Gavin Mooney: British Economist Beaten To Death

An eminent British economist and his wife have been murdered at their home in Australia.

Professor Gavin Mooney, 69, and Dr Delys Weston, 62, were found at the property in Tasmania on Wednesday and are thought to have been bludgeoned to death.

The retired Briton was previously the director of the Social and Public Health Economics Research Group in Australia and held a number of senior positions at universities in the country.

He was born in Glasgow in 1943 and graduated from the University of Edinburgh before embarking on a career that saw him hold academic positions in the UK, Denmark and Australia.

He moved to Australia permanently in 1993.

Australian health minister Tanya Plibersek said the deaths were a "tragic loss for the health community, both in Australia and internationally".

She said: "Professor Mooney was a fearless advocate for social justice, and in particular the role of citizen juries, leading debates on the importance of consumers in determining how their health resources are allocated.

"Described as 'one of the founding fathers of health economics', his research was driven by real world challenge and geared towards identifying practical solutions.

"He was an inspiring teacher and supervisor, which when coupled with his extensive publication record, will ensure his legacy persists."

Australian media reports claimed Dr Weston's son has been charged in connection with the deaths and is expected to appear in court in the New Year.

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'Booze Buses' Take Strain On Busy Party Night

By Liz Lane, Sky Reporter

For the first time, four London Ambulance "booze buses" have been put into operation in the capital to cope with one of the busiest party nights of the year.

The specially converted mini buses are equipped to deal with every medical eventuality, and are used to take the strain off emergency services dealing with non alcohol-related 999 incidents.

Paramedic team leader Brian Hayes came up with the idea seven years ago.

He said: "It was purely to deal with the increase in the number of alcohol-related jobs we were receiving in London.

"The pressure on the ambulance service, especially on Friday and Saturday nights deemed it necessary.

"Every chair space and every bed space that we have on this vehicle will be ready for somebody who's intoxicated. We've got the vomit bowls for the obvious."

On a normal Friday night just one bus is in operation. Last night there were two in London's West End, one in the City and one in Camden.

Many are taken to an alcohol recovery centre in Soho, but the more serious cases end up in hospital, as do under-18s.

Brian's team picked up a 17-year-old boy on Park Lane.

He said: "He's been out partying with his friends and he's had too much, basically.

"He can't walk any further so we're going to have to take him up to hospital. He's too young for our walk-in centre."

Last year in the 10 days over Christmas 180 patients were treated at the centre.

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Domestic Abuse Charities May Not Cope At Xmas

By Isabel Webster, West of England Correspondent

Cuts to domestic abuse charities are "putting victims at risk" as organisations warn they are expecting more cases than ever during the festive period.

The Association of Chief Police Officers reports a much higher volume of 999 calls from women over the Christmas holiday.

Gwent Police Chief Constable Carmel Napier said: "Normal life is not going on. The children aren't at school. People aren't at work.

"The expectation of a good time adds pressure and alcohol can be an aggravating factor.

"This combination of factors seems to cause a combustion of tensions that are already there."

According to the charity Refuge, one in four women in England and Wales experience domestic abuse in their lifetime and two women a week die.

Carol, a mother-of-four from Bristol, managed to escape her abusive relationship with the help of the grassroots charity, Survive.

Over several years her partner physically and mentally abused her, sometimes in front of her young children.

"The first night anything happened he just took his belt off and started whipping me. I was so shocked as I'd never seen him violent before," Carol said.

"He hit me with his mobile phone, so hard it left an imprint on my chest. He said he was going to kill me and threatened to throw me out the window - picking me up by my throat. He said he was going to rip my head off.

"But the worst part was the mental abuse. I had to walk behind him, I was timed if I went out to pick up the kids and had to ask permission to leave the room to go to the loo.

"I thought if I just did what I was told, if I was better, I could make it right for everyone, but I was never going to win."

Survive chief exec Anna Smith says charity is under increasing pressure

Carol is now safe and rebuilding her life, but the effect on her and her children remains.

Breaking down in tears, she sobbed: "If I'd known what I know now - what a bad effect it would have on my kids I would have got out sooner.

"I tried to protect them physically but you can't protect someone mentally from what they hear, what they see."

Carol maintains that Survive is the one good thing that came out of her ordeal.

But the charity, which supports women in South Gloucestershire and Bristol, is under growing pressure.

It has seen a 76% increase in high risk cases in the last year.

Over the Christmas period it estimates it will have to turn away 15% of the women and their families who need emergency refuge.

Chief Executive Anna Smith said: "We've been cut, yet we're seeing more women and children than ever.

