Rocked again: BBC all at sea in another storm

Independent 31 October 2008

First it was Greg Dyke. Then Peter Fincham. Now another top BBC executive has been forced to walk after a media frenzy. So why is the corporation so accident-prone? Ian Burrell investigates

Here we are again. Last year it was Peter Fincham, the head of the BBC's flagship television channel, and now it is the chief of the biggest radio network Lesley Douglas, walking the plank over their failures to prevent lapses in programming standards.

The BBC is in meltdown once more. It all seems sadly familiar.

The tone is different from 29 January, 2004, when Greg Dyke stepped down as director general in the wake of the Hutton inquiry into the Today's programme's reporting. There was a sympathy then that the corporation was being bullied by the Government. But there are also similarities: the world's most famous broadcaster in a state of disarray, its staff demoralised and its credibility called into question.

When Mark Thompson arrived as Mr Dyke's replacement in May 2004, it was supposed to be a new beginning. A man with an impeccable BBC pedigree and instinctive understanding of news, the former editor of Panorama and director of BBC Television had experience of the outside business world as a former chief executive of Channel 4 and was, conservative commentators noted approvingly, a family man with strong religious convictions.

Yet the turbulence at the BBC has been unremitting. The past 18 months in particular have seen the corporation rocked by storm after storm. Programmes that were thought almost sacred such as Children in Need, Comic Relief and Blue Peter, were found to have duped their audiences.

The Queen herself was unveiled in film to an expectant press as having stomped out of a photoshoot with Annie Leibovitz, when she had done nothing of the sort. Mr Fincham, who had presented the footage as the star billing in his new schedule, ended up quitting but only after a lengthy rearguard action by the BBC and an inquiry conducted by a former senior BBC executive, Will Wyatt.

Mr Fincham handed in his resignation and Mr Thompson –who, along with his Director of Vision Jana Bennett, had also been faced with calls to go – responded with a note which said: "It is with real sadness that I accept your decision to resign. Your decision to accept responsibility demonstrates the integrity and conviction which has characterised your leadership of BBC One."

Now Lesley Douglas has gone the same way, after an excruciating two weeks in which the number of complaints about the offending broadcast has risen from two to more than 35,000. "It is with real sadness that I accept your decision to resign," wrote Mr Thompson yesterday, perhaps with a sense of déjà vu. "Your decision to take responsibility... is an illustration of the integrity and commitment which has characterised your leadership at BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music."

Were they pushed or did they jump? Mr Fincham has since made clear his departure was his own decision. He has landed on his feet as the director of television at ITV. Ms Douglas, 45, who is arguably the most talented executive in British radio and hugely admired across the music industry, will not find it difficult to secure significant employment.

But does the BBC licence fee payer benefit from these departures? Ms Douglas, like Mr Fincham, was a talent magnet. She recast a radio network that was in danger of becoming irrelevant to listeners under the age of 40 and grew its audience to more than 13 million by recruiting a fresh roster of younger, smarter presenters, while remaining faithful to her breakfast star Terry Wogan, Britain's most popular radio host.

While it is true that British broadcasting stars crave for work on the BBC, Ms Douglas was a skilled controller with a fine ear for a radio communicator, who managed her line-up with supreme interpersonal skills and loyalty. Mr Fincham, too, is sufficiently charismatic to have almost charmed the BBC's star sports presenter Adrian Chiles across the broadcasting divide earlier this year.

What we have learnt is that all the checks and balances that were supposed to have been put in place, in the wake of Hutton, in the wake of Crowngate and Pudseygate and Blue Peter's Socksgate, have failed. The BBC already has enough gates to screen every driveway in Essex. Now it has Manuelgate too.

"The events of the last two weeks happened on my watch," said Ms Douglas as she explained her departure yesterday. They also happened on Mr Thompson's watch, even though he was on holiday in Italy at the time.

The other post-Hutton "gates", also happened on the watch of a director general who was widely criticised for bungling a renegotiation of the BBC's licence fee settlement which left the corporation with a £2bn shortfall in funding. While Mr Thompson has won praise for his strong management in pushing through the programme of reforms that came with that settlement, the new BBC Trust showed in its statement yesterday that it is deeply unimpressed by the continued lapses in standards at the corporation, expressing its "dismay" over the "deplorable intrusion" into the privacy of Andrew Sachs and his family.

