Dr Jan Falkowski was the target of Britain's worst stalker

September 4th,2010    by May

The date was 6 September 2003, and Dr Jan Falkowski, a leading London psychiatrist, was due to marry his fiancée, Debbie Pemberton, at a ceremony in Poole, Dorset.

The reception had been booked at a local hotel but, strangely, none of their friends and relatives had been invited. The only people in attendance were undercover police, trying to bring an end to Britain's worst case of stalking.

But the fake wedding turned out to be just one twist in a four-year nightmare for the public school-educated Dr Falkowski, who at one stage was even sent for trial at the Old Bailey on a charge of raping his stalker. The story has now been turned into a TV drama starring David Morrissey.

The saga began innocuously enough when Ms Pemberton, a 35-year-old accountant, received a call from a Spanish-sounding woman who asked for Dr Falkowski's mobile number, which she gave without thinking.

"And that was one of the really surreal things about it," said Dr Falkowski. "My life was going fairly well, I was quite happy with things, no major problems, and then suddenly everything changed overnight, literally, without any warning."

Over the next 12 months, the couple were subject to what was later described in court as "torrid campaign of texts, emails and many phone calls, both expressly threatening and silent".

The messages and calls contained accurate and detailed information about their families, movements and addresses. One text message in December 2002, days before a dental appointment at which Ms Pemberton planned to have her teeth whitened, said: "Her mouth could burn."

In another, Dr Falkowski was urged not to marry "the false witch", and claims were made that his fiancée had been cheating on him. Calls were also made and messages sent to family, friends and colleagues. On one occasion the couple returned to the boat on which they lived at Limehouse Marina, east London, to find that the gas cooker, which Dr Falkowski claims had never been used, had been left on.

The campaign intensified just before the couple's wedding. Ms Pemberton received a threat that a hired gunman would kill her on the day. One message said she would be "burnt down in her wedding dress". Another read: "Bang, bang, bang, that's all you deserve. Fucking Deborah tart, your last days are counted up."

Sharon Malins, former head chef at the Salterns Hotel in Poole, where the reception was to be held, received text messages on 5 September saying that "many will be dead" if the wedding went ahead. One message read: "Sharon please Falkowski-Pemberton wedding can't take place, food has been poisoned, guests will be dead."

As a result the wedding was secretly cancelled while police staked out all the public phone boxes on the day of the supposed wedding. A 45-year-old woman was arrested after she was spotted making 20 or 30 frantic texts and calls in the space of two or three minutes.

She turned out to be Maria Marchese, the partner of one of Dr Falkowski's then-patients, George Attard, and who had joined Mr Attard for a handful of therapy sessions between 1998 and 2002. "It wasn't as if she was someone I recognised by name immediately," says Dr Falkowski.

That should have been the end of Dr Falkowki's nightmare but, in fact, it was only the beginning. Despite having been caught red-handed, the Crown Prosecution Service chose not to prosecute Marchese, despite overwhelming evidence, such as a shrine dedicated to Dr Falkowski being discovered at her flat.

Having been freed with only a caution, Marchese then accused Dr Falkowski – who had by that time split from Ms Pemberton – of drugging and raping her. This time the CPS acted, and it was the entirely innocent Dr Falkowski who found himself charged. Two days before his case was due to be heard at the Old Bailey, dramatic new DNA evidence proved that Marchese was a liar, and secured his acquittal of the rape charge.

She had stolen a used condom from a bin outside his then-girlfriend Bethan Ancell's flat and smeared his semen over a pair of her knickers. Ultimately, it was this fiendishly damning DNA evidence that proved Marchese's undoing, after tests also threw up the DNA of Ms Ancell. He hadn't met Ms Ancell at the time of the alleged rape, and he was duly acquitted.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Balmoral, booze, and the rest of Blair's book digested

September 3rd,2010    by May

Brown at his worst

We knew the Blair-Brown relationship was bad, but not this bad. At its nadir, there was an "Arctic" meeting about whether to adopt pension reforms proposed by the former head of the CBI, Adair Turner. Blair was for, Brown against. When they met, Brown first insisted that they talk about the "cash for honours" affair, in which Blair's friend Lord Levy was accused of soliciting funds for the Labour Party in exchange for peerages. Brown threatened to call for a party inquiry unless Blair abandoned the Turner report. Blair endorsed it, and an hour later the party treasurer, Jack Dromey, Harriet Harman's husband, called for the threatened inquiry. "I don't know for a fact that Gordon put Jack up to it," Blair admits, but "I can truthfully say it was the ugliest meeting we ever had."

