Originally published on Times Online

Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman today became the first serving Cabinet minister in memory to plead guilty to a criminal charge after admitting driving without due care and attention.

Ms Harman was fined £350 and ordered to pay a further £70 costs and a £15 victim surcharge after her lawyer entered the guilty plea at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Three points were also put on her licence, bringing her to a total of nine after two previous offences. A driving licence would normally be revoked on reaching 12 points.

A second charge of driving while using a mobile phone was withdrawn.

The Minister for Women and Equality did not attend the hearing and was instead in a Cabinet meeting at Downing Street.

Ms Harman, 59, was charged after reversing her Rover 75 into a parked car in Camberwell, southeast London.

The minor collision took place at around 10pm on July 3 last year as she returned from visiting people made homeless by a fire in a towerblock that killed six people. The owner of the vehicle was watching the incident from the window of her nearby flat.

After the accident she is alleged to have said: “I’m Harriet Harman. You know where you can get hold of me.”

Michael Jennings, for the prosecution, told the court: “She got into her car whilst using her handheld telephone.

“She then started the engine of her car again whilst using a mobile telephone, which then drove forward and she then drove backwards.

“It was when she moved backwards again that she then hit the car which was parked behind her.

“Throughout all of this incident she was using her handheld telephone.”

Solicitor Mark Haslam, representing Ms Harman, asked for the “maximum credit” for his client’s guilty plea, which was given after “other matters” were dropped by the prosecution.

Mr Haslam said: “This is a parking manoeuvre. It takes place in a very short timespan. It takes place at a very slow speed, less than 5mph.

“There is no injury, no damage and no insurance claim by either party in relation to either vehicle.”

While sentencing Ms Harman, District Judge Nicholas Evans said: “I propose a fine of £350, costs of £70, a victim surcharge of £15 and the licence will be endorsed with three penalty points.”

In November a spokesperson said the MP for Camberwell and Peckham strongly rejected the allegations and would deny the charge but today struck a more contrite tone.

“Ms Harman fully accepts the court’s judgment,” a spokesperson said.

“Ms Harman is pleased that the potential charges of leaving the scene of an accident without exchanging particulars and failing to report an accident to the police have been dropped.

“Ms Harman is pleased that it has been established that this was not a ’hit and run’ accident as portrayed in some media reports. It was a parking incident and no damage was done.”

The investigation into the incident took four months before the Crown Prosecution Service brought charges in November.

Politicians who have faced prosecutions in recent years have all stood down before they were charged.

Peter Hain stood down as Work and Pensions Secretary in January 2008 in the face of a looming police investigation. After an 11-month investigation no charges were brought against him.

A parcel deliveryman who convinced his friends, families and even his wife that he was a Metropolitan Police officer was jailed for 20 months today.

Stuart Howatson, 31, was so confident of his impersonation that he gave a talk to schoolchildren about the work of the police while wearing a uniform partly bought on eBay and carrying a baton.

At his 2006 wedding, he told guests that Sir John Stevens, then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, would be in attendance and set out a place for him at the dinner reception. When Sir John did not appear, Howatson claimed in his groom’s speech that the Commissioner was absent because of “security issues”.

When questioned by friends, Howatson claimed variously to be a firearms officer, a dog handler, a senior officer on sabbatical leave, and a protection officer for the Queen.

But the real Metropolitan Police became aware of his activities in 2008 after he offered to buy the £720,000 Spanish villa where he spent his honeymoon. He created false bank statements showing monthly deposits from “Met Police” and “MPA” as proof his sound finances while taking several free breaks at the £1,200-week villa.

After two years of bounced cheques and excuses, the owner of the villa, a friend of Howatson’s who was convinced he was being scammed by a genuine police officer, reported him to the Metropolitan Police’s Anti-Corruption Command.

A Met spokesman said the Command at first believed they were dealing with a corrupt police officer. “It was only when we looked into it further that it became apparent he was not a Met officer,” he said.

In October 2008 police raided his home in Bewdley, Worcestershire, and found “a substantial amount of uniform” – some genuine, some fake – as well as a laptop containing indecent footage of children.

The Met is still trying to trace how he obtained genuine police equipment.

Stephen Davies, prosecuting, described Howatson as “a Walter Mitty character” – a reference to meek fantasist from the James Thurber short story who imagines himself to be a fighter pilot and emergency room surgeon.

The Met spokesman said: “He was a guy with a fairly mundane life who wanted to convince the people around him that his life was more exciting that it actually was.”

In sentencing, Judge Hooper, QC described him as “a common trickster and a conman”.

