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Just under nine million viewers tuned in to watch the show on New Years Day
Matt Lucas and David Walliams’ “mockumentary” Come Fly With Me has been recommissioned for a second series, the BBC has announced.
The comedy series, set in a busy airport, was the second highest performing show over Christmas with more than 12 million viewers.
The show included several guest appearances from the likes of David Schwimmer and Rupert Grint.
Lucas and Walliams played all the regular characters.
Just under nine million viewers tuned in on New Year’s Day, but the last episode of the series on 15 January attracted 3.3 million viewers.
The BBC said the first episode has now been watched by more than 17 million viewers across all platforms and transmissions.
The timing of the next series has yet to be decided.
BBC One controller Danny Cohen said: “Come Fly With Me has been a huge hit with audiences. I can’t wait to see what Matt and David will do with the second series.”
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Australia tear through England’s batting order to seal a one-day series victory with two matches to spare.
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Police arrested 20 people and later contained a group on Deansgate in the city centre
Twenty people were arrested by police after a splinter group left a rally against government spending cuts and marched to Manchester city centre.
Thousands of protesters had gathered peacefully in Platt Fields Park to hear claims from union leaders that the coalition was “betraying” young people.
But there were clashes when a group of about 150 broke away, police claimed, to “incite violence” in the city.
In London, six people were arrested as thousands marched on Westminster.
The event in London was more peaceful than recent tuition fee marches – with some of the protesters afterwards heading to join demonstrations outside the Egyptian embassy.
In Manchester, police praised the march and rally organised by the TUC, National Union of Students (NUS) and University and College Union (UCU) as “good natured, very convivial and peaceful”.
But it was after speakers, including UCU leader Sally Hunt and Manchester Labour MP Tony Lloyd, finished addressing the crowd of at least 3,500 that a splinter group marched back towards the city centre.
Police praised the march and rally as peaceful
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said several attempts to negotiate with them were ignored and claimed their attempts to break through police lines posed a safety risk.
In a statement, Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) Neil Wain said: “It is clear this group were intent on getting into the city centre to incite violence and cause damage to people living and working in our city centre.
“Sadly on one occasion security staff at a busy shop were targeted and there were a number of minor scuffles with my officers.”
The group marched along Market Street, one of Manchester’s busiest shopping areas, and entered the Arndale Centre, where staff at Topshop and Vodafone put down their shutters.
A smaller group later attempted to force their way into the Next department store but were held back by security staff as police arrived on the scene.
About 100 protesters were eventually contained by police on Deansgate near to the Hilton Hotel.
“This was a necessary and proportionate response because this group were intent on committing violence and disorder, and were also running in front of traffic, putting themselves and others at risk,” ACC Wain added.
“Containment was needed because clearly, there could have been a serious injury if these people continued to run in front of traffic in our busy city centre.”
Throughout the day protesters used social networking websites and Twitter to organise and report on the event, with many complaining of police using so-called “kettling” tactics on the crowds.
Thirteen of those arrested – all men – were held on suspicion of section five public order offences. Six were arrested for breach of the peace and one for obstructing a public highway.
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As well as The King’s Speech Tom Hooper also directed The Damned United
British movie The King’s Speech was awarded the top honour at this year’s Directors Guild of America Awards.
Tom Hooper was presented with the outstanding directorial achievement award at the show.
The film, which tells the tale of how King George VI overcame his stammer, was last week nominated for 12 Academy Awards.
The winner of the DGA gong has gone on to win the Oscar for best director on all but six times since 1948.
Hooper paid tribute to his mother, who had drawn his attention to the story after she attended a reading of the tale when it was an unproduced play.
“She came home and she rang me up and she said, ‘I think I found your next movie’,” he said.
“The moral of the story is, listen to your mother.”
He also praised the movie’s screenwriter, David Seidler, who overcame a stammer himself as a boy around the time of World War II.
“He listened to King George VI on the radio in the war, and he thought, ‘well, if a king can overcome his stammer, so can I’,” Hooper said.
The historical drama, starring Colin Firth, had been up against the directors of four other Oscar frontrunners for the DGA award, including The Social Network’s David Fincher.
Others movies that had been in the running had been Darren Aronofsky for ballet-themed drama Black Swan, Christopher Nolan for high-tech thriller Inception and David O Russell for boxing movie The Fighter.
