![Image]( "Chaytor jailed over false expenses")
The first ex-MP to be jailed over the Westminster expenses scandal woke up behind bars after being sentenced to 18 months for falsely claiming more than £22,000 of taxpayers' money.
David Chaytor, who represented Bury North for 13 years, admitted fiddling his expenses by forging tenancy documents, and was told by a High Court judge his punishment was needed to help restore public trust in politicians.
But the 61-year-old could be released as soon as the end of May under early release rules for non-violent prisoners who pose a low risk, and it remained unclear whether he would still receive a £54,000-plus Commons "golden goodbye".
Under the home detention curfew scheme, the disgraced Labour ex-politician may only have to serve four-and-a-half months of his sentence behind bars before being tagged and released.
Passing sentence at Southwark Crown Court on Friday, Mr Justice Saunders told Chaytor that because he breached the "high degree of trust" placed on MPs, his offence had "wider and more important consequence" than other similar crimes.
"It is necessary their behaviour should be entirely honest if public confidence in the parliamentary system and the rule of law is to be maintained," he said.
Chaytor, of Lumbutts, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, was beginning his sentence at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London, where he was being strip-searched, photographed and fingerprinted before being issued with prison clothing.
The former lecturer initially denied the charges but changed his plea after failing to have the case thrown out citing parliamentary privilege and that he could not receive a fair trial because of media scrutiny.
He pleaded guilty last month to three counts of false accounting between November 2005 and January 2008.
The fraud involved bogus documents Chaytor submitted to support claims totalling £22,650 for IT services and renting homes in London and his Bury North constituency which were in fact owned by him and his mother. The court heard he only received £18,350 because he had already reached his limit for the IT expenses and was not awarded the full amount for one rental claim.
Ed Miliband insisted his party was not solely to blame for the country's current debt burden following Labour's time in government.
In a staunch defence of his party's economic stance, the Labour leader instead attacked the Tories for continually citing that the previous government was the prime cause of the overspend.
Writing in the Times he explained: "It is not true we opposed every cut.
"Labour is clear that spending is not the answer to every problem.
"But neither is it true that Labour is to blame for the deficit or that the deficit reduction programme being pursued by this Conservative-led government is necessary and fair."
His comments come following the VAT rise which Mr Miliband has criticised for penalising the poor.
He told the paper: "Some people might shrug and say low growth and squeezed family budgets are a price worth paying."
Defending the previous Labour government's economic record Mr Miliband explained: "They want to say that Britain's economic difficulties were caused by chronic overspending and, therefore, the right response now is simply to cut the deficit as far and as fast as possible."
Devious drug smugglers tried to conceal cannabis worth almost £3,000 in a painting of footballer Emmanuel Adebayor.
The wooden framed picture was seized by border officials as it passed through the international postal hub in Coventry from the footballer's native Togo.
Their suspicions may have been raised because the painting of the former Arsenal star was addressed to a home in Tottenham, the team's north London arch rival.
Details of the ambitious trafficking scam and several others were revealed by UK Border Agency to highlight the cunning ploys of drug traffickers.
Officials intercepted stashes of drugs hidden in bottles of Baileys, woven baskets, packets of peanuts and even yams that had been opened and glued back together.
Other dodgy parcels included glass ornaments in which air pockets had been stuffed with cocaine and a Belfast-bound birthday card holding cocaine worth £40,000.
Brodie Clark, head of Border Force, said the concealed drugs were all found during searches at ports, airports and postal sorting depots last year.
He said: "These smuggling attempts show the lengths that organised criminals will go to in a bid to get drugs into the UK.
"Criminals are prepared to invest large sums of money to come up with ever better concealment methods because they know the potential profits from the awful trade in harmful drugs are considerable.
"However, the smugglers are no match for the skill of our officers and the state-of-the-art technology at their disposal."
The Government has admitted some parts of England are short of flu vaccines and is considering bringing in more stocks from Europe.
Suppliers have been asked to contact their factories in Europe for a count of how many stocks of UK-licensed vaccine are available.
The Government has no central stockpile of seasonal flu vaccines, which are ordered every year by GPs and delivered to surgeries.
The Department of Health (DoH) issued a statement following reports of patients being unable to get jabs from their GP.