"I am seriously concerned about it. Vulnerable people won't necessarily be able to get access to the help that they need this Christmas."

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Sadia: Missing Chiswick Schoolgirl Is Well

Police have found a 10-year-old girl from a primary school in West London who had gone missing since Friday.

Sadia Mohamed was well when she was found by police.

Officers had previously said they were increasingly concerned over the welfare of the girl, who had last been seen leaving Southfield Primary School in Southfield Road, Chiswick, at around 4pm.

No other information was immediately available.

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A Middleton Christmas For Kate And William

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are to spend Christmas Day privately with the Middleton family, St James' Palace has announced.

Kate and William will break with tradition by not celebrating with the Queen and the rest of the royal family in Sandringham.

The decision will help the couple avoid the public eye and allow Kate to rest as she continues to battle acute morning sickness.

But it will come as a disappointment to royal fans who traditionally turn out to see the family attend church on Christmas morning.

Kate at BBC Sports Personality Of The Year

Last year, Kate and William were a huge draw as they made the walk from Sandringham up to St Mary Magdalene Church for the first time as man and wife.

Staying in Berkshire also means that the Duchess of Cambridge will be within closer reach of King Edward VII hospital in London where she was treated for hyperemesis gravidarum.

The move was made with the approval of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and the couple will visit Sandringham at some point over the holiday.

Prince Harry will also not be at Sandringham this year because he is still serving in Afghanistan.

Kate, 30, is now believed to be close to the end of her first trimester after being forced to go public with her pregnancy early due to her illness.

She spent several days in hospital at the start of December after becoming sick during another weekend with her parents.

Since then, she has been resting at Kensington Palace in central London and cancelled all her scheduled appearances.

The Duchess did manage to recover enough to present the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Award to Bradley Wiggins last Sunday.

And she was also seen going to the wider royal Christmas celebrations at Buckingham Palace earlier this week.

Experts have warned that she could continue to suffer with severe sickness throughout the pregnancy.

Kate was a big hit in Sandringham on Christmas Day last year

Kate's sister Pippa has given an insight into her Middleton family's festive plans.

Writing in the latest edition of The Spectator magazine, she said Christmas in Bucklebury was likely to be "blissfully calm".

"Home is, happily, where I'll be this year," she said. "The Middletons' Christmas should be blissfully calm. We're good at keeping each other's spirits up."

And she revealed that her father Michael liked to surprise the family by appearing in fancy dress.

"He buys a new costume each year and typically gets a bit carried away - a couple of Christmases ago, he appeared in an inflatable sumo outfit," she wrote.

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Road Tolls Would Be A 'Poll Tax On Wheels'

Introducing further road tolls would be "electoral suicide" and a "poll tax on wheels", motoring campaigners have warned the Government.

Motorists will not stomach any further charges on the cost of driving on top of the already high vehicle tax and the soaring cost of fuel, they cautioned.

And they said that a massive political backlash would be meted out at the polls, if the coalition pushed ahead with proposals to charge drivers to use roads.

A Whitehall feasibility study, which will look at whether it is possible for private companies to own new roads, is due to report in the New Year.

It has also been suggested the coalition's mid-term review will include reforms allowing private firms to charge motorists to use new major roads.

The Department for Transport insisted that it was not considering breaching a commitment to restrict tolls to new major roads or those upgraded "literally beyond all recognition".

Peter Roberts of the Alliance of British Drivers said there would be a massive backlash from voters - pointing to his 2007 petition against nationwide road pricing which attracted 1.3 million signatures.

Road tolls are levied on the M6 at Birmingham

"I think people have made their views on road tolling, road pricing, very very clear. I think it would be electoral suicide...kind of like the poll tax on wheels.

"Most drivers already believe they are paying too much for the roads," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

AA president Edmund King said: "Drivers don't like paying more taxes, but our research suggests they don't want the roads privatised or have to pay tolls and access charges."

He added: "The Government needs to go back to the drawing board or they could end up with a poll tax on wheels."

Robert Oxley, campaign manager of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "Hard-pressed motorists are already over taxed.

"Introducing new toll charges to use part of Britain's road network would create a two tier system where only the drivers who can afford it would get access to the motorways while the rest of us are stuck on the back roads."

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British Boy Dies Hiking In Australian Bush

A 14-year-old Scottish boy has reportedly died from heat exhaustion after collapsing during a hike with his father in Western Australia.

Local news reports have quoted police as saying the two were hiking in the Cape Range National Park, south of Exmouth, on Friday when the boy collapsed to the ground.