Inside Job, a chronicle of the 2008 economic meltdown, won the documentary DGA prize.
Martin Scorsese, who received the guild’s lifetime-achievement honour in 2003 and won the feature-film directing prize four years ago for The Departed, went home with a TV prize for directing the pilot episode of the Boardwalk Empire.
The director, who was unable to attend the ceremony, said in a statement that the programme had been “one of the greatest and energizing experiences I’ve had in 45 years of making movies”.
The award ceremony is followed by the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, which is the last big honours event before the Oscars on 27 February.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Hundreds of protesters showed their support in London following the uprising in Egypt
David Cameron has joined his French and German counterparts to express his “deep concern” over violence in Egypt.
The prime minister issued a joint statement calling on President Hosni Mubarak to avoid violence against unarmed civilians “at all costs”.
Mr Cameron personally called the Egyptian leader urging him to take steps to build “democratic legitimacy”.
The UK Foreign Office has advised against all but essential travel to several Egyptian cities.
In the joint statement, Mr Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there must be full respect for human rights and democratic freedoms.
It read: “We recognise the moderating role President Mubarak has played over many years in the Middle East. We now urge him to show the same moderation in addressing the current situation in Egypt.
“We call on President Mubarak to avoid at all costs the use of violence against unarmed civilians, and on the demonstrators to exercise their rights peacefully.
“It is essential that the further political, economic and social reforms President Mubarak has promised are implemented fully and quickly and meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people.
“There must be full respect for human rights and democratic freedoms.”
Tens of thousands of protesters remain on the streets in Egypt defying a curfew and army warnings.
David Cameron said progress needed to be made in strengthening democracy
More than 70 people have been killed in the last two days, but there has been five consecutive days of violence.
A spokesperson for Mr Cameron said he expressed his “grave concern” in the phone call and emphasised that violent repression of peaceful protest was wrong and counter-productive.
“The prime minister urged the president to take bold steps to accelerate political reform and build democratic legitimacy, which should be reflected by an inclusive government with the credibility to carry this agenda forward,” the spokesman said.
Foreign Secretary William Hague has also spoken of his deep concern at the levels of violence.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) issued a warning against travel to Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and Luxor.
About 30,000 British tourists remain in Egypt, mostly at unaffected Red Sea resorts.
Mr Hague said the situation in the Red Sea resorts remained calm and that the FCO was in regular contact with travel operators.
Extra consular staff were also in Cairo to help British nationals, he added.
Shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander said this was “the moment where Egypt can move from protest to progress”.
The FCO has also warned British nationals against going out during the nationwide curfew between 1600 and 0800 local time.
On Friday, it altered its travel advice for Egypt, and stressed that the warning in place for Cairo also extended to Giza, a suburb of the capital where Egypt’s most famous Pyramids and Sphinx are located.
The Nile-side city of Luxor is also affected by the advice, as it is popular with British tourists visiting its array of ancient Egyptian artefacts and ruins.
Flights are being cancelled and rescheduled to avoid travelling during the curfew and operators are cancelling excursions to the Egyptian capital.
Meanwhile, several hundred people held a noisy but peaceful demonstration at Egypt’s embassy in London on Saturday.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
There was a huge turnout for the week-long referendum
Some 99% of South Sudanese voted to secede from the north, according to the first complete results of the region’s independence referendum.
A total of 99.57 percent of those polled voted for independence, according to the referendum commission.
Early counting had put the outcome of the ballot beyond doubt, indicating Southern Sudan had secured a mandate to become the world’s newest nation.
Final results from the 9-15 January vote are expected early next month.
Hundreds of officials and diplomats gathered in Juba at the grave of rebel leader John Garang for the first official announcement of the results.
The revered South Sudanese leader died in a plane crash just days after signing the January 2005 peace agreement ending more than 20 years of conflict between the black Christian-dominated south and the mainly Arab Muslim north.
“The prayer I say the people of southern Sudan have been waiting for for 55 years, the prayer of a country,” Episcopalian Archbishop Daniel Deng said as he opened the ceremony.
“Bless the name of this land, Southern Sudan,” he said.
According to the commission website, 3,851,994 votes were cast during the week-long ballot.
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.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Tim Weber
Davos experts say the collapse of another huge financial institution is unlikely
After two years of catastrophic bank and insurance failures and bailouts, are financial regulators at long last better prepared for the next big banking collapse?
