CYPRUS MAIL Tuesday, May 14, 2013
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Britain
‘Right to die not a case of sympathy’
BRITAIN TODAY Admission of Tia murder THE man accused of killing schoolgirl Tia Sharp yesterday admitted her murder on the fifth day of his trial at the Old Bailey. Stuart Hazell, 37, dramatically changed his plea yesterday and admitted murdering the 12-year-old in August last year. Window cleaner Hazell hung his head in the dock as he changed his plea and jurors were asked to formally find him guilty. Lord Carlile, representing Hazell, said his client wanted to make it known that “Tia’s family have suffered enough and he did not want to put them through any further stages of this trial or this process”.
Huhne, Pryce released FORMER energy minister Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce were released early from prison yesterday, just two months after being jailed for lying to police about a speeding offence. Sentenced in March to eight months behind bars each, the pair were found guilty of perverting the course of justice by falsely telling police that Pryce rather than Huhne was at the wheel of a vehicle caught speeding on a motorway in 2003. Released from separate prisons, Huhne - once tipped as a possible successor to Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg - and Pryce served just 62 days of their sentences.
Brown offers Scotland view FORMER prime minister Gordon Brown has returned to the political front line to make a “positive, principled, forwardlooking case” for Scotland to stay in the UK. Brown, who left Downing Street three years ago, called for a “Union for social justice” and argued that remaining in the UK will benefit people in Scotland.
British Prime Minister David Cameron (right) insisted that his policy to seek renegotiation on the UK’s EU membership enjoyed the full backing of all his ministers
Cameron: EU status quo is unacceptable By James Tapsfield DAVID Cameron branded the existing European Union set-up “unacceptable” yesterday as Tory skirmishing continued. The Prime Minister again refused to echo comments by senior Cabinet ministers who have indicated that they would vote to leave in an immediate referendum. But he gave his strongest suggestion yet that he would support a British exit if renegotiation efforts were unsuccessful. “The problem with the status quo is I don’t think that the status quo in the EU is acceptable today,” Cameron said. “I want to change it and having changed it I then want to ask the British people a very simple in/out question.” Speaking in Washington ahead of talks with US president Barack Obama, Cameron was asked if he was “comfortable” with Sunday’s interventions by Education Secretary
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PM moves to quell Tory skirmishing over Europe Michael Gove and Defence Secretary Philip Hammond. “There’s not going to be a referendum tomorrow, there is going to be a referendum before the end of 2017,” the Prime Minister said. Cameron said “the whole of the Conservative Party” was signed up to his policy of renegotiating and then staging a national poll. He also made an appeal for Eurosceptic Tories to focus on winning the general election in two years’ time. “We are the only mainstream party making this offer to the electorate at the next general election,” he said. Some 53 MPs have now signed the Commons amendment criticising the absence of a referendum Bill in the Queen’s Speech, including 50 Tories and three from Labour
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- Kelvin Hopkins, John Cryer and Kate Hoey. But eurosceptic backbencher Peter Bone, one of those who tabled the motion, predicted that “most” Conservative MPs will support it when it comes to a vote in the Commons, adding that he hoped ministers would be allowed to join them. Bone told BBC2’s Daily Politics: “The amendment we have put down regretting that there is no EU Referendum Bill is of course the Prime Minister’s policy. I am sure that in America, he is toasting what I and a number of other colleagues have done, and I’m sure that if he wasn’t in America he would be supporting the amendment. “The reason there is no EU Referendum Bill is that the pesky Liberal Democrats are
blocking it in the coalition. They are such a small minority party - far smaller than Nigel (Farage)’s party. Why should we take any interest in them? “Most Conservative MPs will vote for it. By the time we get to Wednesday, I hope the ministers will be allowed to vote for it.” Voting against an EU Referendum Bill would be “political suicide” for Labour because it would send a signal to voters that the party would not give them a referendum , said Mr Bone. But Labour Europe spokeswoman Emma Reynolds insisted that Labour had not ruled out a referendum for all time. “We are not in favour of a referendum now and not in favour of a referendum at some arbitrary point in the future,” said Ms Reynolds. “However, in foreign policy it would be unwise to rule something out forever and we would have a referendum if there were a transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels.”
TWO paralysed British men who want to die but cannot kill themselves went to court yesterday seeking protection from prosecution for those who could help them end their lives. The case is one of the most high-profile attempts to change the law on the right to die in Britain, where assisted suicide is illegal. “I’m constantly thinking, ‘how on Earth can I do it without getting someone into trouble?’” said Paul Lamb, who was left paralysed by a car accident in 1990. “I just want my wishes to be respected, that’s all I want,” Lamb, 57, told reporters outside the courtroom. He is immobile except for limited movement in his right hand, requires 24-hour care and is constantly on morphine to relieve pain. Judge Igor Judge, speaking at the start of the hearing in the Court of Appeal, said he was aware of the men’s “desperate situation” and he was sympathetic. “But they must surely know that we cannot decide this case as a matter of personal sympathy. We have to decide it as a point of law.” Lamb was in court in his wheelchair as the judge spoke. The other man, named only as Martin, is a 48-year-old who was left unable to speak or move after a stroke four years ago. He can communicate only through movements of the head and eyes. “It is their experience that their life has become unbearable,” said Paul Bowen, a lawyer representing Lamb.
Lamb was left paralysed by a car accident in 1990