sense of dying. I don’t think it is fair that because a drug is misused it should be banned from use in medicine,” he said Heroin has been around for a hundred years so although it is illegal for street use, at least we have got that..

Leading the movement to get MDMA licensed for medical use is Rick Doblin, the founder in 1986 in the US of Maps, the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which backed Mithoefer’s trial. “I think the chances of getting a licence are excellent. We have demonstrated an excellent level of safety. It’s worked. It’s necessary,” he said. “It is probably going to take 10 years and $10m to do it.”

Doblin, whose organisation relies on philanthropic donors, has no idea where that money will come from. Nutt and Sessa, whose proposed trial in the UK would boost the chances of MDMA entering the (locked) psychiatric drug cabinet are waiting for a response to their modest grant application from one of the UK’s leading medical research funders. Sessa is optimistic; battle-scarred Nutt less so. Ecstasy will for ever be controversial. “If we get the study funded and into the public domain,” said Nutt, “the Daily Mail will try to have it banned.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/30/ecstasy-trial-ptsd-sufferers

Ali Dizaei has been suspended from duty at Scotland Yard, just hours after he announced he had won his appeal against dismissal from the force.

The former police chief was sacked after being found guilty of corruption, but theconviction was quashed in May of this year. He faces a retrial on the charges early next year.

On Friday morning, Dizaei expressed his delight at his reinstatement by a home office panel but later on Friday afternoon, his employer, the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), having initially refused to comment, took the wind out of his sails by announcing that its professional standards cases sub-committee (PSCSC) had suspended Dizaei on full pay.

The MPA said the sub-committee met on Thursday and “after careful deliberation unanimously decided to suspend him”. It said the decision was not formally notified to Dizaei until 4pm on Friday.

The former National Black Police Association president’s return would have been an embarrassing prospect for Scotland Yard and the MPA. Confirming his reinstatement, before the announcement by the MPA, PBS Law, which represents Dizaei referred to his battles with the force and the MPA. It said: “Commander Dizaei has always maintained that his previous dismissal from the Metropolitan Police Force pending his criminal appeal was in haste and unfair.

“That appeal was heard in May of this year and resulted in the quashing of Commander Dizaei’s criminal convictions.

“Commander Dizaei has ongoing proceedings in the employment tribunal against the Metropolitan Police Authority and a number of senior individuals in that organisation relating to the way in which Commander Dizaei has been treated over a substantial period of time.”

Dizaei has also been a vocal critic of the Yard’s record on race and some of his colleagues were said to have greeted his conviction last year by popping champagne corks

Before the sub-committee’s decision was communicated to him, Dizaei said he was delighted by the decision to uphold his appeal, which was taken by the Police Appeals Tribunal (PAT) – whose members are appointed by the Home Office – on Wednesday.

The MPA said: “On 28 September 2011, the Police Appeals Tribunal (PAT), whose members are appointed by the Home Office, met to consider Dr Ali Dizaei’s appeal against his dismissal from the Metropolitan police service.

“The PAT upheld his appeal against dismissal. On receipt of their decision on 29 September, the Metropolitan Police Authority’s professional standards cases sub-committee (PSCSC) immediately convened to consider the current status of outstanding matters concerning Commander Dizaei.

“On receipt of their decision on 29 September, the Metropolitan Police Authority’s professional standards cases sub-committee (PSCSC) immediately convened to consider the current status of outstanding matters concerning Commander Dizaei.

“After careful deliberation the PSCSC unanimously decided to suspend him. Suspension is not a disciplinary sanction and it is emphasised that suspension should not be taken as a presumption of guilt. This has been approved by the IPCC in accordance with police regulations. Commander Dizaei was formally notified by the MPA at 4pm on Friday 30 September 2011.”