Police say the father and son were not carrying a great deal of water, according to Australian TV ABC.

Temperatures in the region were well above 40C (104 degrees Fahrenheit) at the time, police said, urging tourists to carry plenty of water when hiking in such conditions.

The boy's father called emergency services, and police located the pair around 700 metres down a gully and not far from a car park, according to the reports.

The boy was treated on the track before being transferred to Exmouth Hospital, where he later died.

The boy's father is a 49-year-old man from Geraldton, in Western Australia's mid-west, the reports said.

A police spokeswoman told The West Australian: "It is a known path and bush track.

"They were not lost. It is not suspicious. It is just a tragic accident."

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Shoppers Queue For Start Of Christmas Rush

By Tadhg Enright, Business Correspondent

Shoppers queued outside stores and car parks were full to capacity at malls across the country on the last full shopping day before Christmas eve.

Today is forecast to be the busiest day of the year in shopping malls and on the high street with customers spending an estimated £2.6m a minute.

The British Retail Consortium expects between £4bn and £5bn to be spent throughout this weekend.

At the Westfield Derby shopping centre, Richard Thornton, marketing and communications manager, said: "It is extremely busy, much busier than it usually is for this time on a weekend and the car parks were extremely busy when I was coming in this morning.

"We're open from 9am until 7pm, and we had about 50 people queuing outside the Pandora jewellery store before it opened this morning."

Peter Beagley, general manager at Glasgow's Braehead shopping centre, said shoppers were queuing outside stores before they opened at 9am.

He said: "By 10am our car parks were full and we had staff on duty directing cars to spaces when they became available."

A spokesman at Sheffield's Meadowhall shopping centre predicted that 120,000 to 130,000 shoppers will pass through the doors today.

"Meadowhall, as expected, is busy," a spokesman said. "It's not mayhem but it is very busy."

Sales at Brent Cross Shopping Centre could be the busiest yet

Tom Nathan, Brent Cross shopping centre manager, said the next four days were likely to be "enormous for us in terms of sales".

He said that gloves and scarves were flying off the shelves. Headphones which double as earmuffs were selling at the rate of one pair every seven minutes.

But the Local Government Association said confidence on the high street remained low.

Its annual Christmas survey found that 84% of town centre managers said confidence among shoppers had either not improved or worsened compared with this time last year.

It also suggested that the particularly cold and wet start to the winter could also be taking its toll on the number of shoppers visiting town centres.

Normally the busiest day of the year is December 23 - the last day before Christmas Eve - but this year that falls on a Sunday when trading hours for bigger shops are restricted by law to just six hours.

Big name retailers including John Lewis, Morrisons and Marks & Spencer failed in a bid to convince the Government to relax the restrictions on Sunday trading tomorrow.

M&S has responded by opening more than 100 of its stores at 12.01am on Christmas Eve morning to help shoppers get their Christmas essentials in time.

An M&S spokesman said: "We know that the days leading up to Christmas are some of the most hectic for our customers.

"Due to Sunday trading rules, we can only open for six hours on one of the busiest days of the year.

"We hope that these early bird hours on Monday will ease the pressure and give busy shoppers a bit more time to pick up Christmas food orders or last minute presents."

Waitrose, part of John Lewis, will also extend Christmas Eve trading hours in two thirds of its supermarkets by opening an hour earlier at 7am and closing an hour later at 6pm.

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Royal Prank Call: CPS To Consider Charges

Lawyers are now deciding whether to bring charges over the prank call to the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was treated.

A nurse working at the King Edward VII Hospital, where the Duchess was suffering from severe morning sickness, killed herself after being duped by the hoax by two Australian radio presenters.

Jacintha Saldanha, 46, transferred the call from the DJs pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles to the ward where the Duchess was being treated. Another nurse gave them details of her condition.

Ms Saldanha, a mother-of-two, was found dead in nurses accommodation just three days later on December 7. She had hanged herself.

Jacintha Saldanha and her husband Ben Barboza

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will now consider whether any potential criminal offences may have been committed, Scotland Yard said.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Following the death of Jacintha Saldanha, officers have liaised with the CPS as to whether any criminal offences had been committed in relation to the hoax call made to King Edward VII Hospital in the early hours of Tuesday December 4.

"On Wednesday December 19, officers submitted a file to the CPS for them to consider whether any potential offences may have been committed by making the hoax call."

About 2,000 people turned out for the funeral of Ms Saldanha earlier this week in the small Indian town of Shirva, near Mangalore, where her husband Ben Barboza was born.

