Gordon Brown to promise crackdown on bad parents

Prime minister attempts to woo Middle Britain with tough line on anti-social behaviour

Gordon Brown will try to reconnect with middle Britain, and rescue his drifting leadership, by using his speech to Labour's conference today to return to the Blairite agenda of tough measures on irresponsible parenting and social breakdown.

The prime minister will say parents of errant children must lose access to benefits unless they agree to accept support to improve their parenting skills. It reflects overwhelming internal polling evidence that the public want stronger action on antisocial behaviour and blame society's ills on family breakdown.

Brown's move represents a return to the tough programme that served Tony Blair well politically, but was initially rejected by the Brownite circle as too punitive.

The speech, his last address to conference before the general election, is being crafted to show Brown has not just been a safe steward of the world economy, but will be a leader capable of understanding voters' anger over MPs' expenses, crime and the greed of the bankers.

His aides insist the speech will stand or fall on whether he can show he has a compelling future vision.

Brown's aides have also resolved to support the prime minister taking part in TV debates during the general election. Brown is expected to propose three debates, covering home affairs, foreign policy and economics.

In a lengthy passage on the state of society in today's speech, Brown will reject David Cameron's claim that Britain is broken, but will admit "the decent, hard-working majority are getting ever more angry ? rightly so ? with the minority who will talk about their rights, but never about the responsibilities".

The chance of Brown surviving as party leader to polling day was enhanced yesterday when Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, used a bravura speech to conference to promise his unswerving loyalty to the prime minister. Crushing suggestions that he will press Brown to stand aside this winter, he told Brown: "You will have my full, undivided attention and my full, undivided loyalty until we win that next election and beyond."

In his speech, Brown will say that parents of any child guilty of antisocial behaviour will be automatically subject to a parenting contract. He will also promise that all 50,000 of Britain's most chaotic families will be required by 2015 to attend family intervention projects, a form of intensive, often residential, one to one support. Labour aides claimed these projects would be available on every problem estate in England. The fourfold expansion of family intervention projects, costing broadly £50m over two years, could in the long run save £3bn, in lower welfare and crime bills.

He will seek to address voters' anger over binge drinking by extending the so-called drinks asbos nationwide, requiring courts to consider a drink banning order against anyone convicted of a crime or public order offence while under the influence of alcohol. These orders will give courts powers to ban troublemakers from entering premises.

The shift in rhetoric, part of a general effort to hit a more populist note, reflects pressure from the home secretary, Alan Johnson, for the government to regain the antisocial behaviour agenda developed by Blair, but rejected by many professionals working with young people.

In his first major speech on crime in the summer, Johnson admitted that a period of intense activity by the government on antisocial behaviour had been followed by "a certain degree of complacency on the issue". Johnson immediately announced measures to cut delays of up to two years in getting the courts to issue an asbo, making it easier for problems to be reported and to provide more counselling support for victims.

The renewed official interest in asbos follows two years which saw their popularity dwindle. The number of new orders issued was down by 30% and the children's secretary, Ed Balls, said he hoped to live in "the kind of society that puts asbos behind us".

Brown is also expected to announce further reforms to parliament, including the recall of MPs and some form of support for electoral reform, and to promise that Royal Mail will remain in public hands.

There were growing signs yesterday that the party modernisers were taking tighter control of Brown's leadership, with Mandelson using a fringe meeting to insist that the public sector may face as much as decade-long squeeze to restore public finances.

He said: "For the coming decade we are going to have to recast effective state social democracy rather than returning to big state social democracy; we have to come back to our reform agenda if we are going to make a success of what we need to do in this new spending period."

Brown was yesterday urged by two leading Blairites to strike out in bold new directions. The former home secretary David Blunkett, and the former health secretary Alan Milburn both called on him to announce he was going to scrap the Trident replacement programme.