The director general issued a public statement in which he explained why he felt Radio 2 managers should shoulder the blame for the actions of Ross (who he suspended for 12 weeks) and Brand (who quit his show). "The ultimate editorial responsibility for BBC programmes lies with producers and editorial managers," said Mr Thompson. "The consequences of errors of judgement are therefore more serious for managers.

"Jonathan Ross has already made a comprehensive and unreserved personal apology to Andrew Sachs and his granddaughter. I believe he fully understands the seriousness of what has happened. I have made very clear to him the central importance of the clause in his contract about not bringing the BBC into disrepute. We agree that nothing like this must ever happen again and that tight discipline will be required for the future." Though a three-month ban on the star chat show host will hurt ratings at BBC1, Mr Thompson will face criticism for not taking tougher action on the highest-paid man at the BBC. As for considering his own position, the director general left the matter unsaid.

BBC draws a line under radio row

BBC News 31 October 2008

The BBC is hoping that it has drawn a line under the furore provoked by the offensive phone calls made by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross.

The pair made the calls to the actor, Andrew Sachs, on Brand's Radio 2 show.

Brand resigned on Wednesday and Ross has been suspended from his BBC shows for three months without pay.

However, the BBC Trust has asked for a further report into the matter, and Ofcom is conducting its own investigation, which could mean a fine.

The BBC Trust wants more information on how the programme was approved for broadcast, and who was involved in the final decision.

The BBC radio show saw Brand and Ross make obscene comments about Sachs' 23-year-old granddaughter, Georgina Baillie.

Director-general Mark Thompson said there must be "tight discipline" in future and that "nothing like this must ever happen again".

The Controller of Radio 2, Lesley Douglas, has also quit over the row.

She said the decision to leave her job was "mine and mine alone" and was made with "enormous regret".

The Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans was visibly upset when talking about his former boss.

Ms Douglas was "the best boss in the world", he said.

However, he said employees of the station understood the "severity of what's gone on".

"Andrew Sachs doesn't want to be 78 years old and remembered for this, he wants to be remembered for what he did brilliantly."

'Deplorable intrusion'

Thompson also called Ross's actions "utterly unacceptable", adding that the presenter should regard it as a "final warning".

Thompson said Ross's three-month suspension was "an exceptional step". It is believed the suspension of pay will cost the entertainer more than £1 million.

Thompson met with the BBC Trust to discuss the crisis over lewd phone calls made to Sachs during Brand's programme.

The Trust has demanded an on-air apology and called for editorial standards in the BBC to be tightened, with particular attention to "high risk" programmes.

In a statement issued after their meeting with Thompson, the Trust said it was "dismayed" that the broadcasts "fell so far short of audience expectations".

It said there had been a "deplorable intrusion" into the privacy of Sachs and his granddaughter".

They issued an unreserved apology to licence fee payers, as well as to the Fawlty Towers actor and his family.

Number of babies born in prison soars

Independent 27 October 2008

The number of children born behind bars has almost doubled since Labour came to power, with new figures showing women prisoners currently giving birth at nearly four a week.

Figures from the Ministry of Justice show that 283 children were born in prisons in England and Wales between April 2005 and July this year, an average of 1.7 a week. But 49 babies were born between April and the beginning of July this year alone, almost four a week, meaning the 2008 total could reach nearly 200 if births continue at the same rate, more than double the 64 prison births recorded in 1995-96 before Labour came to power.

Prison reformers demanded that women should be locked up only in extreme circumstances, saying that keeping mothers and young babies in prison can harm young children and does nothing to cut crime.

The number of women in jail has nearly doubled in the past decade and stands at more than 4,500. Most women are in for non-violent offences, with about a third jailed for theft or handling stolen goods; in 2006, nearly two-thirds served less than six months.

The Ministry of Justice said sentencing decisions were the responsibility of judges and magistrates. But penal reformers and Opposition MPs expressed anger at the increasing numbers of babies born in custody.

Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "No pregnant woman should be held in prison. It is an outdated and inhumane practice, penalising a baby for something that is no fault of its own. Fewer than one in four women is in prison for serious violent offences. Most women who come into contact with the criminal justice system could be sentenced to community programmes with no danger to the public and with a hugely positive impact on the health and well-being of the child."

