Detectives hunting for a group of asylum seekers who escaped from a prison in South Yorkshire have recaptured six of the men.

The 20 men scaled a fence at Lindholme Prison, near Thorne, on Sunday night.

A police spokeswoman said that three of the escapees were detained at 0300 BST after being found walking along a road in the Aukley area of Doncaster.

A 23-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the shooting murders of a seven-year-old girl and her father in north-west London.

Toni-Ann Byfield was deliberately shot in the back after her crack-dealer father Bertram Byfield, 41, was murdered in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Police believe Toni-Ann was gunned down from behind after she screamed and tried to run away as her father lay dying.
The man was arrested about 7.20pm on Monday, police said.

Police are trying to establish a motive for the murders of a 41-year old man and his seven-year old daughter at a bedsit in north-west London.

Detectives said they were keeping an open mind about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of pair, who were discovered at the property on Harrow Road, Kensal Green, at 0030 BST on Sunday.

Both had bullet wounds and were taken to hospital where they later died.
Detectives do not yet know why they were killed, but have ruled out suicide.

Guards at a Sydney jail have foiled an unexplained "break-in" attempt.
They impounded a radio-controlled model plane after it made a perfect landing between two cell blocks.

The plane, with a three-foot wing span, landed between two cell blocks at the Silverwater Remand and Reception Centre near Sydney's Olympic Park.

Security and Investigations Commander Don Rodgers said: "It provided a good and perhaps an amusing test for surveillance systems and security staff, but there could also potentially be a more serious aspect to this event such as a trial to introduce contraband into the jail."

An inquest into the death of a man after he was held in police custody begins in London on Monday, nearly five years after he died.

Roger Sylvester died in January 1999, eight days after being restrained and handcuffed by officers from the Metropolitan Police force.

Police had been called to Mr Sylvester's home in Tottenham, north London, after reports by neighbours that he was causing a disturbance. Officers discovered him naked and banging on his own front door.

The man who murdered Inverness schoolgirl Danielle Reid has been jailed for life.

Lee Gaytor admitted killing his girlfriend's five-year-old daughter, whose body was found in the Caledonian Canal in January.

The judge at the High Court in Edinburgh said Gaytor should serve a minimum of 18 years before being considered for parole.

“It seems that a guest in the motel noticed a foul smell in his room,” police Sgt. Darin Snapp told reporters in Kansas City, “and after a day or so he complained to the staff. At first, they just told him to open a window, but the stench got worse, and he kept complaining that he could no longer tolerate the smell. Eventually, after it caused him to vomit, they agreed to send a cleaning crew to his room, and when they began moving the furniture around, that’s when they found the dead body.”

A jury has resumed its deliberations on three men accused of selling thousands of tonnes of unfit meat to firms which supplied supermarkets, hospitals and schools.

One man was convicted on Wednesday for his part in the scam, which resulted in 1.1 million pounds of condemned poultry entering the human food chain.

Peter Roberts, 68, of Chaddesden, Derby, was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud after being tried in his absence, having failed to appear at Nottingham Crown Court.

A second man, Brian Paul Davies, 37, of Moor Road, Holcombe, Bury, Greater Manchester, was cleared of conspiracy to defraud. Both men had denied the charges.

A former researcher at Michigan State University has been jailed for 10 months after he admitted faking a theft of pig bacteria.

He had been trying to hide his lack of progress in the lab.
At his sentencing, Scott Doree was also ordered to repay federal grants he had received for his research.
He pleaded guilty to mail fraud and making false statements to FBI agents.

Doree, 28, was supposed to help develop a vaccine that would protect pigs against a deadly form of pneumonia, but after four years he had nothing to show for the money

A police investigation is continuing into why a woman was shot by Scottish police.

The 31-year-old was seriously injured after a stand-off with armed officers from Lothian and Borders Police outside a cottage about 15 miles south-west of Edinburgh.

Police refused to comment on claims the woman was brandishing an air pistol.
But the shooting is understood to have happened after the woman ignored repeated requests to put her weapon down.

The head of a lucrative people-smuggling ring which took up to 12,000 Albanians to the UK, has been jailed for eight years by a Belgian court.

Thirty-five-year-old Mhill Sokoli, himself an Albanian, was at one point smuggling 15 to 20 people across the Channel every day via the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.

The operation is reported to have been the biggest of its kind ever seen in Belgium.
The 24 other members of the gang received at least three years in jail.

The mastermind behind Britain's Great Train Robbery will mark the 40th anniversary of the heist by returning to the scene of the crime.

Bruce Reynolds, now 71, has been invited to be guest of honour at a fete in Oakley, Buckinghamshire - close to Leatherslade Farm where his gang hid out after the heist.

"It's a bit like being told 'Come back, all is forgiven'," Reynolds said.

"The lorry used to move the cash and my old Lotus Cortina, which I did most of the reconnaissance in, will be there.

"I was very surprised to be asked back - 40 years ago it wouldn't have happened - but it's part of history and people there recognise that I was part of their history."

It was always with one eye on the history books that Reynolds planned the so-called "crime of the century" in which STG2,631,684 -- about £28 million or $$A70 million in today's terms -- was stolen from the Glasgow to London mail train.

An Indian man who is in jail on charges of forgery and cheating the army has surprised a judge by offering her a bribe for his release in writing.

P Lall scribbled his request for release in exchange for money at the bottom of the bail application he handed over to Metropolitan Magistrate Kamini Lau, when his case came up for hearing in court.

The accused, presently in judicial custody at New Delhi's Tihar jail, wrote: "You should release me immediately and also decide the case in my favour. Once I am released, I shall furnish your fee for this favour by cheque."

LONDON (Reuters) - Worried police are searching for a naked rambler who has been enjoying the sights along a famous walking trail wearing only a floppy hat and a pair of hiking boots.

The man has startled other ramblers on several occasions in the past fortnight during his walks in the Yorkshire Dales, where he has been seen at several points on the 270-mile (435 km) Pennine Way.

The Times reported that during one sighting, the rambler -- described as in his late 30s, of athletic build and sporting an all-over tan -- was reported to have said a cheerful "good afternoon" to a woman.

