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Saturday, January 21, 2012

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No. 49,443

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Key witness traced in death inquiry

A key witness has been traced in an investigation into how an Angus man died from a stab wound.

Tayside Police yesterday revealed a woman visited the house of Carnoustie man Tony English, the day before he was found dead at his home. page 5

AC/DC rocker remembered

Angus-born rocker Bon Scott’s pivotal part in the early success of legends AC/DC has been helping pull the crowds to a major exhibition in Glasgow. page 4

PM: I won’t talk Scotland down

By David Clegg, political editor

D AV I D C A M E R O N w i l l n o t q u e s t i o n S c o t l a n d ’s a b i l i t y t o prosper as an independent nation as he battles to keep the country in the UK. In an exclusive interview with The Courier, the Prime Minister said he would not

run a referendum campaign casting doubt on whether or not Scotland can go it alone.

Speaking to a Scottish newspaper for the first time since the constitutional debate exploded on both sides of the border a fortnight ago, he instead pledged to make a “positive” case for the Union.

“I am not going to run a campaign that says

Scotland cannot survive on its own,” he said.

“I am going to run a campaign — and others will run a campaign — about the advantages of being together.

“This is a great partnership where we both have benefited from the immense Scottish talent that comes into the United Kingdom.”

Continued on page 10

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Stray dog numbers fall

The Courier’s Political Editor David Clegg interviews the Prime Minister Picture: INS

The number of stray dogs being seized in Angus is continuing to drop following a rehoming tie-up. The council’s infrastructure services committee heard that dog wardens picked up 150 stray dogs in 2008, 123 in 2009 and 117 in 2010. page 7

Fund could help museum

Progress on the ambitious project to transform Perth’s Black Watch Museum hinges on the Heritage Lottery Fund. page 8

SNP favour Saturday referendum

See page 10

Rafters to fight river ban

Rafters have vowed to fight a court ruling limiting their rights to the River Tay to just three days a week. page 9

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Friday, January 20, 2012

No. 49,442 - 3

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Fears voiced over Dounreay waste

Angus

Hayley could be the next catwalk star

by Alan richardson

A Perth teenager is setting out to prove that she is the fairest maiden of them all after reaching the finals of a UK-wide modelling competition.

Hayley Honeyman will battle it out between 45 other young women to be crowned Top Model UK’s natural beauty of 2012. n Page 3

Young bride loses fight

Wedding joy has turned to heartbreak, after a young Fife bride lost her courageous fight for life only weeks after her big day.

Two years ago Rosyth travel consultant Mandi Callander was over the moon when her long-term boyfriend, Paul, popped the question. n Page 6

Modern day Fagin banned

A modern day Fagin has been banned from every one of Perth’s shops.

The town’s sheriff court yesterday heard a tale with echoes of the Charles Dickens’ classic Oliver Twist as Jessie Hendry appeared from custody. n Page 9

FEARS TAYSIDE could be exposed to a devastating nuclear leak were raised yesterday after plans to transport tonnes of hazardous material through the area were outlined.

Environmental groups reacted with horror to the suggestion that 50 train loads of potentially hazardous material could pass south from Dounreay for reprocessing at Sellafield.

The movement of 44 tonnes of breeder material could start as soon as this summer, according to a presentation given to Highland Council by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

Although not confirmed, it is expected the uranium metal tubes used to produce plutonium would take the most direct route, starting from Inverness and moving down the main line southwards, through Perth.

Critics swiftly hammered the plan and savaged the nuclear industry.

Scottish Greens MSP Patrick Harvie said: “Transferring this nuclear fuel by rail imposes an unacceptable level of risk on those communities along the route, and I urge Highland Council to reject the proposal on these grounds.

“Greens want to see this material dealt with where it was generated, by storing it securely and with the option of retrieving in the future.

“I’m confident that Scotland will never again choose to back a technology that leaves us with such a toxic and expensive legacy.”

The trains could pass through Dunkeld, just metres from the WWF Scotland headquarters.

Its head of policy, Dr Dan Barlow, said: “People may be surprised to learn that dangerous material like this might be passing beside or through their community.

“The risks associated with moving nuclear fuel and waste is just another reason why Scotland is right to resist building a new generation of nuclear power stations.”

Friends of the Earth Scotland also said the material should be dealt with at Dounreay.

Chief executive Stan Blackley said: “Transporting nuclear waste is unnecessary and risky, with enormous potential for accidents and mistakes.

“Existing nuclear waste should be securely stored, with full retrievability, above ground and as close as practical to where it arose, in this case at Dounreay.

“This would at least benefit the local community through the creation of long-term jobs.

