”Sex And The City” star Kim Cattrall has been honoured by the Liverpool John Moores University for her contributions to the arts. She has been awarded the university”s fellowship, reports the Daily Star. The 53-year-old actress – sex addict Samantha in the telly show – has previously said that ”Sex and The City” has given [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Merseyside’
When baboons had sex on Kerry Katona’s car
April 14th, 2010 |
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Kerry Katona was spotted screaming when she saw baboons having sex on her car in a safari park.
Katona was treating her children Heidi, three, and Max, two in Knowsley, Merseyside when suddenly baboons got raunchy on her BMW.
“They were enjoying the baboon enclosure – until two started getting sexy. Kerry burst into tears of [...]
Grenade found outside home of Kenny Dalglish
July 27th, 2009 |
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Explosive device found on garden wall as police investigate unconnected vendetta against security boss
Police investigating a vendetta against a security boss discovered a live hand grenade outside the home of former Liverpool player and manager Kenny Dalglish, it emerged today.
The explosive device was found on a garden wall near his home in Southport on Sunday night as police made searches unconnected to the former footballer. The army’s bomb disposal unit, who were called to the scene, cordoned off the street for the public’s safety.
John Ball, a security company boss, whose home has been shot at and whose business premises have been firebombed this year as gangsters unsuccessfully tried to extort money from him and his business partner Terry Riley, reportedly called police after spotting two armed men.
The men were said to have fled in a silver Lexus, which was abandoned nearby. Two men were arrested after a police helicopter was used in the search. They are being questioned on suspicion of witness intimidation.
The army bomb disposal unit were called out to make the device safe and the area was cordoned off.
A Merseyside police spokeswoman said: “The device was removed and made safe and is currently undergoing forensic examination. The road remains cordoned off at its junction with Sandringham Road and high-visibility patrols have been stepped up in the area to reassure the public.
“Detectives believe this incident is linked to a series of other recent incidents in this area and not to the owner of the property where the device was found.”
Kenny Dalglish was returning to the UK today after attending the club’s tour of the Far East. It was announced earlier this month that he had resumed his Anfield career with a senior role at Liverpool’s Academy.
Last month, the Cabbage Inn in Netherton, Merseyside, was firebombed just after 3.15am, forcing the landlady and her partner to flee for their lives. Detectives confirmed the pub attack had been another incident in a long line of attacks against entrepreneurs Riley and Ball.
Ball’s home in Birkdale, Southport, had been shot at in a drive-by shooting twice in a year. He was out at the time, but his wife and children were in bed as up to five shots were fired. Numerous addresses linked to Ball and his business partner Riley have been firebombed and shot at as local gangsters attempt to extort money from the pair.
During one of the shootings at Riley’s home, an unexploded petrol bomb was also found next to a four-wheel drive vehicle parked on the driveway.
The Shorrocks Hill Country Club, in Formby, which had been owned by John Ball and is now owned by Riley, was petrol-bombed in early April.
Since May, Riley’s parents, sister and in-laws have been targeted at their homes. As Riley was driving along Southport’s coastal road, two men on a motorbike sped past him, waving a gun. At the time, police raided a number of addresses and questioned five people, who were bailed.
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Gerrard cleared after bar brawl
July 24th, 2009 |
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The jury in the trial of England midfielder Steven Gerrard, who punched a man in a Merseyside bar, has retired to consider its verdict.
The Liverpool FC captain has admitted hitting Marcus McGee, 34, in the Lounge Inn, Southport, in December last year but said he was defending himself.
The judge has summed up in the case at Liverpool Crown Court and the jury will decide if he is guilty of affray.
The 29-year-old footballer, of Formby, Merseyside, denies the charge.
Mr Gerrard was drinking with friends in the early hours of 29 December last year to celebrate Liverpool’s 5-1 win over Newcastle United.
Mr McGee was in charge of the music in the bar when Mr Gerrard asked him if he could choose some songs, the court heard.