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "Apart from people who have committed extremely serious or violent offences it is difficult to see how jailing a young mother is going to do anything other than damage her and her baby. The conditions in prisons may no longer be Dickensian but young mothers are still going to jail for the same reasons they were in Victorian times, poverty, debt, addiction and mental illness."

The latest sentencing guidelines stress that in cases where jail is not regarded as essential courts may regard pregnancy as a mitigating factor. There are seven specialised mother and baby units in prisons across England. New babies can stay with their mothers for between nine and 18 months, and often leave when their mothers finish their sentences. Older children of women serving longer sentences are taken either to live with relatives outside prison or are put into care.

Prison Service guidelines insist young children behind bars must have contact with their family and see the world outside prison, with trips outside jail with nursery nurses to go shopping and visit local parks. Officials say women do not give birth inside jails – except in medical emergencies – and they offer special units to provide a calm environment for babies to bond with their mothers.

But the Liberal Democrats, who obtained the new figures from parliamentary questions, blamed the rise in prison births on the Government's desire to look tough on crime. David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat Justice spokesman, said: "There can be fewer worse starts in life than being born to a mother in prison. Labour's obsession with looking tough has led to a near doubling of the number of women in prison in the past decade.

"It is little surprise, therefore, that this year looks set to break the unenviable record for the number of babies born in incarceration. Not only should there be fewer women in prison but smaller prison units, closer to home, would surely be a more appropriate environment to bear and raise children than exists in prison today."

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, will use a speech today to criticise prison reformers, saying: "We should not shy from the fact that the sentences of the court are first and foremost for the punishment of those who have broken the law, broken society's rules."

MPs fear legal loophole in embryology bill could pave the way for human-ape hybrids

Daily Mail 23rd October 2008

Scientists would be able to create a 'humanzee'  - a cross between a human and a chimpanzee or other animal - thanks to a loophole in controversial fertilisation laws, MPs warned last night.

The prospect of animals being inseminated with human sperm was raised during an impassioned Commons debate on the Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

The Bill has outraged church leaders and traditionalists as it allows the creation of human-animal embryos for medical research.

Some MPs fear a loophole in the fertilisation laws will allow scientists to create human-ape hybrids

It also relaxes guidelines to make it easier for lesbians and single women to have IVF treatment and lets parents choose 'saviour siblings' for seriously ill children.

The Bill, which is the most significant shake-up of embryology laws for 20 years, cleared its third reading last night - the final Commons hurdle - after the Government imposed a three-line whip on Labour MPs.

Gordon Brown - whose son James Fraser has cystic fibrosis - has described the proposed legislation as a 'moral endeavour'.

But 16 Labour rebels defied the Government to vote against it, including Catholic former Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, who quit the Government this month.

Former minister Ruth Kelly voted against the Government

Opponents have accused politicians of placing the need for medical understanding above the dangers of tinkering with life.

LibDem MP John Pugh said MPs had a responsibility to ban the placing of human gametes - eggs or sperm - into an animal, adding: 'Why should we leave it to scientists to set limits on what is morally permissible?'

Tory MP Nadine Dorries said it was 'serious, sinister and absolutely, ultimately ridiculous' not to outlaw such a procedure, which would allow scientists to attempt to create a 'humanzee'.

She added: 'Of all the experimental possibilities debated in the course of this Bill, surely none is quite so utterly repulsive as the possibility of seeking to inseminate animals with human sperm?

'It is a sinister matter because of the connotations involved. It is impossible to discuss insemination of animals for very long without considering the infamous Soviet hybridisation trials of the 1920s.'

In those experiments, Stalin's scientists tried to cross-breed apes with humans to create 'the ultimate soldier', she said.

DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson added: 'The image that people have in their heads and the image that they find most abhorrent is of scientists producing GM babies or cloned adults or minotaurs.'

But the Department of Health insisted existing laws would prevent this, adding: 'This is not about "creating monsters". It is purely laboratory research, and is aimed at increasing knowledge about diseases and treatments.

'Embryos must be destroyed at 14 days and they cannot be placed in a woman or in an animal.'

Supporters of the Bill say it could save thousands of lives by producing treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Scientists creating hybrid embryos say they will provide an alternative source of stem cells  -  basic cells that can develop into many different types of tissue  -  for use in medical research. Currently, they must rely on donated human embryos.

In 2006, U.S. President George Bush vetoed funding into human embryonic stem-cell research.

