Banks win court decision over overdraft charges

Bank charges decision in supreme court is a blow to millions of customers hoping to reclaim fees paid as far back as 2001

Bank charges ruling ? Follow the live blog

Banks are unlikely to repay the fees charged on unauthorised overdrafts unless a customer is suffering particular financial hardship, following a supreme court judgment this morning.

The ruling on the case between the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and seven banks and one building society was to determine whether the fees charged for unauthorised overdrafts could be tested under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.

The court found that the terms of this legislation meant the charges for unauthorised borrowing were part of the price customers paid for banking, and that the OFT did not have the power to judge whether they were fair or not.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) confirmed that the moratorium on handling claims had now been lifted, allowing account providers to start processing customer complaints. It said it expected the banks to deal with all outstanding claims within eight weeks.

Lloyds, the group which includes the Halifax and Bank of Scotland, said it would contact claimants but added that unless they were suffering financial hardship they would be unlikely to get any money back.

Abbey also confirmed it would be contacting individual clients and assessing whether they were suffering financial hardship. It said it was still worthwhile customers lodging a claim if they were in this situation.

The decision is a blow for more than 1.2 million current account customers who have already lodged claims on unauthorised overdraft fees paid as far back as 2001, but which had been put on hold until the conclusion of the case.

However, of the 10,000 claimants who took their complaints to the Financial Ombudsman after being rejected by their banks, about half were deemed to be suffering particular financial hardship.

Although banks have already started to alter the charging structure on bank accounts and overdrafts going forward, the ruling casts doubt on whether people who have already paid charges will be successful in reclaiming them.

The British Bankers' Association welcomed the ruling for bringing clarity to the position of claimants. However, Eric Leenders, executive director of retail, said the court had left open the option for the OFT to challenge unauthorised overdraft fees in court again, if it could find alternative legislation through which to do it.

The lawyer for one of the banks involved has already indicated they felt the OFT had pursued the wrong case, and that it could have succeeded if it had challanged the banks on the grounds of anti-competitiveness, because the fees for all the banks were very similar.

Mixed reactions

In a statement the OFT said it was disappointed by today's judgment which overturned previous high court and court of appeal rulings that unauthorised borrowing terms can be assessed for fairness.

"The OFT will now consider the detail of this judgment before it makes a decision on whether or not to continue its investigation into unarranged overdraft charging terms. It will also explore the implications for consumers and for existing and future legislation and regulation. The OFT expects to make a further announcement in December."

It added that it would seek discussions with banks, consumer organisations, the FSA and the government following the judgment.

Consumer bodies also reacted to the result with disappointment. Which? chief executive, Peter Vicary-Smith, said: "This is a bitter blow for the millions of people who have been patiently waiting to get their bank charges back.

"Not only does [the judgment] give banks licence to charge what they like for unauthorised overdrafts, but it could have ramifications for other areas of personal finance."

Kevin Mountford, head of banking at moneysupermarket.com, disagreed: "There is no doubt that this is a set back for the OFT and for the million or so customers who are trying to reclaim their bank charges. However, it is unlikely to be the end of the story and no doubt many customers will be left confused by today's ruling.

He said the present banking system was one where the costs of running current accounts fall disproportionately on a small group of customers: those that go overdrawn, and especially those that borrow without permission.

"In some cases those charges amount to hundreds of pounds for relatively small overdrafts, and there is concern that these charges fall on more vulnerable customers. The majority of us that don't use an unauthorised overdraft don't pay any charges for our current account banking," he said.

"We expect the OFT to continue to try and press for a system where the costs of running the current account system are spread more fairly across all customers. In truth banks have already started to respond to this. We expect this trend to continue and in return for fairer overdraft charges banks could introduce transaction fees or monthly and annual fees."

Police protest tactics condemned

Senior inspector warns police risk losing public consent and calls for return to 19th-century style of minimal force

Senior police officers could lose the consent of the British public unless they abandon misguided approaches to public protests that are considered "unfair, aggressive and inconsistent", an inquiry has found.

Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, used a landmark report into public order policing to criticise heavy-handed tactics, which he said threatened to alienate the public and infringe the right to protest.

The report, published today, called for a softening of the approach and urged a return to the "British model" of policing, first defined by 19th-century Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel. O'Connor advocated an "approachable, impartial, accountable style of policing based on minimal force and anchored in public consent".

The initial reaction from protest groups was positive. A lawyer from environmental organisation Climate Camp, believed to be the largest network of activists in the country, described the findings as a "huge step forward".