In the end he concluded that "Gordon is a strange guy", but that was not his real problem because there is "a sort of endearing charm in the strangeness". His real problem was that he did not really understand New Labour. Yet, before all that, there was the intense partnership which Blair twice likens to a love affair.

Who invented the phrase 'Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime'?

Answer: Gordon Brown, as Blair has now confirmed. That was in the days when they were not just "as close as two people ever are in politics" but were, at times, "a bit like lovers desperate to get round to love-making but disturbed by friends dropping round". When Blair heard his friend coin what was to become his best known catchphrase, he was "stunned by the brilliance of it".

When choosing a leader – forget Buggins

Blair reveals himself as more of an intriguer than he looked. In 1991, while managing to appear to be one of Neil Kinnock's most loyal supporters, Blair secretly tried to persuade John Smith to oust him, but Smith preferred to wait his turn, which came after the 1992 election. Then, Blair tried to get Gordon Brown to run against Smith, hoping to be Brown's shadow Chancellor. Brown preferred to wait until his turn came when Smith died suddenly in May 1994.

But that April, in Paris, Blair had a "premonition". He woke Cherie up to say: "If John dies, I will be leader, not Gordon." And on the day of Smith's death, when Peter Mandelson reminded him that Brown was still the heir apparent, Blair put his hands on Mandelson's shoulders and said: "Peter, don't cross me over this. This is mine. I know and I will take it." He also talked it over with Gordon several times. "Conversations were difficult, but they were not hostile, bitter or even unfriendly. We were like a couple who loved each other, arguing whose career should come first."

Being duplicitous

In Blair's private office they had a phrase "SO" for "sackable offence", applied to wasting the Leader's time by arranging a meeting with someone he did not need to meet. "It applied – I am a little ashamed to say – even if I had expressed to the individual concerned my deep frustration with my office for defying my wishes and not scheduling the meeting."

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Depression really does make everything look grey

September 2nd,2010    by May

Twenty years ago, William Styron, the American author of Sophie's Choice, wrote what many regard as the definitive account of severe depression in his memoir Darkness Visible.

Today researchers give scientific credence to his choice of title by demonstrating that people in the grip of despair do indeed see the world in shades of grey. Depression not only drains life of its pleasure and its purpose; it also drains the visible world of its contrast. This "greying" effect may even be a factor in causing, or maintaining, the depression, the researchers suggest.

The findings may help explain why artists consistently depict depression using darkness. Scientists at the University of Freiburg, Germany, who previously showed people with depression struggled to detect black-and-white contrast differences, have now carried out tests on the retina which show the impact of the illness is similar to turning down the contrast control on a TV.

The effect was so marked that they believe the test could provide a way of measuring the severity of depression. The study, conducted by Ludger Tebartz van Elst and colleagues, is published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

John Krystal, who edits the journal, said: "These data highlight the ways that depression alters one's experience of the world. The poet William Cowper said that 'Variety's the very spice of life', yet when people are depressed, they are less able to perceive contrasts in the visual world. This loss would seem to make the world a less pleasurable place."

The researchers measured electrical responses to gauge the activity of the retina in groups of depressed and non-depressed individuals. The retina, at the back of the eye, contains the sensitive cells that turn light signals into nerve impulses which, when interpreted by the brain, make it possible to see.

Depressed patients were found to have dramatically lower retinal contrast "gain" than the volunteers who were not suffering from depression. It made no difference whether or not they were receiving antidepressant medication. There was also a significant correlation between the level of contrast gain and the severity of their symptoms. Patients who were most severely depressed had the lowest retinal responses.