'If you go outside...you may die': The BBC script prepared in event of nuclear attack revealed for the first time

Daily Mail 3rd October 2008

Had Britain been hit with a nuclear bomb in the 1970s, terrified survivors would have huddled around their radios listening for a message from the Government.

And the chilling transcript of that pre-recorded announcement, contained in records from the National Archives, has been released.

The tapes, the work of Cabinet officials and the BBC, were kept at the broadcaster's wartime studios Wood Norton, to be played in an emergency by the engineer in charge - should he survive.

Radio silence: The tapes of a Government broadcast that would have been played had Britain been hit with a nuclear bomb were kept secret until now

Instructing civilians not to flee their homes, this is how the message would have sounded to a panic-stricken population:

'This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service.

'This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons. Communications have been severely disrupted and the number of casualties and the extent of the damage are not yet known.

'We shall bring you further information as soon as possible. Meanwhile, stay tuned to this wavelength, stay calm and stay in your own homes. Remember there is nothing to be gained by trying to get away.

'By leaving your homes you could be exposing yourselves to greater danger. If you leave you may find yourself without food, without water, without accommodation and without protection.

'Radioactive fall-out, which follows a nuclear explosion, is many times more dangerous if you are directly exposed to it in the open.

'Roofs and walls offer substantial protection. The safest place is indoors. Make sure gas and other fuel supplies are turned off and that all fires are extinguished. If mains water is available, this can be used for fire-fighting.

'You should also refill all your containers for drinking water after the fires have been put out, because the mains water supply may not be availablefor very long.

'Water must not be used for flushing lavatories: until you are told they may be used again, other toilet arrangements must be made. Use your water only for essential drinking and cooking purposes. Water means life. Don't waste it.

'Make your food stocks last: ration your supply, because it may have to last 14 days or more. If you have fresh food in the house, use this first to avoid wasting it: food in tins will keep.

'If you live in an area where a fallout warning has been given, stay in your fall-out room until you are told it is safe to come out. When the immediate danger has passed the sirens will sound a steady note.

'Do not, in any circumstances, go outside the house. Radioactive fallout can kill. You cannot see it or feel it, but it is there.

'If you go outside, you will bring danger to your family and you may die. Stay in your fall- out room until you are told it is safe to come out or you hear the 'all clear' on the sirens.'

UK Lockdown point of view
The BBC are nothing more than a government propaganda outlet and only project the version of events that has been authorised by the government, the government have proven themselves over and over again to be untrustworthy during peacetime, so why should we trust them during wartime ?

'Millions' of UK young in poverty

BBC News 30 September 2008

Millions of children in the UK are living in, or on the brink of, poverty, a report claims.

The Campaign to End Child Poverty says 5.5 million children are in families that are classed as "struggling" - 98% of children in some areas.

The campaign classes households as being in poverty if they are living on under £10 per person per day.

A government spokeswoman said it had lifted 600,000 children out of poverty and was committed to the cause.

The Campaign to End Child Poverty is a coalition of more than 130 organisations including Barnardo's, Unicef and the NSPCC.

According to its research, there are 4,634,000 children in England living in low income families, 297,000 in Wales, 428,000 in Scotland and 198,000 in Northern Ireland.

It says 174 of the 646 parliamentary constituencies in Britain have 50% or more of their child population in, or close to, the poverty line.

The parliamentary constituency with the highest number of children in or close to poverty is Birmingham Ladywood, with 81% (28,420 individuals).

'More likely to die'

Campaign director Hilary Fisher said the figures were "absolutely shocking".

She said: "There are currently 3,900,000 children in the UK that are classed as actually living in poverty, which impacts on every aspect of a child's life.

"A child in poverty is 10 times more likely to die in infancy, and five times more likely to die in an accident.

"Adults who lived in poverty as a child are 50 times more likely to develop a restrictive illness such diabetes or bronchitis."

Ms Fisher said some families could not afford school uniforms, and chose schools for their children based on uniform cost - which was "not acceptable".

She said: "The government has lifted 600,000 children out of poverty, but 100,000 have gone back for each of the last two years.

"If the government does not allocate £3bn in tax credits and benefits in the next budget, then their plans to reduce child poverty will fail."

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said the government was committed to the cause.

She said: "We have lifted 600,000 children out of poverty, we are introducing free nursery education for all two, three and four year olds and have seen an increase in educational outcomes at all ages."