A spokeswoman insisted there was "no national shortage" but admitted some areas were experiencing "local supply issues".
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said there were "no supply issues" in Scotland, with more than a million doses distributed to GP surgeries and pharmacies, with an "additional stockpile" available if needed.
Sanofi Pasteur MSD, which manufactures some of the jabs, said it had been asked by the DoH about the number of available doses in the UK and the the number of UK-licensed doses which could be brought into the UK.
It has also been asked for a count of the number of other (non-UK labelled) doses it has in Europe, which could be brought in subject to regulatory issues.
Millions of doses of seasonal flu vaccine are ordered by GPs in England every year.
A committee of MPs has opposed any moratorium on deep water drilling for oil in the UK's seas, warning such a move would undermine the country's energy security.
But the Energy and Climate Change Committee raised doubts as to whether equipment used to clean up oil spills could do its job in the harsh conditions of the west of Shetland, where drilling in water up to 1,000 metres deep is taking place.
And a lack of clarity over liability laws could leave the UK taxpayer picking up the bill for a major oil spill offshore, a report by the committee in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster warned.
The MPs launched their inquiry to examine the implications of the disaster in which BP's Deepwater Horizon rig 50 miles off the Louisiana coast exploded, killing 11 workers and leaving millions of barrels of oil pouring into the sea. They heard from ministers, outgoing BP chief executive Tony Hayward and UK oil industry leaders - who claimed no moratorium was needed as the UK regulatory regime was "very, very strong".
But environmental groups called for a ban on new offshore drilling in UK waters.
The committee's report found that a moratorium on drilling west of Shetland would leave the UK more reliant on imports of oil and gas.
The committee's chairman Tim Yeo said: "A moratorium on deep water drilling off the west coast of Shetland would undermine the UK's energy security and isn't necessary."
But he added: "The harsh and windy conditions in the North Sea would make an oil spill off the coast of Shetland very difficult to contain or clean up. Safety regulations on drilling in the UK are already tougher than they were in the Gulf of Mexico, but oil companies mustn't use that as an excuse for complacency."
Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT union, which represents offshore workers in the North Sea through its Offshore Industry Liaison Committee (OILC) branch, said: "The committee's report reinforces RMT's call for the same standards in the UK as apply in Norway which provide for a far stronger role for safety representatives, including greater worker involvement, training and enforcement powers.
"We remain deeply concerned that safety reps don't have sufficient powers, the industry's own official Workforce Involvement Group has found that less than 30% of workers feel that they have had involvement in the safety case for offshore installations and that is simply unacceptable."
A married couple are due to be sentenced for a string of physical assaults against vulnerable children at a care home in the 1970s and 1980s.
Morag and Anthony Jordan, both 62, from Kirriemuir, Angus, were found guilty in November last year of eight separate counts relating to abuse at the Haut de la Garenne home in Jersey.
After more than eight hours' deliberation, a jury at the Royal Court of Jersey acquitted Mrs Jordan of a further 28 counts and Mr Jordan of four.
During the two-week trial, Mr and Mrs Jordan were accused of inflicting "casual and routine violence" while working as houseparents at the children's home. Prosecutors said they acted like "intimidating bullies" and had carried out "frequent and callous" assaults on vulnerable residents.
They were arrested after a multimillion-pound police investigation into suspected abuse at Haut de la Garenne.
Morag Jordan, originally from Dundee, was employed by the care home as a housemother between 1970 and 1984. She was convicted of charges relating to assaults on four children who stayed at the home. One had her face pushed into urine-soaked sheets after she wet the bed.
In November last year the jury also acquitted Mrs Jordan of other offences alleged by a witness, such as being force-fed and being pulled around by the ears.
They also rejected accusations by witnesses relating to other children having their faces rubbed in puddles of urine. They did, however, convict Mrs Jordan of hitting former residents with her hand and with a wooden shoe.
Her husband, originally from south Wales, was found guilty of common assault against two children. Mr Jordan's convictions relate to hitting former residents with a metal spoon, a knife or with his hand. He was acquitted of counts relating to squeezing the face of another boy and hitting him in the stomach.
The couple will be sentenced at the Royal Court of Jersey.
Police are investigating whether murder victim Joanna Yeates could have been strangled with her own ski sock - which her killer might then have kept as a trophy.