Farmer Tony Martin has been freed from prison after serving two-thirds of his five-year sentence for shooting a burglar and killing his 16-year-old accomplice.

The Prison Service said he was released from an undisclosed location, adding: "He is now a free man."

He had repeatedly been turned down for parole because he refused to show remorse for killing Fred Barras and injuring Brendan Fearon.

Martin was originally jailed for life for murder but his sentence was reduced on appeal to manslaughter.

A massive police operation involving hundreds of officers targeting drug dealing in Bristol has ended with 29 people charged. A team of 400 officers, some of them armed, took part in dozens of raids over the last eight days.

The targets were the city's alleged dealers and suspected members of so-called Yardie gangs.

A total of 29 people - 27 from Jamaica - have been charged with drugs and firearms offences.

A computer database to identify images of paedophilia victims will be launched by police.

The software, called Childbase, already includes 220,000 images of children's faces which have been distributed over the internet.

The software maps the facial characteristics of each victim, producing a sequence of numbers which can be cross-checked within seconds against millions of images.

Convicted peer Lord Archer is set to be released from prison on parole on Monday, after serving half of his four-year sentence.

He is due to leave Hollesley Bay open prison near Woodbridge, Suffolk, early in the morning, two years after being jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

The jury at his trial found he had lied under oath during his 1987 libel case against the Daily Star over allegations he had had sex with a prostitute.

ALBANY, N.Y. (Reuters) - A convicted murderer wants the state of New York to pay $500,000 for his sex change and a key ruling in his case has moved him closer to his dream of serving the rest of his sentence in a women's jail.

Mark Brooks, 34, who calls himself Jessica Lewis, and claims to be "a girl inside," sued New York almost three years ago for treatment for his Gender Identity Disorder but has not received medical treatment.

In a 19-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Kahn said Brooks should be allowed to talk to doctors about requests for hormone therapy, breast implants, and "genital reassignment."

Kahn said "deliberate indifference to serious medical attention" may be a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. He questioned the "puzzling distinction" officials make between hormone treatment before and after imprisonment.

The Prison Service in England and Wales has failed to reduce the number of people commiting suicide in jail, its annual report reveals.

This was one of seven out of 15 performance targets that the service failed to meet in the last year.

A total of 105 people killed themselves in jail in the year to April, up from 74 the previous year.
The service also failed to cut the number of positive drugs tests among prisoners, which rose over the year.

Murder detectives are hunting four people after an elderly man was run over and killed on a garage forecourt while trying to stop thieves.

Police said the 75-year-old man died and his 45-year-old son suffered minor injuries at the family garage in Louise Street, Lower Gornal, near Dudley, West Midlands.

Police have appealed for the four thieves to give themselves up.
They said the murder was a result of a robbery which went tragically wrong.

The Prison Service has been accused of a "shocking catalogue of failure" over the killing of an Asian teenager who was beaten to death by his racist cellmate.

The Commission for Racial Equality has been examining the circumstances surrounding the death of Zahid Mubarek, 19, at Feltham Young Offenders' Institution in west London in March 2000.

Mubarek, from Walthamstow, east London, was a first-time criminal sentenced to three months for theft and was due for release on the day he was murdered by skinhead Robert Stewart.

Burglars tried to break into an electronics retailer three times - only to find they'd drilled through to an opticians by mistake.

Police say the trio broke into a local newspaper office housed in the same building in Vara, 200 miles south-west of Stockholm.

It's thought they bored a hole into the wall using a power drill, but ended up breaking into an optician's office.

Police hunting a fugitive suspected of the rape and murder of teenager Hannah Foster are seeking legal powers to carry out their own inquiries in India.

Maninder Singh Pal Kohil fled Southampton for the Punjab two days after 17-year-old Hannah's body was found in March.

A team of Hampshire detectives flew to New Dehli to advise Indian police on the hunt for Mr Singh in May, but had no authority to gather evidence and returned empty-handed.

Detectives are hunting a saboteur who tampered with the parachute of an experienced skydiver, causing him to plunge 13,000 feet to his death.

Stephen Hilder was killed after his parachute, and the reserve, both failed to open during the jump at Hibaldstow Airfield near Brigg in Lincolnshire.

The 20-year-old officer cadet and undergraduate at the Defence Academy in Shrivenham, Wiltshire, had completed more than 200 jumps.

A newly-married woman is accused of stabbing her husband to death because he joked her bottom was too small.

Judy Castillo-Thomas, 27, denies killing her electrician husband Jason in May, just three weeks after they married.

Police said the couple began rowing when Mr Castillo-Thomas discovered his wife on an internet chat room at their home in Brooklyn, New York.

Tough sentencing by judges, rather than a rise in crime, has led to the record prison population, research has found.

The 71% rise in the prison population between 1991 and 2001 was due to a "misplaced emphasis on toughness rather than effectiveness" as courts sentence more people to prison and for longer terms, according to a report by the Prison Reform Trust.

It found that the idea that courts were lenient on criminals was a myth but the "increasingly punitive climate of political and media debate about crime and punishment" had fuelled higher sentencing.

A female prisoner who was made pregnant by a fellow inmate through the bars of her prison cell has given birth to a son.

The Turkish woman, who has been in the mixed prison in Istanbul for two years, had fallen in love with her neighbour who was also serving time.

She successfully impregnated herself with his sperm after he ejaculated into a glass bottle and passed it through the bars.

The man's lawyer told Turkish press agency Anadolu that the pair were now planning to marry.

Burglar Brendon Fearon who was shot and injured by Tony Martin has won the right to sue the jailed farmer for damages.

A judge at Nottingham County Court on Friday overturned an earlier decision which threw out his claim.

Fearon, 33, hopes to sue Martin for a reported £15,000 following his wounding during a break-in at the farmer's home in Emneth Hungate, Norfolk, in August 1999.

A bogus policeman was arrested in Kansas after he tried to pull over a real police officer.

The off-duty officer became suspicious because the lights on the imposter's car were blue.

Kansas City police use a combination of blue and red flashing lights, says police spokesperson Captain Rich Lockhart.

A nearby patrol car tried to stop the suspect, who was driving a blue Crown Victoria, a vehicle commonly used by police.