She said local authorities and other service providers had to help it raise family incomes, encourage people to apply for tax credit and benefits and help parents work.

She said the latter was known to be one of the best ways for families to get out of poverty

Donald Hirsch, author of several reports on child poverty, said a single-wage couple with two children would stop getting Working Tax Credit when they were on £18,500 a year - leaving them just above the poverty line.

He said: "The official government measure of poverty is families below 60% of median income before housing costs, so families with this composition on Working Tax Credit will be close to the poverty line."

The report's figures are made up from Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit data, and have been calculated by the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion.

Government pledge



Another area with high child poverty is Bethnal Green and Bow, which has 79% (23,450) of its children in low income families.

The constituency of Bradford West has 75% (24,900) of children in or near poverty, while Nottingham East has 68% (12,360).

An estimated 98% of children living in two zones in Glasgow Baillieston - Central Easterhouse and North Barlarnark and Easterhouse South - are either in poverty or in working families that are "struggling to get by".

And there are 58% of children in Swansea East (10,470) in families of this description.

The constituencies with the lowest levels of families in, or near, poverty are Buckingham and Sheffield Hallam, both with 17%.

At last week's Labour Party conference, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said child poverty "demeans Britain" and repeated his party's pledge to halve child poverty by 2010, and ultimately to end it.

During his speech he said: "The measures we have taken this year alone will help lift 250,000 children out of poverty.

"The economic times are tough - of course that makes things harder - but we are in this for the long haul. The complete elimination of child poverty by 2020."

'Broken Britain'

Harry Potter author JK Rowling recently donated £1m to the Labour Party, saying she was motivated by Labour's record on child poverty.

But shadow work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling said the figures "underline the vast social divide" within cities.

He added: "There are examples of wards within cities where hardly any children live in poverty but sitting alongside these wards are others where virtually every family lives below the poverty line.

"This just goes to show the extent to which Britain is truly broken."

The Scottish government said it was helping low-income families with a council tax freeze, abolishing prescription charges and piloting free school meals.

"However, the limited nature of devolved powers restricts our ability to act," a spokesman said.

"We need significant extra investment by the UK government."

The report's results are for the period of August 2006, except for ward or zone breakdowns, which are for August 2005.

The Campaign to End Child Poverty will stage a rally in London's Trafalgar Square on Saturday 4 October called Keep The Promise, where it will call on Gordon Brown to keep Labour's promises on child poverty.

Armoured cars on Army wish list

Daily Mail 28th September 2008

The Ministry of Defence has said it hopes to buy hundreds of new armoured vehicles to protect soldiers against roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ministry is reported to have asked the Treasury for £500m to replace the Army's snatch Land Rovers.

These modified thin-skinned vehicles are designed to withstand small arms fire, but have been criticised for offering insufficient protection.

Reports say the new vehicles could be in the field by the start of 2009.

The News of the World said that among the heavily-armed vehicles on the ministry's shopping list are 100 Jackal patrol 4x4s and 100 supply vehicles, based on the Mastiff patrol vehicle.

Both have been used by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two years. An MoD spokesman said: "They have saved the lives of countless military personnel".

He confirmed that officials were in talks with the Treasury, but would not comment on the details of the package.

More than 30 soldiers have been killed while patrolling in snatch Land Rovers since 2003. The vehicle was designed for operations in Northern Ireland almost 20 years ago.

Corporal Sarah Bryant, the first British woman killed on duty in Afghanistan, and three male SAS reservists died on 17 June when their Land Rover was destroyed by a landmine.

And in August, Susan Smith, whose son Phillip Hewett died in Iraq in 2005, launched a damages action against the MoD which alleged "failures" over the use of snatch Land Rovers.

In a statement, she said the lightly armoured vehicles were "designed to provide no more than limited protection against ballistic threats, mainly small arms bullets", and offered "little or no protection against improvised explosive devices".

The ministry said then that it was reducing the number of snatches - about 100 have been in use by British troops in Afghanistan.

Our correspondent Caroline Wyatt said roadside bombs were an increasing threat, and some soldiers told her they hesitated about using the vulnerable vehicles while on patrol.

Army's demand for 15% limit on foreign recruits to safeguard 'Britishness' upsets race watchdog

Daily Mail 26th September 2008

Army chiefs want foreign recruit numbers to be capped to safeguard 'Britishness' within the ranks.