“There is simply no easy way to deal with the historic waste from Scotland’s nuclear past, some of which will remain potentially deadly for thousands of years.

“We need to stop producing the stuff in the first place, by closing and safely decommissioning all of Scotland’s remaining and ageing nuclear establishments as quickly as possible.”

But the NDA yesterday stressed the Caithness site no longer has such capability as it addressed Highland Council on the plans in Inverness.

Dr Adrian Simper said the site is being demolished and decontaminated, and there would be no way to restore it if nuclear material were to be retained there. l Continued on Page 9.

Perth Rail Station, where it is proposed the nuclear waste would pass through.

Fury at Salmond defence ‘vision’

ALEX SALMOND was accused of betraying the people of Fife last night after he outlined his vision for a Scottish Defence Force, were the nation to break away from the rest of the UK. The First Minister said the set-up emerging from the Government’s Strategic Defence Review of one naval base, one air base and one mobile armed brigade would be “exactly the configuration” needed for an independent Scotland.

Opponents pounced on the comments, saying they were a betrayal of air bases like Leuchars which Mr Salmond vowed to fight for.

Fife Labour MP Thomas Docherty said, “This is total hypocrisy by Alex Salmond and the SNP, who vowed to fight for Leuchars and have now betrayed the people of Fife.”

In an interview with BBC Scotland, Mr Salmond said: “The configuration of the army in Scotland, the mobile brigade, which is the outcome of the defence review, looks exactly like the configuration you’d want for a Scottish defence force — so that’s one naval base, one aircraft base and a mobile armed brigade.”

He also said Scots wanted the UK’s Trident nuclear missiles removed from the naval base at Faslane.

The SNP leader’s vision was immediately dismissed as “laughable” by Defence Secretary Philip Hammond.

He said: “The UK Armed Forces are a highly integrated and very sophisticated fighting force.

“The idea that you can sort of break off a little bit, like a square on a chocolate bar, and that would be the bit that went north of the border, is frankly laughable.” l Continued on Page 9.

Sex pic blackmail teenager detained

by Craig Smith

Adam Marini who blackmailed girls into sending him explicit pictures.

A FIFE schoolboy who used the internet to blackmail a young girl into supplying him with sexually explicit images of herself was given an extended sentence yesterday.

Adam Marini (17), of Sunnyside, Strathkinness, was ordered to spend thirteenand-a-half months in detention after admitting three separate charges relating to the extortion or attempted extortion of images using social media sites over a six month period in 2010 at Cupar Sheriff Court.

Once released from custody, Marini will be subject to a period of close supervision for three years, while Sheriff Charles Macnair also imposed a 10-year Sexual Offences Protection Order (SOPO) — the first of its kind pursued by the Crown Office and not the police in Fife — which means Marini will not be allowed to delete internet history from any device he owns.

Police will also have the power to examine any device used by him to access the internet for a decade.

Marini previously admitted trying to menace one girl, who was just 15 when the behaviour first started, saying he would distribute

sexually explicit images of her if she did not supply further pictures.

He further pled guilty to a charge of threatening a second girl with physical and sexual violence in a bid to extort sexually explicit photographs of her or induce her to get the first girl to send pictures, telling the girl he would abduct her and tie her up.

He then contacted a third girl using Facebook and threatened to rape her.

His crimes came to light when he broke down, confessing to staff at a Christian Outreach Centre.

The court heard yesterday how Marini had become infatuated with the first girl and enjoyed a friendly relationship on sites like Facebook and MSN Messenger mainly at night, typically contacting each other between 10pm and 2am to chat.

Having looked at 400 pages of internet logs prior to the case, Marini’s solicitor Andrew Grieve explained that his client had been “very measured” throughout those discussions.

“There’s an infatuation with the main complainer in this case and there’s certainly an unrequited crush on her,” he said.

“The relationship continues for a year and over the

course of those discussions he asks her if there is any prospect she might go out with him.

“She is quite clearly way out of his league but she diplomatically and politely declines. There’s no rancour at this stage, nothing to indicate that Mr Marini took that rejection particularly badly.”

However, after Marini managed to get her to exchange explicit pictures using the alias ‘Jamie Brown’, Mr Grieve said his client had been “astonished” at the ease in which he was able to get the images and the situation took a more sinister turn.

He then adopted the name ‘Darren Oldie’ and began conversing with the same girl online, saying he had found the pictures sent to ‘Jamie’ and threatened to post them on Facebook if she did not send more.

Terrified about the original images becoming public, the girl sent further images, although attempts to get her to send even more sexually explicit material were not complied with.

Marini, whose plans to train as a teacher lie in tatters, targeted a friend of his first victim and demanded indecent pictures from her or he would disclose images of her friend. l Continued on Page 14.

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