A £50,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the recapture of two "extremely dangerous" prisoners who escaped during an armed ambush in south London.

Securicor has put up the reward as the hunt continues for the two men, who police say should not be approached.

Three prisoners fled when two men, one disguised as a postman, attacked a Securicor van carrying 10 remand prisoners.

A conman left his "wife" as a deposit to swindle a mobile phone from a shop in China.

The man, who claimed to be an investor from Taiwan, asked to test a Nokia phone in a shop in Lingyuanxilu.

He wanted to try the £250 phone outside the shop and left his "wife" and a packet of "money" as security.

But he never returned and the woman then told shop staff she hardly knew the man, reports China Daily, quoting Guangzhou Daily.

When the shop manager asked the "wife" to pay for the phone, she said she had only known him for three days and didn't even know his name. The envelope was full of waste paper.

Three men have been arrested in west Wales as part of an Customs investigation into drug smuggling, in which officers seized a record haul of 400kg of heroin.

In a separate operation, eight men were arrested in a warehouse in Newport, south Wales, where 120kg of cocaine - with a street value of £8m - was seized.

Both consignments of drugs were imported to the UK through Felixstowe - it is thought they were to be distributed across the UK from bases in Wales.

The mother of Maxine Carr has been accused of intimidating a witness in the investigation into the deaths of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Shirley Capp, 60, of Grimsby, Humberside, is due to appear before Grimsby and Cleethorpes magistrates today.

Cambridgeshire Police said Capp had been investigated by Humberside Police and charged on Sunday.

"A woman who lives in Grimsby who is a witness in the investigation into the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman has complained to police that she has been intimidated," said a spokeswoman.

A British lorry driver has been remanded in custody in southern France after customs officials allegedly found more than four tonnes of cannabis resin in his vehicle.

The lorry was en route from Spain when it was stopped at the Saint-Jean-de-Vedas motorway toll gate, near the town of Montpelier.

Customs officers using a sniffer dog detected the drugs, which were hidden among wooden palettes containing fruit juice and construction tiles.

PENSACOLA, Fla. (Reuters) - A Florida policeman resigned after a teenager complained that he made her do jumping jacks while topless to avoid arrest, Pensacola police said on Thursday. The 16-year-old and a 19-year-old man were kissing in a parked car when Officer Patrick Shields confronted them, police said.

The officer told them they could be arrested on trespassing and lewdness charges and asked them to suggest an alternative punishment, adding that the girl's punishment should be "embarrassing," the police report said.

She offered to do jumping jacks and push-ups and "Shields agreed and then shined his flashlight on the female while she did five jumping jacks without her shirt," the report said. The man did 20 jumping jacks, also shirtless, and Shields let them go, police said.

Identical teenage twins in Germany pretended to be the same person to frighten younger children into giving them money, a court has heard.

A juvenile court in Nuremburg heard the twin teenagers, who have not been named for legal reasons, had terrorised local children for months.

Dressed identically and choreographing their actions, the 17-year-old boys allegedly bullied children into handing over money, sweets and other property.

"They had a slick racket going," an investigator officer told Nuremberg State Court, where the youths face more than 200 charges.

A woman who stole almost £1.1m from mobile phone firm O2 and used the money to buy tickets to sporting events for colleagues and friends has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.

Jayne Harper - who was described as a "Robin Hood figure" - paid for corporate hospitality at sought-after events including the Monaco and British Grands Prix, the Cheltenham Festival, the FA Cup Final and Wimbledon.

The senior middle manager did it by forging signatures and diverting payments from O2 to genuine suppliers, Judge Richard Bray was told at Northampton Crown Court.

Hundreds of O2 staff, as well as Harper's friends and acquaintances, were said to have enjoyed the fruits of her deception.

A life jail sentence will mean life for the most serious crimes, the home secretary has announced.

David Blunkett said on Wednesday the new rules will mean punishments for murderers will better fit the crime.

"I am not prepared to allow sentences to be passed for the most horrendous, shocking crimes which do not reflect either the punishment required or the need to give a clear signal to perpetrators that we will not tolerate their presence in our society," he said.

A 22-year-old Indian man has been arrested for attempting to sit his 12-year-old sister's junior college entrance exams on her behalf.

Dasari Suresh reportedly said he got the idea of donning a wig and traditional dress to pass himself off as his sister Revathi from a movie.

He managed to enter the examination hall and take an entrance test before a supervisor, who noticed his face and signature did not match those on his sister's admission ticket, caught him.

The man accused of murdering Brighton music teacher Jane Longhurst has appeared in court.

Graham James Coutts, 35, a part-time musician and salesman, from Waterloo Street in Hove, was charged on Tuesday by Sussex police.

Appearing before magistrates in Brighton on Wednesday, he spoke only to give his name, address and date of birth.

A man accused of sending malicious emails has landed himself in a whole further heap of trouble by invoking no less than His Holiness the Pope as a character witness, the Telegraph reports.

Julian Evans, 28, of Monmouth, south Wales, found himself hauled before Merthyr Tydfil magistrates on a charge of sending abusive messages to the local T-Mobile call centre after the firm refused him a job. A pretty minor offence, some T-Mobile users might claim, but Evans obviously believed the beak intended to hand down some hard time.

In a desperate bid for leniency, Evans produced the following character reference:

Three paintings stolen from a Manchester art gallery should be back on the gallery's walls within a fortnight, despite being damaged.

The works by Van Gogh, Picasso and Gauguin - thought to be worth a total of £4m - were reported missing from the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester on Sunday.

The paintings - Van Gogh's The Fortification of Paris with Houses, Picasso's Poverty and Gauguin's Tahitian Landscape - were found the next day crammed into a tube behind a public toilet.

Dutch police called to deal with a break in at one of their own police stations found a tramp cooking sausages.

The officers found a window broken at the unmanned station at Veendam and saw footsteps leading inside.

When they followed them, they found a homeless man cooking some sausages, reports Groninger Internet Courant.

An elderly couple have been arrested in the US for allegedly performing a sex act in a booth at a fast food restaurant.

