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NOT CRACKING DOWN ON CRIME
Benjamin Thelwell crashed into an 11-year-old, causing his legs to be amputated. He careered off the road as he practised wheel spins and sent Jordan Bright smashing into a wall. The 20-year-old admitted dangerous driving and was sent to a young offenders’ institute for five months and banned from the road for three years. At his age he should be classed as an adult and suffer the appropriate consequences. Thelwell later caused outrage when he revealed he was appealing against his sentence but he risks having his time inside INCREASED. Let's hope justice prevails.

EASY MONEY
Mudassar Arani, a human rights lawyer who has defended cleric Abu Hamza and an alleged London suicide bomber, was paid almost £1million in legal aid. But she admitted she does not know basic employee rights. Ms Arani was accused of making a former colleague's life a misery because he was Indian. She told him Indians were “useless bastards” and that “people who qualified in India mean nothing”, Watford employment tribunal was told. Her counsel Amanda Hart said, “She works very hard for very long hours. She receives nothing like the £30,000-a-year the claimant claims. She is not in this business to make money but to be a human rights lawyer.”

CRIME IN BRITAIN TODAY
We're now living in a Britain where there are no-go areas in some of our inner-cities. A country where a young man, after daring to remonstrate with a fellow passenger on a bus, ended up dead and a country where Anthony Walker was murdered with an axe because a bunch of racist yobs didn't like him having a white girlfriend. A headmaster in Northants said he'll allow his pupils to use the F-word five times in a lesson while, in Cheshire, a 17-year-old caught on camera waving a ball-bearing gun at terrified shoppers was dismissed by police with just a ticking off. The owner of a vandalised car in Hertfordshire found himself unable to make the culprit pay the £350 bill because police, citing the Data Protection Act, refused to name the offender. Who mentioned National Service?

PATIENTS NOT A PRIORITY
A cash-strapped hospital bought a giant pebble to stand outside its main entrance for £70,000 in order to cheer up patients. Bosses said it symbolises how University College Hospital has come together on one site in Euston after being spread across London. The hospital's trust is struggling with a predicted £100million a year cash shortfall hanging over it as other problems including MRSA and waiting lists plague the NHS. Louise Boden, chief nurse and designer for the hospital trust, defended the rock saying, "A healing environment is crucial to a positive patient experience." Strict rules on the King's Fund scheme mean the money cannot be spent directly on patient care.

RAILWAY "CHICKEN"
A teenager played "chicken" on a railway line as a train hurtled towards him at 100mph. The frantic driver sounded his horn and slammed on the brakes as he spotted the youth on the track and at the last moment, with the wheels of the train screeching, the 17-year-old leapt to the safety of the platform. The youth claimed he "did it for a laugh" when he was caught by transport police. Supt David Farrelly for British Transport Police, said, "This happened just a few months after two teenagers were struck and killed near Darlington. Despite that, and the effort the rail industry puts in to combating this sort of crime, we almost had another life cut short." The youth was arrested at the scene, charged with malicious damage and was given a six-month referral order and ordered to pay £40 costs. Dyan Crowther, route director at Network Rail, stressed the need to provide a strong deterrent as well as education on the dangers to keep people off the lines. How about stiffer sentences for a start?

SCHOOL EXPULSION UNFAIR
The father of a 15-year-old pupil at an exclusive private school plans to sue over its attempts to expel the boy because of a poor disciplinary record. Russell Gray believes the £7,300-a term college is more concerned with league tables than his son's educational wellbeing. He said, "We are bringing the case quite simply because we feel we've been unfairly treated." His son said that the 400 misdemeanours he is being punished for are all relatively minor. "It was chewing gum, forgetting books, stuff like that," he said. He added that he had been caught smoking and once disciplined for having beer. Four hundred misdemeanours? The college is obviously over-reacting.

CRIMINALS WIN AGAIN
Scientists condemned the animal rights movement after the closure of a controversial guinea pig farm. The owners of the Darley Oaks Farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire, finally caved into pressure after a bitter illegal six-year battle with activists which culminated in the unsolved theft of the remains of the owner's late mother-in-law. Hundreds of people were terrorised by the protesters. Threats had been made against anyone who was associated with the family who own the farm, who were themselves the subject of paedophilia smears. In what was described as a "guerrilla terrorist campaign" hundreds of properties were damaged in the local village, mainly in night attacks, and electricity supplies were cut. A spokesman for the Department of Trade and Industry said, "The Government is determined to tackle extremists who harass or threaten those involved in vital, life-saving scientific research."

CRACK DOWN ON DRIVERS
British drivers who ignore parking fines picked up abroad run the risk of having their cars seized by bailiffs and of being registered as debtors. A private London-based company has been tracking down thousands of British drivers who allegedly owe money to municipal authorities and toll operators in countries including Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland and Spain. The registration numbers of offending vehicles and details of the penalties are being sent to Earn Parking Collection, which then applies to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) for the names and addresses of the drivers. Euro Parking, a Swedish-run firm, writes to offenders, warning that failure to pay could lead to a heftier fine.The DVLA has so far tracked down 30,000 motorists. It's about time we started doing the same to foreign motorists who flout our traffic laws while over here.

TV LICENCE
The end of the television licence fee would be a "sad day" but might happen in the "long term", former BBC director general Lord Birt said. He told the Edinburgh International Television Festival he could envisage a time when the current way of funding the BBC loses favour with viewers. Sorry to disillusion you Mr Birt, but that day arrived long ago.

AGE OF CONSENT
Twelve teenagers will be challenged to go without sex for five months in a new BBC reality show. Six boys and six girls aged 15 to 17 must resist temptation and at the end of the series will be forced to share a house for a weekend. Isn't sex illegal for under sixteens?

STRICT PASSPORT RULES
Passport application forms now contain a guide to having your photo taken. You can't grin, the background has to be plain white, your glasses have to be on straight, you have to look directly at the camera. Children can't even be shown holding soft toys, no shadows, no hair over the eyes, and no head coverings. There's one exception - for religious reasons you can wear a hijab, that symbol of Muslim female self-oppression. If it's important that the pictures show us uncovered, why should there be any exceptions? And if it's not important, why insist on it? Islamic correctness has to be the answer.

ARSONISTS ALLOWED MATCHES
Serial arsonist Marie Dalziel escaped an Asbo banning her from carrying matches after her solicitor said it infringed her right to smoke. Police wanted her to face the penalty as part of a wide-ranging order which included carrying lighters and fuel to start fires. Her lawyer Mike Heggerty asked magistrates, “How can the court prohibit someone from carrying something that can start a fire? Rubbing two sticks together can start a fire." Try it, Mr Heggerty.