Tuesday 27 March 2012

French parents to boycott homework

Children would be better off reading a book rather than doing tasks at home which are useless and tiring, says group

A French parents’ association has called for a boycott of homework for primary school students. Photograph: Klaus-Peter Wolf/Alamy

A group of French parents and teachers have called for a two-week boycott of homework in schools, saying it is useless, tiring and reinforces inequalities between children.

They say homework pushes the responsibility for learning on parents and causes rows between themselves and their children. And they conclude children would be better off reading a book.

"If the child hasn't succeeded in doing the exercise at school, I don't see how they're going to succeed at home," said Jean-Jacques Hazan, the president of the FCPE, the main French parents' association, which represents parents and pupils in most of France's educational establishments.

"In fact, we're asking parents to do the work that should be done in lessons."

Homework is officially banned in French primary schools, and has been since 1956. But many teachers ignore this and send children home with exercises to do. Older children often spend up to an hour each evening doing homework, and longer at the weekend or on Wednesdays when most schools close.

Catherine Chabrun, president of the teachers' organisation Co-operative Institute of Modern Schools (ICEM), says homework also reinforces inequalities.

"Not all families have the time or the necessary knowledge to help their offspring," she said.

The protesters calling for the ban say no one is contesting the idea of children being given "devoirs" – or exercises – just that they should be done during the school day and not at home. "Teachers don't realise the unbelievable pressure they are putting children under," said Hazan.

The question of whether young children should do homework has been a matter of fierce debate and disagreement in France since 1912. The anti-homework campaigners stand little chance of banning it, even for two weeks, but their blog, which has already had 22,000 visits in the past fortnight, hopes to put the perennial controversy back on the political agenda.

On the blog, Mado, the mother of a young pupil in her first primary school class (aged 6-7), writes: "My daughter is completely stressed … often she doesn't have time to finish her homework and she is afraid of being told off." She signs off: "Thanks for your blog. I feel less alone!"

A statement from the FCPE said: "Either a pupil has understood the lesson and succeeded in doing the exercises in class, in which case homework is a waste of time and stops them reading, for example, or they haven't understood and it's not at home in the absence of a teacher that they're going to do better."

Not all parents agree. Myriam Menez, general secretary of PEEP, another school parents' association, told Le Parisien giving primary school children homework prepared them for secondary school."Of course it has to be reasonable, but going back over a lesson is the best way of learning things," she said.

What drives Tibetan protesters to self-immolate?

No single profile unites those who have set themselves on fire, but a look at where they did it reveals common threads

A Tibetan woman cries after Jampa Yeshi self-immolated during a protest in New Delhi, India. Photograph: Tsering Topgyal/AP

Jamphel Yeshi, the 27-year-old now close to death in an Indian hospital after setting himself on fire in Delhi, is in many ways typical of the 30 or so Tibetans who have over the past 13 months committed self-immolation.

Like many of them, he is in his 20s and comes from the eastern parts of the historical area of Tibet, outside the current "Tibetan Autonomous Region". But unlike most of them, he is a layman, not a monk or nun, and he was already in exile.

Three other recent cases offer further insights into those committing self-immolation, but there is no single profile to unite them: Tsering Kyi was a 20-year-old school student of nomad origins from a small village near the town of Machu in Gansu province. Jamyang Palden was a 34-year-old monk at the monastery in Rebkong or Tongren county, also in the eastern Tibetan zone. Sonam Dhargyal was a 44-year-old farmer from Rebkong. Each of them followed their own path to self-immolation.

Kyi and Palden are described by relatives and friends as bright, confident and outgoing. Palden was hearty and funny, according to friends, as well as being a big fan of traditional wrestling. Kyi too was described as popular and lively.

Dhargyal in contrast comes across as more troubled. Taciturn and withdrawn, he was a deeply religious "man of few words", according to a teacher near Dharamasala who knew him well.

Dhargyal was "far from rich", one acquaintance said, and struggled to provide for a disabled 18-year-old son and a seriously ill wife.

As with others who become involved in extreme acts of political or religious violence, searching for personal traits or clues in their lifestyle to explain their actions may be the wrong approach. Mapping the places where the incidents have occurred – almost all within a short distance from the self-immolators' homes – may be more helpful.

What then becomes clear is how these events have largely clustered in a few specific areas.

This can in part be attributed to environmental factors such as where repression by the authorities has been particularly acute and also where a marginally more permissive regime allows freer access to the internet and thus higher levels of awareness of protest elsewhere.

Zones where nomad populations have been resettled in urban centres in large numbers also feature strongly, as do places where there have been newly intensified attempts to regulate religious and cultural life.

But the most significant factor may at first glance be harder to perceive. Tsering Kyi was at a specific school which had become a key centre of unrest. Jamphel Yeshi was living in the highly politicised exile community in Delhi and was a committed activist.

The monastery which was home to Palden is also a major centre of protest and has been for decades. It is closely linked to the Kirti monastery which alone has been the largest single source of the self-immolators.

Dhargyal lived close to Palden's monastery and may even have been a friend of the monk. As those studying other forms of extremist spectacular violence have found, such acts are part of a culture that becomes established in a given institution or community, often on a very small scale.

A momentum is generated leading to the spread of that particular form of behaviour, encouraged by the support of peers, elders and others. The local reaction to each death, rather than the international reaction, either encourages or discourages others.

Endorsement and example flows through social networks. For the moment, the self-immolators are seen as tragic but admirable martyrs worthy of the pride of their friends and family. There are likely to be many more of them.

The king and i: Swaziland plans social media lese-majesty law

Africa's last absolute monarchy to ban Facebook and Twitter users from insulting King Mswati III

King Mswati III is facing growing protests over his undemocratic regime. Photograph: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images

Swaziland is planning a censorship law that will ban Facebook and Twitter users from criticising its autocratic ruler, King Mswati III.

Africa's last absolute monarch is facing growing protests over his undemocratic regime, which has pushed the tiny mountain kingdom to the brink of bankruptcy.

But Mswati's justice minister, Mgwagwa Gamedze, told the Swazi senate: "We will be tough on those who write bad things about the king on Twitter and Facebook. We want to set an example."

The government was finalising a law that will make it illegal to insult the king on social networks, Gamedze said.

The move follows comments last week by the Swazi senator Thuli Msane over how online activism was spiralling out of control and threatening the king's reputation. "It's like, the moment Swazi people cross the border to neighbouring countries they begin to go on a campaign to disrespect their own country and king," she said. "Surely there is something that must be done with them. There must be a law that can take them to task."

Although internet penetration is low among Swaziland's 1.2 million people, networks such as Facebook and Twitter have been used to organise public protests, including a student demonstration on Monday against cutbacks in higher education.

Pius Vilakati, spokesman for the Swaziland Solidarity Network, condemned the planned crackdown. "The government is desperate right now. They are trying anything to stop people talking to each other," he said. It would be difficult for them, because people will always talk and continue to talk."

Vilakati predicted chaos if the law was enforced: "I don't think Swazis will take it lying down."

He said even so-called independent newspapers in Swaziland were heavily censored by the government. "They say there is free speech in Swaziland. But if people are not allowed to criticise the leadership, there is no free speech."

Last month, the sacked editor of the Swazi Observer newspaper reportedly fled the country in fear for his life.

Educated at Sherborne school, in the UK, Mswati has 13 wives and hosts an annual reed dance at which he can choose a new bride from tens of thousands of bare-breasted virgins. Opposition parties are outlawed and political activists are routinely detained or assaulted.

The king's fortune is estimated at about $100m (£64m). There was anger last month when the royal family and military received extra money from the national budget. Swaziland, a former British protectorate, has the highest HIV rate in the world, and two-thirds of the population live in poverty.

Mswati has endured unprecedented protests because of a deepening financial crisis. Last year, thousands of students and activists took to the streets, prompting a forceful response from police. More protests are planned in coming weeks.

Swaziland's crackdown follows similar measures in Zimbabwe, where a man was arrested last year over an allegedly subversive message he posted on Facebook. He was later cleared of all charges.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn charged over alleged links with prostitution ring

Former IMF head told he faced further questioning over 'complicity in aggravated and organised prostitution'

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Richard Malka, denies charges that the former IMF chief is linked with a prostitution ring Link to this video

A French judge has charged the former head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn over his alleged links with a prostitution ring.

In a surprise hearing – two days before he had been officially summoned – the veteran French politician was placed under formal investigation and told he faced further questioning on charges of "complicity in aggravated and organised prostitution" and "misuse of company assets".

Investigators want to establish if Strauss-Kahn knew the girls he has admitted having sex with during "libertine" parties in various cities including Paris and Washington, were paid. Strauss-Kahn, 62, has denied having any such knowledge and denied any wrongdoing.

He was "mis en examen", the French equivalent of being charged, after being held in police custody and quizzed for two days in February over an alleged high-class prostitution ring centre on the luxury Carlton Hotel in the northern city of Lille. The charges carry a maximum 20 year jail term.

The orgies, at which Strauss-Kahn – or DSK as he is known – has admitted having sex with a number of women, were allegedly organised by high-ranking police officers and business contacts from Lille with whom he had links.

However, he has always insisted he never paid any of them and did not know they were prostitutes. Paying prostitutes for sex is not illegal in France but procuring them is. The police inquiry in what has become known as the "Carlton Affair" also hinges on whether Strauss-Kahn knew the girls were being paid for by a major French construction company, as alleged.

A total of eight people, including a Lille police commissioner, are under investigation in the affair.

