Jennifer Liehne had always denied murdering daughter Jacqueline
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An Edinburgh mother jailed for smothering her infant daughter almost 30 years ago has been cleared.
Jennifer Liehne, 47, has been ruled to have suffered a miscarriage of justice by appeal judges.
They said the judge at her trial failed to explain properly to the jury some of the complex medical and legal issues involved in the case.
Ms Liehne from Edinburgh stood trial for murder in 2006 but was convicted of a reduced charge of culpable homicide.
A 10-year jail sentence imposed by trial judge Lord Hardie was later reduced to seven years on appeal.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice, took up her case and asked the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh to look at whether the conviction should stand.
Ms Liehne’s trial in 2006 heard how Jacqueline was seven months old when she died in December 1982.
The baby had been admitted to hospital a number of times during the preceding months because her mother found her “turning blue”.
A post-mortem examination concluded that Jacqueline died as the result of a cot death, explained by pneumonia.
But later investigations using more modern techniques caused some medics to question the original findings.
They said that signs of bleeding in the baby’s lungs might have been the result of interference with her breathing, either accidental or deliberate.
The decision to re-open the case was prompted by social workers in 2001 when Ms Liehne became pregnant again and two daughters had already been taken away from her and put into care.
Ms Liehne’s defence team called other experts at her trial to back her claim that pneumonia was the cause of death.
The trial also heard how the young mother was being driven to the police station she challenged detectives: “If I am being accused of murder I want you to go to Saughton Cemetery, pick up Jacqueline’s body from her grave to prove I murdered her.”
She also gave them a detailed description of the fatal December morning.
“When I was feeding her it was like all the blood, it is the only way I can explain it, draining out of her body. It was like she just went grey from head to toe.”
Ms Liehne returned to the Court of Criminal Appeal on Thursday to be told by Lord Hamilton her appeal had been successful.
She will hear later whether prosecutors intend to put her on trial again.
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John Cooper denied four murder charges and separate ones of rape and attempted robbery
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A man has been found guilty of killing four people in Pembrokeshire in the 1980s.
John Cooper, 66, denied murdering brother and sister Richard and Helen Thomas in 1985, and Oxfordshire couple Peter and Gwenda Dixon in 1989.
Cooper, from Letterston, also denied separate charges of rape, sexual assault and attempted robbery.
The jury at Swansea Crown Court returned guilty verdicts after two days of deliberations.
Cooper shot the Thomases at their remote home near Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire.
During the interviews conducted by police in June 2008, he denied having been anywhere near Scoveston Park where the Thomases were murdered.
Mr and Mrs Dixon were shot at close range while walking the Pembrokeshire coastal path while on holiday.
The court heard he intercepted the couple in daylight, took them to a nearby hideaway and demanded details about their bank cards.
Again using a shotgun, it was claimed Mr Cooper “silenced them forever”.
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The peer was a front bench spokesman for the Conservatives in the House of Lords
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The peer and former Essex Council leader Lord Hanningfield has been found guilty of fiddling his expenses.
Paul White, 70, had denied six counts of false accounting relating to his parliamentary expenses.
The prosecution said he had claimed for overnight stays in London between March 2006 and April 2009, when he had actually returned home to Essex.
The peer told the court he had seen it as a “living-out-of-London allowance” rather than overnight subsistence.
The jury at Chelmsford Crown Court found White guilty on all six counts and he will be sentenced in six weeks’ time.
Members of the House of Lords were able to claim up to £174-a-night to stay in London when attending Parliament, if their main home was outside the city.
But the trial heard White had made claims for journeys and overnight stays in London, which he never made.
The prosecution said on occasions between March 2006 and May 2009 when he made claims for overnight stays, he usually made the 50-mile trip home.
But they also pointed out on one occasion he was on a plane bound for India at the time, on others he was “at hotels outside London all paid for by someone else, mainly Essex County Council”.
The peer argued he had subsidised his long years of public service out of his pocket, and said most other peers claimed the maximum under the allowance.
The trial heard he had told police: “It is an allowance scheme, not a reimbursement scheme. Quite honestly, people see it as a way of recouping what we spend.”
White, who was an Essex councillor for 40 years and led the council from 2001 until he was charged in 2010, was made a life peer in 1998. He was a frontbench spokesman on business while the Conservatives were in opposition.
He was suspended from the Parliamentary Conservative party when he was charged.
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Bertram Bushnell and Richard Burnell won the Olympic double sculls at Henley-on-Thames.
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A drama about two British rowers who won gold at the London 1948 Olympics is part of BBC One’s offering for 2012.
Bert and Dickie, written by William Ivory is set in the run-up to the “austerity Games” held three years after the war, and tells the story of Bertram Bushnell and Richard Burnell.