Mandelson: election is 'up for grabs'

Standing ovation after minister apologises for making enemies and urges party faithful to be fighters, not quitters

A demoralised Labour conference sprang into life as Lord Mandelson, once demonised by rank and file delegates, was given a standing ovation after urging his party to recover its fighting spirit and appetite for change.

In his first conference speech since a startling return to the Labour cabinet last October, Mandelson, not known for his platform oratory, lifted the morale of a conference in Brighton that has looked as if it was reconciled to sleepwalking to a crushing election defeat.

Insisting nothing was inevitable in politics, he admitted the party was locked in "the fight of its lives", but said: "If I can come back, we can come back."

In a piece of deliberate theatrics, Neil Kinnock, the Labour leader in the 1992 election defeat, stood alone to one side in clear view of the delegates, a personal embodiment of the pain and loss involved in defeat.

Mandelson confided to the conference yesterday that he had always known deep down in his guts Labour was going to lose in 1992. He argued: "This time it is not cut and dried. This election is up for grabs. We may be the underdogs, but if we show people that we have not lost the fighting spirit and appetite for change which has defined this party throughout its history then we can win and will win."

The party, he said, had to show it was filled with fighters not quitters, a reference to his emotional speech when he retained his Hartlepool seat in 2001 after being sacked from the cabinet twice.

His central political message was a warning to his cabinet colleagues that the election will be "a change election", and "either Labour offer it, or the British public will turn to others who say they do".

He argued: "Let us remember that you win elections on the future not the past. Do not make the mistake of sitting back and expecting people to be grateful. We must not translate the pride we feel in what we have achieved into a defence of the status quo."

Picking up a phrase once offered by Tony Blair he said: "Labour had to remain the change makers in society; insurgents and not incumbents."

Although some of his speechwriters feared his address might seem self-indulgent, the packed conference hall adored it when he recalled Blair "had once said our project would only be complete when the Labour party learned to love Peter Mandelson. I think perhaps he set the bar too high." He added: "Though I am trying my best."

He also apologised if in the past he had sometimes made enemies needlessly, adding: "I was too careless with the feelings and views of others. But please accept this. It was for one reason only. I was in a hurry to return the party to where it should be, in government to help the hard- working people of our country."

Often seen as the man who would go to Gordon Brown this winter to tell him that he should stand aside for the good of the party, Mandelson instead offered him his "undivided loyalty".

He said: "Gordon, I'm proud to serve in your government as you lead the fightback against the global recession. You will have my full, undivided attention and my full, undivided loyalty until you win that next election and beyond."

Brown, Mandelson insisted, had made all the right calls through the recession. The electorate he argued would have to make a choice between "experience and change with Gordon's leadership, or the shallowness with David Cameron".

Drawing on New Labour's history, he said he, Brown and Blair had taken the party through the painful process of change. By contrast he argued "the truth is that the old Tory right that was rejected in 1997 are quietly feeling at home again with David Cameron, at home with his tax plans, at home with his barely-disguised glee [that] a new generation of Conservatives is showing at the prospect of deep and savage cuts".

He said Cameron had been pursuing a strategy of concealment. "The two faces of the Conservative party are increasingly on show. The one they want to present to the public of a revamped Tory party and the other that betrays the reality of the traditional rightwing Conservatism."

Talking about his business department, he disclosed that he was extending the car scrappage scheme to keep the motor industry and showrooms alive.

Looking back to the start of the financial crisis, Mandelson said: "The truth is growth was so strong we started to take it for granted. We nurtured finance, not wrongly, but we should have done more to nurture our other strengths as well."

Now the country needed "less financial engineering and a lot more real engineering".

Schoolgirl dies after HPV vaccination

? HPV vaccine batch quarantined as 'precautionary measure'
? Vaccination part of national immunisation programme

An urgent investigation has been launched after a 14-year-old girl died shortly after receiving a cervical cancer vaccination at her school.

Natalie Morton was a pupil at the Blue Coat Church of England School in Coventry, where she was given the human papilloma virus (HPV) jab yesterday. She was taken to Coventry University hospital, where she died at lunchtime.

