Huhne and Pryce facing jail

DISGRACED MP Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce are facing jail today as they are sentenced for perverting the course of justice.

Former Cabinet minister Huhne and economist Pryce have been warned by Mr Justice Sweeney to be under no illusion about what punishment they face at Southwark Crown Court this afternoon.

Pryce, 60, was found guilty last week of perverting the course of justice by taking speeding points for Huhne, 58, in 2003.

Judges to hear May’s Qatada appeal

HOME Secretary Theresa May’s appeal against the decision to allow radical preacher Abu Qatada to stay in the UK will begin today – three days after he was arrested for breaching bail conditions.

Three Court of Appeal judges led by Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls, will hear the challenge.

The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) decided last November that Qatada could not lawfully be deported to Jordan, where he was convicted of terror charges in his absence in 1999.

Hostage group ‘killed’ in Nigeria

THE Italian foreign ministry has said it believes a group of hostages in Nigeria – including one British national – are dead, according to an Italian news agency.

Ansa quoted from an Italian foreign ministry statement which said all seven hostages had been killed.

The Italians said checks carried out in co-operation with the other interested countries led them to believe news of the killing of the hostages taken last month in Nigeria was true.

Gang rape suspect commits suicide

THE main suspect in the gang rape and fatal beating of a woman on a New Delhi bus, an attack that horrified Indians and set off national protests, has committed suicide in jail.

Ram Singh, accused of driving the bus on which a 23-year-old student was raped and fatally assaulted by a group of six men in December, hanged himself with his own clothes, a police official at Tihar jail said today.

Singh, along with four other men on trial with him on rape, murder and abduction charges, had been under a suicide watch, the official said. The sixth accused is being tried and jailed separately because he is a juvenile.

Antibiotic resistance ‘a time-bomb’

THE threat posed by antibiotic resistance should be ranked alongside terrorism on a list of threats to the nation, the Government’s Chief Medical Officer has said.

The problem is a “ticking time-bomb” and should be put on the Government’s National Risk Register – which also includes “catastrophic terrorist attacks” and other civil emergencies, Professor Dame Sally Davies said.

Routine operations such as hip replacements could become deadly in just 20 years’ time if we lose the ability to fight infection, she said.