They have demanded a 15 per cent limit amid fears the soaring numbers of foreign troops would dilute the force's cultural identity.

They also fear that foreign countries could ban their own citizens from fighting Britain's wars, seriously hampering key operations.

British Army soldiers serving in Basra, Iraq: Some fear too many foreign recruits could hamper overseas deployments

The measure has been backed by Defence Secretary Des Browne and was due to be announced two weeks ago.

But the plans have been thrown into chaos by race relations watchdogs who will not support the measure.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission says there are 'large issues of principle'.

Senior officers are angry over the Government's dithering, and recruiting trips to the West Indies have had to be cancelled until the confusion is cleared up.

Some branches of the Army are already at the planned 15 per cent limit and would have to start turning away foreign applicants as soon as the policy comes into force.

Army manpower is falling as recruitment fails to keep pace with the exodus of experienced troops.

Commanders admit the overstretched military could no longer function without the growing numbers of troops from Fiji, the West Indies, South Africa and elsewhere.

The current 6,500 foreign soldiers now account for almost 7 per cent of Army manpower, up from just 0.3 per cent in 1997.

Almost two-thirds of all applicants wanting to join the Army in London are now foreign.
Across the whole Army the figure is almost 20 per cent.

Leaked documents seen by the Daily Mail reveal that defence chiefs believe enough is enough, and that an over-reliance on foreign troops is threatening Britain's fighting capabilities.

Classified Ministry of Defence papers say the new limit aims 'to reduce the risk to operational effectiveness from an over-reliance on personnel who are not British citizens and are not therefore under the full control of the UK Government.

'For example, other Governments might introduce laws which ban their citizens from taking part in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. We cannot have parts of the Army unable to be deployed.'

The paper also warns that the nation must maintain 'Armed Forces which are predominantly British and whose members reflect and share the culture and values of British society'.

Mr Browne accepted the Army chiefs' demands in July, provided that the Equality and Human Rights Commission backed the move.

The 15 per cent cap, which would apply to each branch of the Army  -  such as infantry, engineers, artillery and logistics  -  would breach the Race Relations Act by treating foreigners less favourably.

Gurkhas serving in Southern Helmand province, Afghanistan: Nepalese are the most common foreign nationality serving in the British Army

Although ministers can declare a 'derogation' to make the breach legal, they are desperate to have the blessing of race watchdogs.

However last month the Commission's chairman Trevor Phillips refused to give firm backing, claiming the plan 'raises large issues of principle'.

Rather than push ahead, Des Browne cancelled the planned announcement on September 10.

The MoD confirmed that ministers were considering introducing the cap but stressed there were no plans to stop recruiting foreign soldiers.

'I cracked safes for Osama Bin Laden,' reveals Birmingham father-of-one

Daily Mail 14th September 2008

He lives in an unremarkable terraced home on a post-war estate and is happily enjoying his retirement.

But Arthur Riding claims his modest life on the outskirts of Birmingham belies an incredible past as Osama Bin Laden's personal security expert.

Mr Riding, a father-of-one, has told how he met the Al Qaeda terror chief in the late 1970s when he was employed by the multi-millionaire Bin Laden family as a security contractor for its construction empire in Saudi Arabia.

Enlarge

Former boss: Arthur Riding made fireproof cabinets for Osama Bin Laden, and once cracked a safe for him

The 59-year-old claims he also worked for notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin after the African leader was forced from power in 1979 and eventually accepted by Saudi Arabia .

Mr Riding, a locksmith and legitimate safecracker by trade, spent 23 years working in the Middle East, after leaving his native West Midlands in search of a better life.

He told how his career included a stint for the world's most wanted terrorist when he installed bazooka-proof glass at Bin Laden's opulent summer house.

Mr Riding says he met Bin Laden on dozens of occasions and remembers the terrorist mastermind as a polite and quiet man.

Mr Riding said: 'There was no clue that he would go on to do what he has done.

'You could talk to him and he was reasonably friendly.

'I worked for the Bin Laden family a lot and that is how I first came across Osama.

'His beach house on the Red Sea was the most luxurious, expansive building you could imagine.

'We installed bazooka-proof glass outside his master bedroom that was 80cm thick.

'The walls are right up against the sea, so if you draw back the curtains you can see a giant aquarium through the glass.'