This time last year, socialist Strauss-Kahn was being widely tipped to beat Nicolas Sarkozy in next month's presidential elections and become the next leader of France. His political ambitions were shattered when he was arrested in New York on charges – later dropped – of sexually assaulting Guinean-born hotel chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo.

Diallo is now bringing a civil case against the French politician, which is due to open in New York on Wednesday. Strauss-Kahn has always denied wrongdoing and claimed the sex was consensual and involved no "aggression or constraint".

After Strauss-Kahn was released just after 10pm, a police source told French journalists the former government minister had informed them he could not possibly have imagined the young women he was introduced to were prostitutes as some were "presented by police officers".

At an earlier hearing his lawyer Henri Leclerc told the French radio station Europe 1: "He could easily not have known because, as you can imagine, at these kinds of parties you're not always dressed, and I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman."

Francois Hollande win may dent Angela Merkel's dominance

German chancellor will be steeling herself for a polite confrontation that will set the agenda for European politics

Francois Hollande, the Socialist party candidate for the French presidential election, will be making Berlin his first stop if he wins. Photograph: Pierre Murati/Reuters

In a little over six weeks in the gleaming glass-and-concrete chancellery in Berlin, Angela Merkel will be steeling herself for a polite confrontation that will set the agenda for European politics for the foreseeable future.

Sworn in the previous day as France's first leftist head of state in a generation, President Francois Hollande will be making Berlin his first stop in order to tell Merkel that her central response to the two-year euro crisis, the fiscal pact signed by 25 heads of government this month, has to be re-opened.

This is the scenario being drawn by the Hollande camp if he wins the French presidency on May 6. Last week's Toulouse killings may have dented Hollande's chances, with Sarkozy staging a law-and-order comeback. But polls consistently give Hollande a 10-point lead over Sarkozy in the second round run-off.

If that pattern holds, Hollande will become only the second socialist to run France since WWII, after his former boss, Francois Mitterrand. And his aides make clear that his first move will be to challenge Merkel's domination of the campaign to save the euro.

"I will renegotiate [the fiscal pact], improve it, then ratify it," Hollande told The Guardian at a recent meeting of centre-left leaders in Paris.

Hollande owes Merkel little. She has gratuitously snubbed him in the French election campaign while conspiring, says the Hollande camp, to ensure that the centre-right leaders of Europe – in Spain, Italy, Poland, and Britain – also steer clear of him. In Brussels and Berlin, the expectation among policymakers and senior diplomats is that Hollande will beat Sarkozy, though more narrowly than the opinion polls now indicate.

"You can feel a bit of a pause in the [EU] machinery," said a senior diplomat in Brussels. "People are now factoring in the chances of a significant change of government and its impact on the euro. How will policies change? The Germans are really worried and they're trying to get things done now just in case." There is no doubt that a socialist victory in France would redraw Europe's political map, representing a huge boon for the centre-left following recent gains in Denmark, Belgium, Slovakia, and Croatia.

"Europe has no future if it does not change direction," says Pierre Moscovici, Hollande's campaign manager and a possible prime minister.

"We are living through an important moment for Europe and the left. We hope Francois Hollande's election can make a lot of things possible."

But the recent conference of centre-left leaders in Paris was long on calls for more democracy in the EU, on attacks on centre-right austerity and slashed budgets, while short on specific policy recipes.

"We've lost the economic argument," said David Miliband, Labour's former foreign secretary. "Hollande has to win the social democratic argument before he can win the democratic argument."

Miliband's forthright if gloomy diagnosis — that the EU is struggling to retain legitimacy among voters because of the paucity of policy and the failures of its leaders to deliver — was met by stony silence.In confronting Merkel's emphasis on thrift as the answer to Europe's deep malaise, Hollande declares that a Europe where one in four young people is jobless is a recipe for even bigger trouble than in the past two years. He calls Merkel's treaty the austerity pact and says it will not work.

Hollande wants the pact be rewritten to focus on jobs and growth. To that end he wants the EU budget and European Investment Bank funds to be leveraged in the bond markets to raise billions for public works and infrastructure projects. He also wants the European Central Bank to act as the eurozone's lender of last resort. He also questions Merkel's insistence that the European court of justice be empowered to overrule national parliaments on balanced budget laws and how and whether EU governments can be fined for perceived profligacy.

Much of this is anathema in Berlin. At a recent lunch in London, Mario Monti, the Italian prime minister, told Ed Miliband, the Labour leader: "What you have to understand is that for Germany economics is a branch of moral philosophy."

But Merkel can be confident since many of the measures in the fiscal pact being challenged by Hollande are already EU law. Hollande is not talking about repealing the legislation. But if the German leader may feel she has won even before Hollande joins battle, she could yet come unstuck in her own parliament since she needs the backing of the opposition social democrats (SPD) to ratify her pact by a two-thirds majority.

"Merkel will have to adapt," Sigmar Gabriel, the German SPD leader told the Guardian. "She thinks Europe is obese and needs to be put on a crash diet. In fact large parts of Europe are suffering from heart disease and need treatment."

If Hollande wins, Gabriel looks likely to make his support for Merkel's pact in the German Bundestag conditional on striking a compromise deal with the new French president.

While a Hollande victory would provide a boost to the European left after years in the doldrums, its real impact may be less partisan, in recalibrating the balance of power in Europe after two years of crisis during which Germany's top position has become unassailable.

Berlin is worried that its stewardship of the euro crisis has revived old stereotypes about the domineering, bullying "ugly German". A German foreign ministry strategy paper on Europe last month, obtained by the Guardian, said: "The European project is currently experiencing the worst crisis of confidence in its history … Old resentments and prejudices have returned. Fears of an overmighty Germany have been awakened among some of our neighbours."

The senior diplomat says: "Germany is very sensitive to some of the unfortunate effects on its public image."

A new French leader contesting Berlin's prescriptions on the euro crisis will encourage many others to come out of the closet. Under new leadership since the turn of the year, Italy and Spain are already bristling with indignation at what they see as the fiscal straitjacket pushed by Berlin.

A Mediterranean alliance of France, Italy, and Spain – under socialist, liberal, and conservative leaders and representing the eurozone's three biggest economies after Germany – would spell trouble for Merkel.

"We might have different [political] sensibilities, but we face similar problems," says Pierre Moscovici of Rome and Madrid. "Germany is not alone. We will have a strong voice."

Dukan diet inventor faces censure

Pierre Dukan accused of treating medicine 'like a business' and breaking code of practice by French doctors' group

Pierre Dukan, the inventor of the controversial Dukan diet weight-loss regime, faces an ethics panel after a doctors’ group filed two complaints. Photograph: Ed Alcock/MYOP

He is a diet guru to the rich, the famous and, it is said, even the royals. Dr Pierre Dukan, however, is not to the taste of fellow medics.

The French National Order of Doctors has lodged two official complaints against the inventor of the Dukan diet accusing him of breaking the medical code of practice and treating medicine "like a business".

Dukan's bestselling diet, published in 2000, has been translated into 14 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide, making the author a rich man and sparking an industry in Dukan diet products and a paid-for internet site dispensing weight-loss programmes and advice.

The celebrity doctor's peers, however, accuse him of not exercising enough care in his proposals, of engaging in personal promotion and of practising medicine "like a business", in contravention of the code.

They are also concerned about Dukan's recent suggestion there should be an "anti-obesity" test in the national baccalaureate – the single-exam equivalent of A-levels. He proposed that students whose weight remained within "normal" limits should be given extra marks in the exam. Doctors said this failed to take into account "possible repercussions on young girls who are already overweight or have a tendency towards anorexia".

Controversy has dogged the Dukan diet, credited with helping the Duchess of Cambridge and her mother, Carole Middleton, squeeze into their royal wedding frocks and with helping singer Jennifer Lopez regain her figure after pregnancy.

The invention of the strict, protein-rich weight loss programme has become the stuff of legend. Dukan, born in 1941 in Algeria, originally trained as a neurologist and was practising as a GP when a patient who had been advised to lose weight told him: "Prescribe whatever diet you want, stop me eating anything, but not meat. I can't do that." Dukan advised the patient to eat meat with as little fat as possible and drink lots of water. In five days the patient lost 5kg, and Dukan had found his medical calling and his fortune.

It took him a further 20 years to hone the diet, now believed to be followed by about 2 million French people. Dukan's website has almost 30,000 paying subscriptions and 50 food products branded "Dukan Diet" are sold in French supermarkets and chemists. The Dukan industry is estimated to be worth €100m (£84m) a year.

The latest complaints – one from the national medical body, the French equivalent of the British Medical Association, and one from the Paris branch of the organisation – follow accusations from doctors last year that the Dukan diet is a public health risk.

In May a survey of 5,000 "Dukanians", as they are called, found that 80% had regained the weight they lost within three years.

Experts who analysed the results expressed concern that the diet could increase the risk of cardio-vascular diseases, including diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as affecting liver and renal functions and fertility.

At the time Dukan rejected the criticism, saying his diet was normal and that being overweight was a greater health risk. "We doctors have to weigh the risks and the benefits. I consider the real risk is being overweight and obesity. Every day there are people who die from this and I am trying to fight against it," he told the daily paper Le Parisien.

Last year Dukan lost a libel action against a rival doctor, Jean-Michel Cohen, who promotes a calorie-counting and exercise diet. Cohen said only the "slimming industry, doctors, pill salesmen, publishers and newspapers" had really benefited from the Dukan diet, which he described as a "bandwagon of this fantasy".

The court made no judgment on the accusations on scientific or health grounds.

A spokeswoman for the order of doctors refused to comment on the legal action. She said the it focused on contraventions of the medical code of practice.

