'Reveal where April's body is' plea
By Anonymous on May 31, 2013 01:45 am 31 May 2013 Last updated at 01:45 ET 
Mark Bridger has continued to lie about what happened to April Jones
Mark Bridger, the man found guilty of abducting and murdering five-year-old April Jones, has been urged to finally reveal what he did with her body.
The 47-year-old, of Ceinws, Powys, will spend his whole life in prison after he was found guilty of killing April in a sexually motivated attack.
She went missing while playing near her home in Machynlleth last October. Her remains have never been found.
A community spokesman pleaded for the killer to say where her body was.
However, getting Bridger to crack and finally reveal what he did to cerebral palsy sufferer April could take years, a criminal psychologist has said.
Mystery still surrounds what exactly happened to the five-year-old after her friend said she "happily" got into Bridger's Land Rover after he approached her on the Bryn-y-Gog estate at about 7pm on 1 October, 2012.
During police interviews and throughout his four-and-a-half week trial, he rigidly stuck to his story that he accidentally ran April over and was so drunk he could not recall where he had put her body.
The largest missing person search in UK police history failed to find her remains.
In an interview with The Sun, April's parents Paul and Coral Jones said there was "no way" that Bridger would tell them where their daughter is - and they will not give him the satisfaction of asking.
Mrs Jones said: "It's the not knowing that's the hardest part. It's my worst nightmare come true," she told the newspaper.
"We haven't got a body to give April a proper burial and that breaks my heart.
"Lots of people have questioned him, but he's refused to tell us all along. If he's lied to police, barristers, the judge, there's no way he will tell me where my little girl is."
After he was unanimously found guilty of her abduction and murder, the judge at Mold Crown Court, Mr Justice John Griffith Williams, branded father-of-six Bridger a "pathological liar" and "a paedophile".
Continue reading the main story 'Controlling and manipulative'
Criminal psychologist Serena Simmons said one of the challenges health professionals face in dealing with violent offenders is their manipulative nature.
"Often offenders like Bridger will display a high level of emotional intelligence (EI). This is different from someone's IQ and how intelligent they are," she said.
"EI is about an individual's ability to identify, assess and control the emotions of oneself or others."
Bridger's cunning nature was all too evident during his trial - which saw him cry crocodile tears on several occasions.
"Violent offenders often have a very long back story that you need to unpick before you can attempt to try and get the truth," Ms Simmons added.
He gave him a whole life tariff - only the 37th person to be given a whole-life tariff - and told him: "Without the knowledge of what happened to April, her parents will probably never come to terms with their grievous loss."
Following the verdict, Machynlleth councillor Michael Williams urged Bridger to reflect on the "magnitude" of his "horrific" crime and reveal what he did with April's body.
"How can a man be so unfeeling? How is it possible for anyone to be in such a state of mind? I would appeal to Mark Bridger - please, please let the family know," he said.
"What happened to that little girl, where was she put? What did he do with her?
He said the family needed some peace after the "horrendous" events of 1 October.
Criminal psychologist Serena Simmons said unpicking the complex web of lies spun by Bridger would be far from easy for prison psychiatrists.
But while it could take some time, "the truth will usually emerge" in such cases, she added.
April Jones went missing after playing with a friend near her home
"He clearly is deluded and has a distorted view of the world," said Ms Simmons, a Nottingham Trent University senior psychology lecturer who has interviewed serial killers in the UK and USA.
"He certainly displays this mentality of 'if I keep stalling then eventually things will blow over'. But that is far from the case.
"The reason why killers often refuse to admit the extent of their crimes and their motivation can vary tremendously.
"But he definitely knows what he has done to April Jones and how she came to her death.
"If you question a person repeatedly, especially one who is trying to hide something, then the truth will usually emerge.
"The cracks in his story have already started to show during his trial. He will face more questions while in prison from his psychiatrist.
"Whether he chooses to engage with that process is a different matter but I fear finding out the full extent of what he did could take a very long time."