The landscape architect's snow-covered body was found on Christmas morning missing one of her grey, knee-length socks, and detectives believe the garment may hold the key to solving her murder.
The 25-year-old - last seen alive nearly three weeks ago - was not wearing her coat or boots either but those items were recovered from her flat in Canynge Road, Clifton, Bristol.
Det Chief Inspector Phil Jones, who is leading the murder hunt, held up a similar size-five sock on Wednesday to the one Miss Yeates was wearing.
He said: "The jacket and the boots have been found at her home address. That would indicate that Jo had returned home. However, at this present time the sock has not been found. It hasn't been found (where her body was) and it hasn't been found at her home address."
The detective said he was "keeping an open mind" about whether the killer or killers could be keeping the sock as some sort of trophy or whether Miss Yeates was strangled with it.
Following the appeal for the missing garment - the type bought in an outdoor shop - a man approached police outside Miss Yeates's flat and handed over a grey sock. The sock was put into an evidence bag but later police said at this stage it was not the sock they were looking for.
Mr Jones also confirmed that the killer or killers may have tried to put Miss Yeates's body over a wall into the quarry on Longwood Lane, Failand, North Somerset, but instead left her on the grass verge. "There are a number of theories about how Jo came to be in Longwood Lane and this is a possibility, yes," he said.
As the three week anniversary of her disappearance neared, Mr Jones would not confirm directly that police were using a criminal profiler but said his team were receiving assistance from various expert sources.
"We continue to use all the available professional resources available to us including accredited experts who are specialists in their fields rather than generalists," he said. "These resources have been used since the start of what was initially a missing person investigation and is now a murder investigation."
Nearly 6,000 inmates serving prison terms for violence will be given the right to vote under government plans, it was claimed.
Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan described the changes, which will see prisoners serving less than four years allowed to vote, as a "slap in the face for victims".
In response to a written Parliamentary question, Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt told Labour MP Gavin Shuker (Luton South) that 5,991 inmates were serving less than four years for violence against another person.
Meanwhile, the same reforms will allow 1,753 sex offenders to vote, along with 2,486 robbers and 4,188 burglars. Some 4,370 people convicted of drug offences would also get the vote under the plans.
The changes have come about as a result of a long-running legal tussle between the British government and the European Court of Human Rights. Lawyers acting for the Government advised it could face a legal bill spiralling to millions of pounds in litigation costs and compensation if it failed to comply with a 2004 ECHR ruling which found a blanket ban on prisoner voting breached their human rights.
But the Government has secured a number of exemptions. Anyone serving four years or more will be barred from voting while judges will be given the discretion to stop those handed down a jail term of less than four years from casting a ballot while they are behind bars.
The new legislation - due to be tabled in Parliament next year - will grant prisoners the right to vote only in elections to Westminster and the European Parliament, meaning that they will not have a voice in ballots for directly-elected police chiefs.
The former Labour administration kicked the issue into the long grass with a series of consultations. But the Council of Europe warned earlier this year that the Government's failure to comply with the ECHR ruling risked sparking many more compensation claims.
Mr Khan accused the Government of sneaking the latest figures over who was eligible to vote under the reforms just before Parliament broke up for Christmas.
He said: "This is a slap in the face for victims of crime. We have already seen the Conservative-led government break their promise on knife crime. Now they are also giving thousands of offenders the vote. MPs on all sides of the House and the public are right to be angry about this decision. But they should also be angry at the manner in which it was announced - sneaked out on the day Parliament broke up for Christmas."
Northern Ireland government ministers are due to meet to draw up plans for an inquiry into the water crisis that hit the region.
The chief executive of Northern Ireland Water (NIW) Laurence MacKenzie resigned after a marathon sitting of the government-owned company's board.
He said: "I believe firmly in the principles of responsibility and accountability; it is for that fundamental reason I have decided to pursue this course of action."
But his decision to step down over the organisation's mishandling of the episode has failed to end the political controversy and a Stormont scrutiny committee will also meet to discuss the fallout.
Arctic weather conditions around Christmas gave way to a rapid thaw that caused hundreds of burst pipes in the water supply system, but NIW was criticised for its failure to handle calls for information from thousands of stricken families.
Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy said Northern Ireland's Utility Regulator was to probe the handling of the crisis that saw thousands of homes left without running water.
"The regulator is an established independent body which already has a statutory duty to regulate water and sewerage services," he said. "It is therefore suitably qualified and has access to the range of required industry skills and expertise to conduct the review. The Executive will consider these proposals at its meeting."
Mr Murphy said the regulator would set the terms of the inquiry and report back to the Stormont Executive by the end of February, though it is possible proposals for reform could be made at an earlier date. His department is responsible for NIW and he has been heavily criticised for its handling of the events.
The DUP's Gregory Campbell said Mr Murphy had to be held accountable at the Assembly.
"I think it's fairly clear, that the degree of incompetence and the shambolic nature of Northern Ireland Water's response is totally and utterly inadequate," he said. "And at the end of it there is one person who carries the can. Whatever way we cut this, there is one person who carries the can, and that is the ministerial responsibility at the head of the department."
The founder of the Body Shop, the face of Mastermind and the impresario behind Joy Division are included in the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
The trio - Anita Roddick, Magnus Magnusson and Tony Wilson - are among 216 men and women who died in 2007 who are entered in the weighty tome.
They are joined by legendary journalist Bill Deedes, who was Private Eye's Dear Bill, broadcasters Ned Sherrin and Alan Coren, jazz singer George Melly and Ian Smith, the former prime minister of Rhodesia.
Charity founders Chad Varah, of the Samaritans, and Shelter boss Bruce Kenrick also made the book, as did athlete and charity fundraiser Jane Tomlinson, 1966 football World Cup winner Alan Ball, cricket coach Bob Woolmer and rally champion Colin McRae.
Controversial Mancunian comedian Bernard Manning, who died from kidney failure aged 76, also has an entry in the book.
The head of the government department responsible for promoting British business abroad asked officials to think of ways to spend up to £1 million to avoid a budget underspend, it was reported.
Sir Andrew Cahn, until this week head of UK Trade & Investment, said in an email to senior colleagues that the Foreign Office was "heading for an underspend and wants to get money out of the door", the Daily Mail reported.
He added: "If we can spend money in this financial year on a one-off basis, then we can have at least £1 million. Can you think what we might do with such money?"
One suggestion was to offer "business development visits" to the UK by staff based abroad.
The newspaper said the email exchanges took place in November following the coalition's Comprehensive Spending Review, setting out cuts across the board to reduce the Government's budget deficit.
Shadow foreign secretary Yvette Cooper told the newspaper that "William Hague's financial planning seems to be in chaos".
She said: "The Foreign Secretary has cut spending on long-standing programmes dealing with the fight against international drugs and crime, at the same time as his department is rushing to 'get money out the door'.
"At a time when jobs and livelihoods in Britain are being put at risk by government cuts, the Foreign Office needs to show it has a proper grip on its priorities and financial plans."
A spokeswoman for UKTI said: "The Government does not comment on leaked documents. Government spend is subject to rigorous value for money checks to ensure appropriate return for taxpayer funding.
"All of UKTI's services are subject to independent assessment. For every £1 of taxpayers' money spent, our customers tell us that this generates £19 of additional profit for their businesses. UKTI has not drawn any additional resource from the FCO this financial year."
Two "sexual predators" who subjected a series of vulnerable girls to rapes and sexual assaults described by a judge as a "reign of terror" have been given indefinite prison sentences.
Abid Mohammed Saddique, 27, was jailed for a minimum of 11 years at Nottingham Crown Court.
Mohammed Romaan Liaqat, 28, was told he must serve at least eight years before he is considered for release.
The men were the prime movers in a group of men who befriended girls aged from 12 to 18 in the Derby area and groomed them for sex.
The men were sentenced as dozens of police lined the street outside the court in front of a protest by the right-wing EDL. More officers were stationed in the court building.
Judge Philip Head told Saddique: "Your crimes can only be described as evil," adding he was an "evil, manipulative and controlling" character who was a continuing danger to young girls.
The judge said: "You are in the truest sense a sexual predator with a voracious sexual appetite that you gratified as frequently as possible in a variety of ways."
He said the pair's attitude was "sex at any price" as they and others embarked on a "reign of terror on girls in Derby".