The pattern was so consistent it was possible to distinguish highly depressed patients from healthy volunteers simply by looking at the test results. With further work, "electro-retinogram" tests could provide a better way of assessing a patient's mood than simply asking: "How do you feel?", the scientists say.

Dr van Elst said: "This method could turn out to be a valuable tool to objectively measure the subjective state of depression, having far-reaching implications for research as well as clinical diagnosis of and therapy for depression."

Darkness may also cause depression. Many people succumb in winter, when the light is low and sunshine in short supply. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is often treated with bright artificial light, emitted by special lamps. They are thought to stimulate the body's biological clock but they may also improve contrast vision and thus improve mood in two ways.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Three held over cricket betting scam

September 1st,2010    by May

Three people have been arrested by Customs officials in connection with betting allegations against Pakistani cricket players.

Two men and a woman, all from London, were questioned yesterday as part of an investigation into money laundering before being released on bail, HM Revenue and Customs said.

The development came as it was announced that three Pakistan cricketers will meet officials from their country in London tomorrow.

HM Revenue and Customs said in a statement: "Three individuals were arrested on Sunday as part of an ongoing investigation into money laundering.

"This includes two 35-year-olds - a male and a female - from the Croydon area, and a 49-year-old male from the Wembley area.

"These individuals were arrested, questioned and have been bailed pending further investigation."

A spokeswoman refused to confirm whether the arrests were linked to the alleged betting scam reported by the News of the World.

The newspaper said journalists posing as Far Eastern businessmen paid a middleman £150,000 to arrange for Pakistan players to deliberately bowl no-balls to order in last week's fourth Test against England at Lord's.

Following the report, Mazhar Majeed, 35, a cricket agent who also owns Croydon Athletic Football Club, was arrested by Scotland Yard detectives and then released on police bail.

Four Pakistan players - Test captain Salman Butt, bowlers Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif, and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal - were questioned by police over the allegations at their London hotel.

It is expected that the four players will be asked to withdraw from the forthcoming Twenty20 internationals and one-day internationals against England, which begin on Sunday in Cardiff.

Butt, Aamer and Asif will return to London tomorrow for talks with Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ijaz Butt and the country's high commissioner, team manager Yawar Saeed said today.

After the meeting the three players are expected to rejoin their team-mates, who are due to play a tour match against Somerset on Thursday.

The PCB, the High Commission for Pakistan in London and the sports ministry in Islamabad were holding a conference call today to discuss the best way forward.

Haroon Lorgat, of ruling body the International Cricket Council (ICC), said he hoped there would be "some sort of a conclusion" to the investigation by the weekend.

The ICC's anti-corruption and security unit is also investigating the claims and Lorgat said "prompt and decisive action" would be taken against anyone who sought to harm the game's integrity.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Labour's old guard take sides after Mandelson goes on attack

August 31st,2010    by May

Labour's grandees were locked in a furious battle of words yesterday as they took opposing sides over which of the Miliband brothers should be the party's next leader.

Peter Mandelson, Labour's veteran spin doctor, was the first to ignore the pretence that supporters of the rival camps are all good friends really to make personal attacks yesterday on Ed Miliband and two of his big-name backers – the ex-leader Lord Kinnock and his ex-deputy, Lord Hattersley.

This provoked a furious reply from Lord Kinnock who said: "Atavists like Peter Mandelson are indulging in the sort of factionalism that has inflicted such damage on our party in ancient and modern history. He should stop it now."
Lord Hattersley added: "What the party needs is a clean start. That requires admissions of mistakes made during the Blair years. Peter Mandelson doesn't want that to happen because many of those mistakes were down to him."

Speaking to the BBC yesterday, Lord Mandelson complained that candidates in the leadership campaign were "defining themselves against New Labour" and were therefore "slamming the door on millions of people in Britain".