The prosecution says Mr Gerrard became furious that his request was refused and "lost it", punching Mr McGee "with the style and speed of a professional boxer".
Mr Gerrard says he was acting in self-defence, having mistakenly believed Mr McGee was about to attack him.
Five of his friends have already admitted affray.
They are Ian Gerrard Smith, 19, of Hilary Avenue; John Doran, 29, of Woodlands Road; and Paul McGrattan, 31, of Linden Drive, all Huyton; and Accrington Stanley footballers Robert Grant, 19, of Enstone Avenue, Litherland; and Ian Dunbavin, 28, of Guildford Road, Southport.
Another friend, John McGrattan, 34, of Rimmer Avenue, Huyton, admitted threatening behaviour. </p
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Gerrard denies losing control in brawl
July 23rd, 2009 |
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England footballer tells Liverpool crown court he retained composure on night he punched man in a bar
Footballer Steven Gerrard denied today that he lost control on the night he punched a man in a bar brawl.
The England international told a court he was used to “mither” (bother) and had ways of smoothing over trouble when confronted by people.
Gerrard, who denies affray, told Liverpool crown court he was having a great night on 28 December last year as he celebrated Liverpool’s 5-1 defeat of Newcastle United.
The star began his evening with friends at a bar in Formby, Merseyside, then went on to the Vincent hotel in Southport before attending the Lounge Inn, where trouble flared.
The jury has heard that the 29-year-old estimated he was seven out of 10 on a drunkenness scale. But he told the court today: “I certainly knew I had had a drink. I was certainly in control of how I felt in my surroundings.”
Gerrard went into the witness box shortly before 11am. His barrister, John Kelsey-Fry QC, told the jury and public gallery: “Obviously, there is no need to give an introduction to the captain of Liverpool football club.”
The QC began by explaining that the father-of-two had been in trouble with the police before. When he was 19 he was banned from driving for nine months for drink-driving.
“Have you been in trouble with the police since then?” asked the barrister.
“No,” replied Gerrard, who was wearing a blue suit.
“Have you been involved in any other violent incident?” asked Kelsey-Fry.
“No,” replied the Liverpool captain.
He said he suffered “a lot of mither”, not just in bars, but at traffic lights, shopping centres and in restaurants.
“What sort of mither?” asked his QC.
“For example, because I am a footballer, sometimes I get supporters coming up to me, be they Liverpool fans or Everton or Manchester United fans, and sometimes the comments can be derogatory or insulting.
“So I try to deal with it in the best way I can.”
He added: “I try to talk to them and smooth it over.”
Gerrard said he was given permission by the club manager to choose music from a stereo Marcus McGee was operating.
Recalling McGee allegedly grabbing a music card menu from his hand, Gerrard said: “I asked Sabrina for permission to have an input into the music and she gave me permission to go over to the machine and have a look at the menu.
“It was a small A4-sized piece of paper covered in a plastic cover with numerous songs and then you speak to a member of staff if you want anything on. I looked for the music card and picked it up.
“I was looking at the music card for a couple of seconds for my songs and it was snatched out of my hands by a guy I didn’t know at that time but I now know to be Marcus McGee. That’s when I first spoke to Marcus McGee.”
Asked what McGee said to him, Gerrard apologised to the jury for his language before replying: “He said to me: ‘You are not putting no fucking music on in here’. I was shocked and tried to speak to him and asked him what his problem was.
“I asked why I couldn’t have an input in the music and tried to explain that I had permission from the manageress.”
Kelsey-Fry asked: “Did he explain it?”, to which Gerrard replied: “No.”
Explaining how it came to an end, the footballer said: “He turned away from me and wasn’t really listening to what I was trying to say and he swore at me a couple of times and we had an argument for four or five seconds and then he walked away.
“I remember asking a member of the bar staff if they saw the incident and what the guy’s problem was, and the bar guy said he never saw it really, but told me to forget it.”
The trial continues today.