Dukan is on a tour of the US to promote his latest book of recipes. He has a month to submit his written defence to the CNOM's disciplinary council. If found guilty, he could be struck off.

As the headline in Libération read: the Order of Doctors cannot stomach the Dukan diet.

Arab spring leads to wave of Middle East state executions

Arab uprisings lead to rise in capital punishment in Middle East but Amnesty finds some comfort in world figures – even in China

Yemen protesters outside Sana'a University in February 2011. Yemen sentenced 37 people to death in 2011, according to Amnesty's latest figures. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

Middle Eastern countries have stepped up their use of capital punishment, executing hundreds of people as rulers across the region seek to deter the wave of uprisings sweeping the Arab countries.

Despite a significant reduction in the number of countries that used the death penalty worldwide last year, there was a sharp rise in executions in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen, according to Amnesty International's annual capital punishment survey, released on Tuesday.

China remained at the top of the list of the countries with the worst record of executions last year. Authorities in China maintained their policy of refusing to release precise figures on the death penalty in the country, which they consider a state secret.

Amnesty said it had stopped publishing figures on China, available from public sources, because they were likely to "grossly underestimate" the true number, but reported that the country had executed thousands of people, more than the rest of the world put together. According to Amnesty, at least 676 judicial executions are known to have been carried out in 2011 globally, excluding China, up from 527 in 2010. More than half took place in Iran, which executed at least 360 people. But reports about the regime's campaign of secret and mass hangings of prisoners have made it impossible for Amnesty to publish the true figures there too.

"Amnesty has also received credible reports that a large number of unacknowledged executions took place in Iran, executions that would almost double the number of 'official' ones there," it said. In December, Amnesty warned of a "new wave of drug offence executions" in Iran, which it described as a "killing spree of staggering proportions" in an effort to contain drug-related crimes.

Saudi Arabia executed at least 82 people, which was 55 more than the minimum known figure for the previous year. Iraq, which had acknowledged only one execution in 2010, used the death penalty at least 68 times in 2011. Yemen executed at least 41, North Korea 30, Somalia 10, Sudan seven and Bangladesh five. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are known to have executed at least one person, but exact numbers were unknown for Malaysia and especially for Syria, which has been rocked by violence in the past year.

The escalating use of the death penalty in the Middle East is seen as a tactic by the authorities to spread fear among dissidents in order to prevent them from participating in pro-democracy movements. On a more positive note, fewer countries are resorting to the death penalty – 20 in 2011, down from 31 a decade ago, Amnesty said. The United States has significantly reduced execution numbers, but still put 43 people to death last year.

Amnesty's US director, Suzanne Nossel, said that significant progress has been made in the number of executions in America as well as the number of new death sentences handed out – 78 in 2011 down from an average of 280 a year in the 1980s. The popularity of the death penalty in the US had also declined to record lows, she said.

But Nossel said the company that the US was keeping – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and a handful of other states practising executions – was increasingly glaring. "We've reached a tipping point globally where the vast majority of countries that are regarded as standard bearers of human rights have rejected the death penalty, and that makes it much harder for the US to explain why it is sticking to the practice."

Methods of execution across the world included hanging, as in Iran; lethal injections, in China, Taiwan and the US; and beheading, in Saudi Arabia. Amnesty warned that Iran has used the death penalty at least three times on minors, in violation of international laws. Saudi Arabia is also believed to have carried out at least one juvenile execution. Those put to death globally were convicted of various charges ranging from murder to adultery and sodomy (in Iran), sorcery (in Saudi Arabia) and drug offences.

Despite the executions, Amnesty said progress had been made even in countries that still carry out executions. In the US, Illinois became the 16th state to abolish the death penalty. In China, the authorities dropped the death sentence for 13 crimes, and in Iran the government made amendments to the country's penal code, although they did little to improve the situation there. In 2011, at least 1,923 people were given death sentences, taking the overall number of those on death row to 18,750.

"The vast majority of countries have moved away from using the death penalty," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary general. "Our message to the leaders of the isolated minority of countries that continue to execute is clear: you are out of step with the rest of the world on this issue and it is time you took steps to end this most cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment."He added: "Even among the small group of countries that executed in 2011, we can see gradual progress. These are small steps but such incremental measures have been shown ultimately to lead to the end of the death penalty. It is not going to happen overnight but we are determined that we will see the day when the death penalty is consigned to history."

Students visas abused as 50,000 enter UK for employment not studies

Government's migration controls failing as problems persist with UK Border Agency, says National Audit Office report

Student visdas are being abused as up to 50,000 people entered the UK in first year of new migration controls to seek work. Photograph: Gregory Wrona/Alamy

Up to 50,000 people may have entered Britain to work rather than study in the first year of the government's student migration controls, a highly critical report by the National Audit Office (NAO) claims.

MPs called for the troubled UK Border Agency to "get a grip and fix the way it deals with student visas" after saying the report exposed one of the most shocking examples of poor management leading to abuse.

The NAO said the agency introduced a points-based system, known as Tier 4, in 2009 without key controls, potentially leading to tens of thousands of migrants entering the UK without any checks as to whether they were attending a college, and it did little to ensure that foreign students left the UK when requests to extend their stay were refused. The report called the flaws "predictable".

The agency withdrew entry clearance officers' powers to test applicants' intentions before it had controls in place over sponsor colleges, the report said.

"The agency implemented Tier 4 before the key controls were in place," the report said. "The Agency withdrew entry clearance officers' powers to test applicants' intentions before it had controls fully in place over sponsors and the documentation required to support an application.

"We estimate between 40,000 and 50,000 individuals might have entered through Tier 4 in its first year of operation to work rather than study.

"This estimate is based on college enrolment rates and changes in patterns of applications and refusals but it is not possible to know with certainty.

"Between March 2009 and February 2010, the [Border] Agency detected thousands of forged college visa letters at some application centres. The agency did not check that those who entered through suspect routes were attending college."

The Border Agency's ability to track down those who have evaded checks was also questioned. "The agency is not as efficient and effective in tracing people as it could be," the NAO report said.

Addresses for almost a fifth of more than 800 migrants wanted by the agency were found in just one week at a cost of £3,000 by a contractor hired by the watchdog.

The Home Office has objected to the NAO's estimate of 40,000 to 50,000 individuals who may have entered the UK to work rather than to study, claiming that is not "robustly based".

Commenting on the report, Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the Commons' public accounts committee, said: "This is one of the most shocking reports of poor management leading to abuse that I have seen.

"It is completely unacceptable that the programme was launched without key controls being in place.

The agency has done little to stop students overstaying their visa. And it is extremely worrying that the Agency does not know how many people with expired student visas are still in the country.

"It should be a real wake-up call to the agency that the NAO were able to track down 147 migrants who are probably here illegally within a week at a cost of only £3,000. The agency needs to get a grip and fix the way it deals with student visas."

Richard Bacon, a Conservative MP on the committee, also expressed astonishment at the way in which the NAO had tracked down suspected overstayers. "The Borders Agency needs to explain why it took the NAO's specialist contractor just one week to find addresses for a quarter of the 812 people which the Borders Agency couldn't trace," he said. "The contractor charged £3,000, which is less than £15 per person located."

Damian Green, the immigration minister, said: "This government has introduced radical reforms in order to stamp out abuse and restore order to the uncontrolled student visa system we inherited.

"These measures are beginning to bite, we have already seen the number of student visas issued drop considerably in the second half of 2011, compared to the same period in 2010."

Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, agreed with the watchdog's recommendation that the UKBA should work more closely with sponsors. Nicola Dandridge, the group's chief executive, said: "Higher education is a success story for the UK but there is no shortage of global competition. We must ensure that legitimate concerns about immigration do not end up causing irreversible damage to a profoundly successful British export."

Balloonists rescued after crashing into power lines

Basket suspended 45ft above the ground for several hours after balloon hit cables in Northamptonshire

Three people were brought to safety by fire service rope rescue crews after a hot air balloon crashed into power lines, leaving its basket suspended 13 metres (45ft) above the ground.

Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue service said the balloonists had been transferred to the care of the ambulance service following the rescue operation close to Bozeat, near Wellingborough, although they are not thought to have suffered serious injuries.

A brigade spokesman said specialist working-at-height teams had been deployed to the incident, which was reported to the emergency services at 6.10pm on Sunday.

Rescue teams were sent to the scene immediately, but had to wait several hours for confirmation that the power lines were no longer live before helping those stranded in the basket.

Patrick Keiller: The Robinson Institute – review

'A fascinating, absorbing grand tour of a ramshackle mind' … Patrick Keiller's The Robinson Institute at Tate Britain. Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex Features

Patrick Keiller's The Robinson Institute is based on a long and partly fictitious walk through Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. We travel in the company of Robinson, an imaginary itinerant ex-prisoner and "scholar of landscape" who has featured in several films and other works by Keiller.

   1. Patrick Keiller
   2. The Robinson Institute
   3. Tate Britain,
   4. London
   5. SW1P 4RG

   1. Until 14 October
   2. Venue website

Trudging the London to Aberystwyth Road, and with detours to North Yorkshire and a desolate Cumbrian peat bog – site of the former Blue Streak missile testing facility just north of Hadrian's Wall – Keiller's Tate Britain commission is a meditation on the British landscape, politics, economics and history, from the Otmoor Riots to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The presence of such disparate artists as Andreas Gursky, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Dennis Oppenheim represent the interconnectedness of the local and the global.

Keiller's seven-part installation is a tour of works from the Tate's own collection, and a long stroll back and forth along the Duveen gallery, where paintings and drawings, photographs and prints, film footage and much besides line the length of the space, interspersed with vitrines, an 1830 threshing machine, reading tables and lengthy wall texts. It is a fascinating, absorbing grand tour of a ramshackle mind.