Among recommendations designed radically to change the way police forces deal with demonstrations, O'Connor said:

? The home secretary, Alan Johnson, should take the unusual step of issuing a national code of practice to ensure all 44 police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland deal with protest in the same way. The report found a wide variation in equipment and tactics used, as well as a divergences in their interpretation of the law.

? The government should introduce a set of "overarching principles" to guide police on the use of force, informing officers about what constitutes appropriate behaviour in "all areas of policing business". O'Connor said that, faced with aggressive protesters, some officers were replacing the notion of a "proportional" reaction with a '"reciprocal" one.

? The routine use of forward intellience teams (FITs) who film, photograph and follow protesters, and use "spotter cards" to identify activists and store their information on databases raises fundamental privacy issues and should be reviewed. The Home Office should provide legal guidance on surveillance of protesters and retention of their images.

? Public order training should be overhauled, with a new emphasis on schooling the 22,500 officers trained for protests in communication and diplomacy rather than riot scenarios. "Time spent on suppressing mass urban disorder should be reduced and time spent on planning and keeping the peace should be increased," O'Connor said.

? The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) should be made more transparent, with mechanisms introduced to hold the body to account for "quasi-operational" policing units that collate and retain intelligence on databases. O'Connor is known to be concerned with Acpo's three "domestic extremism" units, which the Guardian last month revealed were storing data on thousands of protesters in a £9m government scheme.

The 200-page Her Majesty's Inspecorate of Constabulary (HMIC) report was commissioned in the aftermath of the Metropolitan police's controversial handling of G20 protests, in April.The interim HMIC report, published in July, found serious failings in the way senior officers at the Met had planned for and managed protests near the Bank of England.

It followed a public outcry after the force used "kettling" techniques to detain peaceful protesters for several hours. Its officers were also captured on video using batons to lash out at protesters, who on at least one occasion held their arms in the air and chanted, "This is not a riot." A newspaper vendor, Ian Tomlinson, collapsed and died after an officer struck him as he tried to make his way home from work through the protests.

Although the Met is expected to endorse today's report, O'Connor's findings will be seen as a damning indictment of a style of policing protest pioneered by Scotland Yard in the last decade. Senior Met officers are known to have lobbied hard against some of O'Connor's proposals, at one stage even hiring lawyers in an unsuccessful attempt to oppose one of his key recommendations.

The Met has gained a reputation for clamping down and "containing" protests it deems unlawful, an approach forged in its response to the May Day protests in 2001. The force also developed the technique of using FIT surveillance officers to monitor crowds, a technique first used against football hooligans in the late 1990s that has since been adopted by forces across the country.

The force's public order unit, CO11, was recently forced to delete 40% of the photographs it holds on a database of protesters after the court of appeal ruled in a landmark judgment it had illegally retained an image of Andrew Wood, an anti-war campaigner. The Met employs most of the UK's FIT-trained officers.

Although O'Connor's report says little about kettling, which is due to be tested at the European court of human rights, he raises serious questions about the legality of FIT operations and says there is "confusion" about their role.

"If individuals are lawfully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, the justification for police gathering their personal information is unclear, and it is not at all obvious under what powers the police are acting in these circumstances," the report said.

HMIC inspectors visited several forces during their inquiry, and conducted a review of the handling of several protests, including three Climate Camp events, Tamil protests in Parliament Square and rallies by far-right groups such as the British National party and the English Defence League.

They also commissioned an academic review of crowd psychology. This found police were relying on a scientifically unfounded presumption that crowds are innately "unpredictable, volatile and dangerous", and looked at policing models used in other western European countries, the United States and Canada.

But O'Connor said he favoured a return to a British style of consensual policing for an era in which the actions of police would be instantly recorded and scrutinised.

"British police risk losing the battle for the public's consent if they win public order through tactics that appear to be unfair, aggressive and inconsistent," he said. "This harms not just the reputation of the individual officers concerned but the police service as a whole."

Acpo's lead officer for uniformed operation, the chief constable of South Yorkshire, Meredydd Hughes, said O'Connor's report would "shape the future of national public order policing".

"It represents the first time that British policing has examined modern protest in such a public way," Hughes said. "It will drive changes in our preparation for protest and our relationships with those involved."

Frances Wright, a member of the legal team for Climate Camp who gave evidence to the inspectors, said protesters would also welcome the conclusions. She implied the death of Tomlinson had played a central role in bringing about the reform.

"These findings are a vindication of what protesters have been saying for years," she said. "Now it has to be delivered, and if these proposals are seen through, then that would be a huge step forward. It shouldn't have taken a death for people to finally start to listen."

Saddam had 'few links' to al-Qaida

Briefings for ministers on Iraq's WMD programme included major caveats, former Foreign Office official says

Intelligence about Iraq's programmes of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles was "sporadic and patchy", a senior official told the Iraq war inquiry in London today.