The 70-year-old man and 59-year-old woman have also been banned from Hardee's restaurant in New Philadelphia.

Police charged both with public indecency after receiving complaints from restaurant employees and a customer.

Two Britons have been arrested in Thailand on drug trafficking charges which carry a potential death penalty.

The two men, both reportedly from Leicester, were arrested on Monday separately in Bangkok and the southern island of Koh Samui.

Andrew Flannaghan, 33, was arrested when he was found allegedly carrying 1.3 kilograms (2.86 pounds) of heroin after arriving from Koh Samui by bus, the AFP news agency reported.

THIEVES stole up to £50,000 worth of cars in a lightning night-time heist on a Box garage.

The gang of raiders pinched six cars from St Martin's Nissan garage in a heist described by police as just like a scene from Hollywood movie Gone In 60 Seconds.

Two Ford Focuses, a Ford Puma, an Audi Quattro, a Mini Cooper and a Subaru Ipreza were stolen in a raid police believe could have taken just a matter of minutes.

The raid at the Bath Road garage on Sunday night has prompted comparisons with movie blockbuster Gone in 60 Seconds, in which Nicholas Cage directs a series of speedy car thefts.

Former music impresario Jonathan King has asked the Criminal Cases Review Commission to review his case.

King is serving a seven-year jail sentence for sexually abusing boys in the 1980s.

In January the Court of Appeal refused him permission to appeal against his conviction

Serious criminals will be able to keep their records secret from employers under new government plans.

Anybody jailed for more than 30 months currently has to disclose their convictions for life when they go for job interviews.

Under the new proposals, people jailed for four years or more, for crimes such as robbery, rape or manslaughter, would only have to disclose their record for the first four years after the end of their sentence.

A national newspaper has taken out a newspaper advertisement apologising to a man it wrongly identified as a convicted

The Sun is to pay damages to David Gazley, 40, of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, after printing his picture by mistake.

Last month, the tabloid paper carried a photograph of Mr Gazley next to the headline "Face of kid ban pervert".

Police in Gibraltar have arrested a man named on the Metropolitan Police's list of 10 Most Wanted men and women.

Ivor Tom Price Davies, 38, is wanted in Canada to face charges of causing death by dangerous driving whilst under the influence of alcohol.

He was on a list of the Met's 10 Most Wanted which was published on the force's website on Friday prompting a huge public response.

Police in China say they have smashed a gang of attractive women robbers who use their looks to lure their victims.

Shenzhen police say the women prowl bars, discos and theatres looking for gullible men to rob, according to a Southern Metropolis News report translated by China Daily.

They offer them drinks, which they have secretly drugged, and rob them as soon as they've passed out.

Up to 2,000 young offenders are to be spared jail and given mentors in a radical shake up of sentencing policy.

The Home Office "Intensive Control and Change Programme" is intended to be an alternative to imprisonment for those found guilty of theft, burglary and mugging.

The scheme will see offenders between the ages of 18 and 20 electronically tagged and subject to a curfew.

Seven members of the same family have been arrested in Chile for stealing luxury cars to attend a relative's funeral.

Police arrested five adults and two children in Antofagasta with a Rolls Royce, a Bentley, an Aston Martin and a Land Rover.

They told officers they were not criminals but had needed the cars to attend the wedding of a cousin.

A company in Peru is developing a sweet made out of a mixture of caramel and cocaine.

The company, from Carmen Alto, says the Cocamel will help people relax from the stress of daily life

Firm boss Rosario Lazo told Las Ultimas Noticias online: "The Cocamel is delicious and can be used to relax people from daily tensions.

A post-mortem examination is due to be carried out on the body of 17-year-old Hannah Foster, who was found dead in Southampton on Sunday.

Hannah was last seen walking home in Portswood, Southampton, after a visit to a pub on Friday.

Her body was found in undergrowth next to a road in the West End area of Southampton at 1400 GMT on Sunday.

Hampshire Police say Hannah was abducted and killed only minutes away from her home.

A robber thought to be shot in the head by one of his accomplices during a raid in east London has died.

The man, who has not been named, died from his injuries in Whitechapel Hospital at 1330 GMT on Thursday.

Police were called to reports of an attempted robbery of a Securicor van on Gainsborough Road, Leytonstone at 0805 GMT.

A man tried to hijack a Bulgarian train using a pair of scissors and a goat horn.

The ex-railway worker did it out of revenge against his former bosses.

Ilko Hristov locked himself in the driver's cabin and sealed all the doors trapping 120 passengers.

He had boarded it at Bourgas station in south-east Bulgaria after posing as a station worker.

Makers of videos featuring partying teenage girls going topless could face jail if they are caught filming in Florida.

Reports say any girls taking part in the Girls Gone Wild videos could also face imprisonment.

Lee Sullivan, mayor of popular spring break destination Panama City Beach, issued the warning.

An attempt to steal £7m of computer equipment from a lorry hijacked near Heathrow Airport has failed.

Robbers were forced to abandon their haul when they were spotted by police as they tried to load it onto a stolen van on Sunday morning.

Several men in a black BMW hijacked an American Airlines flatback lorry as it was driven along the west London airport's southern perimeter road at 1015 GMT.

Two young South Korean students were slowly suffocated to death by their landlord and their bodies entombed, an Old Bailey court has heard

They were bound and gagged tightly with brown packing tape, then one was left in a suitcase and the other in a sealed cupboard, Jonathan Laidlaw, prosecuting, said.

Kim Kyu Soo from Eagle Street, in Holborn, central London, denies murdering Jin Hyo Jung, 21, between 25 October and 28 and Song In Hea, 22, between 3 and 8 December, 2001

An Italian woman who told a road crash victim's family she had dreamt about the accident, has been charged by police who say she knows too many details.

The 40-year-old housewife turned up on Alfredo Baldeschi's doorstep and gave him a vivid description of the accident which killed his sister Loredana Baldeschi.

He told police about the encounter and they advised him to ask her to go through the "dream" again and secretly record her.

After listening to the tape, police arrested the woman and, after questioning her, charged her because she knew details of the crash known only to investigators at Latina, south of Rome.