He added: "David (Miliband) isn't saying that. Ed (Miliband) sometimes allows his rhetoric to run away with him and allows the impression to be created that rather than pivoting forwards from now he wants to pivot back to some pre-New Labour stage." Earlier, he told The Times newspaper that Lords Kinnock and Hattersley were men "of a certain age" who "want to hark back to a previous age".

His remarks were intended to persuade Labour Party members to vote for David Miliband when their ballot papers arrive by post in the next few days. But the shadow Foreign Secretary, who has been the front runner throughout the contest, appeared to be embarrassed yesterday by Lord Mandelson's unsolicited support.

"Party members, including me, are sick and tired of the old battles of the past being rerun," he said. "It's time to move on. That's why my campaign has unified people, from across the party. We all want the same thing: a forward-looking agenda, a break with the battles of the past and all our fire focused on the Coalition."

His sentiments were echoed by Andy Burnham, one of the outside candidates in the race. He said: "It is sad that senior Labour figures who are supporting the front runners are building this into a fight between Old and New Labour. Labour members are sick to the back teeth of it."

Although polls suggest that the contest is now between the Miliband brothers, the outsider Ed Balls will keep his campaign alive today with a speech in which he will call for £6bn to be invested in building 100,000 new affordable homes to ease the housing crisis and reduce unemployment.

Writing on the LabourList website, Mr Balls said: "The now daily episodes of the Miliband soap opera suit those who want to keep this a two-horse race, but do not do justice to the issues at stake in this election."

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Friends of the Earth urges end to 'land grab' for biofuels

August 30th,2010    by May

European Union countries must drop their biofuels targets or else risk plunging more Africans into hunger and raising carbon emissions, according to Friends of the Earth (FoE).

In a campaign launching today, the charity accuses European companies of land-grabbing throughout Africa to grow biofuel crops that directly compete with food crops. Biofuel companies counter that they consult with local governments, bring investment and jobs, and often produce fuels for the local market.

FoE has added its voice to an NGO lobby that claims local communities are not properly consulted and that forests are being cleared in a pattern that echoes decades of exploitation of other natural resources in Africa.

In its report "Africa: Up for Grabs", the group says that the key to halting the land-grab is for EU countries to drop a goal to produce 10% of all transport fuels from biofuels by 2020.

"The amount of land being taken in Africa to meet Europe's increasing demand for biofuels is underestimated and out of control," Kirtana Chandrasekaran, food campaigner for FoE in the UK, said. "Especially in Africa, as long as there's massive demand for biofuels from the European market, it will be hard to control. If we implement the biofuels targets it will only get worse. This is just a small taste of what's to come."

A number of European companies have planted biofuel crops such as jatropha, sugar cane and palm oil in Africa and elsewhere to tap into rising demand. But the trend has coincided with soaring food prices and ignited a debate over the dangers of using agricultural land for fuel.

Producers argue they typically farm land not destined, or suitable for, food crops. But campaigners reject those claims, with FoE saying that biofuel crops, including non-edible ones such as jatropha, "are competing directly with food crops for fertile land".

ActionAid claimed this year that European biofuel targets could result in up to 100 million more hungry people, increased food prices and landlessness.

Natural disasters including floods in Pakistan and a heatwave in Russia have wiped out crops in recent weeks and intensified fears of widespread food shortages.

The United Nations has singled out biofuel demand as a factor in what it estimates will be as much as a 40% jump in food prices over the coming decade.

Estimates of how much land in Africa is being farmed by foreign companies and governments, either for food or fuel crops, vary significantly. The FoE report focuses on 11 African countries in what it sees as a rush by foreign companies to farm there. In Tanzania, for example, it says that about 40 foreign-owned companies, including some from the UK, have invested in agrofuel developments. It argues that such activities are actually raising carbon emissions in many cases because virgin forests are being cut down.

drive from www.guardian.co.uk

a mother's last taboo

August 28th,2010    by May

Deborah Little had six miscarriages before having an operation to alter the shape of her womb. She now has two children, Tristan and Anna, with husband Stephen. Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Observer