Search called off Shortly after he was convicted on Thursday, it emerged that while on remand at HMP Manchester Bridger told a prison priest he disposed of April's body in a river - thought to be the Dyfi close to where he was arrested.
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Coral Jones: "April will be forever in our hearts"
This conversation was the subject of legal arguments during the trial.
The jury was absent during the discussion and the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to submit the evidence.
What was revealed during the trial was that fragments of bone consistent with a juvenile human skull were found among ashes in the woodburner, along with April's blood near to a number of knives, including one which was badly burned.
A library of child sex abuse images was found on his computer, and evidence of search terms including "naked young five-year-old girls" as well as pictures of murder victims including the Soham victims Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
Search experts, police officers and volunteers to scoured some 60 sq km looking for April
He also had Facebook pictures of local young girls including April and her sisters.
April's disappearance sparked the biggest missing person search in UK police history.
But despite the fact that search experts, officers from 46 police forces and hundreds of members of the public scoured 650 areas covering 60 sq km near her home town, April's body has never been found.
Insp Gareth Thomas, who led the search, told the jury he was "extremely confident" that if April's body was anywhere in the vicinity, it would have been found.
The seven-month search for her remains was finally called off last month.
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Web porn curb urged after April case
By Anonymous on May 31, 2013 03:02 am 30 May 2013 Last updated at 23:16 ET 
The conviction of Mark Bridger has raised questions about access to illegal material on the internet
Search engines such as Google should do more to restrict access to online pornography, a government adviser on child internet safety has said.
John Carr said increasing the number of sites automatically blocked by search engines would make it more difficult for paedophiles to get images of abuse.
It comes after Mark Bridger was found guilty of the abduction and murder of five-year-old April Jones in Powys.
Google said it was committed to ending access to illegal internet sites.
Mr Carr, a member of the government's Council on Child Internet Safety, said Google and other search engines should reset their default search setting to the safest option - blocking access to legal and illegal pornographic images.
Those wanting to reach such material would then have to log on to the sites, which would deter many from doing so, he argued.
Violent images It has been suggested that some internet companies are reluctant to do this because it would drive users to sites unwilling to change their policy and put them at a competitive disadvantage.
Children's charity the NSPCC said April's killing highlighted the increasing evidence of a link between disturbing and violent images of children online and serious sexual assaults.
A Google spokesman said it immediately removed illegal online sites from its search index when they were brought to its attention.
During Mark Bridger's trial, the jury was told that police had found a library of pornography on his laptop which included violent images of children.
BBC political correspondent Chris Mason said Bridger's conviction had renewed the debate about what could be done to limit access to such material online.
Commons Home Affairs Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz told the Times newspaper that the case had shown "we need to act to remove such content from the internet".
He called for a code of conduct to ensure internet service providers "remove material which breaches acceptable behaviour standards".
Life sentence Bridger, 47, of Ceinws, Powys, claimed he had accidentally run April over and could not recall where he had put her body.
But a jury at Mold Crown Court unanimously convicted him in a case lasting four-and-a-half weeks.
The judge branded him a "pathological liar" and "a paedophile".
April went missing on 1 October 2012 near her home in Machynlleth, sparking the biggest search in UK police history. Her remains have never been found.
Bridger was given a whole-life tariff prison sentence, meaning he must spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Read in browser » Assad warns Israel against strikes
By Anonymous on May 31, 2013 03:24 am 30 May 2013 Last updated at 19:04 ET 
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President Bashar al-Assad said that Syria would respond to any future attacks on its territory by Israel
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has warned Israel that it will respond in kind to any future air strikes.
In an interview with a Lebanese TV channel, he said there was "popular pressure" to open a military front against Israel in the Golan Heights.
He also suggested Syria may have received the first shipment of an advanced Russian air defence system.
Israel has warned it would regard the Russian missiles as a serious threat to its security.
Mr al-Assad was speaking to al-Manar TV, which has close ties to the Lebanese Shia militant movement Hezbollah, a close ally of the Syrian government.
Israel has carried out three air strikes on Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"There is clear popular pressure to open a new front of resistance in the Golan," Mr Assad said.
Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since the 1967 war. It annexed the territory in 1981, in a move that has not been recognised by the international community.
Syrian shells have hit Israeli positions on the Golan Heights, though it is unclear whether they were aimed at rebels in border areas, and Israel has returned fire.
Syria and Israel have been in a state of war since 1948 but the border had been relatively calm in recent years.
Russian contracts Excerpts released from the al-Manar interview ahead of broadcast quoted Mr Assad as saying Syria had already received a first shipment of S-300 missiles from Russia.
But in the interview itself, he said only: "All we have agreed on with Russia will be implemented and some of it has been implemented recently, and we and the Russians continue to implement these contracts."
The S-300 is a highly capable surface-to-air missile system that, as well as targeting aircraft, also has the capacity to engage ballistic missiles.
Ahead of the interview, Israeli government minister Silvan Shalom said Israel would "take actions" to ensure that advanced weapons did not reach groups such as Hezbollah, but there was no need to "provoke an escalation".
He told public radio: "Syria has had strategic weapons for years, but the problem arises when these arms fall into other hands and could be used against us. In that case, we would have to act."
The military chief of the main umbrella group of Syrian rebels, the Free Syrian Army, has accused Hezbollah fighters of "invading" Syria.
In a BBC interview, Gen Selim Idriss claimed that more than 7,000 Hezbollah fighters were taking part in attacks on the rebel-held town of Qusair.
More than 50,000 residents were trapped in the town and a "massacre" would occur if it fell, he added.
Talks about talks Mr Assad also said Syria would "in principle" attend a peace conference backed by the US and Russia, if there were not unacceptable preconditions.
The main opposition group outside Syria said it would not join the talks while massacres continued.
Its interim leader, George Sabra, said talk of diplomatic conferences was farcical while Syrian government forces backed by Hezbollah were carrying out heinous crimes.
The opposition has been meeting for more than a week in Istanbul to elect new leaders and devise a strategy.
For his part, Mr Assad said it would not be surprising if the conference failed, and if it did, it would not make much difference on the ground, because what he called the "terrorism" of the rebels would continue.
Russian, US and UN officials will meet next week in Geneva to prepare for the proposed conference in June.
Read in browser » Policing of payday lenders 'timid'
By Anonymous on May 31, 2013 01:51 am 30 May 2013 Last updated at 19:01 ET 
Margaret Hodge, who chairs the committee, said regulators should act quicker
A regulator has been "ineffective and timid" in tackling rogue payday and door-to-door lenders, MPs have said.
Unscrupulous behaviour by the "shabby end" of the UK consumer credit market cost consumers at least £450m a year, the Public Accounts Committee said.
It criticised the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for failing to act quickly to stop lenders targeting vulnerable people.
But the OFT said it had taken strong action while facing legal restrictions.
'Passive' The UK's consumer credit market was one of the largest in Europe, the committee's report said, with £176bn lent to individuals in 2011-12.
Credit card lending and personal loans still dominated the market, but door-to-door and payday lending had risen significantly since the financial crisis.
These primarily offered customers short-term, high-interest loans. There are nearly two million payday loan customers, but there has been widespread concern that some lenders have been encouraging people to take on debts which then rapidly spiral out of control.
The committee was scathing in its view of regulation by the OFT, which has the power to grant or revoke the credit licences that allow these lenders to operate.
"[The OFT] has been ineffective and timid in the extreme. It passively waits for complaints from consumers before acting," said Margaret Hodge, who chairs the committee.
"It has never given a fine to any of the 72,000 firms in this market and very rarely revokes a company's licence."
'Legal constraints' It went on to suggest that the regulator lacked basic information about operators in this sector, and how much they lent. It failed to effectively prevent directors of lenders that lost their licence - a process that took up to two years - from setting the business up again under a different name.
Investment by the OFT in regulating the sector was also described as "paltry", with fees charged to lenders unrelated to their size.
"If the OFT had raised its fees, it could have raised its game as a regulator," it said.