Lumpen black bronze sculptures by Lucio Fontana and by Hubert Dalwood, squat on the floor below a giant full stop painted by John Latham. Each was made within a year or so of each other, around 1960, and all have an air of finality. Little wonder – nearby, in a vitrine, is a copy of the agreement between the UK and the US for the sale of the Polaris nuclear missile, and across the way Quatermass II, a movie based on Nigel Kneale's clunky but still frightening sci-fi thriller, runs on a monitor. A shiny but slightly menacing 1967 sculpture by Kneale's brother Bryan Kneale glowers on the floor nearby. Coming across cloud studies by Alexander Cozens and John Constable, you expect to see rockets slewing through their skies, and below an LS Lowry industrial townscape hangs an Ed Ruscha pastel, emblazoned with the phrase There's a lot that's mad here. But it's the world, not the art that's crazy. The end of the world, in one form or another, is presaged everywhere along Robinson's route. There are signs and portents everywhere, including meteors that fell in North Yorkshire in 1795, and near Bicester in 1830.

Here's a photograph of protesters dancing beyond the fence at Greenham Common, and there a handkerchief commemorating the 1819 Peterloo massacre. It all makes a kind of sense, but mostly only to Keiller's alter-ego Robinson. We glimpse the eponymous Robinson – who might look like one of August Sander's 1920s pair of German vagrants, or a Hertfordshire tramp once painted by Michael Andrews. He might be Robinson Crusoe himself, or even Beatrix Potter's Little Pig Robinson. You can even pause to listen to a 1963 recording of Ray Charles (full name: Ray Charles Robinson) singing That Lucky Old Sun along the way.

Southern England is a land graffitied with neolithic carvings, tunnelled through with fuel pipelines, speared by radio masts, cordoned off behind fences. Keiller has photographed the NO PHOTOGRAPHY sign outside the atomic weapons plant at Aldermaston, and filmed fields of waving opium poppies growing near Didcot power station. Great English landscapists and poets meet Piero Manzoni's canned shit and fossil ammonites quarried from the Cherwell valley. Phew. Even Hugo Chávez is here, among the vitrines and posters, books and videos, pamphlets and other ephemera.

I am surprised Keiller hasn't persuaded Ian Sinclair and WG Sebald to join this apocalyptic, bucolic pilgrimage, but they're here in spirit. Fascinating and absorbing though it is, Robinson's roundabout way is hardly the road less travelled, but we're in good company, and Keiller makes us see things differently.

Afghan soldier shoots dead two British troops at gates of UK base in Helmand

Gunman killed by return fire during attack in provincial capital Lashkar Gah, in latest sign of growing tensions in Afghanistan

Afghan policemen on guard near the main gate of a joint civilian-military base in Lashkar Gah where two British soldiers were killed. Photograph: Abdul Khaleq/AP

Two British soldiers were killed on Monday when an Afghan soldier turned his gun on them at the gates of a UK military base.

The attacker was also killed during an exchange of fire which may have started after security guards stopped a truck as it tried to enter the heavily fortified compound in Helmand's capital Lashkar Gah.

The incident comes amid heightened tension in Afghanistan following incidents involving US troops such as the killing of 17 Afghan civilians by an American soldier.

In the past seven weeks 10 British soldiers have died on duty in Helmand, though David Cameron and the defence secretary, Philip Hammond, have made clear they intend to resist mounting calls for western forces to come home early.

The latest incident is a "green on blue" attack – when a member of the Afghan security forces has killed an ally from Nato's International Security and Assistance Force (Isaf).

The Ministry of Defence said the victims were a Royal Marine and a member of the Adjutant General's Corps. Their close relatives have been informed.

An Afghan police official said the shootings took place when an Afghan army truck approached the base and was reportedly refused entry by the guards. The official said one of the Afghan soldiers then rushed through the gates and opened fire on those inside, killing the two Britons.

"Details of the incident are still emerging but it appears that a member of the Afghan National Army opened fire at the entrance gate to the British headquarters," Hammond told the House of Commons. "The assailant was killed by return fire."

Brigadier General Sherin Shah, of the Afghan National Army said: "Today's incident which involved armed conflict by one of the ANA members of the Fourth Kandak of 3-215 Brigade was a tragic event.

"The incident is still under investigation and it is unclear if the action was planned or influenced by the enemy or if he acted alone, either way it is with the deepest regret that two Isaf soldiers who came to our country to provide security are now dead.

"I would like to convey my deepest condolences to the soldiers' families and the British Army and Royal Marines, especially Task Force Helmand, for their loss."

Tensions have been running high in Afghanistan because of the burning of Qur'ans by US forces inside an international base, and then the shooting dead of 17 Afghan civilians in Kandahar province by Staff Sergeant Robert Bales.

Isaf commanders have been anticipating a backlash from the Taliban, though it is unclear whether this latest shooting involved an infiltrator or someone who acted on the spur of the moment.

Massoud Khan Nourzai, an MP from Helmand, said:"These kinds of attacks have increased lately and maybe they will continue to increase in the future.

"They have increased because of the incidents like the one in Kandahar. If an incident like Kandahar happens, people are not sitting quietly. In every Afghan family they are talking about it and saying they committed a cruel action."

Nourzai added that in the past two years many of his relatives have stopped working with the government and joined forces with the Taliban primarily because of their frustration with the continuing presence of foreign forces.

Sardar Mohammad Khan, a teacher in Lashkar Gah, said the attack was "a result of the foreigners' behaviour and activities", adding: "Everyone is frustrated – the army, the police, normal Afghans. On one side we are frustrated with our own government, the corruption, the insurgency, and the return of the Taliban.

"On the other side, when the foreigners are doing such things it makes you even more frustrated."

The issue of attacks by Afghan soldiers poses a sizeable threat to Isaf. One military report found Afghan security forces were responsible for 6% of coalition casualties between May 2007 and May 2011.

In January, France temporarily suspended its combat operations and threatened a premature withdrawal after someone in an Afghan military uniform killed four French soldiers.

Maintaining foreign support remains vital for the Afghan military, which will require an estimated $6bn (£3.7bn) to continue operating after foreign troops leave in 2014.

Following the shooting in Kandahar, American officials have sought to appease Afghans by providing assistance to the families of the victims. Families reportedly received $50,000 (£31,400) for each person killed and $11,000 (£6,900) for those who were wounded.

Xenia Dormandy, a senior fellow at Chatham House, said the UK soldiers may have been caught in the backlash against US forces.

She said: "It is not clear that they make a distinction between US forces and Isaf soldiers, so at some level this is really not that surprising that this would occur. It is just extraordinarily sad that it does.

"As for the question: 'Does this mean that the UK should pull out its forces?' Absolutely not. I think Cameron has made it absolutely clear that he does not intend to before the organised roll-out in 2014."

Nato deaths raise tension over Afghanistan strategy

After a recent series of incidents, opinion in Afghanistan and the west is hardening towards an accelerated withdrawal

US military helicopters fly over a graveyard in Afghanistan. Civilians and Nato soldiers have both been killed in recent weeks. Photograph: Erik De Castro/Reuters

This time of year in Afghanistan is supposed to be the quiet period – when attacks are down and Nato tries to consolidate any gains it has made before the "fighting season" restarts in a few weeks when the weather warms up.

Instead, the coalition has been beset by problems, some of its own making. The deaths of two more British soldiers will raise the same awkward questions.

It adds to mounting concern because the incident appears to have involved a member of the Afghan security forces, or someone posing in an army uniform, opening fire on military colleagues.

This has happened before. There have been more than 45 attacks by local police and army on Nato troops in the past five years. In the worst incident involving British soldiers, five troops were killed by an Afghan policeman in November 2009. Last April an Afghan pilot killed eight US soldiers at Kabul airport.

Every time this happens, it shakes confidence among Nato troops that they can work safely alongside Afghan colleagues, which is the cornerstone of the west's exit strategy from the country.

The fact the attack took place at the British base in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, where security has improved immeasurably during the past five years, will be particularly dispiriting for the UK contingent. The city has been one of the best examples of Nato's counter-insurgency strategy.

This has seen British troops hand over "lead responsibility" for some security operations to the Afghans, while still accompanying them on patrol and on difficult assignments.

The next stage involves small groups of military specialists properly "embedding themselves in Afghan battalions over the coming months. But British soldiers and their commanders will be understandably reluctant to do so if they feel their safety is compromised. Giving them their own force protection within the Afghan army would hardly send the right message either.

Though every recruit to the Afghan police and army is security-checked and should have been vouched for by a trusted community elder, the Taliban still manage to place people among them. Or turn them once they have been inducted.

Some may not need much encouragement. Though the number of insurgent attacks is down year-on-year, tension has been rising because of a series of incidents in the past few weeks.

They have included the burning of the Qur'an by American soldiers, a video showing US soldiers urinating on dead Afghans, and the murder two weeks ago of 17 Afghan villagers by the US soldier Robert Bales. There have also been the deaths of Nato troops, including six British soldiers killed when their Warrior vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.

Amid all this, there was even an attempt, albeit a rather disorganised one, to target the US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, when he flew into the main British base in Helmand, Camp Bastion.

Nato is likely to insist the latest incident will not affect its strategy and that rogue gunmen, whether Afghans in uniform or not, must not deflect the coalition from the task in hand.

But sticking to that line is becoming more difficult, with public opinion in the UK, US and Afghanistan hardening to an accelerated Nato withdrawal.