The detective leading the hunt for a 15-year-old schoolgirl who disappeared from her home in Worcester with a serving policeman has urged the couple to contact their families.

Naomi Mills left her home in the St John's area of the city to walk to school on Friday, but she never arrived and her family have not seen her since.

West Mercia Police believe the teenager is in Scotland with 21-year-old Matthew Brooks, a serving police officer with the force, and two West Mercia officers were flown to the area on Sunday to help with the search.

Children across Scotland are to be offered free "top-ups" for their mobile phones in return for giving police information about offences in their areas.

The move is part of a new £300,000 campaign which encourages young people to improve their lives and not to become involved in anti-social behaviour.

Scottish pop star Darius Danesh will offer his support for the Crimestoppers "Dream On" scheme at its launch in Glasgow on Wednesday.

A man who escaped from prison a decade ago has been arrested in Jersey.

John Forrester, 57, escaped from Wellingborough Prison in Northamptonshire in 1993 and has been on the run ever since.

He was stopped as part of routine checks at St Helier harbour at 0830 GMT on Wednesday.

Lord Archer has been told he cannot work for a learning disabilities charity while in prison.

The disgraced peer is serving four years for perjury and perverting the course of justice at a libel trial.

The disgraced peer is serving four years for perjury and perverting the course of justice at a libel trial.

He had been due to work as a business administrator for the Genesis Project in Ipswich, Suffolk, which makes garden furniture and crafts and is run by the charity Mencap.

Girls should be removed from Holloway prison because of the poor conditions, the prisons' watchdog has demanded.

The Prison Service has been contacted by the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, who has published her report into the women's jail.

She said Holloway in north London was still suffering from many of the problems identified at a visit two years ago.

But the director general of the Prison Service, Martin Narey, said improvements have been made.

The Spanish waiter accused of murdering British schoolgirl Caroline Dickinson in a French hostel has reportedly confessed to her killing.

Francisco Arce Montes, 52, has told a French judge that he raped and suffocated the 13-year-old.

Montes is due to go on trial for the murder later this year after being extradited to France from the US 15 months ago.

Liverpool is expected to observe a one-minute silence today to mark the 10th anniversary of toddler James Bulger's murder.

The Liverpool Town Hall flag was being flown at half-mast in memory of the two-year-old Kirkby boy whose battered body was found on an isolated railway line.

Staff and shoppers at Bootle's Strand shopping centre - from where the trusting youngster was lured to his death - are also expected to pay silent tribute.

A Brazilian man has been arrested for allegedly pestering people while wearing a woman's thong and a pair of underpants on his head.

Danilo dos Santos e Silva was dubbed "The Pervert of the Thong" by detectives.

He has been identified by six of his victims and police believe he confronted another 30 women.

A mother watched in horror as her van was stolen with her nine-month-old baby son inside.

The woman was delivering newspapers to a shop in Long Eaton in Derbyshire at 1655 GMT on Wednesday when the thief got into the van.

The mother ran from the shop to try to the stop the van but the thief reversed over bollards and drove off with the baby inside.

A have-a-go-hero was shot and killed after he and a friend chased two suspected robbers who had struck at a travel agents just moments earlier.

West Yorkshire Police confirmed the 36-year-old victim and his friend drove after the suspects' car before a confrontation in which he was blasted in the chest.

The shooting happened near the junction of Thornton Road and Jowett Street, in Bradford, about a mile from where the travel agency, in Lumb Lane, had been robbed just minutes earlier.

Marijuana seized by police in Chicago last month turned out to be hay from a church Nativity scene.

Police got an anonymous tip that a major consignment was being moved in a truck.

When officers stopped the vehicle with Jose Galvan and Juan Luna in it, two small plastic bags with crushed green plants fell out of the cab.

On-the-spot tests seemed to confirm the plants were marijuana.

Stars in their Eyes presenter Matthew Kelly is to be questioned by police, after being arrested as part of an inquiry into sexual abuse against young boys.

The 52-year-old, from Chiswick, west London, was arrested by Surrey Police in Birmingham on Wednesday.

He is being held in Surrey in connection with "historic allegations" of sexual abuse against boys under 16, and will be questioned on Thursday.

The solicitor general, Harriet Harman, has been stopped by police for allegedly speeding on the M4 motorway.

The Attorney General's office said the minister was recorded travelling at 99mph in a 70mph zone in Wiltshire.

She would plead guilty at the "first available opportunity", the spokeswoman said. "Harriet Harman is very sorry that she exceeded the speed limit.

Police are questioning a man over the murder of two women whose body parts were found in bin bags in north London.

Anthony Hardy, who was being sought in connection with the killings, was arrested last night after a tip-off from a member of the public.

Officers went to the area of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and arrested the 51-year-old.

A tough "three strikes and out" policy intended to crackdown on burglars has seen just six persistent offenders jailed in the first two years of operation.

The scheme, which introduced automatic three-year jail sentences for a third burglary conviction, was launched in December 1999 by the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw.

Police in Harris County, Houston, are searching for a Santa who held up a toll booth.

The Father Christmas is accused of threatening a toll booth attendant with a gun and driving away with the contents of her cash drawer.

According to police, his outfit included a red hat, a long-sleeved red jacket and a full, white beard and moustache.

A British man who murdered five members of his family is offering $1.6 million reward for any information which could prove his innocence, his Web site says. Jeremy Bamber, 41, was jailed for life in 1986 for killing his adoptive parents, sister and her twin sons in one of the most notorious cases in recent British legal history.

His offer appeared on his Web site at the weekend, less than two weeks after he lost an appeal at London's Court of Appeal.

"Do you have or do you know someone who has information that could lead to my release?," a statement on Bamber's Web site read. "If you have, then I can guarantee one million pounds upon my release from prison."

Bamber has previously used his Internet site to give messages to the public from his prison cell.

A prisoner accused of escaping from jail has "disappeared" from the Old Bailey.

The man was due to appear for a preliminary hearing but dock officers said he was not in the cells below the court and they believed he was on bail.

Geoffrey Gelbart, defending, thought that highly unlikely given the nature of the charge against him.

The man convicted of kidnapping and murdering schoolgirl Danielle Jones is to be questioned by police about the whereabouts of her body.