Banks must not be too big to fail, governments across the G20 group of leading nations have promised.
So can taxpayers rest easy now, or are they still on the line to cough up the “ransom payment”, as one official closely involved in the US bailouts put it.
The World Economic Forum in Davos – packed with regulators, central bankers, and big bank and insurance bosses – is a pretty good place to find the answer.
“What if another megabank fails?,” asked a dinner session, and came up with a fairly depressing answer (under Davos rules I can report what was said, but not who said it).
Let’s be clear: the failure or near-collapse of another huge financial institution like Lehman Brothers, AIG or Royal Bank of Scotland is highly unlikely declared all experts loud and clearly at the start of the session…
(… only to start swapping names and weaknesses of candidates for failure as they tucked into their sirloin steaks).
But let’s assume the worst, said the session leader: “We wake up one morning, and MBB – or Mega Big Bank – is gone. What would we do?”
Here’s the dilemma: do we have the right tools for an “orderly resolution” of MBB and allow it to go bankrupt or is the systemic risk so high that we just HAVE to bail it out?
To understand the problem, the participants reminded themselves of what went during the Lehman Brothers collapse.
When Lehman was allowed to collapse, the consequences for the global financial sector were dire. Credit markets froze from one day to the next, pushing several other financial institutions to the brink.
There was anger at the fact US taxpayers had to bail out struggling AIG
So why had the US authorities not done another Bear Stearns? After all, when that investment bank had gotten into trouble a few months earlier, the US Federal Reserve organised its firesale to JP Morgan Chase.
Well, for a couple of weeks the Fed tried to sell Lehman, but one potential bidder after another dropped out. When Bank of America finally walked away, US officials tried to drop Lehman into the lap of UK bank Barclays, explained one participant with intimate knowledge of the negotiations.
However, at the time Barclays itself was too fragile to take on the whole of Lehman (although once Lehman had gone into bankruptcy, Barclays could snap up its North American investment banking and trading operations on the cheap).
The problem, the experts in Davos agreed, was not a lack of legal authority to nationalise Lehman. The collapse also was not a not-so-clever attempt to send a stark warning to Congress to reform the financial sector.
Instead, the US regulators lacked five ingredients that would have allowed them to rescue such a mega bank with global operations:
Bankruptcy laws across key countries where Lehman operated were too different.Financial regulation around the world was not harmonised.Nobody, not even US regulators, understood the extent and complexity of Lehman’s business, and fellow traders were convinced that “Lehman is not a systemic risk”. “The Americans didn’t know anything about the structure of Lehman’s non-US operations”, said one former regulator.There was no “crossborder resolution mechanism” that would have allowed an orderly unwinding of Lehman’s many complex trading positions; as a result financial markets went into paralysis.Given all the problems above, the Fed lacked one final key ingredient: time. “When you have to do things very quickly, they can go wrong,” said the ex-regulator.
And so, Lehman collapsed.
Politicians and regulators suffer from post-Lehman traumatic shock syndrome, said one expert on banking regulation.
Other banks failed, including Washington Mutual which went defunct in 2008
But they are still paralysed, and the ingredients for an orderly and successful “resolution” for Mega Big Bank are still missing, he said. “I came in [this session] pessimistic. Now I’m terrified.”
“If we really think megabanks can’t be allowed to fail, and governments have to try to bail them out, then all policy has failed,” he said.
Two years after the crisis started, regulators still don’t know who sits where in the chains of financial instruments, and who is leveraged (financed through debt) and how.
And a harmonisation of bankruptcy laws or regulation is not even on the horizon. “We won’t have crossborder liquidation rules for at least another 10 years,” said an international banker.
“National regulators don’t want to deal with derivatives that have been written in New York,” said an adviser to a European government. “Everybody is ringfencing and nationalising the problem.”
Despite all the talk of “living wills”, which banks have to draw up to show how they can go into orderly liquidation, “all megabanks are systemic” and can’t be allowed to fail, the Davos experts agreed.
As a matter of fact, “it’s now worse than Lehman, much worse,” said one participant.
Banks actually enjoy being too big to fail, because that guarantees them a government bailout. And once they have this implicit guarantee, they find it cheaper to borrow money, because it’s less risky to lend to them.