Supermarkets have removed products from their shelves after it was confirmed that eggs contaminated with dioxins had been used in their cakes and quiches.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said supermarkets had already sold most of the affected food, which had a short shelf life and had probably been eaten.
Stores that have now withdrawn items include Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury's.
The FSA has advised retailers to clear any remaining affected products, but stressed that consumers do not face any health risks as mixing the eggs would have diluted the levels of dioxins.
The pasteurised liquid egg in question had been supplied to Kensey Foods in Cornwall and Memory Lane Cakes Ltd in Cardiff, who then made the products for the supermarkets.
The FSA said: "There is no food safety risk from eating these products. The majority of products will have been sold and most have passed their 'use by' or 'best before' dates. Supermarkets are removing the small amount of products that are still in date."
Tesco said in a statement: "Tesco is withdrawing a small number of products. We would like to stress to customers that this is a purely precautionary measure and the FSA has stated there is no food safety risk."
Dioxins are chemicals formed by industrial processes and waste burning. They have been shown to contribute to higher cancer rates and affect pregnant women.
Fourteen tonnes of the contaminated egg which originated on continental Europe entered the UK destined for use in goods like pastries and mayonnaise, the EU executive said.
The alert came after it was discovered that poultry feed contaminated by toxic dioxins was sent to more than 1,000 poultry and pig farms in Germany.
Hundreds of bloggers, tweeters and online activists are meeting as part of a campaign to fight the Government's cuts in public spending.
Campaigners from unions, community organisations and tax justice groups will discuss ways of forming a "progressive online movement" to fight the cuts.
The event, at the TUC headquarters in London, will include how to spread campaign messages through social media and blogging.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "This groundbreaking event at the TUC will bring together hundreds of committed campaigners to share knowledge on ideas on how best to tackle the Government's programme of spending cuts.
"2011 is going to be a horrible year. Cuts in services are now beginning to bite and there will be few people who do not feel their impact.
"But this could be the year when the campaign for change really gets going, and online campaigning is going to be essential part of showing that there is a genuine alternative to the cuts, and in winning public support for change."
Clifford Singer, campaign director of new anti-cuts website False Economy, said: "Last year saw great advances in online activity in the UK, with left wing blogs increasing dramatically in popularity.
"This has combined with high profile campaigns against Government policies like cuts to science funding and increased tuition fees, successes against the far right in the May election and high profile direct action against tax avoiders on the high street."
Hundreds of trade unionists, students and residents will take part in a demonstration in David Cameron's constituency on Sunday to protest against plans to privatise the Royal Mail as well as the Government's spending cuts.
The rally in Witney, Oxfordshire, will be staged just days before the Postal Services Bill receives its third reading in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union said: "Government cuts are really beginning to draw blood now as jobs and services suffer. The planned privatisation of Royal Mail is an unnecessary ideological move which will damage postal services forever.
"On Sunday hundreds of people, representing thousands of families, small businesses, pensioners, students and workers, will take the message of saving the Royal Mail to the Prime Minister's constituency. Will he listen, or will he press ahead with the privatisation of Royal Mail and risk an increase in mail prices, a decrease in services, and mass post office closures?"
A 6ft coffin bearing the message "Here Lies the Remains of Royal Mail" will be held aloft at the protest, which is supported by several trade unions and other groups.
A Royal Mail spokesman said: "Royal Mail warmly supports the Postal Services Bill. It will play a key part in ensuring a successful future for the company and safeguard the one-price-goes-anywhere delivery service to the UK's 28 million addresses.
"The Bill seeks to resolve Royal Mail's historic £10.3 billion actuarial deficit. It will also allow Royal Mail access to capital for investment in its operations and seeks to deliver a new regulatory framework."
Postal Affairs Minister Edward Davey said: "The Government's plans are actually about protecting the long-term future of Royal Mail and the Post Office - two cornerstones of British life. Both businesses are facing some huge challenges and without the action we are proposing they could certainly be damaged.
"We have no intention of downgrading services. We have pledged that the Post Office will not be sold and that there will be no programme of closures. We have delivered a £1.34 billion package of new funding for the Post Office network, and we want to help Royal Mail access the substantial private sector investment it needs to modernise.