Sir William Ehrman, who was director of national security at the Foreign Office during the build-up to the invasion, said briefings for ministers included major caveats. In April 2000 the picture was described as "limited to chemical weapons"; in May 2001 the knowledge of WMD and ballistic missile programmes was "patchy"; and in March 2002 the intelligence was "sporadic and patchy".

In August 2002 a briefing noted that "we know very little" about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons work since late 1998, and in September 2002 the intelligence "remained limited".

Ehrman, now ambassador to China, said: "The biggest gap in all of that, and one which ministers were extremely well aware of and used extensively, was the lack of interviews with scientists."

Both foreign secretaries in this period received regular briefings. "I certainly never felt either with Robin Cook or with Jack Straw that they didn't understand the picture that was being given to them on intelligence," he said.

Earlier, the inquiry was told there was no evidence of any serious co-operation between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida after the 9/11 attacks, and contacts before had been sporadic. Iraq did not want to be associated with the attacks and was not a natural ally of the terrorists, civil servants said, as they confirmed that Baghdad was not "top of the list" when it came to concerns over weapons capacity in 2001 ? Iran, Libya and North Korea were considered greater threats.

One witness said he was not surprised by the notorious claim in the government dossier to justify the 2003 invasion that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

Saddam had supported Palestinian terrorists but his regime's contacts with groups linked to al-Qaida were sporadic, according to Tim Dowse, the head of counter-proliferation at the Foreign Office at the time. "There had been nothing that looked like a relationship between the Iraqis and al-Qaida. In fact, after 9/11 we concluded that Iraq actually stepped further back. They did not want to be associated with al-Qaida. They weren't natural allies.

"Speaking personally, when I saw the 45 minutes report, I did not give it particular significance because it didn't seem out of line with what we generally assessed to be Iraq's intentions and capabilities with regard to chemical weapons."

He took the 45-minute claim to refer to a multi-barrelled rocket launcher kept ready for deployment by Iraqi forces in the event of conflict. "It certainly took on a rather iconic status that I don't think that those of us who saw the initial report really gave ? it wasn't surprising," Dowse said.

Asked about suggestions that the 45 minutes referred to a possible WMD strike against another nation, Dowse said: "I don't think we ever said that it was for use in a ballistic missile in that way."

The inquiry panel member Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman replied: "But you didn't say it wasn't."

Yesterday, other officials said Tony Blair's government had known prominent members of the Bush administration wanted to topple Saddam years before the invasion. But the Blair government initially distanced itself from the idea, knowing it would be unlawful. British intelligence dismissed claims by elements in the US administration that the Iraqi leader was linked to Osama bin Laden, the inquiry heard.

Evidence given on the opening day of the inquiry, chaired by the former top civil servant Sir John Chilcot, painted a picture of a Whitehall slowly realising the significance of George Bush's election in November 2000 for US policy towards Iraq.

Sir Peter Ricketts, a former chairman of the joint intelligence committee and now the Foreign Office's top official, told the inquiry that even before Bush came to power, an article written by his then national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, warned that "nothing will change" in Iraq until Saddam was gone.

Sir William Patey, then head of the Middle East department at the Foreign Office, said: "We were aware of these drumbeats from Washington and internally we discussed it. Our policy was to stay away from that part of the spectrum."

Patey revealed that in late 2001 ? after the 9/11 attacks on the US ? he asked officials at the ministry to draw up an Iraq "options" paper including regime change. "We dismissed it at the time because it had no basis in law," Patey told the inquiry.

Simon Webb, a former policy director at the Ministry of Defence, described the issue of regime change in Iraq during the early days of the Bush administration as "the dog that did not bark. It grizzled, but it did not bark."

Seven charged for Mumbai attacks

Men accused of planning and helping carry out raid on India's financial centre that killed 166 people

Pakistan has charged seven men over last year's Mumbai terror attacks. They are the first indictments in a case watched closely by India and the US to see if Islamabad makes good on promises to punish those responsible.

Thursday is the first anniversary of the attacks on hotels, a train station and other targets in the Indian financial capital. The siege terrorised the city for three days and killed 166 people.

The seven suspects pleaded not guilty in an anti-terrorism court to helping plan and execute the attacks, said a defence lawyer, Shahbaz Rajput, and a prosecutor, Malik Rab Nawaz.

The men, allegedly belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, face the death penalty if convicted. Two of the defendants, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah, are accused by India of masterminding the attack.

In the past Islamabad has failed to punish militants suspected of attacks on targets in India. The neighbours have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.

