![Image]( "Three jailed over machete murder")
A teenager who was free to murder a mother-of-two with a machete despite being reported as a bogus student two months earlier has been jailed for life.
Sher Singh, 19, killed Geeta Aulakh on behalf of her jealous husband even though the UK Border Agency was told he was not attending college.
No action was taken, leaving Singh, who is from India, free to butcher the popular Sunrise Radio receptionist as she went to pick up her sons from a childminder. Her husband, Harpreet Aulakh, ordered the murder after she had asked him for a divorce, the Old Bailey heard.
Aulakh, 32, of Greenford, west London, and Singh, 19, of Southall, west London, were jailed alongside look-out Jaswant Dhillon, 30, of Ilford, east London.
Sentencing the gang, Mr Justice Saunders said: "It was a pointless, cold-blooded killing of a woman about whom no-one except Aulakh had a bad word to say."
Aulakh was told he must serve at least 28 years behind bars, while Singh and Dhillon were each given 22-year minimum terms. Jurors were unable to agree a verdict on 20-year-old Harpreet Singh, of Slough, Berkshire. He denies murder and will now face a retrial.
Mrs Aulakh, 28, had her right hand severed from her arm as she sought to shield herself from at least four heavy blows inflicted by Singh with the 14-inch machete during the attack in Greenford in November last year.
Singh had arrived in the country on July 16 on a "tier four" student visa and registered for a course in hospitality management at Kings Langley College, but he never attended any classes. After a warning, he went for a meeting with the principal and promised to improve but staff at the college in New Cross, south-east London, did not see or hear from him again.
In September, UKBA was told in an email from the college that Singh was not attending classes and therefore may be in breach of the terms of his visa. Just two months later he hacked Mrs Aulakh to death.
The victim's mother Nardesh Shinh condemned the "evil and inhumane" killers who took her daughter's life. She said: "Geeta was a beautiful, vibrant and kind-hearted daughter who left a lasting impression on all those who met her."
Fears over student protests have forced the Liberal Democrats to abandon a regional party conference in London.
Demonstrators had pledged to target Saturday's event to voice anger over the party's failure to meet a general election pledge to oppose tuition fee rises.
It had been scheduled to take place at a north London school but party bosses were forced to seek an alternative venue when the headmaster raised concerns over security.
When the same fears were raised by a second venue, it was decided to postpone the entire event until February. "It has been postponed because of the venues' fears for security," a party spokesman said.
Previous student protests in London have ended in violence in recent weeks.
Fiona Edwards, spokeswoman for the Free Education Campaign which had organised the protest, claimed the Lib Dems are "running scared".
"This reflects the fact that they are feeling the pressure from these student protests. They are running scared but we will keep chasing them down," she said.
Ms Edwards said they had been expecting up to 1,000 people but are not sure whether any protest would go ahead now the party event had been axed. "It is a shame that they won't engage with students on this issue," she added.
MPs will vote on the fees hike next Thursday as Liberal Democrats continue to agonise over whether to support the measure in the division lobbies. The party is deeply divided, with some Lib Dem MPs determined to vote against the measure in line with election promises.
Business Secretary Vince Cable has suggested he could abstain - even though he has direct Cabinet responsibility for the measure - if it would help keep the party together. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the target of much of the fury of student protesters opposed to the plan, has refused to say what he will do.
Government chiefs have held an emergency weather meeting to discuss the nation's ability to cope - as pensioners were reported freezing to death and commuters faced continuing chaos.
Transport Secretary Philip Hammond summoned the group for an hour-long meeting on Friday to "stocktake" and discuss preparations for the weekend, a Downing Street spokeswoman said.
The top-level discussions came after meterologists said there is no end in sight to the bad weather, and after two pensioners fell and died in their gardens in Cumbria after spending freezing nights outside.
Downing Street declined to guarantee the country would not run out of salt and grit, saying the nation is "in a much better position than we were last year".
The spokeswoman added there are "no major concerns" over supplies of food, petrol, diesel or gas despite the continued freezing conditions, while gas supplies are higher than last winter.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman, education minister Sarah Teather, health minister Paul Burstow and energy minister Lord Marland were joined by representatives of the Met Office and local councils at Friday's meeting, with the Scottish Justice Secretary also involved via telephone.
Despite Downing Street's assurances, the Retail Motor Industry Independent Petrol Retailers' Association said some forecourts are out of fuel and others could run out of petrol by the weekend.
This week has seen airports close, trains grind to a halt and millions of travellers' plans thrown into chaos because of continued snowfall and plummeting temperatures.
Mr Hammond, under fire from Labour and told to "get a grip" of the situation, announced a review of how transport operators have coped with the big chill.
Neil Bentley, of the Confederation of British Industry said: "Given the critical economic importance of the transport network, this review is as welcome as it is timely. It is important that transport providers work with the Government to improve the ability of the network to cope with adverse weather conditions."
A dentist who poisoned his wife and ex-lover's policeman husband and then covered it up as a double suicide has been jailed for a minimum of 21 years.
Colin Howell, 51, from Glebe Road, Castlerock, Co Londonderry, was told by Mr Justice Anthony Hart at Belfast Crown Court that he will not be a free man again until 2031.
Last month he was sentenced to life imprisonment after pleading guilty to the murders of his wife Lesley, 31, the mother of their four children, and Pc Trevor Buchanan, 32, husband of the woman with whom he had been having an affair at the time in May 1991.
Hazel Stewart, 47, a mother-of-two from Ballystrone Road, Coleraine, Co Derry, who later re-married, is due to stand trial next February for the two murders. She denies the two charges.
Judge Anthony Hart said: "These were truly heinous crimes, constituting as they did the cold-blooded, carefully planned and ruthlessly executed double murder of two people who Howell saw as standing in the way of his adulterous desire to be with Hazel Buchanan."
He said each murder was carried out while the victims were asleep and defenceless. "Even when each stirred in their sleep, Howell did not draw back and spare their lives, but physically subdued their faint signs of approaching consciousness, thereby ensuring their deaths," he added.
Howell, dressed in a grey suit, gave no reaction as the sentence was handed down. Howell first killed his wife and later Pc Buchanan at their homes in Coleraine when he attached part of a baby's feeding bottle to a garden hose to poison them with carbon monoxide fumes from a car.
The judge said two innocent people were murdered and six children deprived of the love of their mother and father. He added they had to live with the false belief that their loved ones had died in a suicide pact and Howell allowed this to continue for many years. "He is an intelligent man who knew exactly what he was doing throughout," the judge said.
Judge Hart added: "Not only were their children deprived of the love and companionship of their respective parents throughout their childhood, but their brothers and sisters also suffered grievous loss. It is particularly poignant to read the descriptions of the effect of the death of their son on Trevor Buchanan's elderly parents, whose remaining years were blighted by the severe effect of their son's death upon them.
"The premeditated and ruthless way the murders were planned and carried out, the grave effect they had on the lives of so many others, the financial benefits to Howell and the pain and grief he allowed others to experience for so many years before he confessed his guilt are all aggravating factors that must be reflected in the minimum term he must serve before he can be considered for release."
Former Labour MP David Chaytor has admitted fraudulently claiming Parliamentary expenses.
He became the first politician to get a criminal conviction in connection with the expenses scandal when he pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to three charges of false accounting.
Chaytor, 61, had previously denied the charges and was due to stand trial at London's Southwark Crown Court on Monday.
But he changed his plea on Friday at the Old Bailey. The move came after legal challenges to stop the trial failed.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court published its reasons for rejecting a claim by Chaytor and two other former MPs that criminal proceedings against them would infringe parliamentary privilege.
Chaytor was MP for Bury North, a seat he had held since 1997, when the expenses scandal broke last year. At the time, he apologised "unreservedly" for what he called an "unforgivable error in my accounting procedures".
He referred himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon, and was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party. Hundreds of MPs were ordered to repay a total of £1.12 million in the wake of the expenses scandal.
Chaytor, a former lecturer, was charged in February this year. He faces a maximum of seven years in jail, but is expected to receive a more lenient sentence because of his guilty plea. Three other former MPs and two members of the House of Lords were also charged by police in relation to their expenses and are due to face trial later.
Chaytor pleaded guilty to false accounting involving a total of £18,350 which he charged on his expenses.
He had claimed £12,925 between 2005 and 2006 for renting a flat in Regency Street, near Westminster, which it turned out he owned the lease to. He produced a tenancy agreement falsely showing he was paying £1,175 a month rent. He also falsely claimed between 2007 and 2008 £5,425 for renting a home in Castle Street, Bury, which was owned by his mother. He had produced a false tenancy agreement showing he was paying £775 a month.
Whistleblowing organisation WikiLeaks has moved its website to Switzerland as it struggled to remain open in the face of official and corporate moves to cut its access to the internet.
And there was speculation that an arrest of the site's founder Julian Assange might be imminent, after Swedish authorities refiled an international warrant with additional information requested by the Metropolitan Police.
The 39-year-old Australian former computer hacker, who is understood to be in the UK, answered questions on The Guardian's website, and hailed as "an unparalleled hero" the soldier suspected of passing 250,000 secret US diplomatic papers to WikiLeaks.
Mr Assange praised US Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, 23, without confirming he was the source of the leaks which have deeply embarrassed Washington and its allies.
The latest tranche of confidential documents to appear on the website included cables from the US embassy in Afghanistan reporting criticisms of Britain's military operations in the country by President Hamid Karzai and a top Nato commander.
And cables from the London embassy showed that former US ambassador Robert Tuttle had written Gordon Brown's premiership off as "abysmal" within a year of him becoming Prime Minister.
The website moved to the Swiss address wikileaks.ch after the American company providing its domain name, EveryDNS.net, cut off service because cyber attacks were threatening the rest of its network.
WikiLeaks had turned to EveryDNS and servers in Europe after Amazon stopped hosting the site on Thursday. Meanwhile, reports suggested that authorities in Paris were trying to ban French servers from hosting its database of leaked information.
Mr Assange said WikiLeaks' activities had been dictated since April by "the moves of abusive elements of the United States Government against us".
He added: "The threats against our lives are a matter of public record, however, we are taking the appropriate precautions to the degree that we are able when dealing with a superpower."
A teenager who was free to murder a mother-of-two with a machete despite being reported as a bogus student two months earlier has been jailed for life.
Sher Singh, 19, killed Geeta Aulakh on behalf of her jealous husband even though the UK Border Agency was told he was not attending college.
No action was taken, leaving Singh, who is from India, free to butcher the popular Sunrise Radio receptionist as she went to pick up her sons from a childminder. Her husband, Harpreet Aulakh, ordered the murder after she had asked him for a divorce, the Old Bailey heard.
Aulakh, 32, of Greenford, west London, and Singh, 19, of Southall, west London, were jailed alongside look-out Jaswant Dhillon, 30, of Ilford, east London.
Sentencing the gang, Mr Justice Saunders said: "It was a pointless, cold-blooded killing of a woman about whom no-one except Aulakh had a bad word to say."
Aulakh was told he must serve at least 28 years behind bars, while Singh and Dhillon were each given 22-year minimum terms. Jurors were unable to agree a verdict on 20-year-old Harpreet Singh, of Slough, Berkshire. He denies murder and will now face a retrial.
Mrs Aulakh, 28, had her right hand severed from her arm as she sought to shield herself from at least four heavy blows inflicted by Singh with the 14-inch machete during the attack in Greenford in November last year.
Singh had arrived in the country on July 16 on a "tier four" student visa and registered for a course in hospitality management at Kings Langley College, but he never attended any classes. After a warning, he went for a meeting with the principal and promised to improve but staff at the college in New Cross, south-east London, did not see or hear from him again.
In September, UKBA was told in an email from the college that Singh was not attending classes and therefore may be in breach of the terms of his visa. Just two months later he hacked Mrs Aulakh to death.
The victim's mother Nardesh Shinh condemned the "evil and inhumane" killers who took her daughter's life. She said: "Geeta was a beautiful, vibrant and kind-hearted daughter who left a lasting impression on all those who met her."
Forecasters warned there is no end in sight for icy conditions as the death toll rose and transport networks struggled to cope with the freezing weather.
Two pensioners died after falling in their gardens in sub-zero temperatures, while a motorist who stopped to help a stranded driver died after he was struck by another vehicle.
As a working week beset by major disruption comes to an end, commuters face continuing chaos on the trains and drivers were warned of the danger of black ice on roads.
Transport Secretary Philip Hammond summoned Government chiefs for an hour-long emergency weather meeting on Friday to "stocktake" and discuss preparations for the weekend, a Downing Street spokeswoman said.
Though the worst of the snow has fallen, temperatures remain low and rain is set to make Britain's frozen roads and pavements even more dangerous.
"The problem is the ground temperature is lower than the air temperature so makes thawing difficult," said Aisling Creevey, a forecaster with Meteogroup."It's going to be really cold into the next 10 days."
There might be a slight reprieve on Saturday for the south of England with a rise in temperatures to about 5C expected. But that will not be enough to melt the ice which is expected to be worsened by rain freezing on top. Any thaw will "be a very slow process", said Miss Creevey. "It's a big, icy mess - I would be really advising caution, it is going to take time to thaw out."
The warning came as details emerged of the first casualties.
Police said they feared 80-year-old Lillian Jenkinson had frozen to death after collapsing in her back garden in Workington, Cumbria. Her body was found at 10.40am on Thursday, the day after an elderly man was found dead in his garden in Kirby Stephen, also in Cumbria.The deaths prompted charities to urge residents to check on elderly neighbours.
Meanwhile, North Yorkshire Police said a 57-year-old man, who has not been named, was standing behind his Land Rover Defender when he was struck by a Land Rover Freelander. He had stopped to help recover a Vauxhall Corsa from a ditch at Bellerby Bank, between Richmond and Leyburn, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, when the accident happened at 7pm on Thursday.
A ruthless dentist who murdered his wife and ex-lover's policeman husband as they slept and then covered it up as a double suicide has been jailed for a minimum of 21 years.
Colin Howell, 51, from Glebe Road, Castlerock, Co Londonderry, was told by Mr Justice Anthony Hart at Belfast Crown Court that he had committed truly heinous crimes and showed no mercy to two defenceless victims.
Last month he was sentenced to life imprisonment after pleading guilty to poisoning his wife Lesley, 31, the mother of their four children, and Pc Trevor Buchanan, 32, husband of the woman with whom he had been having an affair at the time in May 1991.
The dentist killed both in their respective homes in Coleraine on one night when he attached part of a baby's feeding bottle to a garden hose to poison them with carbon monoxide fumes from a car.
Mr Buchanan's wife Hazel, 47, a mother-of-two from Ballystrone Road, Coleraine, Co Derry, who later re-married taking the name Stewart, is due to stand trial next February for the two murders. She denies the two charges.
Howell's crimes only came to light two years ago when he confessed his dark secret to elders in his church and then police. Including time already served in prison, he will not be considered for release until 2029.
Mr Justice Hart said each murder was carried out while the victim was asleep and defenceless - Mrs Howell on the sofa and Mr Buchanan in his bed. Both woke as the fumes started to overcome them, but Howell overpowered each of them before allowing the deadly gas to finally kill them.
Howell, dressed in a grey suit, white shirt and striped tie, gave no reaction as the sentence was handed down. Earlier he bowed his head and closed his eyes as the judge described how he had killed each of his victims.
Mr Justice Hart said there were many aggravating factors which required a heavy sentence, among them the fact that it was a double murder and that Howell benefited to the tune of £414,000 from his wife's death. Two innocent people were murdered and six children deprived of the love of their mother and father, he added.
The judge said this pain was intensified because the families had to live with the false belief that their loved ones had died in a suicide pact - an extra burden Howell let them bear for almost 20 years. "He is an intelligent man who knew exactly what he was doing throughout," the judge continued. He said that, had Howell not confessed to his guilt, he could have sentenced him to a minimum of 28 years.
A British Army soldier may have been killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, an inquest has heard.
Rifleman Stuart Nash was hit by a 7.62mm round fired from a British machine gun as he lay on the rooftop of a compound in southern Helmand. The 21-year-old Australian, who was serving with 1st Battalion The Rifles, died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.
He was taking part in an operation to clear insurgents out of the district of Nad-e-Ali on December 17 2008, the inquest in Trowbridge, Wiltshire heard.
Appalling weather and subsequent communication problems made the mission more challenging.
Rifleman Nash was part of a squad giving suppressive fire upon an insurgent target when he was hit. The inquest heard evidence the soldier was killed by a type of bullet used in British-issue GPMG machine guns.
Two armoured vehicles, which were giving support to the mission, were positioned to the east of Rifleman Nash's compound armed with GPMGs. They were bogged down in mud and under heavy fire themselves and were returning fire when Rifleman Nash was killed.
The initial Army investigation examined whether the soldier could have been killed by a round fired from one of these vehicles - an incident known as a "blue on blue".
Ballistic expert Dr Andreas De Villiers Horne ruled out the possibility the fatal shot could have been fired from an AK47 or sniper rifle favoured by insurgents. He examined 20 GPMG barrels taken from the armoured vehicle platoon and found it was "very unlikely" any of these fired the fatal shot.
However, Dr De Villiers Horne said it was possible it could have come from an unknown weapon carried by the insurgent forces. Dr De Villiers Horne said: "I would be careful to conclude that the ammunition was fired by Nato forces. It is not unusual in the heat of battle for ammunition to be lost."
David Ridley, coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon, said he could not be sure that Rifleman Nash had been killed by enemy forces and therefore could not record a verdict of unlawful killing while on active service. He recorded a narrative verdict.
The most unusual royal wedding souvenir yet is being planned for Prince William's marriage to Kate Middleton - a special edition Oyster card.
The popular plastic smartcard will have a makeover to mark the event and will go on sale before the pair tie the knot on April 29 next year at Westminster Abbey.
The souvenir Oyster card is likely to feature an image of the happy couple and will probably be snapped up by tourists and Londoners alike.
Transport for London commissioner Peter Hendy told London's Evening Standard newspaper: "One of the things we have not done with Oyster is what they have made a huge success of in Hong Kong - selling limited editions.
"Some of the limited editions of the Octopus card are worth a fortune. We will do one for the royal wedding and it will be extremely tasteful.
"It will be the first one we have put on general release."
Oyster cards - used to store cash for travel and season tickets - were launched in 2003 and now more than seven million of them are regularly used by commuters in the capital.
The marriage of William's parents, the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer, in 1981 was also marked by the transport authority of the day with a special ticket.
The prince's engagement to Miss Middleton has seen a range of items come on to the market to mark the occasion from royal photographer Robin Nunn's picture book William & Kate to a Royal Mint commemorative £5 Alderney coin.
https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/entry.do(Oyster card)
Four teenagers have been arrested by police investigating an arson attack on a mosque in which a gas main was damaged.
Staffordshire Police said three men and a woman, all aged in their late teens, had been detained in connection with the fire at the newly-built mosque in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.
Emergency services were alerted to the blaze, which is being treated as a racist attack, at around 6.30am on Friday after smoke was seen coming from the building.
Confirming the arrests, a police spokesman said the three local men and a local woman were in custody and were to be questioned by detectives.
Officers are conducting a review of CCTV footage from the local area and are also making house-to-house inquiries around the Regent Road mosque. Detectives have said they are investigating a link between damage to a nearby gas main and the fire at the mosque, which suffered no structural damage.
Chief Inspector Wayne Jones said: "Local neighbourhood police officers are meeting with members of the community to keep them informed and to address their concerns and obvious anger about this criminal incident.
"We are treating this incident as a racist attack on a religious building."
Mr Jones added: "I am sure the community are as appalled as we are at this behaviour. I would appeal for anyone with information to come forward."
Mohammed Pervez, the leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council, urged anyone with information about the fire to come forward as soon as possible. He said: "This is a very serious incident. City Council officers are working closely with the police to assist them in their inquiries."
Anyone with information is asked to contact Stoke-on-Trent CID on 0300 123 44 55 or the Crimestoppers service, where information can be given anonymously, on 0800 555 111.
A woman who was stabbed to death was a 31-year-old social worker, police have said.
Police were called to an address in Woodfield Lane, Lower Ashtead, Surrey on Wednesday, following a report that a woman had been stabbed.
The woman, named by police as Laura Grace Emily Davies Jones, was found with serious injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene at around 2.30pm.
A police spokesman said: "A post-mortem examination carried out today found the cause of death to be a stab wound to the throat."
A 33-year-old man, who had also received injuries, was arrested on suspicion of murder and was taken to hospital where he was in a stable condition, the spokesman added.
Criminals who enter an early guilty plea could having their sentences cut by up to half under a shake-up of sentencing, it has been reported.
Under proposals to be unveiled by Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke next week, tens of thousands of offenders could also avoid prison and instead be handed beefed-up community penalties instead, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Private firms could also be brought in to run some community punishments which could see criminals repairing roads or cleaning railways.
The Justice Secretary will rule out scrapping short jail terms, however, while a Tory pledge to make judges set minimum and maximum sentences will not be included in the Green Paper, the newspaper reported.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman would not confirm any details of the Green Paper but said: "We need a more intelligent approach to sentencing that targets the root causes of crime and reoffending, so making our communities safer and better places to live.
"There is no question that we must protect the public from the most dangerous criminals in our society; however we must also ensure the courts have the power to make the right response to stop people committing crime.
"We are therefore in the process of conducting a full assessment of sentencing and rehabilitation policy to ensure it is effective in deterring crime, protecting the public, punishing offenders and cutting re-offending.
"We will consult on any proposals shortly."
The Football Association's (FA) acting chairman Roger Burden has launched an astonishing attack on Fifa in the wake of England's 2018 World Cup defeat saying the world governing body cannot be trusted.
Burden has withdrawn his candidacy to be the permanent independent chairman of the FA because he "is not prepared to deal with people whom I cannot trust".
In a letter to FA board members, Burden said: "I had applied for the position of chairman. I recognise that an important part of the role is liaison with Fifa, our global governing body. I am not prepared to deal with people whom I cannot trust and I have withdrawn my candidacy."
The FA's unhappiness at the 2018 decision is also expected to lead to moves to scrap plans for a friendly international against Thailand in June - the match was organised in an attempt to gain support for England's bid.
England 2018 officials said as many as six of the 22 Fifa members had promised to vote for England and in the end only one did so apart from Britain's own member Geoff Thompson.
Burden said he knew there may have been a backlash after the Sunday Times and BBC Panorama investigations of FIFA but could not comprehend that England had only secured two votes.
Burden's letter added: "We were equal top of Fifa's own technical assessment of the four bids. We were top of an independent assessment of the best commercial bids and our presentation on Thursday was widely acclaimed as the best of the 2018 and 2022 bids.
"Against this background, I am struggling to understand how we only achieved two votes. It is difficult to believe that the voting was an objective process. On top of that, Prince William, the Prime Minister and other members of our delegation were promised votes that did not materialise."
Burden said he will continue as acting chairman for the time being until a permanent chairman is appointed.
Iberia has cancelled all Spanish flights after a walk-out by the country's air traffic controllers shut down most of its airspace.
The airline said in a statement that passengers should not go to airports and those who are there should return home or go to hotels.
All Iberia flights in Spain were cancelled until 6am (0500 GMT) on Sunday.
The controllers abandoned their posts on Friday evening amid a lengthy dispute over working conditions and after Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his ministers approved a package of austerity measures - including a move to partially privatise airports and hand over management of the Madrid and Barcelona airports to the private sector.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of angry travellers stranded by the strike were awaiting a decision by Spain's government on what action it would take.
Spain's military has already taken control of air traffic control towers, but soldiers are not trained on how to operate civilian airport equipment. They are in place to give orders to the few air traffic controllers who turned up for work at Spain's major airports.
Madrid's international hub remained shut as only around 15 of 77 controllers who had been scheduled to begin a morning shift turned up for work, the national air traffic controller agency Aena said.
Spain's air traffic controllers have been in bitter negotiations for a year with state-owned Aena over wages, working conditions and privileges. The dispute intensified in February after the government restricted overtime, cutting the average annual pay of controllers from about 350,000 euro (£296,730) to around 200,000 euro (£169,560).
Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the government would decide whether to declare a "state of alarm" if controllers did not return to work.
If the state of alarm is imposed, controllers who fail to show up for work and get planes moving could be charged with crimes punishable by jail terms, he said.
Forecasters warned that Britain will continue to shiver in icy conditions for at least another week as the country's transport networks struggle to overcome the Arctic freeze.
Temperatures plummeted to as low as -10C in the South East of England overnight, bringing an end to a week of major commuter disruption, school closures and tragedy.
Two teenage girls were killed in a road crash in Cumbria, with police claiming that treacherous road conditions appeared to be a factor in the collision. Two pensioners also died after falling in their gardens in sub-zero temperatures while a motorist who stopped to help a stranded driver died after he was struck by another vehicle.
Transport Secretary Philip Hammond on Friday summoned Government chiefs for an hour-long emergency weather meeting to "stocktake" and discuss preparations for the weekend.
Though the worst of the snow has fallen, temperatures remain low for the time of year and rain is set to make Britain's frozen roads and pavements even more dangerous.
"The problem is the ground temperature is lower than the air temperature so makes thawing difficult," said Aisling Creevey, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, the Press Association's weather division. "It's going to be really cold into the next 10 days."
England and Wales are predicted to have some respite from the snow today as rain showers move in bringing temperatures up to 7C in some areas. But that will not be enough to melt the ice which is expected to be worsened by rain freezing on top.
Surrey Police said the anti-clockwise section of the M25 at Clacket Lane services was closed after an articulated lorry collided with a passenger coach. It is not known if the weather conditions contributed to the accident at 2am on Saturday.
Rail services were still struggling to find their feet after the bitter weather caused widespread disruptions and cancellations. Line operators East Coast, Southern, first Great Western, South West, South Eastern, and First TransPennine Express were still experiencing delays, while Eurostar said it would be operating a reduced timetable until tomorrow.
Major airports were also operating although many were experiencing flight delays.
Terms and conditions of energy tariffs need to be more transparent to prevent people from getting a nasty surprise when their bills arrive, Consumer Focus said.
The consumer watchdog has written to the Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem), requesting an investigation into the way energy suppliers market and sell energy tariffs.
"We believe that energy tariffs are often structured in ways that are overly complex and can seem designed to confuse the average consumer," Audrey Gallacher, head of energy at Consumer Focus said in a letter to Ofgem.
"There are problems with dubious discounts that are hard to achieve. There are issues with the transparency of price rise notifications, termination charges and rollover contracts."
Ms Gallacher said the requested investigation would need to examine whether the average consumer was capable of understanding key terms and conditions of energy tariffs.
Quantitative research by Consumer Focus in March found more than one third of consumers were baffled by their energy bills.
"Nearly 60% of gas and electricity consumers did not know what tariff they were on or how much they paid per unit," Ms Gallacher added.
"When a household chooses the wrong energy tariff it can result in substantially increased annual bills."
Christine McGourty, director of Energy UK, said: "In our competitive energy market customers can choose from a wide range of different energy tariffs to suit their needs, and that is a good thing. Energy companies are constantly innovating to offer their customers a range of deals and a variety of payment methods.
"If people are unsure of being on the right deal they can call their energy company direct, who will be able to talk them through the best tariff available for them."
Shards of glass have been found inside bottles of Stella Artois, causing the brewer to recall batches of the lager.
InBev said 250ml bottles sold in 10 packs with certain batch codes were affected.
The brewer apologised and blamed an "isolated issue" at a bottling plant and said the recall was "a precaution".
Customers who have bought the drinks with the batch codes L0219MZ, L0272MZ, L0288MY, L0308MY, L0309MY and L0309MZ are asked to return them to the shop without consuming them, and they will receive a full refund.
InBev said: "This recall only applies to the 250ml bottles identified above. No other products are affected."
For more information call the brewer on 01452 337666.