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Deaths rise during anti-knife drive
July 22nd, 2009 |
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Number of killings up in cities targeted in £3m crime campaign
The high-profile government campaign to tackle knife crime in big English cities has failed to cut the number of fatal stabbings, according to Home Office figures published today.
The number of teenage homicide victims of knife crime remained unchanged at 23, while the number of adults over the age of 20 killed actually went up during the campaign by seven to 103, results of the official monitoring programme show.
The failure of the £3m campaign to reduce the number of teenagers killed in knife attacks in England’s 10 priority police areas is a severe embarrassment to ministers on a highly political crime issue that is likely to dominate the debate on law and order between now and the general election.
Ministers will tomorrow launch a £5m second phase of the “tackling knives action programme” (TKAP) which will see the campaign expanded to 16 police force areas and widened to tackle all forms of serious violence among 13- to 24-year-olds, including gang culture.
Home Office ministers preferred to emphasise the research findings that violent knife crime incidents involving those aged 19 and under were down by 17% during the first phase of the campaign, which ran from July 2008 to March this year.
The home secretary, Alan Johnson, also cited a 32% reduction in NHS hospital admissions for knife crime victims in the 10 target areas.
The Home Office said this compared with an 18% drop in hospital admissions for stabbing injuries outside the targeted areas over the same period.
Controversy has surrounded the knife crime statistics since last December, when the former home secretary Jacqui Smith had to apologise to parliament for the “premature release” of the hospital data when she made public some early results to suggest that the police were making headway against knife crime. Sir Michael Scholar, the head of the UK Statistics Authority spoke out publicly against her “premature, irregular and selective” use of statistics.
The figures published today show that much of the overall 17% reduction in teenage violent knife crime victims is concentrated in some of the biggest cities, including London and Birmingham. But in three out of the 10 police forces involved – Greater Manchester, Nottinghamshire and Thames Valley – violent knife crime went up during the campaign.
The Metropolitan police have had some modest success in reducing the total number of knife crime murders by three, and the West Yorkshire force succeeded in reducing the number of teenage deaths from seven to none during the campaign period. But Manchester saw the number of teenage murder victims of knife crime rise by four and the death toll on Merseyside rose by three.
The number of robberies involving a knife fell by 13% for those 19 and under but rose by 11% for those involving adults.
The campaign included the extensive use of knife arches and wands at pubs, train, tube and bus stations, after-school police patrols and stop-and-search campaigns. More than 250,000 searches yielded 5,469 knives and other weapons.
Home Office statisticians said the overall findings were encouraging, suggesting fewer youngsters were becoming victims. “While caution must be applied when interpreting these trends, TKAP may have contributed to a decline in some measures and persisting reductions in others,” said the official research report.
Chief constable Keith Bristow, who is in charge of rolling out the second phase, said “public angst” over knife crime was understandable: “In any crime reduction approach the first thing to do is arrest the increase and turn that cycle around.
“This is a long journey. Success when you’re dealing with these sort of problems might be measured in generations, not weeks or months.”
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Steven Gerrard ‘punched like a boxer’
July 21st, 2009 |
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• Star upset by man’s refusal to change music, jury told
• Liverpool and England midfielder denies affray
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard punched a man three times in a nightclub brawl with the “style and speed of a professional boxer”, a court heard today.
The England midfielder “totally lost it” after failing to gain control of the venue’s music from another customer, Marcus McGee, on a night out in Southport in the early hours of 29 December, a jury at Liverpool crown court heard.
Businessman McGee, 34, was the “man who said no to Steven Gerrard”, a local hero and one of the world’s top footballers, the prosecution said at the opening of Gerrard’s trial for affray.
The jury was shown CCTV footage from the Lounge Inn that night showing Gerrard with friends celebrating Liverpool’s 5-1 victory that day at Newcastle, which had put his team top of the Premier League.
Gerrard and his friends can be seen singing football songs, dancing and downing shots. Later footage from the club showed Gerrard hitting out at McGee with three uppercut punches, it was alleged.