Pakistan's security agencies have a long history of supporting Lashkar and other militant groups as proxies against the much larger Indian army in the disputed region of Kashmir. The government says it no longer does this, but many powerful Pakistani politicians and army officers are believed to remain sympathetic to groups attacking India.

India has put on trial the lone surviving gunman, Ajmal Kasab, who faces the death penalty if convicted. According to testimony in his trial, the group of 10 attackers landed in Mumbai after setting sail from the Pakistani port city of Karachi. During the siege they are alleged to have kept in contact with handlers in Pakistan by telephone.

Wednesday's indictments come as Pakistan's army wages a major offensive against Islamic militants on its north-western frontier with Afghanistan, an action welcomed by the US and other countries.

The Pakistan court proceedings are taking place behind closed doors at a maximum security prison not far from the capital, Islamabad. Defence lawyers have said they are unable to disclose any details of the charges against the men.

"All the accused categorically told the court they were innocent and the charges levelled against them are not supported by the evidence," Rajput said after the court adjourned until 5 December.

India has sent Pakistan dossiers of what it says is evidence linking the attack to Pakistani nationals, including the Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, who remains free.

The Mumbai attacks halted a peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals that had eased tensions while making slow progress in resolving the Kashmir issue. India says Pakistan must crack down on militants before it can resume talks.

9/11 pager messages published online

Whistleblowing website publishes 'intercepted' texts in order officials and witnesses sent them

The unfolding secret story of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon is being told today when more than 500,000 intercepted pager messages, many from US officials, are published online in the order in which they were sent.

The mass live leak began at 8am GMT and will continue for 24 hours until all of the messages are seen as they were sent on September 11.

The experiment by whistleblowing website Wikileaks includes pager messages sent on the day by officials in the Pentagon, the New York police and witnesses to the collapse of the twin towers.

Wikileaks said the messages would show a "completely objective record of the defining moment of our time".

It added: "We hope that its entry into the historical record will lead to a more nuanced understanding of how this tragedy and its aftermath may have been prevented."

The post said the release of the messages at times corresponding to when they were sent would help "foster a deeper understanding".

A preview of some of the messages to be leaked suggests they show how panic and rumour began to spread on the day, and are likely to fuel conspiracy theories about the attacks.

One message from a New York City official sent just minutes after the first attack said: "WTC has been hit by an airplane and a bomb." Another says: "It's reported that a US military helicopter circled the building then crashed into or next to the Pentagon." Later in the day, a message presciently says: "We are bombing Afghanistan."

One message from a witness reads: "Still in my apt, nowhere to go ... This is the end of the world as we know it."

Wikileaks would not reveal the source for the leak, but hinted: "It is clear that the information comes from an organisation which has been intercepting and archiving US national telecommunciations since prior to 9/11.

Wikileaks has a good track record in releasing authentic official documents, but its website tends to get overloaded at busy times. It is encouraging readers to follow the leaks on Twitter.

In with the in crowd

Whether it's Debbie Harry, Sophia Loren or the Dalai Lama, society photographer Richard Young is a master of the celebrity snapshot

MPs debate homeopathy on NHS

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has called in homeopaths and scientists to discuss evidence for the alternative therapy

The meeting has now concluded. Read what happened below

8.32am: It would be nice to think ministers made policy decisions on the basis of sound scientific evidence, but the government isn't renowned for listening to expert advice it doesn't agree with. Nor does it have a great track record on collecting proper evidence.

The Commons Science and Technology Committee has decided to investigate the scientific evidence that underpins the government's existing policies. Today they are looking into homeopathy. They have taken written evidence already, and received the inevitable admission from the Department of Health that the regulation of homeopathy has no scientific basis.

Now it's time to hear the oral evidence and this morning's session could be a corker. Between 9.30am and 11.30am the committee will quiz alternative therapists, scientists and doctors to find out what they all make of homeopathy. The government funds several NHS homeopathy hospitals, which have spent around £12m on homeopathic treatments over the past three years.

You can watch the webcast session in full here.

Below is a list of today's cast of players. Let us know what you make of it all.

9.30am Professor Jayne Lawrence, chief scientific adviser, Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain
Robert Wilson, chairman of the British Association of Homeopathic
Manufacturers, and Nelsons, a homeopathy company
Paul Bennett, professional standards director, Boots the chemist
Tracey Brown, managing director, Sense About Science
Dr Ben Goldacre, journalist, The Guardian

10.30am Dr Peter Fisher, director of research, Royal London Homeopathic Hospital
Professor Edzard Ernst, director, Complementary Medicine Group, Peninsula Medical School
Dr James Thallon, medical director, NHS West Kent
Dr Robert Mathie, research development adviser, British Homeopathic
Association

9.07am: The session is due to kick off at half past the hour.