“I recently spoke to a very large hedge fund,” reported one participant, and they asked me “how can we get too big to fail? We want cheaper credit [like the megabanks] … maybe we should have even higher leverage” [i.e. borrow yet more money].
The experts call this “moral hazard”, where the bail-out guarantee tempts bankers to make ever riskier bets. If it works out, they get rich. If the bank crashes, they can walk away.
And if banks get bigger and bigger as a result, if they are not only too big to fail, but also too big to save, “then you get Iceland”, where the government goes bankrupt as it tries to rescue its financial sector.
Maybe we should simply head for the hills.
Just before Lehman collapsed, one banker said, one of his colleagues set out on a much-deserved holiday, an 11-day hike in the mountains. He didn’t have mobile phone with him, or any other link to the world of finance.
When he returned, his world had utterly changed.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Fishermen complain they are weighed down by more rules and regulations
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Fishermen in west Wales have urged the assembly government not to introduce tougher marine conservation zones.
The fishermen told The Politics Show Wales their already fragile industry has never been in a worst state.
But the Marine Conservation Society argues that the new zones might actually benefit the industry.
Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones said she wanted a balance of “a sustainable source of fish and also a sustainable environment for our wildlife”.
Fenton Duke, a fisherman with 35 years’ experience, who dredges for oysters in the Milford Haven waterway, said he would have to stop or relocate if the area becomes one of the new protected zones.
“It’s more rules and regulations,” he said.
“The problem is the more areas that get closed down, everyone starts fishing on top of one another, and that causes a lot of problems”
Fenton Duke Milford Haven fisherman
“The problem is the more areas that get closed down, everyone starts fishing on top of one another, and that causes a lot of problems. It’s getting harder now, just to run a boat is so expensive.
“The prices for crab and lobster, they’re 20 years old, it’s getting ridiculous.”
Later this year, the assembly government will launch a consultation on plans to create three or four marine conservation zones. The idea is to allow marine life and the sea bed to flourish, but it would mean a complete ban on fishing within the zone.
Heavier fish
However, the Marine Conservation Society said the new zones could lead to the growth of larger and heavier fish, which would be available to catch outside the “no take” areas.
Blaise Bullimore, a spokesman for the Marine Conservation Society, insisted that ministers should prioritise these zones.
About three-quarters of the Welsh coast has a degree of protection status
“What we’re talking about is closure of very small areas,” he said.
“There is the issue of displacement, yes, fishermen may well have to move from an area to an adjacent area but it doesn’t mean the whole area around the coast will have to close, certainly not.”
The society not only supports the zones, but is disappointed the assembly government is not considering even more.
There are about 400 boats still working in Welsh waters, and Jerry Percy, chief executive of New Under Ten Fishermens’ Association (NUTFA), which represents the crews of smaller fishing boats in England and Wales, said the already fragile fishing industry in Wales had never been in a worse state.
“We all want an eco-system which provides our fishermen with a sustainable source of fish and also a sustainable environment for our wildlife”
Elin Jones Rural Affairs Minister
“The problem is the catch is certainly reducing and so are the prices. Almost 90% of our catch is exported to Europe – their economic situation isn’t good, so the industry is on something of a knife-edge.”
Mr Percy said his members were already fishing in a sustainable way with a big emphasis on shellfish and the new zones would be a risk not worth taking.
He said there were “massive problems with jobs in Wales” and several workers supported every fisherman out on a boat in such areas as engineering, transport and retail.
Ms Jones told the Politics Show that 75% of the Welsh coastline had some type of protected status, but Wales and the rest of the UK had to introduce areas with higher protection to meet international obligations.
“We need to take on board the views of fishermen before any final designation of highly-protected zones is taken,” said the minister.
“We are keen to ensure that socio-economic factors are part of our criteria for the designation of highly-protected marine zones.”
Ms Jones said she aimed to strike a balance: “We all want an eco-system which provides our fishermen with a sustainable source of fish and also a sustainable environment for our wildlife.”
The first consultation into the zones is expected to take place this summer.
The Politics Show is on BBC One at noon on Sunday.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Museum of Liverpool is due to open in July
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“In this city of all cities, the biography needs to written. It is a tremendous place, with tremendous stories,” David Fleming, the director of National Museums Liverpool said.
But instead of penning a biography, Dr Fleming and a team of staff have created a £72m museum, on Liverpool’s Pier Head.