"Doing nothing is not an option - mail volumes are falling, Royal Mail has a multi billion pound pension deficit, less efficiency than its competitors and an urgent need for more money at a time when there are huge constraints on the public purse."
Consumers could have a new incentive to eat fruit after a study found that eating heavily pigmented produce such as carrots and plums makes people more attractive.
Researchers at St Andrews and Bristol universities studied the relationship between skin colour and attractiveness, and found people with a yellow skin hue were perceived as particularly healthy and attractive, the Grocer magazine reported.
They also established for the first time that yellow pigments, or carotenoids, from certain fruit and vegetables played a key role in producing yellowness in skin.
As part of the study, 40 volunteers rated 51 Scottish Caucasian faces for healthiness and attractiveness.
The results will be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour in March, the magazine said.
Ian Stephen, one of the scientists involved in the project, said the link between yellowness and carotenoids opened up new strategies for encouraging young people to eat more fruit and vegetables, especially as it took just two months of increased consumption to produce visible results.
He told the Grocer: "Telling people they might have a heart attack in 40 years' time if they don't eat more healthily is one thing.
"What we can do is say, 'This is what you could look in a couple of months if you increased your fruit and veg intake'."
Scotland Yard has asked the News of the World to hand over any new material relating to phone hacking allegations.
It follows the suspension of Ian Edmondson, a senior executive at the Sunday newspaper, over claims that he was linked to the hacking of actress Sienna Miller's voicemail messages.
A document lodged in the High Court links Mr Edmondson with the interception of voicemail messages from the phones of Miller and her partner Jude Law.
Scotland Yard said in a statement: "The Metropolitan Police Service has this evening, Friday January 7 2010, written to the News of the World requesting any new material they may have in relation to alleged phone hacking following the suspension of a member of their staff."
Miller is suing the News of the World's parent company, News Group, and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, accusing them of breaching her privacy and of harassment.
Court documents allege that paperwork and other records seized by police from Mulcaire imply Mr Edmondson was linked to the hacking of the actress's phone.
Mulcaire and former News of the World reporter Clive Goodman were jailed at the Old Bailey in January 2007 after they admitted intercepting messages.
The News of the World suspended Mr Edmondson just before Christmas and is carrying out an internal investigation into the claims against him.
A spokeswoman for the paper said: "If the conclusion of the investigation or the litigation is that the allegation is proven, appropriate action will be taken.
"The News of the World has a zero tolerance approach to any wrongdoing."
Detectives investigating the murder of Joanna Yeates have retraced the steps she took three weeks after she was last seen alive in a bid to catch her killer.
Plainclothed and uniformed officers launched a high-profile operation on Friday night in a bid to speak to anyone who may have seen the route the 25-year-old took on the evening of December 17.
They spoke to customers in the pub where Miss Yeates went for a Christmas drink, talked to people in the streets close to her Bristol home and stopped cars where her body was found.
After leaving work the landscape architect went to the Ram pub in Bristol city centre with her colleagues from BDP.
Three weeks on, detectives spent two-and-a-half hours at the popular Park Street nightspot talking to customers to see whether they were also in the pub the same night as Miss Yeates and saw anything suspicious. They also put up posters inside the premises appealing for information in the hope of jogging people's memories.
Miss Yeates spent around two hours socialising with her colleagues before leaving at around 8pm to make the 30 minute walk home to the ground floor flat in Canynge Road, Clifton, that she shared with her boyfriend Greg Reardon, 27.
She was caught on CCTV in a Waitrose supermarket at the Clifton Triangle and then went to a Tesco Express in Clifton village where she bought a pizza. Detectives said Miss Yeates had made it home because her shoes, coat, mobile phone, purse and keys were found there - although the pizza, the wrapping and its box are still missing.
Both uniformed and plainclothed officers were in Canynge Road and surrounding streets to speak to people that may have been there as university graduate made her way home that night. They were there between 8pm and 10pm and spoke to pedestrians and stopped motorists whose routines took them through the area.
Police also went to Longland Lane, in Failand, North Somerset, where Miss Yeates' snow-covered remains were found on Christmas morning. It is not known exactly when Miss Yeates' body was dumped in a country lane three miles from her home and police would only say she had been there for "several days".