Dizaei was jailed for four years in January 2010 after a jury at Southwark crown court found that he had abused his position as a police officer and tried to frame a young web designer in a row over £600. Dizaei was dismissed from the police service in disgrace, ending a 25-year career. But in May this year, the court of appeal quashed the conviction after new evidence was presented.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/30/ali-dizaei-reinstated-met-police

Neville Thurlbeck, the former News of the World chief reporter, has broken his silence on the phone-hacking scandal, saying he “took no part in the matter which led to my dismissal”.

In his first public statement since he was arrested and bailed for alleged phone hacking in April, Thurlbeck said the “truth will out” and “those responsible will eventually be revealed”.

In a clear shot across his former employer’s bows, Thurlbeck claimed there was “much I could have said publicly to the detriment of News Interntional”, but so far he had chosen not to do so.

The 49-year-old former chief reporter at the News of the World was sacked by Rupert Murdoch’s News International earlier this month, prompting him to sue his former employer for unfair dismissal.

Thurlbeck had applied for “interim relief” at an employment tribunal hearing scheduled to be heard on Friday but pulled out late on Thursday.

His solicitor Nathan Donaldson, employment partner at DWF, also issued a statement on Friday confirming that Thurlbeck was continuing his action against News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary that published the News of the World, for unfair dismissal and whistleblowing.

“Scotland Yard has now made me aware of the reason for my dismissal, a reason which News International has withheld from me for almost a month,” Thurlbeck said, in a statement issued by his solicitors that shows he is fighting back against his former employer.

“For legal reasons, I am unable to go into the reason cited. However, I will say this. I took no part in the matter which has led to my dismissal after 21 years of service,” he added.

“I say this most emphatically and with certainty and confidence that the allegation which led to my dismissal will eventually be shown to be false. And those responsible for the action, for which I have been unfairly dismissed, will eventually be revealed.”

Thurlbeck also claimed that for more than two years, News International had accepted he was not responsible for the matter in question and there was “no valid or reliable evidence now to support their sudden volte face. At the length, truth will out.”

Thurlbeck also said he would “fight my case to the end” and accused News International of “giving ‘off the record’ briefings” to the press.

“This has compelled me to speak for the first time since my name became linked to the phone hacking scandal through the ‘For Neville’ email more than two years ago,” he said.

“I would request that News International abandon the unseemly practice of whispering behind the back of a loyal and long-serving former employee.

“There is much I could have said publicly to the detriment of News International but so far, have chosen not to do so.”

News International said in a statement that it was “not able to comment on circumstances regarding any individual”. “As we have said previously, News International continues to co-operate fully with the Metropolitan police service in its investigations into phone hacking and police payments to ensure that those responsible for criminal acts are brought to justice.”

The Guardian revealed more than two years ago the existence of a “for Neville” email – believed to be a reference to Thurlbeck – sent to private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, which contained a transcript of messages left on a mobile phone belonging to Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive Gordon Taylor.

The “for Neville” email contradicted the defence that News International had maintained until late 2010, that phone-hacking was limited to Mulcaire and one “rogue reporter” on the News of the World, former royal editor Clive Goodman. Both were jailed in early 2007 for phone-hacking offences.

Thurlbeck was due to attend an “interim relief hearing” about his unfair dismissal claim on Friday, but withdrew because the “issues to be determined by the employment tribunal will require key individuals within the News Group Newspapers being cross-examined”.

His solicitors added that “unfortunately” Friday’s hearing was limited to a review of papers and because of this procedural limitation Thurlbeck and his legal team decided to withdraw.

They wanted to ensure the benefits of a full hearing where complete disclosure from the parties would be made.

News International parent company News Corporation set up an internal investigation unit, the management and standards committee, on the orders of Rupert Murdoch in the summer to assist the police’s phone-hacking investigation and purge the organisation of bad practices.

However, it is understood News International is not telling any former employees why they are being dismissed under the MSC’s rigid clean-up protocol, which aims to ensure that any potential police investigation is not compromised.

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Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/30/phone-hacking-neville-thurlbeck

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_world/~3/q3ZOhFV2AbQ/index.html