The building – which spans 8,000 square metres over three floors – is due to open in July, the museum confirmed earlier this week.
So, how did Liverpool get to have a three-dimensional biography, unlike most other UK cities?
It dates back to 2001, when the city had a competition for a new building near the waterfront and asked National Museums Liverpool (NML) for their input.
Although the competition eventually fell through, it planted a seed in the minds of staff that a new museum could be built, replacing the popular but dated Museum of Liverpool Life.
“We ran this group of fantastic world class museums but this one museum was the runt of the litter,” Dr Fleming said.
“Liverpool is far more important than just being the runt of the litter.
Staff are rebuilding the model of Sir Edwin Lutyens’ design for a catholic cathedral, which was never built
“You have this story of it not being very much, to becoming the greatest port the empire had ever seen, to becoming a place where nobody had a job in the 60s, 70s, and 90s, to what it is now.”
They started with the museum’s shell – drawing up plans with an architect, seeking planning permission and trying to secure vital funding.
A turning point came when the North West Development Agency agreed to provide £35m.
“That’s when we knew it was going to happen,” Dr Fleming said.
The European Regional Development Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport also contributed.
NML eventually got planning permission from Liverpool City Council in 2006, after “jumping through hoops”, Dr Fleming said.
They broke ground soon afterwards and started to build in 2008 – the city’s European Capital of Culture year.
But the museum was not without controversy with people disagreeing about the use of the space on the waterfront, arguing a bandstand or arena would be more popular.
The last remaining motorcar from the Liverpool Overhead Railway has been restored
And the building itself proved problematic, with criticism of the shape, the height and even the marble tile cladding.
Last February, the museum had to pay out £750,000 as the museum blocked the view from the Port of Liverpool building.
By the spring, hundreds of people were working on building the four main galleries – The Great Port, Wondrous Place, People’s Republic and Global City – and a tailor-made children’s area called Little Liverpool.
But the plans for the interior, and the process of hand picking the 6,000 objects to display, have been in the making for about nine years.
“We have been doing research for years, to illustrate the city’s story with objects,” Dr Fleming said.
Among the objects are the last remaining motorcar from the Liverpool Overhead Railway, to a model of Sir Edwin Lutyens’ design for Liverpool’s catholic cathedral, which was never built.
But Dr Fleming is keen to stress the museum tells the whole story of the city.
Its success stories – including including the Beatles, Liverpool FC and Everton – will be celebrated.
“It’s not just about the success and wealth, it’s about normal living.
“You have to get beyond the surface of the glass of the city to tell the tale.”
The slum housing, poor life expectancy, child mortality, all feature in the People’s Republic.
“This museum will work because its full of variety,” Dr Fleming said.
He hopes at least 750,000 people will visit the museum, which is the largest national museum to be built in over 100 years, every year.
After all, “there is not a city in the world that can boast a museum this beautiful on such a beautiful site,” he said.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Adrian Goldberg
Prisoners rioted at Ford Open Prison after consuming contraband alcohol
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“On New Year’s Eve, a few of the inmates were drinking and an officer arrives and says ‘keep the noise down’ and at the same time, he smelt alcohol.
“He came out with a breathalyser and tested two of the guys. They were positive.”
“The guys turned around and said ‘turn a blind eye’ because we’re having a bit of fun, the noise is going to go away.”
Mark, not his real name, recalls the events that took place at Ford Open Prison, in West Sussex, as the first few hours of 2011 ticked by. He speaks in a low whisper, from his cell inside the prison, on a contraband mobile phone he bought from another inmate.
“The officers refused to dismiss the nicking that they [the prisoners] got for drinking so as a result they erupted.
“These guys went to the wing officer to get rid of the evidence. A fire was set alight and before you know it, everyone else joined in and everyone was drunk and rioted. That’s it.”
An estimated £3m of damage was caused on the night, as several buildings were burned down. In the aftermath, questions were asked about low staffing levels at Ford, where just two prison officers and four support staff had been left in charge of more than 500 men.
But how did the inmates at Ford get hold of the alcohol in the first place?
“Over the fence, obviously, ” Mark explains.
“People come and throw it over the fence. They’ve got CCTV but, you know, once you collect it and you run through the wing it’s hard to find any evidence.”
Speaking to the 5 live Investigates programme, another prison insider claims that inmates go on a ‘rabbit run’, whereby one of the more athletic prisoners will make a dash through a hole in the fence to the local supermarket to buy alcohol for the inmates.