Today he pleaded guilty to possession of articles of police uniform, false accounting, fraud by false representation and possession of and making indecent images of children. He also admitted a charge of possession of an offensive weapon for the baton he had brought to the nursery school.

Detective Inspector Claire Moxon, of the Metropolitan Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards, said: “Howatson went to great lengths to maintain a long-running deceit, taking advantage of the trust placed in him by the people around him.

“His behaviour has not only deeply affected his family and friends, but risked undermining the integrity and professionalism of genuine police officers everywhere.”

After waving goodbye to his beloved at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey he wanted just one more clinch.

So he slipped past security, planted a kiss … and caused a security alert that closed the terminal for six hours.

Video footage released in the US shows a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer leave his post for just over a minute, giving the unidentified man time to walk unchallenged into a secure area on Sunday.

The woman is seen lifting a rope for the man to pass under. He kisses her before the pair walk hand-in-hand out of the shot.

Earlier in the film the officer apparently asks the same man to move away from the security cordons that guide arriving passengers out of the secure area and into the concourse.

Another passenger reported the breach and the TSA officer has now been placed on administrative leave.

The footage was released by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, who said it highlighted continuing weaknesses in airport security less than two weeks after a Nigerian man attempted to blow up a flight to Detroit on Christmas day.

“That’s like having a fire truck with a flat in it and nobody bothers looking at it until the alarm goes off,” Mr Lautenberg said in a news conference at the airport

Thousands of passengers were forced to go through airport security for a second time when the airport finally reopened.

Newark, one of the three main airports serving the New York City area, is especially sensitive to security breaches as one of the aircraft hijacked on September 11 took off from the site. United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers overpowered the hijackers.

Meadows Field airport in California was shut down briefly on Tuesday after a suspicious amber liquid in a passenger’s bag tested positive for explosives only for it later to emerge the liquid was honey.

Originally published in The Times

For nearly a century one of Britain’s earliest aircraft had lain abandoned in the Antarctic ice-scape.

The monoplane — the first aircraft off the Vickers factory production line in 1911, eight years after the first flight by the Wright brothers — was ditched by the Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson in 1914 and last seen in 1975 almost completely buried in ice.

On New Year’s Day record low tides caused by a blue moon led to its rediscovery.

Mawson took the aircraft from Britain to Australia in the hope of staging the first flight over the Antarctic but the dream, and the Vickers, were shattered when the pilot who accompanied the craft from London crashed during a demonstration flight.

“He’d had a rather long night at the local club in Adelaide the night before and apparently was not in the best of shape when he first flew it,” David Jensen, a conservationist, said.

The Vickers was damaged so badly that its wings had to be removed but Sir Douglas decided to take what was left of the aircraft to the Antarctic anyway. He converted it into an “air tractor” — keeping the propeller and guiding it by using a specially made tail rudder and skis — to pull his sledges while he was exploring.

The engine struggled in the subzero temperature and Sir Douglas was forced to abandon the Vickers in Cape Denison in 1914. He visited it in 1929 before finally giving it up for good in 1931.

The Mawson’s Huts Foundation, a charity backed by the Australian Government, is devoted to maintaining the buildings constructed in the Antarctic by Mawson’s expeditions but has also searched for the air tractor.

Since 1996 three teams of conservationists and scientists have used magnetic imaging equipment, without success, to try to find the fuselage.

On January 1 low tides, prompted by a blue moon, the second full moon in a calendar month, and melting ice led to its discovery.

Mr Jensen, the chairman of the Mawson’s Huts Foundation, said: “It was probably one chance in a million that these conditions just allowed us to spot it.

“One of our heritage carpenters was actually just wandering along the edge of the harbour … and he just by chance spotted the piece of the metal among the rocks. You talk about once in a blue moon. Well, it was so true.”

If the carpenter had failed to spot the relic, which was under “just a couple of centimetres of water” in rising tide conditions it would have likely been lost forever, Mr Jensen said.

The fragments of the fuselage will be taken to Australia at the end of the month.

“The pieces we found are definitely of the air tractor and they can’t be anything else. That’s the last [of a] little part of aviation history,” he said.

Back on the radar

In September 1942 an American P-38 Lightning made an emergency landing on a Welsh beach. The wartime ban on visiting the beach meant no one noticed it disappear in the sand. It was discovered in 2007

An RAF fighter pilot, Ray Holmes, became convinced that a bomber was heading towards Buckingham Palace on September 15, 1940. Because he was out of ammunition he flew his Hawker Hurricane into the aircraft. Both crashed and his aircraft was buried under Buckingham Palace Road until 2004

A “lost squadron” of eight US Air Force aircraft crash landed in Greenland on their way to Britain in July 1942. One of the P-38s, nicknamed Glacier Girl, was dug out of the ice in 1992 and restored

Sources: International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery; Times database

Originally published on the splash in The Journal

Hundreds of offences against animals have made the North East the wildlife crime capital of the country.