For four hours in Longland Lane, between 8.30pm and 12.30am, police spoke to motorists to identify any further witnesses that could help the investigation. The operation was taking place partly because last night was the first Friday since Miss Yeates went missing that people's routines would be back to normal following Christmas and New Year festivities.
A 20-year-old nursery worker has been remanded in custody charged with raping a child.
Paul Wilson, of Newbold Croft, Nechells, Birmingham, was not required to enter a plea when he appeared at the city's magistrates' court facing two charges of raping a child between early 2009 and last summer.
Wilson, who spoke only to confirm his personal details, was charged with the offences on Thursday night after an inquiry into alleged sexual abuse centred on the Little Stars Nursery in Nechells.
Wilson, dressed in a dark hooded coat and blue jeans, bowed his head during the majority of the four-minute hearing.
No application for bail was made on Wilson's behalf and he was ordered to reappear at Birmingham Crown Court next Friday.
Wilson was arrested at his home in in the early hours of Wednesday.
West Midlands Police subsequently launched an inquiry in relation to his employment at the nursery following the seizure of a computer from his home.
Superintendent Matt Ward said there was no evidence of other children being abused at the nursery in Nechells Park Road, which has been temporarily closed.
Parents of children at Little Stars and families of children who previously attended were being contacted, the officer added.
A telephone line offering advice and support to parents and guardians has been set up. The number is 0121 675 4806.
Peter Andre has been crowned Britain's hardest-working singer for notching up more major concerts last year than any other artist.
Andre performed as the headline act to almost 100,000 fans during his 38-date Revelation tour in 2010, beating previous winners Status Quo.
The rockers took second place in the list compiled by the Performing Rights Society (PRS), which collects royalties on behalf of songwriters.
JLS came third in the annual chart, with Westlife and Rod Stewart completing this year's top five.
The singing career of Andre, who split from wife Katie Price in 2009, spans almost two decades, with the star racking up hits first of all in his former homeland of Australia and then in the UK.
Mysterious Girl reached number two in the British chart in 1995 but its re-release following his 2004 appearance on ITV1's I'm A Celebrity saw it reach the top spot. Four of his albums and 10 of his singles have made the top 10.
Andre said: "Nothing beats performing live. Performing in front of thousands of fans is my ultimate experience so I'm delighted to get this recognition from PRS for Music."
London rapper Example notched up the most performances at smaller concert venues, followed by Ellie Goulding and Tinie Tempah.
Andre performed the most concerts at arena venues. Last year he played to fans across the UK, including concerts at London's o2 and the Manchester Evening News Arena.
The first ex-MP to be jailed over the Westminster expenses scandal woke up behind bars after being sentenced to 18 months for falsely claiming more than £22,000 of taxpayers' money.
David Chaytor, who represented Bury North for 13 years, admitted fiddling his expenses by forging tenancy documents, and was told by a High Court judge his punishment was needed to help restore public trust in politicians.
But the 61-year-old could be released as soon as the end of May under early release rules for non-violent prisoners who pose a low risk, and it remained unclear whether he would still receive a £54,000-plus Commons "golden goodbye".
Under the home detention curfew scheme, the disgraced Labour ex-politician may only have to serve four-and-a-half months of his sentence behind bars before being tagged and released.
Passing sentence at Southwark Crown Court on Friday, Mr Justice Saunders told Chaytor that because he breached the "high degree of trust" placed on MPs, his offence had "wider and more important consequence" than other similar crimes.
"It is necessary their behaviour should be entirely honest if public confidence in the parliamentary system and the rule of law is to be maintained," he said.
Chaytor, of Lumbutts, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, was beginning his sentence at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London, where he was being strip-searched, photographed and fingerprinted before being issued with prison clothing.
The former lecturer initially denied the charges but changed his plea after failing to have the case thrown out citing parliamentary privilege and that he could not receive a fair trial because of media scrutiny.
He pleaded guilty last month to three counts of false accounting between November 2005 and January 2008.
The fraud involved bogus documents Chaytor submitted to support claims totalling £22,650 for IT services and renting homes in London and his Bury North constituency which were in fact owned by him and his mother. The court heard he only received £18,350 because he had already reached his limit for the IT expenses and was not awarded the full amount for one rental claim.
