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Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Ex-bank left cash
A BUSINESSMAN bought a former bank — and found cash worth £250,000 in a safe. Ferhat Kaya, 33, forced it open with a pal and discovered neat bundles of stacked euro notes. But instead of pocketing the hoard, honest Ferhat called cops to ask them to trace the owner. He said: “Before they moved out, the bank people removed the entire alarm system — only the money they overlooked.” Ferhat bought the building in Ghent, Belgium, from Dexia Bank. He added: “There were documents indicating the money had been there since 2001. It was probably a customer’s.”
EXCLUSIVE by SHARON HENDRY
HAMMER attack victim Josie Russell’s dad has told of his pride at how she has rebuilt her shattered life to become a talented artist.
Devoted Shaun feared his young daughter would never recover from the horrific assault she suffered 14 years ago. Josie was only nine when she and her mum Lin, six-year-old sister Megan and their pet dog, Lucy, were attacked by crazed Michael Stone in a quiet country lane in Chillenden, Kent. He tied up and savagely beat the family, killing Lin, 45, and Megan, as well as their pet. Josie was left clinging to life with serious brain injuries. In the weeks following the nightmare attack on July 9, 1996, Shaun kept a constant vigil at her bedside. Against the odds, Josie survived. She is now an accomplished woman of 23 whose landscape pictures, made from recycled materials, are attracting widespread attention. Environmental scientist Shaun, 59, glows with pride as he talks about his beautiful daughter, who has just bought the family’s old home Plas Tanyrallt, or House Under The Hill, in Snowdonia — next door to the cottage where Shaun now lives. He says: “It has brought memories flooding back. Lin and I first chose the house because we’d been living in Africa and wanted to be in a similarly wild landscape. It’s hard to contemplate that Josie’s art studio will now be in a room Lin designed. “I am so proud of Josie. Lin was an incredibly driven woman and Josie has inherited that trait. She’s got a job at Tesco, her artwork, her charity work, her friends and a wonderful boyfriend.
3m cigs are held
NEARLY three million cigarettes were seized after being smuggled into Britain inside RADIATORS. The haul — worth more than £600,000 — was found in a trailer at the Port of Tilbury, Essex, when UK Border Agency officers noticed a discrepancy in documentation. The Jin Ling brand fags were shipped from Belgium. Senior detection officer John Holliday said: “We have hit the smugglers where it hurts — in the pocket.” “Profits from cigarette smuggling often fund other criminal enterprises like drug or people trafficking.” The ciggies will be pulped and burned to generate electricity.
CLOSE . . . Shaun and Josie before attack th and, below, wi Lin and Megan
Healing
“I’ve given her a lot of encouragement and told her she can reach for the moon, but she has achieved all this by herself. “There are times when I’ve had to remind myself of Josie’s brain injury and tell myself that she might not achieve as much as she perhaps would like. But she has surprised me time and again.” Shaun and Josie have forged an incredible bond since the tragedy. The family had moved to Kent so Shaun could take a new job. But as soon as Josie was fit to travel after the attack, they moved away to start afresh. Shaun recalls: “People said I was running away, but my reflex was to get Josie back to a place where I knew she had felt safe and secure. “So we set up home in the Nantlle Valley, west of Snowdon, in north Wales. Lin, Megan, Josie and I had happy times there after we returned from living in Africa in 1991, and Josie’s healing process began as soon as we arrived back. “In Kent, we seemed to be surrounded by counsellors, psychiatrists and specialists who all supposedly wanted to help Josie, but I felt many just wanted to help their careers with a high-profile case. Tucked away in the Welsh mountains, we were surrounded by people who cared about us alone — they had no hidden agenda.” While Josie’s return to her childhood home is cause for celebration, it has also made Shaun ponder some difficult questions. He says: “Lin and I were so happy in that house. It is an irony that we should have upped and moved to Kent for the sake of the family. I was offered a better job, lecturing at the University of Kent, and Lin, a geologist, was keen to start applying for jobs herself. “Even though we had it all, we still wanted a better life — but I suppose you have to be careful what you wish for sometimes. “There we were in the Garden Of
MATHS teacher: “Johnny, if I laid two eggs over there and two eggs over here, how many would I have? Johnny: “’I don’t know — let’s see you do it first . . . ”
England — then this million-to-one thing happens. I have to have cut-off points in my mind when it comes to the actual scene of the murder. I hate thinking about it for too long and I still don’t have pictures of Lin or Megan up around the house. “But Josie and I do tend the grave and we remember birthdays. Things can trigger memories and sometimes I am overcome, but most of the time life has to go on.” That has not always been easy. Michael Stone is now serving three life sentences for the two murders and Josie’s attempted murder — but has always protested his innocence and has launched a number of appeals. Shaun says: “The Criminal Cases Review Commission has spent three years looking at the case again and it sees no grounds to reopen it. That seems to make Stone’s conviction more solid. But I am a scientist and I
look for that solid piece of evidence. Sadly, it isn’t there.” Heroin addict Stone was arrested a year after the attack as a result of a tip-off from his psychiatrist. He denied any involvement and was remanded in custody. Josie failed to pick him out in an identity parade. Then, in
September 1997, Stone was moved to a cell next to another heroin addict, Damien Daley, who told police that Stone had confessed his guilt to him through a gap in the wall. Shaun says: “Daley supposedly repeated evidence that only Stone could have known, but others say it was already in the public domain. I suppose I have to accept we may never have complete certainty.” Closure or not, the family are focusing on the future. This Christmas, Shaun and his partner of several years, Primmy, will share a traditional dinner with Josie and her partner, 24-year-old sound engineering graduate Iwan Griffith, at their newly regained family home. So what would Lin make of it all? Shaun says: “She would simply say, ‘Ah, that’s sweet!’ “But most of all, she would love the fact that the house is being kept in the family.” s.hendry@the-sun.co.uk
Veg diet for dinos
MANY species of dinosaur were vegetarian rather than meat-eaters, scientists have found. Nearly all types of theropod — the suborder including Tyrannosaurus Rex — were previously thought to be predators. But a study of 90 found that the ones most closely related to modern birds ate plants. It let them adapt to become the most successful dinosaurs of the Cretaceous Period, 145million to 65million years ago. Dr Lindsay Zanno, of the Chicago Field Museum, US, studied fossilised teeth, dung, bones and stomach contents. She said: “Somewhere on the line to birds, predatory dinosaurs went soft.”