Figures obtained by The Journal show that more than one in eight offences against animals in the UK took place in the Northumbria Police area.

Over a 12-month period there were 737 offences in the Northumbria Police area, including badger baiting, illegal hunting, poaching, bat persecution and hare coursing.

Wildlife officers said the number of crimes against animals in the area had risen because of the recession.

PC Andy Swinburne, wildlife crime officer for Northumberland area command, said: “I think in terms of rural and wildlife crime there has been an increase since the credit crunch.

“We are seeing a large increase in the poaching of deer which can be shot or killed by use of ‘lamping’ or dogs.”

PC Swinburne said that lamping – where a bright light is shone into the face of an animal causing it to freeze and making it easy to kill – was the most common method used by poachers.

Meat is either stripped from the carcase at the scene or it is hidden and retrieved later on. The meat of a large male dear can be worth up to £100.

PC Swinburne said: “These are commodities which are easy to sell on to outlets that are willing to take the risk of buying them.”

The figures on wildlife crime between August 2008 and July this year show 27 cases of badger persecution, eight cases of bird eggs being stolen, three poisoning incidents and 135 cases of poaching, 24 of them involving the poaching of deer.

The North East had the most illegal wildlife shootings with 69, although police said that many were carried out by youths in urban areas, often with air weapons, and that it was uncommon for poachers to carry firearms.

There were also more than 400 unclassified wildlife offences, which included a number where animal carcases are found at roadsides and police suspect they have been illegally killed.

In June, two 17-year-old boys were convicted of criminal damage after killing five swans at Ryton Willows nature reserve in Gateshead.

That case followed a Northumbria Police operation in different areas of Northumberland in which three men were arrested by a team investigating badger baiting and cock fighting. And last November saw two men from Ashington, Northumberland, banned from keeping dogs for three years after being caught badger baiting.

Northumbria Police is now making increasing use of forensic evidence to solve wildlife crimes.

Blood taken from crime scenes or from suspects’ clothing can be compared to a national database, allowing police to identify the type of animal that the blood belongs to. The force currently employs seven wildlife crime officers, one for each area command except for rural Northumberland, which has two.

PC Swinburne said: “Wildlife crime remains a very serious issue in the North East and one that Northumbria Police are committed to fighting against.”

The figures

Badger persecution: 27
Bat persecution: 2
Fox hunting: 2
Habitat destruction: 22
Hare coursing: 2
Nest destruction: 6
Other: 429
Poaching deer:  24
Poaching fish: 6
Poaching other: 105
Poisoning: 3
Raptor persecution: 2
Shooting: 69
Traps/snares: 29
Wild bird egg/chick theft: 8
Wild birds caught: 1

A third British bomb disposal expert has been killed in Afghanistan weeks after warning that the Taleban were trying to catch them out.

Captain Daniel Shepherd, 28, was killed while attempting to defuse a roadside bomb in in Nad-e-Ali district of Helmand province on Monday. He had personally neutralised 50 Taleban devices in the past three months.

A soldier from 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards became the 19th British victim this month when he was killed by an explosion while on patrol in the same district yesterday.

Captain Shepherd was killed while attempting to defuse a device. His death came as a leading British officer said that the military had been too slow to capitalise on the use of flying drones to detect improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have caused about 80 per cent of casualties in Afghanistan. Only one bomb disposal expert was killed during the whole of the Iraq conflict.

Captain Shepherd, from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Regiment, the Royal Logistic Corps, had explained the risk from the Taleban’s remotely detonated bombs during an interview last month. “They have got some very good intelligence on the way we conduct our business,” he told ITV News. “They watch us closely, trying to find ways to catch us out in future. It’s a case that we have to be aware that every action that we take could be used as a way of catching us out in future.”

Captain Shepherd, from Lincoln, was yesterday described by his commanding officer as “unbelievably courageous”. Major Eldon Millar, Officer Commanding the Joint Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group, said: “On task he was the epitome of cool, calm and collected — he was utterly unflappable, a trait which inspired enormous confidence in all who served alongside him.”

His wife, Kerry, said: “He was doing what he loved. I was so proud of him. I have not lost just a husband but a best friend and he will be missed by everyone.”

Captain Shepherd was considered one of the Army’s most talented bomb disposal experts. In 2006 he was presented with the Carmen’s Sword of Honour by the Princess Royal after being selected by the Royal Logistic Corps as the most outstanding young officer of the year.

He was due to take a job at the Armed Forces’ Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, Middlesex, aimed at counteracting the threat from Taleban ambush bombs. The Ministry of Defence is reported to be bringing together a new bomb disposal unit of 300 troops to defuse the devices and to identify the masterminds behind the bombing networks.

The Taleban’s IEDs are become increasingly sophisticated and harder to detect. They have reduced the amount of metal in their roadside bombs, limiting the metallic content of pressure pads and replacing the usual shrapnel with glass and ceramic. Many IEDs are attached to a command wire so that they can be detonated up to 500 metres away when a bomb disposal expert approaches.

Bomb disposal experts — known in the army as “Felix” — are being sent out on average four times a day to neutralise devices, collect intelligence after explosions in an attempt to identify bomb-makers and to respond to hoaxes or false alarms.

They are frequently defusing devices by hand rather than using remote control equipment because of the number of IEDs being uncovered and the need to operate quickly in hostile environments. About 80 per cent of British casualties in Afghanistan have been caused by IEDs. There were 418 IED attacks between January and May this year, compared with 293 for the same period in 2008.

The only British bomb disposal expert to be killed while defusing a device in Iraq was Staff Sergeant Chris Muir, 32. He was killed while attempting to neutralise “bomblets” released by a coalition cluster bomb in southern Iraq in March 2003.

Yesterday, Air Vice-Marshal Martin Routledge, who has just stepped down as chief of staff for strategy, policy and plans at the RAF headquarters, Air Command, said that military processes were “too bureaucratic and unwieldy” to capitalise on fast-developing technology to detect IEDs. British and American forces already use Reaper unmanned aircraft, but there is concern that not enough resources are being allocated for such technology.

The Royal Logistic Corps, responsible for counter-terrorist bomb disposal and explosive ordnance disposal, has around 500 specialist soldiers, but the number in Afghanistan is secret as it could be used by the Taleban.

One of the most mysterious elements of the emerging Silvio Berlusconi affair is his reference to Putin’s bed.

When The Times contacted Vladimir Putin’s office, a spokesman said that the Russian Prime Minister had never given the gift of a bed to Mr Berlusconi.

In the recorded conversation, the voice alleged to be Mr Berlusconi’s asks Patrizia D’Addario to meet him in the big bed, which she describes as the one with the curtains.

One theory is that Mr Putin spent a night in the bed while staying at Mr Berlusconi’s Rome residence.

What transpired in the bed named in his honour remains unclear.

The pair are known to be good friends and Mr Putin was the first world leader to visit when Mr Berlusconi returned to power last year.

At a press conference, Mr Berlusconi described Mr Putin as “very friendly. He has shown himself to be a great friend by coming here.”

Mr Putin did his best to repay the compliment, saying that Italian women were second only to those in Russia. He added: “I have always reacted negatively to those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others’ lives.”

The Sri Lankan Army will come under pressure to display the body of Velupillai Prabhakaran (Raf Sanchez writes).

In 2006, US forces swiftly released images of the body of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. His badly damaged remains were identified by fingerprints, scars and tattoos.

In 1967 the Bolivian Army displayed the body of Che Guevara, killed while leading a guerrilla campaign in the country. His uniformed corpse was strapped to the runner of a military helicopter so it could be presented to the media.

The failure to produce Hitler’s corpse led to decades of speculation that he might have survived and escaped to Spain or Argentina. His body was burnt as the Red Army advanced into Berlin in May 1945. The Soviet Union had identified the remains using dental records but withheld the information until 1968

Police are looking for two Asian men allegedly trying to open the door of missing University chef Claudia Lawrence’s house a week before her disappearance. Claudia’s father has made an emotional appeal to ­“whoever is responsible for taking her” as the investigation enters its eighth week.

North Yorkshire Police announced on Wednesday that they were seeking two Asian men seen in the early afternoon March 10 outside Claudia’s home on Heworth Road. The 35-year-old chef was last seen on the evening of March 18 and failed to show up to work the following morning at Goodricke’s Roger Kirk Centre. Her normally “prolific” texting went silent at 8.30pm.

One of the men was seen looking towards the house’s downstairs window while the other was looking at a window on the first floor.

The first man is described as in his 20s or 30s, around 5ft, 6ins tall with a distinctive, long, thin face with a pointy nose and dark circles under his eyes. He had a long, jutting jaw and dark, straight hair with a fringe. He was wearing a heavy coat, despite the heat of the day.