Detectives will visit Stuart Campbell, 44, from Grays, Essex, in prison on Christmas Eve.

He was jailed for life at Chelmsford Crown Court yesterday for the abduction and killing of his 15-year-old niece.

A US man has been arrested over the theft of a police car from an officer who was pursuing him.

Indiana authorities say a police officer was pursuing a van December 9 following a reported burglary when the driver bailed out near a church in LaPorte County.

When the officer left his car and chased the man on foot, he circled around the church and stole the squad car, authorities said.

The officer had left the keys in the ignition and the engine was running, said North Liberty police Chief Steve Michael. The man sped off and hit speeds of over 100 mph, again eluding other pursuing police.

Fifty police officers have been arrested as part of an investigation into internet paedophiles.
They were among 7,000 British suspects identified by a US inquiry into users of child pornography sites.

The officers were targeted as part of a group of suspects whose jobs gave them special privileges or access to children.

On Tuesday, more than 250 police working on the UK investigation - called Operation Ore - executed 45 search warrants and arrested 34 men in the London area.

Police in San Diego used Mace spray and a beanbag gun on a man who charged at them with a broomstck.

He was arrested after police were called to check up on a man talking to himself.

The man was taken to hospital suffering from minor injuries, before being jailed on suspicion of assault and brandishing a weapon.

Local police said the Mace and bean bags had little effect on the man reports the San Diego Tribune.

A consultant psychiatrist who raped and sexually assaulted vulnerable women patients over 14-years has been jailed for eight years at Winchester Crown Court.

Christopher Allison, 60, was charged with the offences at clinics in Ashford and Canterbury in Kent, Oxford, and more recently in Basingstoke, Hants.

He was found guilty on Monday of nine counts of indecent assault and two counts of rape.

A mother took her toddler son to court after officials refused to accept they had made a mistake by charging him for speeding.

Lawyers, court officials and police fell about laughing when 16-month-old Jay Mack appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Court and tried to climb into the sheriff's chair.

His £208 speeding fine was immediately cancelled and court officers have launched an inquiry to discover how the case got so far.

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LOWER CHICHESTER - It was a long, chilly ride to the slammer for a township man who clung - wearing only a T-shirt - to the roof rack of a speeding car that his estranged wife took before he stabbed her 17 times with a tool, police said yesterday.

Even passing motorists were unsure of what they were seeing and made note of it as they called in details to the police. The high-speed peepshow ended in a crash in Chester, resulted in numerous criminal charges against the couple including criminal attempted homicide and DUI offenses against driver Lori Ann Becker, 20, of Heather Lane in Aston.

"A nude man on the roof of a vehicle on I-95" was among many of the reports Patrolman Ralph Conte received as he began investigating what came in at the county 911 dispatch center as a stolen vehicle incident, about 4:30 a.m

Paedophile Roy Whiting - jailed for life for murdering Sarah Payne - must serve a minimum term of 50 years, the government has announced.

Whiting, 43, who is serving time in Wakefield prison, West Yorkshire, was convicted in 2001 for the kidnap and murder of eight-year-old Sarah, from West Sussex.

Now, the Home Office has confirmed he will not be considered for release under he is at least 93.

A gang of robbers who carried out a £2.6m raid at Heathrow Airport have been jailed for a total of 25 years.

Security guard Sundeep Sidhu, 22, said he was the victim of an armed raid as he drove off with the foreign currency consignment while working at the airport.

But suspicious officers from the Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad placed Sidhu and his brother Harjit, 25, under surveillance and uncovered a plot to steal the money.

Police have remained on guard over the body of Moors murderer Myra Hindley for a second night.

The body is being kept at West Suffolk Hospital since the 60-year-old's death on Friday.

It is being held under tight security amid concerns that someone might attempt a revenge attack or try to take photographs of the corpse.

BRITISH prisoners will be allowed to receive hardcore pornography after a serial murderer used European human rights law to overturn a ban by prison authorities, Britain's The Sunday Telegraph reported.

The British prison service is now drafting new regulations giving wardens discretion to allow inmates to receive pornography after a number of prisoners argued the ban violated the Human Rights Act which guarantees freedom of expression and the right to receive information.

In particular the change stems from a campaign by Dennis Nilsen, jailed in 1983 for murdering six young men, for the right to receive explicit homosexual pornography, said the newspaper.

Inmates are being crammed into a converted storeroom because of a shortage of space at Ford open jail, inspectors have revealed. Their report, written after an unannounced visit by officials, demands facilities should be "urgently improved to provide decent living conditions for all prisoners".

"Some of the accommodation was appalling, providing neither privacy nor dignity," it adds.

The report comes as England and Wales' most senior judge Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf criticised the criminal justice system for relying too heavily on custodial sentences.

A woman has been airlifted to hospital after her gun fell into a toilet and shot her in the buttocks.

The woman is believed to have just taken firearm safety classes because she had been robbed in the past.

Columbia County Sheriff's Office says a deputy was called to a house in Lake City, Florida, US, about a shooting.

He saw a woman bleeding severely from her left buttock. The woman had to be airlifted to Jacksonville.

Thieves who steal from vulnerable old people by conning their way into their homes could be much more active than previously thought. A new survey suggests "bogus caller crime" is 16 times more prevalent than official Home Office figures show.

The research commissioned by British Gas estimates that 300,000 elderly people were targeted by bogus callers last year.

Half of the victims did not report the incident to the police.

Passengers have been evacuated from part of Boston's Logan International Airport after crew members found a pair of "beeping" athletic shoes in the overhead luggage area of a plane parked there, authorities said have said.

The discovery occurred on board a Delta Air Lines plane that had not yet begun boarding and was due to fly from Boston to Atlanta, a spokesman for Massachusetts State Police said on Thursday.

"The airline's crew were doing a pre-check of the aircraft when they heard beeping in the overhead compartment. They checked and found a pair of sneakers," the spokesman said.

The trial of Paul Burrell, former butler to Diana, Princess of Wales, was dramatically interrupted on Wednesday when the judge ordered the dismissal of the entire jury.

Less than 90 minutes later a new jury was sworn in, to begin hearing the case against Mr Burrell at the Old Bailey on Thursday morning.