Things had turned sour at around 2am when Gerrard went over to talk to McGee, a customer who had control of the venue’s CD player, and had a disagreement about his choice of music, asking him for the card that controlled the machine, prosecutor David Turner QC said.
Gerrard, who denies affray and who sat stern-faced in the dock in a grey suit and tie, was said to have approached McGee saying: “Here y’are lad. Give me that lad.” But McGee objected to his attitude and the expression “lad”, Turner said.
“Not many people on Merseyside, or indeed anywhere else would refuse a request from Steven Gerrard, but Mr McGee did,” said Turner. “There can be no doubt that this refusal astounded Steven Gerrard. He walked away back to his party, but the CCTV evidence shows how much his mood had changed. He was no longer the centre of that high-spirited party.”
He said Gerrard was clearly walking around, musing on what had happened about the man “who had said no to Steven Gerrard”. Six minutes later, it is alleged, Gerrard approached McGee, who was still at the bar, saying: “Who the fuck do you think you are?” The two men stood head to head in a hostile confrontation often seen between football players, Turner said.
Then Gerrard’s friend John Doran first jabbed his elbow into McGee’s face, and Gerrard “totally lost it” and joined in “with a succession of well-aimed uppercut punches delivered with the style and speed of a professional boxer, rather than a professional footballer”.
Ian Smith, another member of Gerrard’s party, allegedly joined in. Doran and Smith kicked McGee, the court was told, and he was left with multiple injuries including a head wound that needed four stitches, a lost tooth, and a black eye. The jury heard Gerrard was pulled away by the bar manager and restrained. McGee, his face bleeding, was later seen sat at the bar with his girlfriend following a separate incident that didn’t involve Gerrard.
Six co-defendants, including two Accrington Stanley players, have admitted charges of affray or threatening behaviour before their trial was due to begin.
The prosecution said the incident “must have been very frightening to those ordinary members of the public present in the Lounge Inn that night”.
Turner described Gerrard as a world class footballer who is “a star”. He added: “Wherever you go in Liverpool and indeed the world, there are little boys proudly wearing that red Liverpool shirt with No 8 and the name Gerrard on the back. The prosecution do not say that Mr Gerrard is normally an arrogant man; we don’t say that he’s a bully. But what we say is, that night he just lost his self-control and joined in an attack which should never have taken place. He let himself down.”
When interviewed by the police, Gerrard agreed there had been an exchange of words concerning the music, but said McGee had been aggressive. He said he had no intention of having a fight but when McGee stood up and they started arguing, he believed McGee was about to hit him so he punched him on the side of the head. He thought he had struck the first blow in the fight and had not been aware of his friend striking him with his elbow.
The jurors were told they had to decide whether the prosecution had proved that he was not acting in self-defence when he struck Marcus McGee. “On this occasion, Steven Gerrard’s fists, not his feet, did the talking. This was never self-defence in 100 years,” Turner said. The trial continues.
Huyton streets to Anfield riches
Steven Gerrard lives and breathes Liverpool – both the city and the club. Born Steven George Gerrard, in Huyton on the city’s outskirts, 29 years ago, he has never left.
His talent on the football pitch was apparent from an early age. He joined Liverpool’s youth academy aged nine, the same year his 10-year-old cousin Jon-Paul Gilhooley was killed during the Hillsborough tragedy.
The midfielder has spent his entire career at Anfield, making his debut for his club in November 1998 as a substitute against Blackburn, and becoming club captain at the age of 23.
When he lifted the Champions League trophy in 2005 – after playing an instrumental role in the stunning comeback from 3-0 down against AC Milan in Istanbul to win on penalties – he cemented his place in the roster of Anfield legends.
He made his international debut nine years ago against and now has 74 international caps.
Gerrard married the gossip mag favourite and fashionista Alex Curran in June 2007; they live with their two daughters, Lilly-Ella and Lexie, in a £1m home in Freshfield, Merseyside.