Mr Barboza and the couple's two children, Lisha, 14, and Junal, 16, have said that her death has left them "shattered" and her loss has left an "unfillable void".

Ms Saldanha left three notes, the opening of an inquest into her death has heard. It has been reported that one was critical of the hospital and its treatment of her.

The Australian DJs Michael Christian and Mel Greig have had death threats

However, officials at the hospital have insisted that they offered her a great deal of support during the fall-out from the hoax and did not criticise her or discipline her.

In a letter to the MP Keith Vaz, who has been supporting the family, John Lofthouse, the Chief Executive of King Edward VII Hospital, said: "Jacintha was reassured on a number of occasions by senior management that no blame was attached to her actions and that there were no disciplinary issues involved, because she had been the victim of a cruel trick."

Following the death of Ms Saldanha, the two DJ's Mel Greig and Michael Christian and other staff at the radio station 2DayFM received death threats.

As many as a dozen staff were moved to safe houses while executives at the broadcaster were given bodyguards.

Miss Greig and Mr Christian gave a television interview apologising to Ms Saldanha's family and saying they too were shattered.

They said their prank had prompted "a tragic turn of events no-one could have predicted or expected".

Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), the parent company of 2Day FM, has ended the DJs' Hot 30 show and suspended prank calls across the company in the wake of Ms Saldanha's death.

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Weather: Floods Bring Christmas Misery

Families preparing for Christmas have been hit by floods and travel chaos as heavy rain batters Britain.

The southwest of England has been particularly badly affected by the downpours and three severe flood warnings - which means there is a danger to life - were issued in Devon and Cornwall.

Conditions are so bad that rail passengers have been told to avoid parts of southwest England and South Wales.

And motorists and shoppers faced difficult conditions on one of the busiest weekends of the year for travel and shopping.

The town of Braunton in north Devon has been effectively cut off, with homes and shops under water, after the River Caen burst its banks.

Liz Spear, chairman of Braunton Parish Council, said a river was running through the centre of the town.

"It's really bad. We had flooding seven years ago but it was nothing like this," she said.

Floods in Helston, Cornwall, led to homes being evacuated

Some residents in Helston, Cornwall, were evacuated overnight after river levels rose.

In Lostwithiel around 195 people were advised to leave their homes, and a rest area was set up in the Community Centre.

Cornwall Council spokeswoman Trisha Hewitt said:  "As this is falling on saturated ground, this could cause further flooding."

The Environment Agency has issued 126 flood warnings - where flooding is expected - across the whole of England and Wales, and 338 flood alerts, where flooding is possible.

There was a heightened flood risk across Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Bristol, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, West and East Sussex, North Yorkshire, South Wales, Ceredigion and Gwynedd.

In Scotland, 17 flood warnings - mostly in Tayside - and 15 flood warnings were issued by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

The Met Office released amber weather warnings, which mean "be prepared", for heavy rain and strong winds across south-west England, Yorkshire and Humber, Wales, central Scotland and the Grampians until Sunday morning.

Sky News Weather Presenter Nazaneen Ghaffar said heavy rain was forecast to continue across much of the country.

Flood-hit streets in York

"We're going to continue with bits and pieces of rain over south-western parts of England for the rest of today," she said.

"That main rain from Saturday morning is moving north and eastwards - so there will be some heavy downpours in Scotland and northern England.

The water has already led to major issues on road and train networks, spelling trouble for Britons travelling this weekend.

The First Great Western train company advised passengers whose travel was not essential to avoid any journeys west of Taunton in Somerset because of flooding and landslips.

Arriva Trains Wales told passengers to avoid any rail travel in South Wales. Both operators were using road vehicles to transport passengers, but efforts were hampered by a lack of vehicles and flooded roads.

Meanwhile, staff shortages and signalling problems caused disruption on London Midland services. Buses replaced trains on some routes, while passengers were warned of possible cancellations at short notice.

Mark Ridge, landlord of The London Inn in Braunton, only moved into the pub seven months ago with his family and had spent £90,000 on renovation work.

A man wading through Braunton, Devon

"We were hoping this weekend would be our bumper weekend, to carry us through January, February, trade wise, but it's just killed it now," he said.

Annette Essex, who owns a pet shop in Braunton, said: "Suddenly at 6am the banks of one of the rivers broke and the water came flooding down Caen Street and into the high street and we were under about 3ft of water in our store area.

"It was like a torrent of water. It was quite scary because you could hear the swish of the water and the whole road just turned into a river in the space of about 30-40 minutes."

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