“Shorter term prisoners come here and start to erupt because they have nothing to lose because they know they will be released”
‘Mark’ Inmate at Ford Open Prison
This is done between roll calls, when prison officers conduct a register of inmates. The alleged record for this round-trip is just under 30 minutes.
The free availability of alcohol at Ford Open Prison was condemned by the Chief Prison Inspector, Dame Ann Owers, in 2009, who reported “large amounts” of alcohol were not uncommon. Back in 2008, over Easter weekend, staff found 30 bottles of vodka.
But according to current Ford inmate Mark, the real underlying issue is not the free availability of alcohol, but the unsuitability of inmates being admitted to open prisons.
Mark is a long-serving prisoner, and his place at Ford is the penultimate step of his journey from high security prison to eventual release.
“For me, it’s like rehabilitation and finding my feet before I get out. This is an opportunity for me and I wouldn’t do anything like that [rioting] because I’ve just got too much to lose.”
Specialist prison guards in body armour quelled the riot involving around 40 inmates at Ford Open Prison
But not everyone is so willing to stick to the rules, says Mark.
“Shorter term prisoners come here and start to erupt because they have nothing to lose because they know they will be released.”
This is echoed by Colin, another prisoner who spoke to 5 live Investigates – he has spent time in a number of open prisons, including Ford.
“I think they need to be a bit more strict with their vetting system, and who they are allowing in to open prisons.”
“I can remember many years ago it was difficult to get to a ‘Cat D’ – an open prison – and now they seem to be doing it to anyone, including violent offenders.”
“They get to a Cat D quite easily. It doesn’t mean so much to them as it does to the long-termers.”
Mark Freeman, the Acting General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association (POA), agrees that too many unsuitable convicts are placed in Category D jails, instead of tougher Category A-C prisons.
“On the riot night, four of the first six prisoners arrested had failed their risk assessment to be there, and two were about to be re-assessed. ”
Mark Freeman Prison Officers Association
“People on three to four month sentences spend a week in a Category B jail and then are down in an open prison for the rest of their sentence.
“They’re only in proper jails a week – it’s not hard to keep your nose clean for a week. These people should not be in open prisons.”
Before being transferred to an open prison, inmates are ‘risk assessed’ but a combination of over-crowding in prisons and a lack of staff to properly monitor inmates is said to be behind an alleged lapse in these assessments.
Mark Freeman of the POA claims “on the riot night, four of the first six prisoners arrested had failed their risk assessment to be there, and two were about to be re-assessed.
“These six were the ones considered to be the main ringleaders.”
In a report published last December by the local Independent Monitoring Board – a group of volunteers who carry out checks at Ford – concerns were raised about minimal staffing at the prison.
This warning was sent to the Ministry of Justice just before the riot, but a government spokesman said no minister had seen the report before the disturbance on New Year’s Eve.
Inmate Colin says short term prisoners should be kept out of open prisons, as the current situation is not benefiting anyone.
“I think everyone thinks we’ve got it cushy in open prisons but that’s far from the case.
“We’ve got to earn the right to get ourselves there, and we’ve got to earn the right to stay there. We’ve got to behave and observe all the rules.
“I think certain inmates like me, who’ve been in for many, many years, need to be slowly re-integrated into society and need the facilities offered by open prisons.
“So, I think the prison service needs to concentrate on the long-term offenders getting into open prisons rather than anyone filling the spaces.”
When these issues were raised with the Ministry of Justice, a Prison Service spokesperson told the BBC:
“An investigation into the incident at HMP Ford is still ongoing, so it would not be appropriate to comment on specific questions before it is concluded.”
You can hear the full report on 5 live Investigates on Sunday, 30 January at 2100 GMT on BBC Radio 5 live.
You can also listen again on the BBC iPlayer or by downloading the 5 live Investigates podcast.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Li Qiming wept and apologised on national television to the victims and their families
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The son of a senior police official in China has been sentenced to six years in jail over a hit-and-run accident that killed a young woman.
Li Qiming admitted he had been driving while drunk when he hit two students in Baoding, one of whom later died.
The case sparked an outcry across China because of reports that Li had tried to exploit his father’s rank.
The story was spread online as an example of government officials and their relatives abusing their power.