Mr Riding said he believed the death of Bin Laden's extrovert playboy brother Salem in a 1988 plane crash was an important factor in his radicalisation, a theory also put forward by a book published about the 9/11 terrorist mastermind earlier this year.

'His brother was killed in America in a microlight crash and that's what started to send him crazy', Mr Riding said.

'Before that he had been a normal guy really.

'He was a bit of a man about town and obviously being very rich he enjoyed a bit of the high life.

'When we had meetings with the whole family he would blend in.

'He was just one of the family.

Mr Riding also met the notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin during his time working in Saudi Arabia

'I installed fireproof cabinets for him, but never asked what was inside.

'I also remember cracking a safe for him right out in the desert.

'He took me to a site very near to Mecca to open this safe.

'As always I didn't ask what was in it.

'The last time I saw him was the late 70s, before he went off to Afghanistan.

'Obviously he is persona non grata in Saudi Arabia now.

'We were dealing with the Bin Laden corporation and whenever they built something new, we were sent in to provide the best, most expensive security systems money could buy.

'It was all million pound vaults. It was the height of the oil boom and these men would pay big money to protect their assets.'

Mr Riding said he met Idi Amin in the early 1980s when he was called in to open a Japanese safe for the deposed African despot, then in exile in Saudi Arabia.

'After that I met him on numerous occasions', Mr Riding said.

'He was a very imposing figure who owned whatever room he walked into.

'He was jovial and fun, but obviously he had a horrible past.

'When you asked him about Uganda he would always blame his generals for what happened there.'

Amin died of multiple organ failure in hospital in Saudi Arabia 2003.

Variously described as being aged between 78 and 80, he settled there after initially fleeing Uganda to Libya, then Iraq.

Mr Riding and wife Sue, 54, eventually returned to Woodgate, Birmingham, in the early 1990s.

Although he has retired from his career as a legitimate safe-cracker, he still gets called out to Saudi Arabia from time to time.

UK Lockdown point of view
As if more evidence was needed that Bin laden and his family were agents of the Zionists that run the west how much more obvious does it need to be before the general population accept the reality that the terror attacks on 9/11 and 7/7 were staged by the Zionists who run the al queda network through Mossad, CIA & MI5/MI6 so their puppet politicians could strip away all of our freedoms in the name of national security and fighting terror, stop being duped by the Zionist controlled Media false flag terrorism is a reality and it must be exposed if we are ever going to get our society back from these criminals.

Scientists turn on the £5bn Big Bang machine... and we're still here!

Daily mail 10th September 2008

Scientists have switched on the most powerful particle accelerator ever built this morning in an attempt to answer some of the biggest unanswered questions about the universe.

Eminent experts who had thronged the control room popped champagne after they succeeded in circulating a beam of particles around the 27km-long underground tunnel which houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).


Two white dots flashed on a computer screen indicating that the protons reached the end point.

Physicists hope the machine on the French/Swiss border will reproduce conditions that existed during the first moments after the Big Bang at the birth of the universe.

Large Hadron Collider: The biggest particle accelerator in the world has now been turned on. Pictured is the core magnet of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment at CERN on the French/Swiss border

Scientists at the CERN control centre applaud the switch-on of the LHC

However, there have been bizarre claims that the experiment could spell the end of the world, after some maverick scientists suggested the LHC had the potential to create a black hole that could expand and suck in the entire Earth.

These fears may be partly allayed as the switch-on did not lead to the human race's sudden demise.

The project has been 30 years in the making and has undergone construction problems and cost overruns. It was originally supposed to be switched on two years ago.

Just last night, the cooling system was hit with a glitch, which has since been fixed.

The £5billion collider is designed to smash sub-atomic protons into each other at energies up to seven times greater than any achieved before.

At different points around the tunnel, the beams will be guided to cross paths, near four massive 'detectors' that monitor the collisions for interesting events.

More than 9,000 physicists around the world will then conduct experiments with the garnered information.

No-one knows precisely what will come tumbling out of the primordial soup of disintegrating protons.

The LHC could help scientists explain mass, gravity, and the mysterious 'dark matter' that fills much of the universe.

It could also give them the first evidence of extra spatial dimensions that have been hypothesised by physicists such as Stephen Hawking.