The pair won gold in double sculls, despite only having been partnered six weeks before the Olympic races began.
The 90-minute production is part of 25 hours of new BBC One drama.
It will also explore how London coped with staging the first post-war Games with rationing still in place.
Controller of BBC Drama Commissioning, Ben Stephenson said that next year “will be a year of huge cultural significance”.
He added: “BBC One Drama promises to match that ambition by bringing audiences stories with real scale that connect with the hearts and lives of British people”.
Also in the pipeline is Restless, a two-part adaptation by author William Boyd of his own novel about a young woman who discovers her mother was a spy in World War II.
London 2012 – Begin your journey here
Sport, news and more 2012 informationBBC London 2012
Boyd’s Any Human Heart won the best drama serial Bafta at the weekend.
Other commissions include Savage – a series about a young Liverpool police officer who witnesses the murder of his best friend and May Day – a five part thriller about what happens in a neighbourhood when a young girl goes missing.
Danny Cohen, Controller, BBC One said: “Drama is a defining genre for BBC One and these new commissions reflect the quality, range and ambition we have for our programmes.”
The Cultural Olympiad – a host of arts events associated with London 2012’s Olympic Games – is already under way but will build up steam ahead of the opening ceremony on 27 July.
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Corporate profits unexpectedly fell in the first three months of the year
US growth slowed in the first three months of 2011 to an annualised rate of 1.8%, which is a 0.4% quarterly rise, the Commerce Department has confirmed.
This compares with an annual growth rate of 3.1% in the final three months of 2010.
The slowdown was blamed on corporate profits unexpectedly contracting for the first time in more than two years.
Many analysts had been expecting the growth figure to be revised upwards to about 2%.
US GDP is expressed as an annualised rate, or annual pace, which shows what the three months’ economic activity would mean if it carried on for a year.
Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of US GDP, was revised down from 2.7% to 2.2%.
That was balanced by an upward revision to the amount of money businesses were spending on restocking, which was increased from $43.8bn (£26.8bn) to $52.2bn.
“There is no doubt the economy has slowed. We will call the first half of 2011 as a soft patch,” said Robert Dye at PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh.
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Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso is in impressive form as he beats McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton in practice at the Monaco Grand Prix.
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The Carbofuran was taken from an estate on the Borders to the Highlands
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An estate worker had enough illegal poison to “wipe out the entire Scottish golden eagle and red kite populations several times over”, a court has heard.
Dean Barr, 44, of Clashmore, Dornoch, admitted possessing 10kg of Carbofuran.
The insecticide, banned in 2005, was found in a farm building, used by Barr, on the exclusive Highlands Skibo Castle estate in May 2010.
Sheriff Margaret Neilson fined the former Ulster Defence Regiment soldier £3,300 at Inverness Sheriff Court.
Despite the find, the Crown accepted Barr had no part in the deaths of two golden eagles and a sparrow hawk found on the estate in May 2010.
The insecticide was discovered in a locked store by police investigating the deaths of the birds. Barr had the keys to the store.
The Carbofuran found had been bought by a farmer to legally treat crops on a Scottish Borders estate where Barr had worked.
The court heard that while father-of-two Barr had not purchased the powder, he took it with him – along with other items, from a shed when he took the job at Skibo in 2008.
A dead golden eagle was found on the Skibo estate on 7 May 2010
Fiscal depute Ian Smith said: “The RSPB said this was the largest find of any illegal poison in the UK.”
He added: “10kg is sufficient to wipe out the entire Scottish golden eagle and red kite populations several times over.
“Only a few granules are needed to kill a bird of prey.”
Defence lawyer David McKie said Barr was aware of the risks Carbofuran posed, but he had not known how to safely dispose of the powder, which was kept in a plastic tub.
Mr McKie said Barr’s case was one of “foolish omission” and that his client had been naive and had never used the substance.
However, Sheriff Neilson said it was “extraordinary” that a man of Barr’s experience had not known how to legally dispose of Carbofuran and had been prepared to take it 200 miles north from the Borders to the Highlands.
She told Barr that had he been found responsible for the birds’ deaths, he would have been facing a custodial sentence.
She fined him £3,300 for possession of Carbofuran to “mark the court’s disapproval”.
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A report said it was believed paedophile priest Roy Cotton had at least 10 victims
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More evidence of the Church of England’s failure to support sex abuse victims has emerged in a report that was published online and then removed.
Letters in 1966 between the Archbishop of Canterbury and a bishop show Lambeth Palace agreed that convicted paedophile Roy Cotton should be ordained.
In one letter, Lambeth Palace suggested that Cotton should be placed in a “carefully selected parish”.
Lambeth Palace said robust safeguarding policies had been in place since 1995.
The Meekings Report was published online on Wednesday and then taken down. At the same time, another report was released by Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss.
A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Chichester told the BBC the Meekings Report was removed because the document had accidentally included some confidential information.
Both studies looked into the behaviour of Cotton and another paedophile priest, Colin Pritchard.
In a letter to the then Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey dated 13 May 1966, the Bishop of Portsmouth outlined Cotton’s history, including a criminal offence in 1954, and his repeated requests to be considered for ordination.
“You would do right to consider ordaining him to a title in the carefully selected parish”
Response from archbishop’s secretary, 17 May 1966
It said: “At the time he protested his innocence, and he has done ever since, and in fact from that time has been teaching.”
The letter continued: “I am not sure whether having been convicted there would need to be a dispensation from you and I would be most grateful for your guidance in this matter.
“Cotton is a man of considerable ability… and I cannot think that having been so free of any trouble for 12 years that there is a a likelihood of there being any problem in the future.”
A response from the archbishop’s secretary dated 17 May 1966, said the archbishop was “reassured by what you have said and thinks you would do right to consider ordaining him to a title in the carefully selected parish which you mention”.
On Wednesday, the Church-commissioned report by Baroness Butler-Sloss criticised both senior clergy and Sussex Police over how they dealt with historical claims of abuse by Cotton and Pritchard.
Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was appointed by the Diocese of Chichester to carry out the review
In the report, she said across the diocese “and probably in many other dioceses” there had been “a lack of understanding of the seriousness of historic child abuse”.
She said the victims’ claims were not taken seriously.
The Bishop of Chichester later apologised, while Sussex Police issued a statement saying the force had always taken claims of sexual abuse very seriously.
The retired senior judge also said she believed Roy Cotton had at least 10 victims.
Pritchard served as the vicar of St Barnabas, Bexhill, until 2007 after being arrested over sex abuse claims. In 2008 he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two boys in the 70s and 80s and was jailed for five years.
“Any case of harm that occurs is a source of deep regret and pain”
Lambeth Palace
The offences took place while he was parish priest at St Andrew’s Church in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.
The court heard that Cotton had been involved in the offences but died in 2006, two weeks before Pritchard was arrested. Cotton worked as a priest in Brede, near Rye, in the 1990s.
A statement from Lambeth Palace in response to the Meekings Report said: “We would never comment on details of individual cases but always take the line that one safeguarding case in the Church of England is one too many and since 1995 have robust safeguarding policies in place.
“The Church of England takes all safeguarding issues and allegations very seriously and the Butler-Sloss review for Chichester Diocese is an example of this.
“We continue to stress that anyone who has any information or concerns about the suitability of anyone working with children today within a Church setting should share those concerns with the relevant diocesan child protection adviser, or the police or social services.
“The safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults in our care is central to all our activities and any case of harm that occurs is a source of deep regret and pain.”
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Luke Donald sets the early pace at the PGA Championship at Wentworth with a stunning round of 64.
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Sales at its core Indian business rose 23% for both commercial and personal vehicles
Tata Motors has reported a tripling of profits in the last year.
The Indian carmaker made total profits after tax for the last 12 months of 92.7bn rupees ($2bn, £1.3bn), up 260% from a year earlier, thanks to a 33% rise in revenues to 1.2tn rupees.
Business at its Jaguar Land Rover subsidiary saw a sharp turnaround, with £1.1bn in profits before tax, having hardly broken even in the 2009-10 year.
The firm said it planned to expand exports by its UK subsidiary.
Exports already drove a 51% jump in revenues at Jaguar Land Rover in the last year, with developing markets such as China seeing the fastest growth.
The UK share of its business dropped from 28% to 24% of sales.
The firm will open its first production line for Jaguar Land Rover in India on Friday.
The jump in the UK unit’s profits – flattered by the falling value of sterling – helped it pay off debts, with net debt falling by almost two-thirds to £233m.
Jaguar has already unveiled a new £700,000 hybrid supercar developed with the Williams F1 team
The result reflected “consumer confidence in our brands”, according to Jaguar Land Rover chief executive, Dr Ralf Speth.
“We have committed more than £1bn a year over the next five years to the creation of new and exciting products,” he added.
The UK firm has already unveiled a new £700,000 Jaguar hybrid supercar developed in cooperation with the Williams Formula 1 team.
Mumbai-based Tata Motors bought the Jaguar and Land Rover marques from Ford in 2008.
Meanwhile, sales at Tata’s core Indian arm rose across the board, with both commercial vehicles and personal cars up 23%.
The company said it thought increased infrastructure spending in India would stimulate further demand for trucks, while it planned to expand sales of its passenger vehicles in rural India.
Incidents of the Nano catching fire have been reported
However, sales of small cars lagged somewhat in the last year, perhaps reflecting difficulties with the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, which began production in 2008.
Tata previously reported that sales of its Nano had slumped 85% in November last year.
The company blamed customers’ difficulty in obtaining loans, however analysts say that price rises, as well as publicity related to a series of fires in previously sold cars, had a role in the drop in sales.
Tata said it planned to start exporting the Nano in the coming year.
Exports by its Indian business rose 70%, led by demand in neighbouring countries, but remained a negligible part of its sales.
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Mr Kiir said the south had fought enough as northern troops were reported to be massing near the border
South Sudan’s leader Salva Kiir has said he will not lead his people back into conflict with the north over the disputed region of Abyei.
The region, seized by northern troops at the weekend, is also claimed by South Sudan, which is due to become independent from the north in July.
“We will not go back to war, it will not happen,” Mr Kiir said in his first public statement since trouble began.
Analysts fear the dispute could reignite the north-south conflict.
A peace deal in 2005 ended 22 years of civil war in which some 1.5 million people died.
The status of Abyei was left undecided and a referendum, due last January, on whether the area should be part of the north or south has been postponed indefinitely.
In a national address, Mr Kiir said the south had “fought enough” and that it was time for peace.
He described the north’s invasion of Abyei as an over-reaction, and said the area would eventually be reclaimed by the south.
Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has refused to withdraw his troops from the region, despite UN condemnation of the move.
Earlier, a southern minister in the national government resigned, saying “war crimes” had been committed in the disputed Abyei region.
The Satellite Sentinel Project has released satellite images of burnt huts and says they provide evidence of war crimes.
The project’s spokesman Jonathan Hutson said other troop movements in the north were also a cause for concern.
“Satellite Sentinel Project has identified Sudan armed forces, those of the northern armies, massing near the contested border area of Abyei with heavy armour and artillery and tanks at a place called El Obeid – there’s a barracks there,” he told the BBC’s World Today programme.
“They could reach Sudan’s north-south border or Abyei town in less than a day without refuelling.”
Aid workers say some 40,000 people have fled the fighting around Abyei – mostly southerners, heading further south.
Some families fleeing Abyei have been split up and children are missing
“Tens of thousands have been displaced – the villages that they’ve left behind have been systematically razed,” Mr Huston said.
David Deng Bol, manager of Mayardit FM radio station in Turalei, about 75km (45 miles) south of Abyei, told the BBC more than 25,000 people had arrived in that area in the last few days.
Many were camping under trees and in the rush to leave some families had been split up and children were missing, he said.
“The situation of the IDPs [internally displaced people] is very very bad. They sleep outside being affected by the rain, the places are cold, there’s no food, no water or no medication,” he told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme.
Meanwhile, the UN has said it believes militiamen from the Misseriya ethnic group were responsible for shooting at one of its helicopters on Wednesday.
The Misseriya are northern nomads and one of two groups to claim Abyei, along with the southern Dinka Ngok people.
They were armed by Khartoum and used to attack the south during the civil war.
Reports suggest many Misseriya have arrived in Abyei town since the northern armed forces took control of it on Saturday, accusations denied by one nomad leader as “nonsense”.
Under the 2005 peace agreement, Abyei was granted special status and a joint administration was set up in 2008 to run the area until a referendum decided its fate.
Sudan: A country divided
The great divide across Sudan is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. Southern Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest.
Sudan’s arid northern regions are home mainly to Arabic-speaking Muslims. But in Southern Sudan there is no dominant culture. The Dinkas and the Nuers are the largest of more than 200 ethnic groups, each with its own traditional beliefs and languages.
The health inequalities in Sudan are illustrated by infant mortality rates. In Southern Sudan, one in 10 children die before their first birthday. Whereas in the more developed northern states, such as Gezira and White Nile, half of those children would be expected to survive.
The gulf in water resources between north and south is stark. In Khartoum, River Nile, and Gezira states, two-thirds of people have access to piped drinking water and pit latrines. In the south, boreholes and unprotected wells are the main drinking sources. More than 80% of southerners have no toilet facilities whatsoever.
Throughout Sudan, access to primary school education is strongly linked to household earnings. In the poorest parts of the south, less than 1% of children finish primary school. Whereas in the wealthier north, up to 50% of children complete primary level education.
Conflict and poverty are the main causes of food insecurity in Sudan. The residents of war-affected Darfur and Southern Sudan are still greatly dependent on food aid. Far more than in northern states, which tend to be wealthier, more urbanised and less reliant on agriculture.
Sudan exports billions of dollars of oil per year. Southern states produce more than 80% of it, but receive only 50% of the revenue, exacerbating tensions with the north. The oil-rich border region of Abyei is to hold a separate vote on whether to join the north or the south.
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