We should be in for an interesting discussion today. A few of these folks have taken pot shots at each other in the past.

We've got Paul Bennett from Boots, the high street chemist, which was slated by Edzard Ernst for pushing homeopathic remedies. Here's what he said in a Guardian piece recently:

The population at large trusts Boots more than any other pharmacy, but when you look behind the smokescreen, when it comes to alternative medicines, that trust is not justified. You can buy a lot of rubbish, with covert advertising stating things that are overtly wrong. People are spending their money on stuff that doesn't work ... Boots seems to be fast becoming the biggest seller of quack remedies in UK high streets.

9.12am: Ben Goldacre's also giving evidence, at the same time as Robert Wilson, who runs a homeopathic medicines company. I hope the committee finds out how much money is made selling homeopathy. It'd be an interesting figure to have. The NHS has spent £12m in three years on it. That's an awful lot of water.

9.14am: James Thallon - who's giving evidence in the second session (from 10.30am) - recently cut his PCT's [primary care trust's] funding for homeopathy, stating that the money was better spent on drugs that, erm, worked a bit better.

9.16am: Robert Mathie of the British Homeopathic Association added a plug for the BHA on the NHS homeopathy page. He urged anyone who was likely to buy homeopathic substancecs to go to the BHA for advice first.

9.18am: You can watch the evidence session here and here.

9.23am: It's fair to say that, by and large, the science committee aren't the greatest fans of homeopathy. They piled into Professor John Beddington, the chief scientist, earlier this year for defending the government's stance on homeopathy.

9.28am: Robert Wilson is also on the board of the European Coalition on Homeopathic and Anthroposophic Medicinal Products. Yes, anthroposophic medicinal products. According to the ever-reliable oracle that is Wikipedia, anthroposophical medicine is salutogenetic. Marvellous. I've not seen so many big words since graduating.

9.31am: Fingers crossed this won't degrade into mumbo jumbo and name calling. I'll be interested to hear if any of the homeopaths embrace the idea that the value of their service is to optimise the placebo effect.

9.35am: It'll be interesting to see how many Tories show up. Usually only one or two arrive for the science and tech committee. Mostly it's Lib Dems and Lab. Looks like a full house.

9.35am: Phil Willis is kicking things off. Looking to see "whether there is evidence to support government policy."

9.37am: First off - question to Paul Bennett: "You sell them. Do they work?"

Paul: "There's consumer demand.

"I have no evidence to suggest they are efficacious."

Great opening.

"It's about consumer choice and a large number of our consumers think they are efficacious."

9.38am: Robert Wilson says it's an old business and popular in France.

Phil Willis: "So is prostitution."

9.40am: Wilson says he believes homeopathy works beyond the placebo effect.

Wilson's comment: "If they didn't work beyond the placebo effect, why do people keep buying them?"

Willis: "That wasn't a serious comment was it?!"

Willis quizzing Wilson - if you have evidence that it works, why don't you give it to Boots. Boots just admitted they have no evidence that the stuff works.

9.40am: Next: Jayne Lawrence:

We've reviewed all the scientific evidence and we don't think there's any evidence for them working.

9.41am: "There's no scientific basis for their being effective, says Lawrence

9.42am: Next - Ben Goldacre:

"Placebo effect is very powerful."

I've never seen that man wearing a tie before. Never.

9.43am: Goldacre: Thinks homeopathy "culturally" harmful. Undermines credibility of MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency], pharmacists etc.

9.43am: Goldacre: "I don't believe sugar pills are physically harmful to people."

Tracey Brown:

Talking about people taking sugar pills and thinking they're getting good treatment when they're not.

9.45am: Willis: asking "should we sell nothing if it's got no scientific evidence?"

Good to see some balance.

Brown: "When it has official endorsement, such as a licence, then we have a problem."

Our drugs regulator, the MHRA, licenses homeopathic medicines.

9.47am: Wilson: The homeopathic community is extremely pro-research.

9.52am: Evan Harris, LibDem MP, comes in:

"Is the best way to consider the evidence for homeopathy to consider systematic reviews?"

Robert Wilson criticising studies in general.

Harris gives up on that line.

Harris: Asking Bennett if he has any qualms about selling products that don't have any benefit.

Paul Bennett: "At the root of this, is [that] there are regulated products that are safe. It's important we can support our consumers who believe they are efficacious. To deny someone access ... would be wrong to do."

9.53am: Harris: pushing Bennett on the ethics of selling treatments that are ineffective beyond placebo.

Bennet (Boots): "Our key requirement here is for greater clinical evidence."