And it could even create mini-black holes that blink in and out of existence in a fraction of a second - holding out the prospect of a Nobel Prize for Professor Hawking if they are seen to give off radiation.

The particle collider could provide proof of Stephen Hawking's theory that black holes emit radiation

He told the BBC yesterday: 'If the LHC were to produce little black holes, I don't think there's any doubt I would get a Nobel prize, if they showed the properties I predict.

'However, I think the probability that the LHC has enough energy to create black holes is less than one per cent, so I'm not holding my breath.'

The British physicist put forward his idea about radiation-emitting black holes in the 1970s but it proved controversial because many scientists believed nothing could escape the gravitational pull of a black hole.

Although Hawking's theory has become accepted science, it remains unproven.

Nobel prizes in physics are awarded only when there is experimental evidence for a new phenomenon.

The LHC is buried under 300ft of rock and straddles the borders of Switzerland and France between Lake Geneva and the Jura mountains.

The beams of protons will be accelerated in opposite directions through the ring-shaped tunnel, which is supercooled to just 1.9 degrees above absolute zero (minus 271C), the lowest temperature allowed by nature.

Reaching velocities of 99.99 per cent of the speed of light, each beam will pack as much energy as a Eurostar train travelling at 93mph.

The particles will be brought together in four huge 'detectors' placed along the ring.

Each detector is like a giant microscope, designed to probe deeper into the heart of matter than has ever been possible before.

Concerns have been voiced - in particular by German chemist Professor Otto Rossler - that black holes created by the LHC will grow uncontrollably and 'eat the planet from the inside'.

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The Large Hadron Collider is on the border of France and Switzerland (enlarge for more detailed graphic)

But those involved in the project insist they have reviewed all the evidence and concluded that it poses no risk to the universe.

Particle physicist Dr James Gillies, a spokesman for the LHC project, said: 'We have received a lot of worried calls from people about it.

'There's nothing to worry about, the LHC is absolutely safe because we have observed nature doing the same things the LHC will do.

'Protons regularly collide in the earth's upper atmosphere without creating black holes.

'What we are looking at is a global community representing 10,000 people working in 500 universities in 80 countries, none of whom has the slightest worry about risks of this kind.

'Then we have a retired German chemist who has never published a paper in this field in his life, who has come up with this theory.

'We are very excited about the project. We hope to learn more about this wonderful universe of ours.'

Turning on the LHC is nothing like as simple as flipping a switch.

A chain of smaller accelerators, built for earlier projects, are first used to speed up the proton beams to the point where they can be injected into the machine.

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'Remind me. How much did we spend on this machine?'

The start of the process is a bottle of hydrogen gas no bigger than a fire extinguisher.

Hydrogen atoms are stripped of their electrons to produce streams of protons that are fed into accelerators of increasing size.

The last link in the chain before the LHC, the Super Proton Synchrotron, is itself buried underground and stretches for more than four miles.

Timing between the Synchrotron and the LHC has to be accurate to within a fraction of a nanosecond.

Today's 'switch on' will involve transferring a beam from the Synchrotron to the LHC so that it is circulating around the machine in a stable fashion.

After this has been successfully accomplished another beam will be sent spinning in the opposite direction.

The first particle collisions are likely to take place within a few weeks.

In some cases teams of more than 2,000 collaborating scientists will be sifting and analysing data from the machine.

Most of this analysis will not be done on the spot at the LHC's operating base at CERN, the European nuclear research organisation, in Geneva.

A revolutionary computer network called the 'Grid' - the next step beyond the World Wide Web - will make it possible for scientists all over the world to share huge amounts of processing power and carry out much of the work on their PCs.

The cost of the LHC is mainly shared by CERN's 20 European member states, which include Britain. Six 'observer' nations, including the US, Russia and Japan, make significant contributions.

CERN estimates the total cost of the project to be 10 billion Swiss francs, or £5billion. The material cost alone is put at £2.6billion.

Britain's direct contribution to the LHC each year is £34million.

UK Lockdown point of view
The psychopathic mad scientists may have failed to destroy the planet this time but it's unlikely that will stop them from trying again to carry out their nihilistic agenda of population extermination, look at all the human life haters as they celebrate and applaud the possible coming apocalypse as the evil machine is switched on they must have been so disappointed when it didn't work and they didn't get their black hole; also note further down the article the reference to the next step beyond the World Wide Web the so-called 'Grid'