Donor inquiry can break status quo

    * News
    * Politics
    * Party funding

Donor inquiry can break status quo

Party funding has been the subject of endless reports, but the latest cross-party talks offer an opportunity for real reform

Nick Clegg has shown how seriously he takes talks on funding by appointing David Laws and Tim Gordon to represent his party. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty

"The shelves of libraries groan with unimplemented reports on party funding", the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude admitted on Monday, and judging by the 85-minute partisan Commons shouting match between the parties in the wake of the Peter Cruddas affair, the prospects for the next inquiry look little better.

The three main parties have each appointed two nominees for a fresh round of cross-party talks, as requested by Nick Clegg last month, and Maude made it clear to MPs the coalition will not impose a solution, but continue the Labour habit in government of looking for a cross-party consensus. In a bid to exploit the momentum created by the weekend sleaze, he wants an interim update on progress to be ready soon after Easter.

Clegg also insisted extra state funding will not be on the agenda, even though the last inquiry conducted by Sir Christopher Kelly, the standards in public life chairman, made a large dollop of state funding the centrepiece of its package.

Clegg's aides hope a new consensus may be possible because for the first time in a generation there may an equivalence of mutual self-interest in tearing up the current arrangements, and in making compromises. The status quo for all three parties may be worse than reform. Until Saturday night, the Tories, vastly better funded than Labour, were pretty happy to leave the current arrangements undisturbed.

In a sign of Clegg's seriousness he has appointed David Laws and his party's new chief executive, Tim Gordon, to represent his party at the talks. The Tories late last week appointed Maude, a veteran of previous inter-party talks, and Lord Feldman, who gave evidence to the Kelly inquiry, to represent them.

Ed Miliband has appointed his parliamentary aide John Denham and a former party general secretary, Ray Collins.

The Labour government-commissioned inquiry conducted by the former civil servant Sir Hayden Phillips reported in March 2007 and suggested a £50,000 individual donations cap, a £25m-a-year rise in state funding and a £20m cut in party spending between elections. He largely left unresolved the issue of how to treat union donations.

A Ministry of Justice paper in June 2008 discussed the issues without conclusion. Phillips subsequently claimed to have got within touching distance of brokering a deal between the parties, but all sides even today blame one another for those talks collapsing. David Heath, the Liberal Democrat on the committee and now deputy leader of the house, claimed the Conservative's reasons for rejecting a deal had been bogus. Peter Watt, the then Labour party general secretary, criticised the unions' refusal to let Labour do more to require union leaders to give its levy payers the clear option of opting out of paying the political levy, the bedrock of Labour funding.

After the general election, the committee on standards in public life, chaired by Kelly, put together a fresh package, reporting last November. Kelly'steam proposed a lower £10,000 donor cap on individuals and organisations, a system of contracting in for individual union levy-payer donations, and a 30% reduction in the cap on campaign spending.

Kelly was frank about the hole in party finances blown by even a £50,000 cap. If the £50,000 figure was chosen, and nothing else changed, the Conservative party would have lost an average of around £8m a year, equivalent to around 48% of its reported donations. Labour would have lost around £13m (81%) or £6m (36%) depending on the treatment of affiliation fees and the Liberal Democrats around £1.1m (38%).

If the cap is reduced to £10,000 the Conservatives would lose 76% of their funding or £12.7m a year and Labour would lose £14.7m or 91% of its central funding.

Kelly said this hole should be filled by increased state funding based on a parties vote at the previous general election.

The report was still born when all three parties, including Clegg, said they could not accept an increase in state funding, even in reality the charge was an extra 50p per taxpayer. Yesterday, some Lib Dem MPs seemed to want to reopen the issue, and urged Maude to implement Kelly in full, but that is not the official Lib Dem position.

The unions will not shift to levy payers contracting into paying the political levy, and if Labour does not offer that, the Conservatives will not back a £50,000 cap on its donors, and no one backs state funding. So the poisoned chalice has now been handed to Laws. His allies remain optimistic that a package can be rescured form the rubble of Kelly and Phillips, repeatedly stressing there is no need for a further fact finding report, or fresh look from first principles.

Specifically, they point to other proposals in Sir Christopher's report on tightening definitions of permissable donors, limiting campaign expenditure, redefining campaign expenditure and tax relief for donors. It would also require the unions at the minimum to be more transparent about the option of contracting out of the political levy, and the pupose of the political fund. That in turns requires Ed Miliband to make a wider deal with the unions on their place in the party.

But Liberal Democrats remain the eternal optimists and point out if it was possible to put together a coaliiton agreement in five or so days, it should be possible to have got a deal on party funding in five or so more months.

Tory donors worth £3bn at PM soirees

David Cameron has hosted four private gatherings at his Downing Street flat attended by industrialists and tycoons

David Cameron has hosted four gatherings at Downing Street for donors worth around £3bn in total. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images

Conservative party donors worth more than £3bn were invited to four private soirees held by David Cameron in his Downing Street flat, according to details released on Monday.

The benefactors include an industrialist who submitted a policy document to Cameron last month calling for tax cuts and an oil trader whose company was involved in a secret government mission to smuggle fuel during the recent conflict in Libya.

Their disclosure follows immense political pressure in the wake of the secret recording of the Tory party treasurer, Peter Cruddas, who has since resigned. He told undercover journalists that for £250,000 they could dine with the prime minister in his private apartment and make suggestions on policy.

A post-election "thank-you dinner" was held at 10 Downing Street on 14 July 2010, Downing Street said.

Guests included Anthony Bamford of JCB, hedge-fund tycoon Michael Hintze, Tory peer Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, Lansdowne Partners chief executive Sir Paul Ruddock, City financier Mike Farmer and Michael Freeman, as well as their spouses. Telegraph Media Group chief executive Murdoch MacLennan, who is not listed by the Electoral Commission as a donor to the Tories, also attended.

Bamford has donated more than £4m personally to the Tories over the last decade. In February, weeks before the budget, Bamford wrote and sent a report directly to the prime minister saying that corporate and personal taxes should be lowered.

Hintze's donations to the Conservative party total £1.4m over the last decade, in addition to £2.5m in loans. The 58–year–old former Australian army captain founded the £5bn hedge fund CQS.

Ruddock, the founder of hedge fund Lansdowne Partners, has spoken out against regulations on banks and called for a reduction in the 50p tax bracket.

Cameron held another dinner on 28 February last year. Property tycoon and major donor David Rowland, who had previously been appointed party treasurer, attended a dinner in the flat, along with party co-chairman Lord [Andrew] Feldman.

Rowland had stood down as Conservative treasurer in August 2010 after just two months in the post following protests from senior Tories.

Donations registered under the name of David Rowland since 2009 total more than £4m.

The third dinner disclosed was held in November last year. Cameron held a "social dinner for strong and long-term supporters of the party, with whom the PM has a strong relationship", including banker and Tory donor Henry Angest, and farmer and oil company boss Ian Taylor.

Taylor's company, Vitol, was helped last year by his friend, the minister Alan Duncan, to ensure vital supplies got through to the insurgents in Libya and were prevented from reaching Colonel Gaddafi. Duncan spearheaded the government's secret "Libya Oil Cell", which helped Vitol to take petrol and gas into Benghazi and bring crude oil out.

Other guests included Michael Farmer, a city financier who has donated more than £3m to the Tories and who was appointed co-treasurer of the party last month, and Michael and Clara Freeman, who are listed as having given nearly £500,000 over the last five years. Michael Freeman is a property developer and his wife is a former director of Marks and Spencer.

In February this year, Cameron held a fourth social occasion with former treasurer and major donor Michael Spencer and his partner. Spencer has given nearly £280,000 personally, including providing travel for senior party figures.

The prime minister pledged to publish a quarterly register of any future meals at official residences with people who have given more than £50,000 to the Tories.

Cruddas quit on Saturday after the Sunday Times published secret recordings in which he urged undercover reporters to give more than £250,000 in return for direct face time with senior ministers.

Cameron broke into a scheduled speech on dementia care in London to address the Cruddas affair.

"In the two years I have been prime minister, there have been three occasions on which significant donors have come to a dinner in my flat. In addition, there was a further post-election dinner which included donors in Downing Street itself shortly after the general election," he said. "None of these dinners were fundraising dinners and none of these dinners were paid for by the taxpayer. I have known most of those attending for many years."

Google should be forced to censor search results, say MPs

Report by MPs criticises Google for its 'totally unconvincing' objection to requests to filter its search results

Report by the joint Commons and Lords committee said Google should proactively monitor its search results. Photograph Robert Galbraith/Reuters

A cross-party committee of MPs and peers has urged the government to consider introducing legislation that would force Google to censor its search results to block material that a court has found to be in breach of someone's privacy.

In a report published today, the joint Commons and Lords committee said Google should proactively monitor its search results, highlighting evidence given by Max Mosley, the ex-Formula One boss who said he had spent at least £500,000 in 23 countries attempting to remove traces of a video filmed covertly by the News of the World from the internet.

Google was criticised by the committee for its "totally unconvincing" objection to requests to filter its search results. The search giant argued that such a policy could threaten the unfettered flow of information online.

The committee was set up by the prime minister in May last year to examine privacy and free speech after the controversy over the increasing use of injunctions, including one taken out by the footballer Ryan Giggs. The report, which has been widely trailed, warns against a new privacy law and sets out recommendations for an "enhanced" press regulator.

The report's most pointed language is reserved for internet companies – such as Google, Facebook and Twitter – which the committee said had presented numerous challenges to the rule of law in the UK.

"Google and other search engines should take steps to ensure that their websites are not used as vehicles to breach the law and should actively develop and use such technology," the committee said. "We recommend that if legislation is necessary to require them to do so it should be introduced."