Anybody who has seen the Pixar movie Up  will vouch for its ability to reduce grown adults to blubbing wrecks. Among the many seemingly childish but poignant scenes is a flashback to an old man's early days of marriage, when he – Mr Fredricksen – and his wife, Ellie, dreamt of a family. They lie on the floor and look at the sky. The clouds turn into fluffy babies and we see Ellie's face light up with delight. She gets pregnant. They happily decorate a nursery. The next scene has Ellie in a doctor's surgery, head lowered, hearing bad news. The one after sees her sitting alone in the garden, her head held aloft with stoicism, but her eyes shut to the world. Mr Fredricksen watches her from the door, alone in her grief, and finally joins her, presenting her with a vision of an alternative life full of different kinds of adventures, namely Paradise Falls in South America.

When my small daughters watch this scene, they say the same thing in the same sympathetic tone, while still not fully understanding the meaning: "Mummy, she lost her baby, didn't she?" Two more questions follow: "Mummy, are you crying?" and "Why are you crying?"

"Because she's sad," I say, knowing as I say it that "sad" doesn't come anywhere close.

Miscarriage is the commonest complication of pregnancy. The estimated UK miscarriage rate is 250,000 each year. Doctors believe that roughly 50% of all conceptions never make it to a pregnancy test, and once there is a positive test 15-20% of those miscarry before 12 weeks. Most of them will be classed "sporadic" or "one-off", caused by chromosomal or genetic abnormalities in the embryo, and will have no bearing on a woman's future chances of delivering a healthy child. (In order to grow and develop normally, a baby needs a precise number of chromosomes. If there are too few or too many, the pregnancy often ends naturally. This increases with the age of the mother although women of all ages miscarry). Such an explanation rarely helps those suffering. While a minority of women – and men – are able to shrug it off as "for the best" or "a blip" and move on to the next attempt, for the majority there comes a panoply of emotions which range from grief for the lost baby, numbness, emptiness, shock, sadness, anger, bitterness, guilt, fatigue, loss of concentration and, above all, loneliness, even within the healthiest of relationships.

What remains baffling today, in our health-obsessed times, is this: given how common miscarriage is, why is there still such a taboo around it? Women are rarely inclined to reveal they have had one, despite the considerable emotional – and often physical – side-effects.

Any woman who has been through a miscarriage will vouch for how physically dreadful it is, quite apart from the grief. This can be anything from the heavy bleeding to the medical phraseology surrounding the whole sorry business. Unviable embryos are termed "products of conception" or abbreviated to "Pocs", and often women have to sit in one of the UK's 200 Early Pregnancy Units reading flimsy, photocopied pamphlets which call for them to make a choice between surgery, pills or leaving nature to "take its own course" in getting rid of what was once the summation of their hopes and dreams. If women are lucky, the process is handled delicately. If they are not, it can be deeply traumatising.

drive from www.guardian.co.uk

From covert agent to magazine cover girl?

August 27th,2010    by May

Anna Chapman, the glamorous figure at the centre of this summer's US-Russia spy scandal, has been threatened with legal action over a photo-shoot that marked her first foray into Russian public life after a high-profile prisoner swap.

A short video that surfaced online yesterday showed Ms Chapman arriving at a five-star hotel in central Moscow, apparently to take part in a photo session for a Russian glossy magazine. Ms Chapman posted a new photograph to her profile on the website Facebook earlier this week. It appeared to have been taken from the photoshoot in the Baltschung Kempinski Hotel, one of the most expensive in the Russian capital. The newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reprinted the photograph.

Sources in the Russian media say that the photoshoot was for the October edition of the glossy Russian magazine Zhara. The photos will not be accompanied by an interview, on the orders of Ms Chapman's SVR bosses, according to the magazine.

Maxim Korshunov, the editor in chief of Zhara said his magazine now intended to sue Ms Chapman and Komsomolskaya Pravda for breach of copyright, as the Russian spy had no right to disseminate the exclusive photographs online before their publication.