9.54am: Bennett says homeopathic substances contain the disclaimer: "without approved therapeutic indications"

9.56am: Paul Bennett (Boots): "We rely very heavily on the regulatory process to indicate which products are approved and safe for sale."

9.59am: Robert Wilson (Nelsons homeopathic products) - the European market for homeopathy is £1.5bn.

Iddon: "Why should the MHRA have an interest in supporting the homeopathy industry?"

Brown (Sense about Science): EC directive allows nations to bring in their own rules.

10.03am: Brian Iddon MP inquiring about the options government could have taken to regulate homeopathy, given the relevant EC directive.

To Wilson: National rules scheme for homeopathy developed by MHRA.

Iddon asking - has it helped your product list expand?

Wilson: it took nearly two years to get one product approved by the national rules scheme.

10.06am: Phil Willis to Ben:

A lot of homeopathic medicine is prescribed in France and they "aren't dying in their droves". Why should we worry.

Ben G: "The MHRA endorsing them is extremely problematic."

"This is a £1.5bn industry that is able to influence the regulator."

"Sugar pills are being treated ceremonially."

"I don't think Wilson could tell the difference between one of his arnica pills and one of his arsenic pills."

10.11am: Jayne Lawrence (Royal Pharmaceutical Society):
We'd contest it's better for pharmacists to be present when consumers buy homeopathic substances - and consumers should know there's no evidence that they are effective (beyond placebo).

Q: "How can you ensure that pharmacies are keeping to your ethics code?"

Jayne Lawrence: There's an inspectorate that go out and check. So far no warnings issued through that route. One complaint mentioned that came in from the public.

10.16am: The discussion has turned to whether pharmacists are being trained properly to sell homeopathic treatments.

Brown: Raises the point that homeopathic anti-malarial prophylactic substances are being sold on the high street without scientific evidence.

Goldacre: "If you ask a pharmacist, including those at Boots, you'll get a reply that is not in keeping with the evidence."

He suggests that pharmacists are recommending homeopathic treatment without making it clear there are no active ingredients.

10.25am: Robert Wilson: "There are a great deal of things within orthodox medicine that people don't understand." Just because you don't understand the mechanism doesn't mean you don't use them.

Wilson: "Anyone can make an arnica pill. My business for arnica if £5m in this country." Asking who is going to pay for the research into homeopathy?

MPs Q: Can you categorically say it doesn't work?

Bennett: "I could not categorically say it does not work."

Brown: "The placebo effect is very powerful. People do heal. You would expect to see people benefit from taking a placebo."

Goldacre: "There's no evidence homeopathy pills are better than placebo. It's not worth doing more placebo trials, because it would be good money after bad."

Jayne Lawrence: It doesn't work beyond placebo.

Wilson: One of our best sellers are teething granules for babies. [He's saying babies don't experience the placebo effect.]

10.31am: MPs Q: How do you determine between a good homeopath and a bad homeopath?

Brown: "Anybody offering medical advice needs to have medical training."

MP talking about Niels Bohr and Max Planck [quantum mechanics]. He's asking if [homeopathy] is the same thing - a weird quirk of physics. That's hilarious. Quantum theory came about between 1910 and 1925 and works well enough to make iPhones and so on. Nonsense.

10.33am: Robert Wilson: "We just haven't yet understood these highly dilute substances."

He's comparing homeopathy to the idea of personalised genetic treatments. Interesting. Flawed, but interesting.

10.35am: Evan Harris MP: Asking what Wilson's scientific qualifications are.

Wilson: "What interests me are arguments in conventional medicine that resonate with homeopathy. I have none other [qualifications] than an interest."

"We need to have more research into homeopathy, research that can stand up to some of the criticisms that it faces."

10.47am: Next session up:
MP: Is there any ...

'Racist' Michelle Obama pic removed

Hot Girls website apologises over 'monkey' picture that had been appearing at the top of Google Images searches

A blog hosting an offensive image of Michelle Obama with monkey features has removed it and posted an apology.

The image, which has been appearing at the top of search results when the words "Michelle Obama" are put into Google Images, was posted on a blog called Hot Girls, which is hosted by the Google-owned blog service, Blogger.

Hot Girls' owner has today removed the image, which appears to have originally been put up with a blog post on 21 October, and displayed an apology in Chinese with a very loose English translation.

Google had refused to remove the offensive image from its picture search listings, despite complaints that it is racist, instead opting to run an ad next to it explaining its policy on how search engine results work.

A spokesman for Google said that the Hot Girls blog and image may still temporarily appear when some users make Google Images searches but that it was coming out of the search engine's indexing system.

Earlier today Google's ad explaining why it kept the image in search listings was being sporadically replaced by other ads.