The decision to re-start the trial three days after it began was made after a morning of detailed argument in court, but the reasons cannot be published due to legal restrictions.

A Welsh police team dubbed "the Frying Squad" has been formed to sniff out motorists who fuel their cars with cooking oil from fish and chip shops in a bid to avoid paying high government fuel taxes.

Three Welsh motorists have already been caught and fined for using waste oil from restaurants selling Britain's favorite deep-fried dish, the Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

"I have halved my motoring costs since I started running my Subaru on cooking oil," the paper quoted one of those stopped as saying.

"The car runs just as well and even smells a lot better than diesel."

The drivers were fined 500 pounds ($780) and warned that persistent offenders may face up to seven years in jail.

Ulrika Jonsson has admitted she had a relationship with England football coach Sven-Goran Eriksson.

After news of their friendship dominated the media for days the 34-year-old TV star said she was speaking out to end any further speculation.

Jonsson said the relationship was now over and denied issuing Eriksson, 54, with an ultimatum to leave his girlfriend for her.

Pupils at a Peterborough school fled a classroom in tears after being told Osama bin Laden had launched a nuclear bomb on Britain.

The bombshell was dropped as part of a drama lesson in which pupils' reactions were being tested.

Bushfield Community College insists pupils were warned in advance that the invented scenes were "not real".

The Millennium Dome has been closed for a year but it is still costing a fortune, with £28.4m having been spent on it in 12 months.

According to a report from the National Audit Office, the sum includes decommissioning, maintenance and the winding up of Dome organisers, the New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC).

Records fiasco It also revealed that poor record keeping had hampered fraud investigations at the failed attraction in Greenwich, south east London.
No contract details could be found for more than 100 companies that had handed in invoices for over £50,000.

Police believe they may have foiled plans for a terrorist attack in London on the day of the Queen Mother's funeral.

The scare began at 8pm on Tuesday, when an officer stopped a car near London Bridge. He spoke to the driver who then sped off.

The car, which had Northern Ireland plates, was later found abandoned in nearby Mincing Lane, just north of the River Thames.

The driver and passenger had disappeared and the area around the blue-grey Ford Granada was sealed off as police carried out a controlled explosion.

Police units based full-time in schools would help to reduce classroom violence, says a teachers' union.

There have been claims that a number of secondary schools with serious discipline problems could receive a permanent police presence.

And the National Union of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers says that police in schools would be welcomed as a step towards reducing attacks on staff.

Huge photos of missing people, including 13-year-old Amanda Dowler, are being put on the sides of lorries in the hope they will jog people's memories.

The Surrey teenager vanished 15 days ago, while walking from Walton-on-Thames railway station to her home one mile away.

Vehicle manufacturer Ford has joined forces with the National Missing Persons Helpline for the scheme.

A picture of Amanda, alongside the helpline's telephone number, will be on the first of the 10 specially decorated trucks, which travel around Britain transporting car components.

Authorities have been trying to restore order at a Scottish maximum security jail after inmates locked themselves into two halls.

Locks failed at Shotts Prison during a major electrical storm on Wednesday evening, allowing some prisoners to leave their cells.

Prison officers were forced to withdraw during the resulting disturbance and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) said it has been trying to resolve the situation.

CALCUTTA, India (Reuters) - Two policemen were suspended in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta after one of them allegedly bit the hand of a truck driver who refused to pay a bribe, a police official said on Monday.

The incident occurred on Sunday after two police officers pulled over the truck driver for a routine check, Deputy Commissioner of Calcutta Police Harman Prit Singh said.

"It seems the police vehicle driver was desperate to extract money from the truck driver. The policeman went berserk when the truck driver didn't cooperate and they got into scuffle. That's when the truck driver's hand was bitten," he said.

American teachers have banned children from playing cops and robbers as part of a crackdown on violence at school.

Youngsters at several schools across the US have been punished for pretending to be policemen or criminals, according to the Washington Times.

A nine-year-old boy in California has been threatened with suspension after being caught playing the game. The boy's father took his son out of the school to prevent the headmaster from removing him.

Other incidents include two New York pupils were suspended for pointing paper guns and saying, "I'm going to kill you."

The friends and former colleagues of Dudley Moore have paid tribute to the celebrated entertainer, following his death from a rare brain condition.

Moore died at his New Jersey home on Wednesday, after the degenerative supranuclear palsy which plagued the final years of his life led to pneumonia.

Jazz singer Dame Cleo Lane, who knew the comedian, actor and musician for almost 40 years, said: "In lots of ways it's a release for him.

A sweet-talking criminal made off with £600 worth of tools after persuading police he was helping the man he was stealing from.

Embarrassed Greater Manchester police chiefs have ordered an investigation after being duped by the thief over the phone.

A neighbour of plumber John Curley spotted the suspicious-looking stranger hanging around Mr Curley's van near his Oldham home.

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - A Munich man suspected of murder after he was seen carrying what a neighbour thought was a dead body into his flat has cleared his name by showing police his collection of rubber sex dolls.

A police spokeswoman said on Tuesday the neighbour called to say he saw the man carrying a "corpse" into the apartment. Police responding to the call found the suspect to be "surprised and disturbed" by their questions at first.

"When the officers then told the man they were investigating a murder he showed them his newly acquired silicon sex doll," the spokeswoman said.

The family of missing schoolgirl Amanda Dowler has released home videos of her in the hope that someone may recall seeing her. Footage shows the 13-year-old ironing and playing the saxophone at home shortly before Christmas.

Amanda, also known as "Milly", went missing from Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, on Thursday afternoon.

A massive search involving more than 100 police officers and dozens of volunteers was continuing on Monday.

Crime Stoppers is offering cash reward to solve crime

PORTAGE -- A 9-year-old Portage boy spent three years filling his toy safe with the "special coins" he received from the Tooth Fairy and others.

But a week ago, someone broke into his family's home and ransacked it. The intruder even ripped apart the boy's safe and took his money.

In an effort to solve the burglary, which occurred last Thursday in the 6800 block of Prairie Run Drive in Portage, Porter County Crime Stoppers is featuring it as Crime of the Week. A cash reward of up to $1,000 is being offered for information leading to the burglar's arrest.