The committee gave a clean bill of health to high court privacy injunctions, but said that they should routinely apply to websites such as Twitter and Facebook as well as newspapers. They urged the attorney general to be more willing to launch contempt of court claims against internet users if they are suspected of breaching privacy injunctions online, after it was found that the Giggs injunction was tweeted about more than 75,000 times when it finally collapsed in May last year.

In a series of recommendations on the future of press regulation, the committee said the reformed Press Complaints Commission should have the power to fine newspapers and determine the prominence of printed apologies. It urged advertisers to withdraw funding from newspapers and major blogs that opt out of the reconstituted regulator, and threatened "statutory oversight" from a body such as Ofcom if the industry cannot agree a credible package of reforms.

John Whittingdale MP, chair of the committee, said: "The committee spent some time debating whether additional laws to clarify the right to privacy were necessary or desirable.

"However, we concluded that the existing position, where each case is judged by the courts on an individual basis, is now working reasonably well. We are concerned that individuals with grievances about invasion of privacy should have an alternative to costly legal action available to them.

It is clear that media self-regulation under the PCC did not work. We therefore wish to see a stronger self-regulatory system that is seen to be effective and commands the confidence of the public."

A Google spokesman said: "This is a really important issue for which there are no easy answers, particularly when balancing freedom of expression and tackling unlawful content.

"Google already remove specific pages deemed unlawful by the courts. We have a number of simple tools anyone can use to report such content, which we then remove from our index.

"Requiring search engines to screen the content of their web pages would be like asking phone companies to listen in on every call made across their networks for potentially suspicious activity."

Wet Wet Wet announce anniversary gig

Glasgow band to play in their hometown to celebrate 25 years in the music industry, during which they sold 15m records

Wet Wet Wet have announced they are to perform a one-off concert on 30 July in Glasgow to mark their 25th anniversary. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

Wet Wet Wet have announced they will perform a one-off concert on 20 July to mark the band's 25th anniversary.

The show, at Glasgow Green, will be their first in almost five years.

The band released their debut single, Wishing I Was Lucky, 25 years ago this week. They went on to have 27 hits, selling more than 15m records and featuring in the UK singles and albums charts for a total of 508 weeks.

The lead singer, Marti Pellow, said: "To get to play all those classic pop songs in my hometown will make it a special day for the fans and us." Tickets for the outdoor concert will go on sale on Wednesday.

Fake barrister jailed for 18 months

David Evans sentenced to 18 months in jail after the judge became suspicious of his 'strange' outfit

David Evans was jailed for 18 months for impersonating a qualified barrister. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

A man with a "grandiose sense of self-importance" who donned a wig and robe to pose as a barrister and represent a friend in a crown court case has been jailed for 18 months.

David Evans spent time in the advocates' dressing room and managed to trick his way into the cells to visit his "client", Terry Moss, a convicted cannabis farmer.

Evans was caught out because the presiding judge in the confiscation hearing noticed his outfit was not quite right and his legal submissions were "hopelessly wrong". The judge questioned Evans about his legal qualifications and he admitted he had none.

Jailing him, Mrs Justice Laura Cox told Evans, who worked as an entertainer, that he had "manipulated" Moss. She said: "The planning of this enterprise was entirely yours, it was your decision to style yourself as a senior advocate. You are a complex and clearly intelligent man … you have a grandiose sense of self-importance. You have exhibited no remorse and you have no appreciation that you did anything wrong."

During the trial at Bristol crown court, it emerged that Evans, 57, from Penarth, south Wales, had previously impersonated a clinical psychologist and had eight consultations with four patients. He was jailed for that deception and met Moss in Dartmoor prison in Devon.

Later, when Moss was brought before Plymouth crown court for a proceeds of crime application while serving a sentence for growing £68,000 of cannabis at his Cornish home, Evans appeared to represent him.

Evans told the court he was a "senior advocate" at a London law firm, but the judge, Stephen Wildblood, became suspicious after he made a series of legal blunders. Wildblood told the Bristol court that Evans's appearance struck him immediately as curious. He noticed that Evans appeared to be wearing a solicitor's gown but a barrister's wig.

He said: "Although there may be circumstances in which a solicitor may wear a wig, it struck me immediately as strange. I was surprised to see the confusion of court attire."

The judge became more concerned having read written submissions from Evans.

"Some of these manifestations were wrong, completely wrong, in an elementary way that worried me," he said. "There were three really fundamental and simple points he was trying to advocate that were hopeless."

Evans was arrested and charged with "carrying out reserved legal activities when not entitled to" and "wilfully pretending to be a person with the right of audience". He had denied both charges, but the jury at Bristol took 30 minutes to convict him.

In mitigation, Huw Evans said that Moss, having sacked two separate legal teams, was "desperate" for someone to represent him and Evans was simply trying to help a friend. But the court heard that Moss had agreed to pay Evans £1,000 a month plus expenses to represent him. Moss's relatives bought Evans a solicitor's gown, barrister's wig and legal books,

Woman remanded over break-in at Simon Cowell's house

Leanne Zaloumis, who is accused of breaking into Cowell's west London home wielding a brick, is remanded until 12 June

Simon Cowell, who was at his Holland Park home on Saturday evening when the alleged break-in occurred. Photograph: Rex Features

A woman accused of breaking into Simon Cowell's Holland Park home wielding a broken brick has been remanded in custody at West London magistrates court.

Cowell was watching TV in his bedroom when he heard a "loud bang" coming from his bathroom, prosecutors claim.

Leanne Zaloumis, 29, was taken to Notting Hill police station after being found in Cowell's mansion, the charge says.

The 52-year-old X Factor judge called his staff and was taken back to his bedroom during the incident at around 10.30pm on Saturday.

The charge against Zaloumis, read out in court, said she intended to "inflict grievous bodily harm upon a person therein and at the time of committing the said burglary had with you a weapon of offence, namely a broken house brick".

Zaloumis will appear again at Isleworth crown court on 12 June, district judge James Henderson said.

The defendant, who appeared in the dock with unkempt hair and a baggy grey sweatshirt, stared downwards and showed no emotion during the eight-minute hearing.

Cowell was not in the packed public and press gallery in court.

Laura Johnson 'too scared' to stop looters

Millionaire's daughter told a court that she was made to drive around London while the men looted and robbed people

Laura Johnson is charged with five counts of burglary and three counts of handling stolen goods during rioting in London. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

A millionaire's daughter who drove looters around while they robbed people at knifepoint during last year's riots told a court today that she had been too scared to stop them.

Laura Johnson, 20, had gone to pick up her friend Emmanuel Okubote, 20, known as T-Man, from Curry's, in Bromley Road, Catford, south-east London, when he and three other men wearing hooded tops, bandanas and balaclavas got into the back of her car and ordered her to drive, she said.

The student told a jury at Inner London Crown Court that she struck up a close friendship with Okubote during the summer after being introduced to him by a friend she had met while she was an outpatient in a mental health unit.

Johnson told the court she was raped by two men on 14 July last year, but had not told anyone at first, causing her mental health to become "worse than ever before". The court heard she began self-harming after splitting up with her boyfriend earlier in the year and tried to kill herself six times by overdosing on tablets.

She said her mental health had been very unstable leading up to the incident on the evening of 8 August and she was taking antidepressants and medication for anxiety at the time of the rioting.

On the day of the incident, Johnson said she had planned to drop off Okubote's phone charger to him before meeting up with her ex-boyfriend. Instead, she said, she was made to drive around the Catford, Hither Green and Charlton areas of London while the men got in and out of the car to loot and rob people.

Martin McCarthy, defending, asked Johnson if she had asked the men to get out of her car and if she had any desire to be involved in the looting. Johnson said: "The tone of it, the way they were dressed, the shock of it all, it pushed me to not resist. I was scared."

The court was shown CCTV of Johnson pulling up at a petrol station in Sydenham, where Okubote filled the car with fuel. She said that although there had been no direct threats to her until that point, she felt she could not get away. She said the men in the back of the car had been talking about violence and they were amused by the reactions of people they robbed at knifepoint.

She said: "In terms of stabbing, they used the terms 'getting wetted' or 'boaring' somebody, and they kept saying people were 'going to get fucked up'."

Johnson said she told Okubote several times that she needed to go home but he claimed they would not be much longer, so she kept driving, the court heard. It was only when she disagreed with some of the things the men in her car were saying that Okubote placed a hand around the back of her neck in a threatening manner.

The court was told that the looting continued until 2.30am and during that time the men in the back of Johnson's car had a verbal altercation with a 17-year-old man who drew up alongside them at a retail park which was being looted. Johnson said the teenager told them he had a gun and pretended his mobile phone was a weapon.

McCarthy told the court that the 17-year-old took a picture of Johnson at the wheel of her car when he came across them again, and she appeared to be smiling in the photo.

Johnson said: "My response was, if I smile and he goes away, that's fine. If I smile, he will leave, rather than antagonising him.

"I had already been told to stop looking so scared and that I was prettier when I smiled."

Johnson, from Orpington, south-east London, denies three counts of burglary and three alternative counts of handling stolen goods. A 17-year-old defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admits one count of burglary but denies two further counts of burglary or handling stolen goods.

Royal Academy opens its doors to art for Summer Exhibition

Up to 12,000 works of art are expected at the London gallery, in the world's largest open-submission contemporary show

People arrive at The Royal Academy of Arts in London to hand in work for the 244th Summer Exhibition. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

The Royal Academy opened its doors to a deluge of art today as the first works were submitted for its annual Summer Exhibition. Between 11,000 and 12,000 pieces, ranging from pencil drawings to vast oil paintings, are expected to be brought to the London gallery, which is currently hosting David Hockney's blockbuster show.