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Steven Gerrard ‘punched like a boxer’
July 21st, 2009 |
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Liverpool captain faces trial alone as co-defendants plead guilty over brawl at nightclub in Southport
The Liverpool captain, Steven Gerrard, punched a man in a bar with the style and speed of a professional boxer during a row over music, a court heard today.
The England international allegedly “totally lost it” and launched an attack on Marcus McGee, a 34-year-old businessman, after the victim refused to hand over control of a CD player to the footballer, a jury at Liverpool crown court heard.
The court heard that the 29-year-old midfielder was with friends at the Lounge Inn in Southport, Merseyside, in the early hours of December 29, following his team’s 5-1 trouncing of Newcastle, when he clashed with McGee, who was with another group.
The attack was captured on the bar’s CCTV. Gerrard denies affray.
David Turner QC, prosecuting, said Gerrard asked McGee for a card controlling the CD player, by saying: “Here y’are lad. Give me that lad.” But McGee objected to his attitude and the expression ‘lad’.
Turner said: “Not many people on Merseyside, or indeed anywhere else would refuse a request from Steven Gerrard, but Mr McGee did.
“There can be no doubt that this refusal astounded Steven Gerrard. He walked away back to his party, but the CCTV evidence shows how much his mood had changed. He was no longer the centre of that high-spirited party.
“He was clearly walking round, pondering, musing over what had happened, about the man who said no to Steven Gerrard.”
The prosecution say that six minutes later, he returned to the bar, approached McGee who was sitting alone at the bar and confronted him with the words: “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“Steven Gerrard had clearly lost his cool – he was very angry with Marcus McGee.”
One of Gerrard’s friends. John Doran, pushed McGee away and elbowed him in the face. The prosecution claims Gerrard then “totally lost it”.
“Almost immediately after the blow from John Doran, in fact within seconds, Steven Gerrard joined in the attack with a succession of well-aimed uppercut punches, delivered with the style and speed of a professional boxer, rather than professional footballer.”
Ian Smith, another member of Gerrard’s party, joined in. Doran and Smith then kicked McGee.
Gerrard was pulled away from the fight by the bar manager and was restrained. McGee was seen with his face bleeding, as he sat at the bar with his girlfriend. The prosecution says the violent incident “must have been very frightening to those ordinary members of the public present in the Lounge Inn that night”.
Turner described Gerrard as a word class footballer who is “a star”. He added: “Wherever you go in Liverpool and indeed the world, there are little boys proudly wearing the Liverpool shirt with No 8 and the name Gerrard on the back of it.
“The prosecution do not claim Gerrard is normally an arrogant man or that he is a bully. But what we say is that, that night he just lost his self control and joined in an attack which should never have taken place. He let himself down.”
When interviewed by the police later that night, Gerrard agreed there had been an exchange of words concerning the music but said Marcus McGee had been aggressive.
He said he had no intention of having a fight but when McGee stood up and they started arguing, he believed that McGee was about to hit him so he punched him on the side of the head. He thought he had struck the first blow in the fight and hadn’t been aware of his friend striking him with his elbow.
Turner told the jurors it may be a case where CCTV evidence is crucial and possibly more use in deciding what happened rather than the recollection of witnesses.
“On this occasion, Steven Gerrard’s fists, not his feet, did the talking. This was never self-defence in 100 years.”
The trial continues.
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Gerrard in court to face affray charges
July 20th, 2009 |
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Liverpool captain and six others on trial over alleged nightclub fracas in Southport last year
The England and Liverpool football star Steven Gerrard today arrived at Liverpool crown court to face a charge of causing affray.
Gerrard, wearing a charcoal grey suit, white shirt and a grey striped tie, was accompanied by a middle-aged man.
The Liverpool captain is accused of being involved in a nightclub brawl that injured the Southport businessman Marcus McGee, 34, in the early hours of 29 December last year.
McGee suffered multiple injuries, including a head wound which needed four stitches, a black eye, and a lost teeth in the melee.