The judge leading the inquiry into serial killer Harold Shipman will decide on the deaths of 500 of the former GP's patients.

Dame Janet Smith said it had been a colossal job after she examined a total of 800 cases since she opened the public inquiry last May.

She told anxious relatives she planned to publish decisions in her interim report in July.

Millions of pounds in cash has been stolen in a security van raid at Heathrow Airport - the second in five weeks.

The cash worth $3m (£2.1m) arrived in the UK on a South African Airlines flight and was being transferred to a security van when it was hijacked by two men armed with a knife at 0730GMT.

The men, described as Asian and in their twenties, forced the driver to drive out of Heathrow at knifepoint to nearby Cranford.

(Reuters) - Thai crooks can now find out exactly what to expect in the country's overcrowded prison system, thanks to a new website created by inmates with tips on coping with life behind bars.

The Department of Corrections site, set up by convicts recovering from illnesses at a prison hospital, aims to give prisoners and their families advice and information.

"We want to tell the public that it is not as scary as people may think, but it is not so comfortable that people should be attracted to life here," John Lertwitworapong, head of Bangkok's Correctional Hospital, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Controversial police commander Brian Paddick has been moved from his job while allegations about his private life are investigated.

Two Sunday newspapers claimed Mr Paddick had allowed his former gay partner James Renolleau to smoke cannabis in his flat and had smoked it himself on more than 100 occasions.

A club in Rugby is to hold an art exhibition by Charles Bronson, the man dubbed Britain's most violent prisoner.

The Regency Club will display cartoons and poems by Bronson on Sunday, June 16.

In a letter to a Coventry newspaper Bronson says his cartoons, drawings and poems have saved him from despair.

A sacked US postman has been jailed for throwing buckets of porcupine faeces, worms and parasites over former colleagues.

James Beal threw three buckets of the mixture over three staff members at the Empire Post Office. He claims he was sacked for no good reason.

He was jailed for 18 months in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and ordered to pay about £7,000 in fines and court costs.

Anyone stopped by the police would get a written explanation telling them why, under guidelines proposed by Home Secretary David Blunkett on Monday.

The measures are designed to give police confidence to stop members of the public without being accused of racism - but would lead to extra red tape for officers.

Police in Mississippi say a 15-year-old sneaked out of class to rob a bank and returned in time for lunch.

He was arrested at his school in Brandon 40 minutes after the raid. He's been charged with armed robbery.

Police say they found his bag filled with cash and clothes matching the robber's description in a classroom.

They wouldn't say how much money was taken.

Police have shot dead 12 men suspected of belonging to Brazil's most notorious organised crime group.

The 12 died when police opened fire on a bus and three cars carrying the suspected criminals at a highway toll booth .

Officers said the ambush, near the town of Sorocaba, 50 miles west of Sao Paulo, foiled a planned robbery at a regional airport.

No police were injured in the clash but four robbers escaped in one of the cars.

Later on Friday the prison population is expected to hit a new record of 70,000. The system's maximum is said to be 71,000.

The United Families and Friends Campaign claims that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has failed to bring those responsible to justice and wants police officers prosecuted.

There were 52 deaths in custody last year in England and Wales, 26% down on the previous year.

A police spokesman said prosecutors were investigating the man on charges of breaking laws against glorifying the Third Reich because he wore the Hitler disguise at a public festival.

The man donned the mask for a carnival celebration in the town of Gehren.

They kidnapped a housewife in the city of Americana for six hours while they negotiated with her husband.

He handed over a stereo, a microwave, jewellery, a mobile and five cheques. He didn't have the £5,000 cash they wanted.

Each cheque was for a different value - ranging between £1,500 and £75, the Estado de SP newspaper reports.

The court was told the money should have been incinerated, but went missing from the bank's cash centre at Waring Street in Belfast.

The men appeared at Belfast Magistrate's Court on Saturday.

The court was told that Paul O'Hare, 38, from Linden Gardens in Belfast, Andrew William Godfrey, 41, from Hampton Park, Bangor, County Down and Liam Sean O'Rawe, 40, from Downfine Park in Belfast had stolen old notes and attempted to hide them in bank and building society accounts.

David Westerfield, 49, a divorced self-employed engineer with two children, was taken into custody shortly after DNA test results showed Danielle's blood on an article of his clothing and in his motor home and other "DNA evidence" on an article of Danielle's clothing in her bedroom.

Alf Wilkins, 67, died after his flat on Grimsby's Yarborough Estate was set on fire by a vigilante gang in February last year.

He put the cigarette in his pocket so he could urinate against a fence, but was spotted by officers in Tallahassee.

He pulled up his trousers and ran off but his trousers caught fire and fell around his ankles, tripping him up.

Tallahassee police officer, Seth Stoughton, said: "We prepare for a lot of stuff, but I'd never expected to see the man's pants on fire. His pocket was outlined in red, and it was clearly smoldering."

Michael O'Kelly, 46, appeared at Newbury Magistrates Court on Wednesday charged with possessing indecent photographs of children.

The Catholic priest also faces a further charge of making indecent pseudo-photographs of children.

Four men have been found guilty of plotting to rob the Millennium Dome of £200 million worth of diamonds.

A fifth man has been cleared of the robbery charge but found guilty of conspiracy to steal the diamonds by a jury at the Old Bailey.

The jury of seven women and five men reached majority verdicts against the defendants after deliberating for nearly seven court days.

MPs are putting more pressure on the Government for an Amsterdam-style attitude to be taken on cannabis.

Cannabis should be decriminalised on the streets of Britain, the Home Affairs select committee will recommend in a landmark report.

It comes after a seven-month inquiry into Britain's drug laws, the Observer reports, to be published this spring.

MP John McDonnell claims people have got "airside" at the airport while carrying weapons.

Mr McDonnell, whose constituency includes the airport, also said others have gained access to secure areas without being subjected to any "anti-terrorist" checks.

He raised his concerns after two men attacked the driver of a British Airways security van in a cargo loading area at about 0630 GMT on Monday and escaped with the cash.