141017_OLIVE PRESS EAR.pdf 1 17/10/2014 15:12:13
FROM JILTING BRIDES TO TV STAR... THE WEDDING PLANNER RESURFACES ON PAGE 2
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Vol. 9 Issue 205 www.theolivepress.es
It’s us or the PP
PHOTO BY GARETH, CASTLE RADIO
OLIVE PRESS – Earpiece 8th & 21st January
to e om la c l We rbel Ma
WINTER WONDERLAND: Snow is falling... at last! Here it is on the San Pedro-Ronda road
What the blazes! A CONTROVERSIAL new law could lead to arsonists torching valuable green spaces to open the door for developers. Environmentalists have slammed the legislation that allows land razed by fire to be reclassified quickly for development if ruled as having an ‘overriding public interest’. Green groups Ecologistas en Accion, SEO/BirdLife and Equo insist the change to the Forest Act will allow objections on environmental grounds to be easily solved with an ‘accidental’ fire.
Re-zoned
Previously any land burnt by fire required 30 years before it could be re-zoned for building. Green party Equo spokesman, Juan Lopez de Uralde, said: “This is a return to the past. “Previously when any obTurn to Page 5
January 22nd - February 4th
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PODEMOS leader Pablo Iglesias (left), claims the only options in November’s elections will be his party or the PP. At a rally celebrating the party’s first anniversary in Sevilla, he insisted his party is the ‘only option for change’. Speaking in the PSOE-led capital of Andalucia, he slammed new socialist
Former officer appeals for help after being left destitute and trapped by Spain’s court system and unable to return home to the UK
leader Pedro Sanchez. “Sanchez is lost and full of doubt,” he claimed. “It’s still unclear whether he wants a coalition with the PP or not.” To add insult to injury, his deputy Teresa Rodriguez, went on to criticise Junta leader Susana Diaz, claiming her party had created a ‘hereditary bureaucracy’. MAIN RIVAL: Rajoy
CATCH-22
EXCLUSIVE By Imogen Calderwood A FORMER soldier claims he has been ‘trapped’ in a Kafkaesque Catch-22 after getting caught up in a tax fraud in which he insists he was a victim. Tim Hawkins, a former officer with the Royal Artillery, claims he has been unable to leave the country - or work for nearly seven years. His nightmare began when he was arrested during a family holiday to the Costa Brava in May 2008. The financial advisor, 57, was dragged from his wife and two young sons, aged four and eight, as they arrived at Girona airport passport control. Bundled into a cell, he was held for 15 hours with no explanation, and left terrified, confused and unable to speak to his family. It emerged that Hawkins who left the army to run a finance business in Manchester - faced an international arrest warrant, after being linked to a Spanish friend’s tax scam a decade earlier.
FOND MEMORIES: Hawkins (on right) at his daughter’s wedding with the rest of his family and (inset) alone in Spain “The whole situation has been a complete nightmare,” the father-of-four told the Olive Press. “It is never ending and has destroyed my life. “I did little wrong, as the courts agreed, but I have become a victim of Spanish bureaucracy and the injustice of the justice system.” Currently living in Torremolinos, Hawkins, who served
in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, insists he has been forced to remain in Spain without his passport. Despite receiving support from his British MP Mike Thornton, the Spanish Embassy and the British Legion, he is unable to move forward. While he was only found to be a small, passive cog in a complicated tax scam, the au-
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thorities have refused to return his passport as an appeal process is ongoing.
“It means I am unable to go home, unable to work and am living in limbo,” he explained. A British Legion grant to help pay his rent and travel costs for hearings has now dried up, leaving him unable to pay rent and other bills. Hawkins has only been allowed to return to the UK three times in six years on compassionate grounds, for the weddings of his two adult daughters and his father’s funeral. Tragically, his wife Giulietta has now divorced him, insisting she couldn’t wait for his return for ever, and he has only seen his sons Duncan Turn to Page 4
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