The second man was also Asian, with a heavier build, and around 5ft, 7ins. He was wearing a waist length jacket and jeans that had rivets around the back pockets.

The descriptions were compiled from information received after a public appeal. When the sighting was first announced police believed it may have taken place on March 13, but have since confirmed it was March 10.

Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway, the officer leading the investigation, said: “The dates are obviously at least five days before Claudia was last seen, but we have a situation of a lady passing by Claudia’s home address in very slow moving traffic who has actually seen two men at Claudia’s front door.”

“We would very much like to speak to these two people,” he added.

Claudia’s father, Peter Lawrence, released an appeal directly to “whoever is responsible for taking her” on May 6, the fiftieth day of her disappearance.

“It is now 50 days that Claudia has been away from us. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets for myself, the family and her friends – the strain is intolerable and the sorrow unbearable.”

“I want to make yet another appeal to whoever is responsible for taking her away from her life in York to come forward so that she can be reunited with all of us who love her dearly.”

“You know who you are. Search your conscience. We want Claudia back.”

The appeal is thought to be the first time that Lawrence has publicly acknowledged the likelihood that his daughter was abducted.

Speaking to Nouse, Lawrence said: “The worst thing all the way through this and it doesn’t change from whether it’s one week or six weeks is just not knowing. When there’s no information out there, not knowing is the hardest bit. It just makes you feel dreadful. There’s a little bit of me missing somewhere.”

In an interview last week Lawrence also appealed directly to the campus community, describing Claudia as part of the “University family”. He said: “All we’re doing is asking them to search their memories back to the end of last term. Really we’re just seeking some information to try and get a clue about what has happened to Claudia. It’s six weeks now and it certainly doesn’t get any easier.”

Lawrence also rejected comparisons made in recent weeks between the search for Claudia and the disappearance of British toddler Madeline McCann in Portugal in 2007. He said: “There’s a lot of difference between a young child being obviously abducted because she couldn’t disappear by herself and a grown up disappearing.”

Police are also continuing to focus on a sighting of a man and a woman seen on Melrosegate bridge at 5.35 on March 19, approximately the time that Claudia would have been walking towards the University to start a morning shift.

The man, dressed in a black or dark-coloured hooded top, with the hood up, and dark combat trousers with pockets and buttons on either side, was holding a cigarette in his left hand. The woman was wearing a blue, waist-length jacket with buttons similar to a jacket owned by Claudia.

Police have described the report, made by a passing cyclist, as “a significant sighting, at the right time in the right location”. Lawrence has described the lack of public response to the Melrosegate sighting as “absolutely incredible”.

A third possible sighting of a couple arguing on University Road at around 6.10am on March 19 is also being investigated. A passing motorist said a car had been pulled over to the side of the road and a man and a woman had been engaged in what appeared to be a verbal altercation on the pavement.

Despite thousands of police hours and a £10,000 reward offered by Crimestoppers the search for Claudia has so far made little significant progress. So far nearly 1,100 reports and statements have been taken and around 1,270 properties searched, including hundreds of campus rooms. The investigation is the largest carried out by North Yorkshire Police since the hunt for multiple killer Mark Hobson in 2004.

Anybody with information should contact North Yorkshire Police on 0845 60 60 247 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111

The image emerging of missing University chef Claudia Lawrence is one of a quiet but conscientous woman who enjoyed her work and was well liked by colleagues. Claudia worked at the University for two years, first in Derwent and then moving to Goodricke’s Roger Kirk Centre.

Her father, Peter Lawrence, said: “She’s relatively small but she always seems to be smiling. Quite bubbly. She’s good with people she knows but she’s very shy with people she doesn’t know.

“Coming out from the kitchen and bringing food out and things, no doubt chatter occurs between her and students.” Claudia worked mainly in the kitchen but sometime served food at the front of house and worked on the tills.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, claims to remember Claudia after she served him during the Church of England’s General Synod, which is held on campus each year.

Lawrence added: “When I made the first call to Goodricke on the Friday it was Julia in the kitchen who answered. She said ‘I’m terribly worried, I’m a friend of Claudia’s and she hasn’t shown up and hasn’t said anything and it’s most unlike her’”.

Three colleagues of Claudia’s all described her as “quiet”. One, who did not want to be named, said: “Claudia’s a quiet girl who wouldn’t say ‘boo’ to a goose.”

Before her disappearance, Claudia was a regular at the Nag’s Head, a pub near to her home in Heworth and often frequented by students living in the area. She is a close friend of the landlord, Simon Foreman. The pub is planning on holding an event for her in the near future.