Chen Xiaofeng, 20-year-old university student, was roller-skating with a friend on her campus in October when Li’s car struck them both.
Chen died from her injuries, while her friend suffered a broken leg.
Local media reported that when people had tried to stop him fleeing the scene, Li, then 22, had said: “Go ahead, sue me. My father is Li Gang.”
Li Gang was the deputy police chief of Baoding city in northeastern Hebei province.
The story went viral on the internet and “My father is Li Gang” became infamous as a catch phrase.
At the People’s Court in Wangdu County, Li Qiming pleaded guilty to drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter, according to Xinhua news agency.
He was sentenced to six years in jail and ordered to pay the equivalent of $69,900 (£44,000) in compensation to the family of Chen Xiaofeng.
Li was also ordered to pay $13,800 (£8,700) to the injured woman.
The court hearing attracted a small crowd and prompted a heavy police presence.
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Fazel Fatah and team at the Westbourne Centre, Birmingham, demonstrate laser-assisted liposuction
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Liposuction is not usually something you can get on the NHS, but in special circumstances you now can.
‘Fat grafts’ use fat extracted from a patient though liposuction to correct body asymmetries arising from birth, trauma or cancer surgery.
Because the fat comes from the patient, there is no chance of rejection, and surgeons are achieving increasingly sophisticated results in re-sculpturing the body.
The grafts are now being used in lieu of more complex surgery or in place of implants.
Consultant plastic and reconstructive surgeon Fazel Fatah performs plenty of liposuction in his private work at Birmingham’s Westbourne clinic.
The technique has been refined somewhat since the early days – he now uses a laser to melt fat beneath the skin before sucking it out.
Traditional liposuction requires more elbow grease, with surgeons having to literally vacuum up the solid fat beneath the skin.
“We’re no longer satisfied just by producing mounds on the chest”
Mr Fazel Fatah
The applications of liposuction have also moved on. Fat grafts using fat harvested from liposuction are now being used in the cosmetic sector to refine the results of face lifts and pump up cheeks.
But Mr Fatah is also using the techniques at Birmingham City Hospital for reconstructive NHS surgery.
“The technique for fat grafts is called lipo modelling. We use small syringes and very fine cannula to take the fat,” he says, pointing to the long metal tubes he uses to suck the fat out.
Getting the fat out is the easy bit. Putting it back in again is more complex. Once the fat has been centrifuged to remove liquid and oil, it has to be painstakingly applied to the area to be augmented as fine lines.
“The technique is absolutely vital because without using the correct technique, fat graft doesn’t work and can cause a lot of problems,” Mr Fatah says.
“You cannot leave big blobs of fat in the tissues because that doesn’t take as a graft.
Plastic and reconstructive consultant surgeon Fazel Fatah explains how far grafts can be used to correct body asymmetries
“Instead you have to use tiny particles like little beads along separate lines, and also you do that in multiple planes so you have a three-dimensional lattice of tiny particles of fat.”
The procedure can also be conducted as day surgery and will not result in the scarring that may come with more intrusive surgery.
“We use it a great deal in breast abnormalities and also in conjunction with breast reconstruction,” says Mr Fatah, who is also the president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons.
“Sometimes we use it instead of implants, which is a very good thing for the patient not to have an implant and have the worries of needing more surgery in the future.”
“If, after tissue transfer forming a new breast, you still look at the patient and you haven’t got it quite right – there’s an element of asymmetries or contour irregularities – you can use fat grafts to iron these things out.
“[The grafts] enhance the quality of the reconstruction and makes the patient feel better about themselves and the result of the surgery.”
On his computer are images of another case where fat has been used to repair a defect from birth – a man who was born with part of his chest muscle missing close to his armpit.
“This is a deformity that normally patients are born with whereby they don’t have a part of the pectoralis major muscle.
“We’ve taken fat from the patient’s abdomen and the hips, and in two stages we’ve been able to reconstruct all of that missing part of the muscle.”
Fat grafts, he says, are one example of where procedures developed and refined in the cosmetic industry are finding a non-cosmetic application.
“If we do breast reconstruction, we’re no longer satisfied just by producing mounds on the chest for the patient to wear a bra over.
“We want that patient to feel comfortable taking that bra off and looking at her body and seeing two symmetrical looking breasts – and all these techniques, many of them, come from developments in cosmetic surgery.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