"This is the first time I've submitted a piece," said Rowena Ardern, a former primary school teacher, now fabric designer and artist from Lancaster. She was carrying an embroidered drawing called Blackbird and Allium Cernuum into the gallery, where she unwrapped it and handed it over to gallery staff. "I've been to the exhibition before and saw things where I thought, 'I could do as good as that', so I thought I might as well give it a go." She hopes to sell the work for £400 – artists set the prices. "I don't know whether that's too much," she fretted. "It's so difficult to judge."

Now in its 244th year, the Summer Exhibition is the world's largest open-submission contemporary art show. Anyone is allowed to enter work, which is judged by a panel of Royal Academicians – the eminent artists who make up the 80-strong membership of the RA. After looking at every work, in any medium (sculptures are viewed by photograph) they will whittle it down to a shortlist of 1,000 to 2,000. These are then taken into the gallery, where they are sifted again into a coherent exhibition. Only on the final day of the hang are the artists contacted to be told whether their work will be included.

"It's only then we can start cataloguing everything because [the panel] have always got the option of going back to the works they didn't originally select," said Edith Devaney, the RA's head of summer Exhibition and curator. "They might wake up in the middle of the night and say 'I had this recollection of this fantastic oil', give a description and we try and find it – that happens, and it's rather wonderful when it does."

This year's panel is headed by Tess Jaray, the artist who taught at Slade school of art from 1968 to 1999. "She's been encouraging people she's taught over the past decade to enter," said Devaney. "She'll be celebrating the more modestly sized work, but also supporting emerging artists. It's going to have a slightly different feel this year – that's a great thing about having a different co-ordinator every year. They take it in slightly different directions."

At least two of the artists in the queue to submit pictures had had work in previous Summer Exhibitions. Lyndon Douglas, a commercial photographer from London, had an art photograph purchased last year by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, the head of the Royal Academy. "It was great to be able to express my own ideas through my own personal work and for it to be received like that," he said. This year he is submitting a mixed-media piece called Vessel, which commemorates his late mother and includes a real, dried, Jamaican "doctor fish", priced at £3,500.

Greg Genestine-Charlton, also from London, sold a work for £700 two years ago, though he failed to make the cut last year. He was carrying a small painting called Blue, which depicts a mother and child, taken from a newspaper clipping. "The first year when I got in I was over the moon," he said.

Almost all the work will be for sale – the RA takes a 30% cut, much less than a commercial gallerist would take, which is ploughed into the Royal Academy Schools. Prices range from around £100 for a print to hundreds of thousands for work by academicians, which does not need to go through the selection process. Last year's show included work by Anish Kapoor, Martin Creed and Tracey Emin.

Barbara Raimondo, from Milan, unwrapped two photographs, Looking For Myself and Noah, for £350 and £250 respectively, in the hope that the exhibition would mark her London debut.

Clare Caulfield had taken the train from Saltaire in Yorkshire with a large pen and watercolour of Caffe Florian in Venice under her arm, priced £650. She said that getting in to the show would be "a great achievement – I'd love to come down and see it hanging there".

"It's very exciting for us to see the line of work coming through and there's something really special. You haven't seen anything quite like it before and then you think 'that's going ito get in, it will sell in the first week', and they usually do," said Devaney, adding that buyers at the show stretch from complete beginners to hardened collectors.

Though the Summer Exhibition is sometimes lampooned by art critics as the place where amateur watercolourists from the Shires can get their works onto the RA's hallowed walls, Devaney said that most of the artists are professionals. "Artists can be struggling for years, but if they get in, their work will be seen by 250,000 people. Having your name published in a catalogue means people may offer you a show in commercial galleries – it can make a huge difference."

Three gang members guilty of shooting that left girl paralysed

Spate of violence ended in wounding of Thushara Kamaleswaran in Stockwell shop

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Three gang members guilty of shooting that left girl paralysed

Spate of violence ended in wounding of Thushara Kamaleswaran in Stockwell shop

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      Sandra Laville and Matthew Taylor
    * guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 March 2012 19.27 BST
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Footage released by the Metropolitan police shows three members of a south London gang carrying out an attack that nearly killed five-year-old Thusha Kamaleswaran Link to this video

Members of a street gang responsible for killing three teenagers in 20 months have been convicted of shooting a five-year-old girl and leaving her paralysed for life. Three of the group were convicted on Monday of wounding Thushara Kamaleswaran, who was caught up in a tit-for-tat shooting as she played in her uncle's shop in Stockwell, south London, in March last year.

Notorious in the area, the Gas gang is on a Scotland Yard list of 60 "high harm" gangs in the capital.

The chaotic grouping of young men, noted for their violence and a lack of remorse shown by those brought to justice, is also heavily involved in drug dealing, street crime, muggings and bike robberies in its heartland around Myatt's Fields in Brixton, south London.

Thusha, as she was better known, was shot during a spate of violence the pace and intensity of which heaped pressure on the police for many months and prompted fears that the gang is out of control.

At the Old Bailey, Nathaniel Grant, 21, Kazeem Kolawole, 19, and Anthony McCalla, 20, were convicted unanimously of wounding Thusha and another innocent victim in the shop at the time. Roshan Selvakumar, 35, who had been buying groceries, was shot in the face and has been left with bullet fragments permanently lodged in his head.

Paramedics fought to save Thusha's life, operating on her in the street after the bullet passed through her chest. Surgeons saved her again when she suffered a second heart attack in hospital.

She remains paralysed from the waist down and spends much of her life at Stoke Mandeville hospital, Buckinghamshire.

Now six, she will have to wear a brace and leg splints permanently, and may have to undergo repeated operations to prevent her spine curving. All her life she will be reliant on a wheelchair and will require round-the-clock assistance.

Three weeks ago extra officers were drafted into Lambeth as police imposed a random stop and search power – known as a section 60 order – across the borough after seven stabbings in five days culminated in the killing of 17-year-old Kwame Ofosu-Asare.

He was the third teenager in 20 months to die at the hands of the Gas gang, some of whom are aged as young as 12 or 13, whose members arm themselves with household knives or guns, riding around streets between Coldharbour Lane and Brixton Road on bikes.

In court on Monday, Thusha's mother said she still cries when she thinks about her daughter's fate and future.

"It's hard for all at home to see an innocent child hopping around like a rabbit, now paralysed," said prosecutor Michelle Nelson, reading Sharmila Kamaleswaran's statement on behalf of the family. "She was a playful child, always happy and smiling and was a good student at school."

Nelson added: "What she says is that the impact of this incident remains unbearable to the family.

"She cannot begin to explain the shock felt at the time of the shooting, that her children all were there in the shop, playing and dancing and within seconds of that Thusha was lying on the floor crying and saying she couldn't feel her legs."

As the statement was read out Grant hung his head in the dock, while his co-defendants displayed no emotion.

They were also found guilty of the attempted murder of one of two men who ran into the shop, Roshaun Bryan, who denies any involvement with gangs, and of having a firearm with intent to endanger life.

Judge Martin Stephens QC said he would sentence Grant, Kolawole and McCalla on 19 April. He told the jury he was considering whether to give them a life sentence or an indeterminate sentence.

Thusha's shooting came during a spasm of violence as the tit-for-tat war between the Gas gang and their rivals spilled over on the evening of 29 March last year on to Stockwell Road.

The perpetrators were pursuing what they thought was a member of a rival gang who took cover in Stockwell Food and Wine shop. Seconds later Thusha had been wounded by a bullet from a semi-automatic firearm.

In CCTV footage shown to the jury at the Old Bailey she is seen skipping happily in the aisle of the shop in a pink dress and red cardigan.

Outside, on separate CCTV footage, Grant is seen standing astride his bike, with his arm held out straight as he fires first one shot, and a few seconds later another shot. One bullet hit Thusha in the chest and exited through her back, passing through the seventh vertebra of her spine.

Thusha lives with her parents and siblings, a 12-year-old brother and three-year-old sister in Hainault, east London.

Her father, Jeyakumar Ghanasekaram, worked on the till at Stockwell Food and Wine, and Thusha's mother had brought the children to the shop to collect her husband when the shooting took place.

Scotland Yard officially refuses to talk about individual gangs by name for fear of "glamorising" their activities, and will not give details of the crimes committed by the Gas gang.

But there is known to be growing concern about the gang's activities, and the number of murders, stabbings and near-fatal attacks that members have carried out.

The spate of murders began in July 2010 when five boys knifed 15-year-old Zac Olumegbon to death outside his school. Five teenagers from the Gas gang have been convicted of his killing.

In May last year, 15-year-old Temidayo Ogunneye was stabbed to death as he tried to recover his mobile phone from members of the gang who had mugged him earlier in the day.

His killer, 16-year-old Nathan McLeod, from the gang, had been in court a few hours earlier, when he was given a noncustodial sentence for attacking another man with a breadknife.

On 2 March this year, following a spate of seven stabbings in five days, Kwame Ofosu-Asare, an A-level student from east London, was stabbed and killed in Brixton.

The convictions of the three gang members come a month after the launch of the Metropolitan police gang taskforce. Faced with rising levels of serious youth violence, and evidence that the capital's gang problem could worsen as the economic downturn bites, Scotland Yard has committed 1,000 dedicated officers to tackling the issue.

Speaking outside court, Detective Superintendent Gordon Allison, from the anti-gang taskforce, said: "This was a difficult and distressing case to investigate bearing in mind Thusha was just five years old – a baby – when she was shot and paralysed by Grant, McCalla and Kolawole."