A spokesman for Google UK said the company was looking into why that was happening for some users and that it was not a "deliberate" action to remove the explanation.

"We would generally keep it [the explanation] up for as long as the blog [hosting the content] was up," he added.

Google warned, however, that the image of the US first lady could easily reappear in its listings if another blog posted it.

It is not the first time that Google has taken out explanation ads against search queries. In 2004 when searches for the word "Jew" returned antisemitic website results Google responded with a similar approach.

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The Jane Andrews I knew

The press portrays the former royal aide as a gold-digging harpy because our society can't deal with the complexities of abuse

The twirling cursive on the envelope made her dispatches instantly recognisable. I began corresponding with Jane Andrews, who absconded from an open prison in Kent last Sunday, in the autumn of 2001, some months after her conviction for killing her partner Thomas Cressman. The story was a gift: a working-class girl from Grimsby who answered an anonymous advert for a personal dresser in the Lady magazine and rose to become one of Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York's most trusted confidantes, before the loss of her job on the royal staff precipitated a decline into depression, romantic obsession and murder.

At the time of her trial, the headlines were unequivocal. Dubbed the "Fatal Attraction killer", she was portrayed as an unstable and emotionally manipulative individual, who beat her boyfriend with a cricket bat then stabbed him through the chest with a kitchen knife in a vengeful rage after he refused to marry her. She was a gold-digger and a devious social climber, it was said, desperate to secure her position among the glamorous elite that represented the antithesis of her impoverished childhood. Furthermore, she attempted to destroy Cressman's reputation by claiming that, on the morning of the day he died, he had tied her up and anally raped her.

This confection of the steely arriviste did not match remotely the fragile woman I first encountered in the rowdy visiting suite at HMP Bullwood Hall that October afternoon, the red prisoner sash hanging loose across her thin frame, working her hands nervously in her lap. But the truth is many-minded and rarely simple. Over the next two years, through letters, visits, and the audio cassette tapes she would record for me in the long hours after bang-up, I tried to piece together a more nuanced portrait of this tabloid-constructed harpy and heard far more detail about Andrews's early life and her relationship with Cressman than had been revealed at trial. In essence, she told me that she had been sexually abused by a close family member as a child, and that her boyfriend was a dominating individual whose sexual demands ? including anal sex, bondage and role-play ? she found degrading but acquiesced to.

Our exchanges were never simple. A year after her incarceration, she was diagnosed as suffering from a borderline personality disorder, a condition characterised by extreme variation in mood, a chaotic sense of self and an "I hate you, don't leave me" approach to interpersonal relationships. She could be a neurotic, frustrating and unsympathetic witness. But every so often I would catch a glimpse of the stylish and outwardly confident young woman she used to be. "She was so good to know," one close friend told me. "You can't imagine how great it was to be with her. But she never believed that she was loved."

It soon became clear to me that Andrews's experience of domestic abuse could not be neatly compartmentalised. Domestic violence is not only about black eyes and split lips, and victims are not always nice. Cressman's abuse manifested itself in far more subtle forms of control. Colleagues would remark upon how sweet it was that her boyfriend picked her up from work each evening. For Andrews, such solicitous behaviour had a more sinister meaning ? it was to ensure that she was never alone with anyone else but him. And in their sexual encounters, a combination of learned shame from childhood and the pattern of submission for affection it had prompted in adulthood, left her particularly vulnerable.

Why didn't she tell anybody? Another friend of hers suggested to me that secrecy was embedded in Andrews's psychology. "Don't forget she spent 10 years with the royal family. She was intensely loyal. She trusts no one." Why does any woman not tell? Fear, shame, a sense of failure: feelings that can only be compounded when the most intimate act of partnership becomes a site of violation.

Last month, BBC1's estimable Criminal Justice strand told the story of a fictional victim of domestic sexual abuse who finally snapped, which I felt sure must have been inspired by the Andrews case. Juliet was a comfortably middle-class housewife, with a beautiful daughter and an attentive husband who brought her home white roses at the end of another high-earning day. He also took camera phone snaps of her makeup drawer morning and evening to check what she had used, and buggered her nightly.

As a society, we have advanced hugely in our attitudes to domestic violence over the past few decades. But it remains the case that only specific types of abuse and specific types of victim are believed by juries. Andrews had no physical scars to parade. But she had scars nevertheless.

Hounded by the press throughout her time in prison, there were more wilfully histrionic headlines this week, suggesting the Duchess of York and the Cressman family were in a state of "terror" and requiring police protection. Following another failed suicide bid, the only person Jane Andrews is a danger to is herself.