Since evidence was taken by the committee, the OFT has challenged 50 leading payday lenders to clean up their act after it found "widespread irresponsible lending" in the industry.
Short-term, high-interest loans have become increasingly popular
As a result, two have surrendered their credit licences, three have had their licences revoked, and formal investigations have started into another three.
Defending its work, the regulator said that it had a good track record in tackling the areas of greatest risk to consumers, but had to work within tight legal rules.
"We are disappointed the committee has not acknowledged the legislative constraints under which the OFT currently operates, including a lack of regulatory powers and the limited circumstances where a fine can be imposed," a spokesman said.
Cost clarity Next year, the OFT will be wound up, with regulatory responsibility shifting to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The committee said it needed to be quicker to intervene, and needed better intelligence about lenders, but it also said it expected better regulation to start before 2014.
"The regulatory regime must stop tiptoeing around the problem." Mrs Hodge said.
The committee said that threats to revoke licences should be followed through.
It also wanted clearer details for consumers on the amount of interest charged, by replacing the "outdated" APR measure with a clear statement of the total repayable amount in cash.
It also called for a limit on the number of times a short-term loan could be "rolled over" by door-to-door lenders month to month, pushing up the interest charged.
Charities have suggested that problems with short-term credit are becoming an increasingly important issue for people they speak to.
On Tuesday, Citizens Advice suggested that the payday lending industry was "out of control", with loans given to people aged under 18, to those with mental health issues and to individuals who were drunk at the time.
The Money Advice Trust said its National Debtline received 20,013 calls about payday loans last year, double the previous year, and a huge increase from the 465 calls in 2007.
Richard Lloyd, executive director of consumer group Which?, said: "This is a damning verdict on the credit market and the OFT's failure in the past to step in and protect consumers. It underlines once more why a crackdown is urgently needed to tackle unscrupulous high-cost lenders.
"We are encouraged by the OFT's recent, tougher, approach, but there must be no further delay in taking action, starting with a ban on excessive fees and charges, and stricter rules on affordability checks."
Consumer Minister Jo Swinson said: "We agree that stronger powers are needed for the regulator which is why the OFT now has the power to suspend a credit licence immediately and the new Financial Conduct Authority will have wide-ranging powers to ban products, order consumer redress and impose unlimited fines."
And the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Sajid Javid, said the government was introducing "a fundamentally new approach" to regulate consumer credit.
He said it would ensure that irresponsible firms and bad practice would "have no place in the consumer credit marketplace".
Read in browser » Business group upgrades UK forecast
By Anonymous on May 31, 2013 02:46 am 30 May 2013 Last updated at 19:01 ET 
The service sector accounts for about three-quarters of the UK's economic output
A major business group has upgraded its long-term growth forecasts for the UK economy over the next three years.
But the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) warns that growth is still too weak and that the economy faces domestic and overseas challenges.
The BCC said it expected output to increase by 0.9% this year, up from a previous growth prediction of 0.6%.
It sees gross domestic product (GDP) for 2014 being raised from 1.7% to 1.9%, and for 2015 from 2.2% to 2.4%.
"The upward revision in our growth forecasts is encouraging," said BCC director general John Longworth.
"Unfortunately, this does not change the fact that economic growth is still too weak and the pace of recovery will remain unduly slow for a while yet."
And the body called on Chancellor George Osborne to use next's month's government spending review to "help create the right conditions to boost enterprise, so that businesses can invest, export, create jobs and drive the recovery".
The BCC represents 104,000 business members with more than five million employees,
In its economic forecast, it also says the services sector, which takes up the major share of the economy, is likely to outperform other areas.
The outlook boost comes after the Bank of England recently forecast that growth would be a little stronger. But this week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development cut its prediction from 0.9% to 0.8% for the year.
Read in browser » Brazil-England friendly 'to go ahead'
By Anonymous on May 30, 2013 11:35 pm England's friendly with Brazil in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday has been suspended over safety issues at the recently renovated Maracana stadium.
A court order on Thursday ruled that the game will not go ahead, but that decision could still be overturned.
More to follow.
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