Gerrard, 29, a father of two, was out with friends at The Lounge Inn wine bar in Southport, celebrating Liverpool’s 5-1 defeat of Newcastle United last season, when the fight broke out.
Six other defendants are all also charged with affray. They are Accrington Stanley players – goalkeeper Ian Dunbavin, 28, of Southport, and midfielder Robert Grant, 18, from Litherland – and John Doran, 29, Ian Smith, 19, John McGrattan, 33, and Paul McGrattan, 31, all from Huyton, Merseyside.
The trial is scheduled to last two weeks.
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Unemployment highest since 1995
July 15th, 2009 |
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The number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance increased by a relatively small 23,800 in June to 1.56 million
Unemployment shot up by a record 281,000 in the three months to May, with the jobless rate topping 10% in one region for the first time in this recession, official data shows.
The rise took the jobless total to 2.38 million, the highest level since 1995, on the broadest Labour Force Survey measure of unemployment by the Office for National Statistics.
Youth unemployment jumped to a 16-year high of 726,000 after a quarterly rise of 95,000 – the biggest on record – and the number of people out of work for longer than a year rose by 46,000 to 528,000, the highest for 11 years.
The West Midlands was the hardest hit region, with joblessness jumping to 10.3%. The north-east, Yorkshire and Humber, and London were next in line, but the south-east fared best, at 6.1% unemployment.
Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, said the figures were “truly horrendous. It’s particularly worrying that over half a million unemployed people have been out of work for at least a year. With a new generation of school and college leavers soon starting to look for work, our unemployment crisis will get even bigger,” he warned.
Prof David Blanchflower, the Bank of England’s former labour market expert, said: “There is absolutely no sign that the recession is over. It seems to be worsening. There has been a very worrying rise in unemployment amongst the young and they are not eligible for benefits.”
He said this was part of the reason why the ONS had reported the smallest rise in unemployment measured on claimants, which rose by only 23,800 in June. Most young people are not eligible for jobseeker’s allowance.
The figures also suggested people were coming off the claimant count to go into part-time jobs because they could not find full-time employment. Philip Shaw, an economist at Investec Bank, said the claimant count figures had become unreliable, “biased down by individuals moving off the count on to government schemes such as the New Deal”.
Jaguar LandRover announced it will stop producing its X-Type at the Halewood plant on Merseyside, with the loss of up to 300 jobs. David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, predicted unemployment would peak at about 3.2 million next year.
The figures also showed the number of people in work fell by 269,000 in the latest quarter to 29 million, after a record fall of 0.9% in the employment rate to 72.9%. More than 300,000 people were made redundant in the three months to May, the second highest figure on record, and a rise of 31,000 on the previous quarter. Vacancies fell to a record 429,000 in the three months to June, down by 35,000 from the previous quarter.
Manufacturing jobs continued to fall, down 201,000 over the past year to a low of 2.6 million. Average earnings, excluding bonus payments, increased by 2.6% in the year to May, the lowest figure since comparable records began in 2001, confounding last year’s Bank of England prediction that pay deals would soar this year.
The Centre for Cities thinktank is releasing a report today suggesting Swansea, Newcastle and Ipswich could suffer badly when public sector job cuts begin after 2011. It predicts that in the three years after that, 290,000 jobs will be lost in the public sector.
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Tata’s Jaguar to end X-Type car production, sack 300 employees
July 15th, 2009 |
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Tata-owned Jaguar has decided to end the production of its X-Type car by the end of 2009, which would result in 300 job cuts.
The carmaker announced on Wednesday that it would be seeking voluntary redundancies at its factory in Halewood, Merseyside, which is also to close for three weeks as part of an extended shutdown [...]
Tata’s Jaguar to end X-Type car production, sack 300 employees
July 15th, 2009 |
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Tata-owned Jaguar has decided to end the production of its X-Type car by the end of 2009, which would result in 300 job cuts.
The carmaker announced on Wednesday that it would be seeking voluntary redundancies at its factory in Halewood, Merseyside, which is also to close for three weeks as part of an extended shutdown [...]