Teacher, 39, jailed for sex with 15-year-old pupil

Religious education teacher paid for boy to have tattoo during week-long relationship

A religious education teacher who admitted 10 charges of engaging a 15-year-old pupil in sexual activity has been jailed today.

Madeleine Martin, 39, of Knutsford, Cheshire, admitted beginning a week-long relationship with the boy, who was under 16 at the time, when she appeared in court in September.

Today she was sentenced to 32 months in prison at Manchester Minshull Street crown court. Martin was also suspended from her job at a Greater Manchester school, which cannot be named for legal reasons.

The court was told that Martin had qualified as a teacher four years ago and first met her victim in September 2008.

The pair began communicating via the Facebook social networking website and their contact escalated into a sexual relationship.

On 9 February she asked the boy to do something that would remind him of her when they were apart. She drove him to a tattooist and paid for him to have "Mad" and a heart etched onto his skin.

They then drove to a secluded area, where they had sex. The boy quickly decided to end their involvement and told Martin.

He eventually told his mother what had happened and she immediately reported the matter to police in April.

Judge Jonathan Geake told her: "It is clear that your life came to a very low ebb. Unhappily it was against that background that you were trusted with mentoring this young teenage boy who himself was vulnerable in the sense that he was having his own difficulties at school.

"It is clear from the way in which the prosecution presented that case that rather than mentor him in the proper way, you used him as an emotional support and comfort for yourself rather than the other way round.

"You started to abuse the trust you were entrusted with. Eventually you lured him into intimacies which should never have happened and which you now admit should never have happened."

Mark Fireman, in mitigation, said his client had brought "shame on herself and her family" and had lost her career, and her friends. He said at the time of sexual contact she was going through a "very difficult time in her personal life". Her relationship with her husband had ended, and her sister was suffering from terminal cancer and eventually died.

"The matter left her extremely depressed and perhaps vulnerable to thoughts and actions that would not have normally have taken place."

He added: "It is an incident that she bitterly, bitterly regrets. She knows that she has caused great harm."

In a victim impact statement, the boy said he had been taunted by his fellow pupils and had not returned to the school. He also said he was embarrassed to show people the tattoo Martin had encouraged him to get. His mother told the court that her relationship with her son had suffered, and that he had become lethargic and lost interest in his hobbies. She added: "He has lost the sparkle he always had."

Outside court, Detective Sergeant Dave Moores of Tameside Child protection unit said: "Martin's actions will leave emotional scars on her victim and his family and have also impacted on the wider community.

"I would like to praise the bravery of the victim in speaking out and ensuring justice was done for him.

"I am satisfied that she has been given the sentence she deserves and hope this will send a strong message that this behaviour will not be tolerated."

He added that Martin would remain on the sex offenders' register.

Swine flu test positive on boy who died

Five-year-old who died on Sunday had swine flu but cause of death not yet established, officials say

A five-year-old boy who died at Milton Keynes hospital on Sunday had swine flu, but it was not yet clear whether the virus caused his death, health chiefs said today.

Further tests are being carried out on the boy, who was from Olney, Buckinghamshire.. Diane Gray, deputy director of public health for Milton Keynes, said: "It is important to remember that swine flu is widespread in communities across the country. For most it has been a relatively mild illness but sadly, similar to seasonal flu, for the few it has been much more serious."

Emberton school, near Olney, closed on Monday after the boy's death but has since reopened.

More than 200 people in Britain have died with swine flu, and yesterday the Health Protection Agency said research suggested one in five children would have had the H1N1 strain, with about half developing no symptoms.

The government has said there is no evidence the virus has changed or become more dangerous, but has said children aged between six months and five years will be offered the vaccine once high-risk groups ? such as those with long-term health conditions or pregnant women ? have been immunised.

Obama 'to attend Copenhagen climate talks'

White House official says US president will travel to Copenhagen before heading to Oslo to accept the Nobel peace prize

The US president, Barack Obama, will travel to Copenhagen next month for the UN's global climate conference, a White House official said today.

The official said the president will be in Copenhagen on 9 December before heading to Oslo to accept the Nobel peace prize. Obama's attendance had been in question until now.

At least 65 world leaders will attend the summit in Copenhagen to thrash out a global warming treaty to succeed to Kyoto protocol. Obama has said the goal should be an agreement that has "immediate operational effect," not just a political declaration.

The official spoke today on the condition of anonymity because the formal announcement has not been made.

Obama had previously said he would only attend the conference if "we are on the brink of a meaningful agreement and my presence in Copenhagen will make a difference in tipping us over the edge".

Earlier this month, the UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, confirmed he would be at the Copenhagen talks, along with other world leaders including the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd.