Murray appealed on the grounds that her sentence was too harsh
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A woman who killed a father-of-two in Glasgow with a single punch following a struggle over his alcohol carry-out has had her jail term reduced on appeal.
Kayleigh Murray, 20, from Shettleston, admitted the culpable homicide of 29-year-old Paul Woods in the city’s Maryhill Road on 28 July last year.
She was jailed for six years and nine months for the attack.
Appeal judges agreed the sentencing judge had been too harsh and cut her sentence to four-and-a-half years.
Murray’s friend, 19-year-old Chelsea Speirs, from Springboig, was jailed for two years and three months after admitting stealing Mr Woods’ alcohol.
Both women were originally charged with murder, but the Crown accepted their pleas to reduced charges.
Prior to the fatal attack, Mr Woods had been in a pub in Maryhill Road last July watching football with friends.
When he left, he headed for a nearby off-licence to buy alcohol.
Paul Woods died after suffering a serious head injury
Murray and Speirs, who had been drinking for hours, got off a bus in Maryhill Road and saw Mr Woods standing outside a shop, waiting for a friend to be served.
Speirs demanded to know what Mr Woods had in the bag he was holding, then grabbed it and walked off after a brief struggle.
When Mr Woods tried to chase her, Murray attacked him.
Paramedics later found Mr Woods unconscious and bleeding from a head wound.
He was taken to hospital where a scan revealed further bleeding inside his skull.
An emergency operation failed to save him and Mr Woods died the following day.
Sentencing Murray at the High Court in Glasgow, Lord Pentland told her: “It is clear that your conduct was entirely unprovoked, violent and persistent. It was aggravated by drink.”
The judge also explained his sentence of six years and nine months by saying that Murray must have used “considerable force” when she punched Mr Woods.
But at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, her defence QC Donald Findlay successfully attacked Lord Pentland’s reasoning.
“His lordship has erred to the extent that one cannot say that this was a blow which must have been delivered with considerable force,” said Mr Findlay.
“The fact of the matter is it was a single punch with a closed fist and it was certainly enough to cause him to fall backwards onto the road.”
The lawyer said the fatal injury was caused by Mr Woods hitting the ground and doctors had found only “a minor abrasion” caused by the punch.
In the circumstances, argued Mr Findlay, Lord Pentland’s sentence was too harsh.
Lord Bonomy, sitting with Lady Smith, cut the jail term to four-and-a-half years, saying that they would give reasons for their decision, in writing, at a later date.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Prices fell most sharply in Blaenau Gwent, down 19.9% compared with a a year ago
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Wales has experienced a sharp fall in house prices, down 3.3% on the month and 7.2% year on year.
Latest figures from the Land Registry shows Wales suffered the biggest drop in prices compared with England.
In Blaenau Gwent, prices were down nearly 20% over the year.
On average, prices fell by 1.1% in March in England and Wales, the biggest drop since February 2009. Prices were 2.3% lower than a year ago.
The Land Registry’s figures come out a month later than those from high street lenders and are based on all property sales.
Figures from the Bank of England also show a big drop in mortgage lending for March.
Net lending, which takes account of the money homeowners have paid back, was 60% lower than in the previous month.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Shirong Chen
In China some Western news sites and social-networking sites like Facebook are blocked
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China has set up a new government body to control information on the internet.
The State Internet Information Office will take over responsibility from a number of lower-ranking directorates.
The new set-up will enable the government to keep a tighter grip on the content available to Chinese internet-users inside the country.
Beijing operates vast internet censorship, dubbed the “great firewall of China”. Websites deemed sensitive by the government are routinely blocked.
The Chinese government has put a lot of resources into controlling and censoring the internet content available to its citizens.
Until now, the responsibility fell to the country’s Information Office and quite a few other agencies across various government ministries.
There was often in-fighting as each tried to wield power over what was allowed on the internet, from online games to politically sensitive content.
The newly-created State Internet Information Office brings technical and political control over the internet under one body, with Information Minister Wang Chen in charge.
This in effect gives his ministry more power than the other agencies involved.
This indicates that online news and information, new media business and internet access will most likely come under tighter control, as the government clamps down on dissent following the Jasmine Revolution in the Middle East and north Africa.
At the same time, the government hopes to use the internet to promote itself both at home and abroad.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Focus sells DIY and gardening products
The Focus DIY chain has said it intends to go into administration.
The move follows “notification of an event of default under the senior credit facility, and a realisation that there were no alternatives that could be explored any further”.
Focus DIY was founded by Bill Archer in 1987, with six stores in the Midlands and the north of England.
The company now has 178 stores in England, Scotland and Wales, and employs more than 3,900 staff.
Focus said its directors had sought consent from the firm’s lenders to appoint Ernst & Young as the administrators.
All stakeholders including staff are being informed.
Focus used to own the Wickes chain, which it bought in September 2000 before selling it in February 2005 to Travis Perkins.
Private equity firm Cerberus bought Focus in 2007 for £1. It was heavily indebted at the time and Cerberus said it would pay off the firm’s £174m of debts.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The MyFarm website will be central to the decision making process
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A National Trust farm is to be run by online subscribers voting on which crops to grow and livestock to rear.
For a £30 annual fee, 10,000 farm followers will help manage Wimpole Home Farm, in Cambridgeshire.
The National Trust says its MyFarm project aims to reconnect people with where their food comes from.
It was partly inspired by the online Facebook game Farmville and follows the example of Ebbsfleet Football Club which is run on a similar basis.
Decisions about the running of the team in Kent has been in the hands of MyFootballClub subscribers since 2008.
Wimpole Home Farm, which is converting to organic, is currently commercially self-sustaining.
The 1,200 acre site is home to rare breeds of sheep, cattle, poultry, horses and goats and produces meat, eggs, wheat and oil seed rape.
“By influencing the work at Wimpole, our farmers will start to understand the effects and implications of their own decisions”
Richard Morris Farm manager
Subscribers will be expected to make key decisions on which crops to plant, which animals to buy and whether to put in measures such as new hedgerows to help wildlife.
They will be asked to make 12 major monthly decisions during the course of the year as well as other choices.
The options put to members will be within parameters dictated by climate, legislation, and the requirements of the environmental stewardship scheme which the farm is signed up to, as well as the heritage protection given to the estate.
The MyFarm website will feature video updates, webcams, information about farming and expert opinion and subscribers will also be entitled to a family ticket to visit the site.
The National Trust says it is the UK’s biggest farmer with 200,000 hectares in production, mostly managed by tenant farmers, including lowland arable farms and Snowdonia sheep farming.
White Faced Woodland sheep are among the rare breeds on the farm
National Trust director general Dame Fiona Reynolds said the scheme was “all about reconnecting people with farming, giving them the chance to get involved with and feel part of the farming community and farming life and give them a greater understanding on how the food they eat gets to their shopping basket”.
But she said she was sure that there would be some “wacky” ideas proposed by subscribers.
“We’re entering into it very much as an experiment,” she added.
Wimpole Home Farm’s farm manager, Richard Morris, said: “MyFarm is Farmville for real. Real farming decisions with real farming consequences.
“By influencing the work at Wimpole, our farmers will start to understand the effects and implications of their own decisions.”
The National Farmers Union welcomed the project.
Its president Peter Kendall said: “The National Trust’s MyFarm project is an opportunity for a wider audience to see some of the competing priorities that 21st Century farmers have to manage.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
New York’s yellow taxis have been featured in many movies and TV shows
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Japan’s Nissan Motor has won a contract to provide the next generation of New York’s famous yellow taxis.
The deal, which is estimated to be worth $1bn (£607m) was announced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The design will be based on Nissan’s NV200 minivan model.
The van, which beat US carmaker Ford Motor and Turkish manufacturer Karsan Otomotiv for the 10-year contract, will be phased in starting in 2013.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg acknowledged the Nissan NV200’s boxy form evokes suburbia, but he said the yellow paint would give it the iconic New York touch.
The vehicle features an overhead window to offer views of city skyscrapers, and charging stations for mobile phones.
“For the first time, we’ll have a taxicab that wasn’t ‘off the rack’, but rather custom-tailored to create the best fit for the drivers, owners and passengers of our city,” Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky said.
“People are going to fall in love with this taxi once they ride in it. It is going to represent New York City well.”
The car will also feature satellite navigation, so passengers leaving the main Manhattan corridors will not have to contend with drivers who do not know their way around.
The Nissan was the most fuel-efficient and the cheapest of the three finalists, at about $29,000 (£17,608) per vehicle.
By 2017, Nissan will be able to manufacture the cars to run solely on electricity, New York City Hall said in a statement.
The bulk of the current fleet are Ford Crown Victorias, a car which only does about 12 miles per gallon, compared with 25 miles per gallon for the Nissan NV200.
New York’s 13,000 yellow cabs carry about 600,000 passengers a day, and are the only vehicles permitted to pick up passengers off the street.
The NV200, which will be built in Nissan plants in Mexico, is the first to be designed specifically for use as a New York City taxi.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Met Police officer Stephan Holt is a part-time property developer and crime-prevention officer
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A serving Metropolitan Police officer has been unlawfully subletting his council flat, according to a BBC Panorama investigation.
Pc Stephen Holt offered to rent his council property to an undercover reporter at £359 more than he pays Southwark council in weekly rent.
The government has labelled unlawful subletting “housing fraud”, which costs the taxpayer at least £1bn a year.
Pc Holt did not respond to Panorama’s queries about the council flat rental.
As part of its investigation into social housing, Panorama replied to an advert Pc Holt placed on a website and an undercover reporter went to view the flat.
PC Holt, a part-time crime prevention officer and a part-time property developer who has appeared on daytime TV property programmes, showed the reporter around the flat near Butler’s Wharf, close to Tower Bridge in London.
Cash deposit
He offered the flat to the reporter at £450 for the week. Rent on the Southwark council flat is £91 a week.
Panorama paid the rental fee in cash, along with a £200 cash deposit.
Under the terms of his tenancy, Pc Holt should be living in the property and should not be renting it out.
Pc Holt told Panorama’s undercover reporter that any post that arrived in his name could be directed to the flat opposite, which Pc Holt owns.
The audit commission believes that unlawful subletting of properties is currently removing at least 50,000 council homes from the system in England, adding to the wider shortage at a time when almost five million people in the country are on waiting lists for social housing.
FIND OUT MORE
Richard Bilton reports Council Houses: Cheats and VictimsBBC One, Wednesday 4 May2100BST
While showing the reporter around property, Pc Holt also said that he owned a chateau in Bordeaux in the south of France. Pc Holt also owns a property in rural Kent.
The tenant of a council property is not prohibited from owning other properties.
‘We can’t help you’
With subletting adding to a growing social housing problem and demand outstripping supply, Portsmouth Council is informing new enquirers and many on their waiting list they are unlikely to be offered council accommodation.
“Most people on a council waiting list are never, ever going to get offers of council accommodation”, said Pete Diamond, a housing officer with Portsmouth Council.
“I just think the fairest way of doing it is just to be honest and just say to people, ‘look, you may have a housing need, you may have all this situation going on but we still can’t help you’,” Mr Diamond continued.
Panorama wrote to Pc Holt, asking him to respond to the allegations but did not receive a reply. Other attempts to contact him failed.
Panorama contacted Southwark Council about Pc Holt.
Following council investigations, Pc Holt has been issued with a notice to quit the property.
Panorama’s Council Houses: Cheats and Victims, BBC One, Wednesday, 4 May at 2100BST and then available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Richard Black
The fossil is of similar size to a hummingbird
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A giant ant growing over 5cm (2in) long crossed the Arctic during hot periods in the Earth’s history, scientists say, using land bridges between continents.
The ant, named Titanomyrma lubei, lived about 50 million years ago and is one of the largest ant species ever found.
Fossils were unearthed in ancient lake sediments in Wyoming, US.
Writing in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B, a Canadian-US team shows that giant ants, now and then, almost always live in hot climates.
The new species appears very similar to fossils found in Germany and in the Isle of Wight in southern England dating from the same period.
“We don’t have any [fossils of] workers from this new species, we only have a queen,” said Bruce Archibald from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
“It would have been very impressive – the one in Germany was estimated to have a body weighing as much as a wren, and this would have been of similar size,” he told BBC News.
Little is known about how these ants lived or what they ate – but wings are present on the fossils.
They are found, in Europe and now in Wyoming, close to plants known to thrive only in temperatures around 20C (70F).
The Eocene, 56-34 million years ago, was punctuated by periods when the Earth’s temperature rose higher than it is today, probably because of the release of greenhouse gases such as methane into the atmosphere.
And the researchers believe that the giant ants must have made a journey from Europe to North America – or vice versa – during one of these “hyperthermals”.
During the Eocene, continents were in different locations from those they occupy today
“There was plenty of life transferring between Europe and North America at that time – mammals, trees – all sorts of things,” said Dr Archibald.
“And plenty of insects are similar between British Columbia and Denmark – but they could have lived in a cooler climate and crossed at any time.
“This is the first example we have of something that would have needed warmth in order to make the crossing.”
The land bridges across the Arctic would have seen a temperate climate for most of the Eocene, rising during the hyperthermals.
During the course of the research, the team mapped the locations of all ant species, extinct or contemporary, growing longer than 3cm (1.2in).
They found that virtually all are associated with tropical temperatures, although the reason why remains a mystery.
The biggest extant equivalents are the driver ants of the Dorylus genus, found in Central and East Africa, which can also grow to 5cm long.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Experts are divided on the need for thyroid screening in pregnancy
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All pregnant women should be screened for hidden signs of thyroid disease, according to Czech researchers.
A blood test can pick up about a third of mothers-to-be who have no symptoms but will go on to develop full-blown disease after giving birth, they say.
Early detection could have major implications for the health of mothers and babies, they told the European Congress of Endocrinology.
UK midwives say more evidence is needed of the merits of screening.
The study, led by Dr Eliska Potlukova of Charles University in Prague, followed almost 200 women through early pregnancy and beyond.
About half of these had no symptoms of thyroid problems but had tested positive for a marker in the blood that suggests they may be at future risk.
Thyroid disease in pregnancyThyroid disease happens when the thyroid gland produces too much (hyper) or too little (hypo) thyroid hormoneCommon causes of hyperthyroidism include Graves’ Disease – where the body’s immune system turns on itselfAnother auto-immune disorder – Hashimoto’s thyroiditis – which causes hypothyroidism – is also common in pregnancyUncontrolled thyroid conditions can cause risks to the mother and baby
About a third of these women went on to develop thyroid problems within two years of birth.
Dr Potlukova said tens of thousands of European women who will have thyroid problems could be detected earlier, which has major implications for the health of mother and baby.
She told the BBC: “If a woman of childbearing age is thinking of getting pregnant she should visit her GP or gynaecologist to have her blood tested for thyroid function and thyroid auto-immunity.
“Every young women should be sure that her thyroid gland works fine before she gets pregnant.”
Screening all pregnant women for thyroid problems has been discussed in many countries.
In the US, universal screening was rejected in 2006 on the grounds of a lack of evidence that it would improve outcomes for mothers and babies.
Most countries, including the UK, recommend screening only high-risk women who have a family history of thyroid disease or have suffered thyroid problems in the past.
Sue Jacobs, a midwife teacher at the Royal College of Midwives, said more evidence was needed for the benefits of universal screening.
She said: “In the UK we have a comprehensive programme of antenatal care from as early as possible in pregnancy.
“This gives us a good baseline to monitor women throughout pregnancy and immediately after pregnancy.”
The research was “a step in the right direction”, she added, but needed to be repeated on a larger scale.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The polls are the biggest test of electoral opinion in England since last year’s general elections
The UK’s political parties are gearing up for a final campaign push ahead of Thursday’s elections.
More than 9,500 seats in 279 councils across England are being contested, along with a by-election in Leicester South and several mayoral elections.
There are national elections to the Scottish Parliament, and Wales and Northern Ireland Assemblies.
There will also be a UK-wide referendum on whether to adopt the alternative vote (AV) for Westminster elections.
The battle between Yes and No to AV supporters has become increasingly bitter in recent days, with reports of a confrontation between Lib Dem Energy Secretary Chris Huhne and the prime minister at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
The Conservatives want to retain the existing first-past-the-post voting system, while their coalition colleagues, the Lib Dems, want AV. Labour are split on the issue, but leader Ed Miliband is in the Yes camp.
In the English local elections, the Conservatives are defending about 5,000 seats, which were last contested in 2007. Labour and the Lib Dems are fighting to hold onto about 1,600 and 1,800 seats respectively.
Among the 36 metropolitan councils electing a third of their seats are Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield. In addition, elections will be held in 49 unitary authorities and 194 district councils.
THE REFERENDUM CHOICE
At the moment MPs are elected by the first-past-the-post system, where the candidate getting the most votes in a constituency is elected.
On 5 May all registered UK voters will be able to vote Yes or No on whether to change the way MPs are elected to the alternative vote system.
Under the alternative vote system, voters rank candidates in their constituency in order of preference.
Anyone getting more than 50% of first-preference votes is elected.
If no-one gets 50% of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their backers’ second choices allocated to those remaining.
This process continues until one candidate has at least 50% of all votes in that round.
In depth: AV referendum Q&A: alternative vote referendum AV poll: Where parties stand
Much of the election campaign has focused on the issue of government spending cuts, with claims and counter-claims being made about their impact on council services.
Labour leader Ed Miliband, who will visit Gravesend, in Kent, on Wednesday, has urged voters to “send a message” to the government that they feel “utterly betrayed” by their policies.
The Conservatives have said that while local authorities are facing difficult decisions, many have demonstrated that they can do “more for less” by cutting waste and sharing services.
The Lib Dems, meanwhile, say councils they control have not cut vital services like libraries and children’s centres – unlike Labour and Conservative authorities.
Their leader Nick Clegg will visit Leicester South on Wednesday where a by-election is being held after the Labour MP, Peter Soulsby, stood down to take part in the first mayoral contest in the city.
Other parties, including the UK Independence Party, the Green Party and the British National Party, are also hoping to make electoral gains.
The Greens currently have 60 councillors, UKIP has 19 councillors and the BNP has 21 – but is defending only 12.
In Scotland, 129 MSPs will be elected to the Holyrood parliament – 73 through the constituency-based first-past-the-post system and 56 through a separate party list system in eight electoral regions.
At the last vote in 2007, the SNP emerged as the largest party and formed a minority government, but constituency boundaries have been significantly redrawn since then and one in six voters are now in a different seat.
The four main party leaders, Iain Gray, Alex Salmond, Annabel Goldie and Tavish Scott, went head-to-head on Tuesday in a televised debate.
In Wales, 44 Assembly Members will be elected – again using a mixture of first-past-the-post voting linked to constituencies and AMs elected from a party list.
This is the first poll in Wales since 2007, after which Labour formed a coalition with Plaid Cymru.
In a televised debate in Cardiff on Monday, the leaders of Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems argued over public sector cuts and standards in schools.
In Northern Ireland, 108 seats at the Stormont Assembly are up for grabs.
Currently, the Democratic Unionists are the largest party in the power-sharing body with eight more seats than Sinn Fein.
Northern Ireland voters will also go the polls to elect 582 councillors in the first local elections for six years.
As well as Leicester, polls will also be held to elect mayors in Middlesbrough, Mansfield, Bedford and Torbay.
According to a ComRes poll of 1,033 people for the Independent, support for the No to AV campaign has grown in the past week.
The survey found that 66% of respondents were opposed to AV, while 34% supported it – compared with 60% and 40% respectively a week ago.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