A bloody and chaotic cycle of gang violence caught Thusha in the crossfire

The intense feud between rival teenage gangs in Stockwell and Brixton, south London, has claimed several lives

Police examining the scene after the shooting that left Thusha Kamaleswaran paralysed. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

In the grainy CCTV footage, a little girl is seen playing happily in the aisle of her uncle's corner shop. As she skips towards the doorway, two young men rush in and bundle past her, leaving the child in the direct line of fire of a gunman aiming at them.

In the next few seconds, the life of five-year-old Thushara Kamaleswaran, known as Thusha, collided with an escalating feud between two south London street gangs with tragic and lifelong consequences.

As the intended victim cowered behind a drinks stand and the gunman rode off on a bike, Thusha was left lying motionless on the floor. She had been hit in the chest by a bullet that hit her spine and then passed out of her back.

She had two heart attacks and medics were forced to carry out emergency surgery at the scene. At one point, she was pronounced clinically dead before doctors managed to revive her at nearby King's College hospital.

Thusha, now six, needs round-the-clock care and is being treated at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire. She will be paralysed for the rest of her life.

The story of the violent feud that led to the shooting of Thusha and another bystander, 35-year-old Roshan Selvakumar, in March last year is one of shifting rivalries, petty disputes and increasing violence among the teenage gangs that operate in the streets and estates between Brixton and Stockwell in south London.

In the past few months, the intensity and pace of the violence has grown. It is the activities of gangs such as the Brixton-based Gas – a name that stands variously for Guns and Shanks (knives), Grind and Stack, and Grip and Shoot – that led to the creation in January of the Metropolitan police's 1,000-strong Trident gang taskforce.

Over 20 months, members of this gang have killed at least three people, all teenagers aged 15 to 17, and is thought to be behind up to 80% of crimes resulting in death or serious injury in Brixton.
Latest outbreak

The latest outbreak of violence took place at the start of March, when Kwame Ofosu-Asare, an A-level student from east London, was stabbed and killed. In the five days before his death there had been seven stabbings, all linked to Gas and its rivals.

The specific cause of the dispute that left Thusha paralysed may never be known. It was suggested in court that Kazeem Kolawole, 19, Anthony McCalla, 19, and Nathaniel Grant, 21, set out "on a mission into rival territory" after an argument over territory. Others have said it was down to a row over drugs.

But through a series of interviews with former and current gang members and specialist police officers, it is clear the attack was not isolated: just the latest in an upward spiral of violence involving Gas and its intensifying rivalry with a neighbouring Stockwell gang, ABM – All 'Bout Money.

The Met's new taskforce has adopted a policy of not talking about specific gangs because officers believe it could glamorise them in the eyes of followers, but for those who have grown up in a subculture in which the gang is "family", the tales of the slights, feuds and violence have evolved into street lore.

Gas emerged in 2007 via a merger of "youngers" – junior members – from the OC gang (One Chance or Organised Criminals) based around Myatt's Fields, between Camberwell and Brixton, and the PDC gang (Peel Dem Crew) from nearby Angell Town.

Kolawole, McCalla and Grant initially belonged to OC but like many others involved in Brixton's teenage gangs, they were drawn to Gas as played a more significant and violent role in drug-dealing and street crime.

One former member who spoke to the Guardian said it was this new "unified Brixton gang" that provoked a backlash from rival groups in south London and set in chain the violent rivalry.

The anonymous 19-year-old, who joined his first gang when he was 13, said it was in July 2010 that the once amicable relations between Gas and ABM soured into violence. The opening salvo came when 15-year-old Zac Olumegbon – known as Lil Zac – was chased down and stabbed to death outside his school by members of Gas. In court, the jury was told Olumegbon was linked to the TN1 (Trust No One) gang from Tulse Hill.

What was not clear to the authorities at the time was that members of TN1 had forged an alliance with ABM, and that Zac's death would plunge the gangs into a cycle of violence that still rages.

"When Lil Zac died, because he was related to ABM they joined up with Tulse Hill and that's when ABM started to beef Brixton as well," said the 19-year-old.

The territories controlled by the Gas gang and ABM are separated by Brixton Road, a busy street running from the Oval tube station in the north to Brixton in the south. Commuters may be oblivious to its significance but for teenagers caught up in London's gang violence – some just 12 or 13 – the road marks a definite, and potentially deadly, divide.

The three young men responsible for the attack on Thusha knew the importance of the divide. McCalla, known as Mad Antz, was seen as an "older" – a senior gang member – and had openly boasted he was a member as far back as 2007, telling a probation officer at one point that he was the leader of "Tiny OC". He even has a "One Chance" tattoo on his arm.
Petty crime

The court heard that pictures on the internet show him making gun and OC hand gestures and he said he had made a living from petty crime, particularly stealing from other cannabis dealers.

McCalla, who told the court his brother had been shot in gang violence, said he had been trying to turn his back on gang life after a six-month prison term for theft in 2010.

Kolawole was the newest member of the Gas gang, but he bragged in BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) messages about how he was planning to "fuck up a couple Pagans" (members of rival gangs) and later how he was going to get his "swammies" (guns).

But it was perhaps Grant who was the most senior member. The 21-year-old, who fired the shots that hit Thusha and Selvakumar, was seen by many younger gang members as "something of a boss", the court heard. He had previously been charged with murder over the shooting of 18-year-old Ryan Bravo in 2008. He denied the charge and was acquitted half-way through his trial. His seniority may explain why this group were able to use a firearm, rather than the household knives normally associated with gangs.

Kolawole, McCalla and Grant prepared for their attack in the warren of streets and walkways around Myatt's Fields, east of Brixton Road, testing the gun on ground near Foxley Square.

The area is run down, with residents complaining about a lack of investment and police who only drive by in cars rather than patrol on foot.

One woman, who works in a shop behind Myatt's Fields, said people were aware of what went on but were too afraid to step in.

"Everyone knows what is going on but they won't talk about it, because it is these kids that are running this area and if they find out who has talked it gets very difficult: you get burgled and your family gets attacked," said the woman, who did not want her name to be used.

One Gas member who knows this area well explained how he was "recruited" to the gang aged 12 after being noticed by older members following a series of fights at school. "People think people join gangs for fun but what they don't know is that if you show weakness you can get bullied."

He said after the first year at secondary school he felt he had two choices: either join a gang or become a victim: "Who wants to be a victim? If you hear about gang offers you hear about girls, women, reputation. And then you hear 'victim', 'bullying', getting attacked. You pick gangs, anyone would."

The 21-year-old, who says he is now trying to escape the gang life, says he underwent an initiation: "You get recruited and then you give blood. You cut your hand and you make your blood drip on the bandana to show you're loyal." He said the initiation also involved lessons on how and where to stab someone to inflict a specific sort of injury.
Tit-for-tat dispute

Among the bravado and posturing of London's teenage street gangs, it is impossible to verify these claims, but the evidence in the recent trial supports what Gas members told the Guardian. The jury heard Thusha was shot in a "violent tit-for-tat dispute with the ABM gang ... affiliated to the TN1 gang from further south" and that "2009 to 2011 was a particularly violent period, with the degree of violence escalating significantly".

The escalation continued again two months after Thusha was shot, when Temidayo Ogunneye, 15, was stabbed to death by a member of Gas. Temidayo had been robbed by the gang earlier in the day near Myatt's Fields and returned later with friends to retrieve his BlackBerry phone.

Nathan McLeod, 16, taunted him and a fight broke out. When McLeod produced a knife, Ogunneye ran, but slipped on some wet grass, where McLeod pinned him down, stabbing him once in the chest. Two weeks ago, McLeod was jailed for a minimum of 14 years.

For Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane, from the Met's homicide team in south London, too often the result of this spontaneous and unpredictable violence is a young boy lying on a mortuary slab. "There is a pressure-cooker atmosphere and the tensions seem to be accentuated by the use of the internet," he said.

"If you have a gripe with someone it is played out on Facebook or YouTube, and through your BBM messages. It's not like they can walk away and try to avoid the people you don't want to see – it is all around you. It is all about face, about posturing, about trying to be a man, and once it has started it is hard to de-escalate it."

McFarlane has successfully put several members of Gas behind bars and his investigation into Zac Olumegbon's murder in July 2010 uncovered a chilling level of premeditation and planning by his assailants. The five killers, all aged between 16 and 18, had met up the night before to plan the attack. They arrived the following day at Park Campus school in West Norwood, south London, in a stolen car, carrying at least two knives. Four of them chased Zac down, in a pursuit filmed on CCTV until they headed down an alley, and overcame him in the back garden of a house, stabbing him repeatedly, before fleeing. The five were jailed for the killing last December.
Stop and search

As the police step up efforts to stem the violence – putting a section 60 stop-and-search zone around the whole of Lambeth in south London during the outbreak of violence this month – the gangs appear to be refining their tactics.

Few now carry their weapons as they move around their areas. Instead they stash them in makeshift stores in strategic locations; electric storage boxes, utility boxes, bushes and undergrowth to access when they are needed.

"What we are seeing is young men who have no respect for life, their lives or the lives of others," said McFarlane.

Back on the streets around Myatt's Fields and Brixton last week there was little sign of the violence abating.

Older members of Gas say that although many of their generation are now either in prison, dead or are growing tired of the bloodshed, "Gas gang youngers" are already beginning to peel away, forming a new group known as Villa Road, based further south along Brixton Road.

But as Kolawole, McCalla and Grant begin what are likely to be long prison terms, it will offer no comfort for Thusha and her parents, who are left to face the years ahead coping with her profound disability.