The terms of the agreement the ten alleged spies signed in the US before their deportation forbids them from ever making money for selling their story. It is unclear how such an agreement would be enforced now that Ms Chapman is in Russia. Yesterday, she denied that she had received money for the shoot and claimed that she had not agreed to appear in any magazines. "The new pictures published today in internet were made for my personal use and people that publish/print/sell those have no rights to them," she wrote in a status update on Facebook .

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Fury as EU approves GM potato

August 26th,2010    by May

The introduction of a genetically modified potato in Europe risks the development of human diseases that fail to respond to antibiotics, it was claimed last night.

German chemical giant BASF this week won approval from the European Commission for commercial growing of a starchy potato with a gene that could resist antibiotics – useful in the fight against illnesses such as tuberculosis.

Farms in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic may plant the potato for industrial use, with part of the tuber fed to cattle, according to BASF, which fought a 13-year battle to win approval for Amflora. But other EU member states, including Italy and Austria and anti-GM campaigners angrily attacked the move, claiming it could result in a health disaster.

During the regulatory tussle over the potato, the EU's pharmaceutical regulator had expressed concern about its potential to interfere with the efficacy of antibiotics on infections that develop multiple resistance to other antibiotics, a growing problem in human and veterinary medicine. Amflora contains a gene that produces an enzyme which generally confers resistance to several antibiotics, including kanamycin, neomycin, butirosin, and gentamicin.

The antibiotics could become "extremely important" to treat otherwise multi-resistant infections and tuberculosis, the European Medicines Authority (EMA) warned. Drug resistance is part of the explanation for the resurgence of TB, which infects eight million people worldwide every year.

"In the absence of an effective therapy, infectious Multiple Drug Resistant TB patients will continue to spread the disease, producing new infections with MDR-TB strains," an EMA spokesman said. "Until we introduce a new drug with demonstrated activity against MDR strains, this aspect of the TB epidemic could explode at an exponential level."

After member states become deadlocked on the potato's approval, the European Commission approved it for use in industries such as paper production, saying it would save energy, water and chemicals. Once the starch has been removed, the skins can be fed to animals, whose meat would not have to be labelled as GM.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Carter flies out on North Korean rescue mission

August 25th,2010    by May

The former US president, Jimmy Carter, is said to be on his way to North Korea to secure the release of an American teacher who is serving eight years of hard labour.

Yesterday, officials in Washington would not formally confirm Mr Carter's reported trip, aimed at bringing home Aijalon Mahli Gomes, who was arrested for illegally crossing North Korea's border with China in January.

The US has repeatedly voiced concern about his health.

Mr Gomes, 30, tried to commit suicide and was being treated in hospital in July, according to North Korea's state media.

Foreign Policy magazine, which first reported the mission by the 85-year-old former president, said a group of US officials, including a doctor, travelled to the North earlier this month, in an unsuccessful attempt to win Mr Gomes's release. Pyongyang now seems to have signalled that if Mr Carter went, there would be a happier outcome.

Mr Carter's visit would take place amid heightened tensions on the peninsula after the torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, which Seoul blames on the North. The crisis led to expanded US sanctions against Pyongyang, and joint US-South Korean naval exercises in waters close to North Korea – drawing in turn various dire threats of retaliation from the North.

But US officials stressed that, whatever happened, it did not imply any change in the Obama administration's tough stance towards the North, ruling out serious contacts until Pyongyang rejoins the long stalled six nation talks on its nuclear programme and admits responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan, in which 46 South Korean sailors died.

The unofficial mission would not be Mr Carter's first to North Korea. In 1994, as tensions mounted to the point that the Pentagon mulled possible military strikes, he helped pave the way for a deal in which the North was supposed to give up its nuclear ambitions in return for economic aid from Washington.

That agreement stalled as Pyongyang secretly pressed ahead with developing a nuclear weapon, carrying out its first test in 2006. But Mr Carter apparently earned a reputation in Pyongyang as a man who could be trusted.

Last year, another former president, Bill Clinton, travelled to Pyongyang to secure the release of two American journalists. The pair, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were pardoned and returned to the US on Mr Clinton's plane.

drive from www.independent.co.uk