A letter to parents posted on the school's website by the headteacher, Dr Julie Roberts, said a girl had suffered a "rare but extreme reaction" after being given the vaccine. The precise cause of her death remains unknown.

Three other girls from the school are reported to have experienced possible side effects of dizziness and nausea after receiving the Cervarix jab, which was given to female pupils as part of a national immunisation programme against HPV. Their symptoms were described as mild and none was taken to hospital.

Although no link has yet been made between Natalie's death and the HPV vaccine, NHS Coventry said it had quarantined the batch as a "precautionary measure" and had contacted the parents of other children at the school who may have been affected.

Dr Caron Grainger, joint director for public health for NHS Coventry and Coventry city council, said: "Our sympathies are with the girl's family and friends at this difficult time. The incident happened shortly after the girl had received her HPV vaccine in the school. No link can be made between the death and the vaccine until all the facts are known and a postmortem takes place." She added: "We are conducting an urgent and full investigation into the events surrounding this tragedy."

Dr Pim Kon, medical director at GlaxoSmithKline UK, which manufactures Cervarix, offered the company's "deepest sympathies" to the girl's family and friends.

"We are working with the Department of Health (DoH) and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to better understand this case, as at this stage the exact cause of this tragic death is unknown," she said.

Although national programmes also exist in other European countries, Britain is the only country to have opted to use Cervarix, rather than a rival brand called Gardasil.

Although the NHS said the drug underwent "rigorous safety testing" before being chosen for the programme, the shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, called for more transparency over the assessments made of Cervarix and Gardasil. "This is tragic news and will be deeply concerning for all the families involved," he said. "The DoH and the MHRA need to investigate, as a matter of urgency, what the cause of this is so they can assess how widespread the problem could be."

The public health minister, Gillian Merron, said: "It is important we have the results of further investigations as soon as possible to establish the cause of this sad event."

Cervical cancer is responsible for more than 1,000 deaths in Britain each year, with around 3,000 women diagnosed annually. The vaccine offers protection against HPV, a sexually transmitted disease most commonly linked with the cancer, and is thought to have safely been given to 1.4 million girls across the country, at a cost of around £242 per person.

The national programme to immunise all schoolgirls aged 12 and over began across the UK last autumn, with the aim of offering the vaccine to all girls under the age of 18 by 2011. The decision to immunise teenagers before they become sexually active has been controversial, with some critics of the programme claiming the treatment would encourage more teenagers to engage in sexual activity.

Police let down woman and daughter

Police errors and inaction were partly responsible for driving a vulnerable single mother to kill herself and her severely disabled daughter after years of abuse from youths, an inquest found today.

Returning a verdict of suicide on Fiona Pilkington, 38, and unlawful killing for her 18-year-old daughter, Francecca, whose bodies were found in a blazing car on a layby in October 2007, the jury decided that the police action "contributed" to the deaths, notably the failure of officers to connect dozens of separate calls for assistance.

The jury heard Pilkington contacted police on no fewer than 33 occasions in seven years in which youths throwing stones and shouting abuse had kept her a virtual prisoner in her home in Barwell, near Hinckley in Leicestershire. Asked how police were responsible, the jury said: "Calls were not linked or prioritised."

Tonight the Independent Police Complaints Commission said it was launching an investigation into the way the "distressing" case was handled, in particular, how seriously the police responded to Pilkington's calls for help.

The verdict also held the local council partly accountable for failing for years to take action against the young gangs, and criticised the county social services department for not referring Pilkington for professional help after she said she felt suicidal.

The coroner, Olivia Davison, said she would write to both the Ministry of Justice and Hinckley and Bosworth borough council, which was responsible with police for tackling antisocial behaviour in the area. "I am concerned about the evidence I have received in this inquest about the process for gathering and recording information from victims of antisocial abuse," Davison said. Separately, the jury blamed poor information sharing between the police and councils for contributing to the deaths, but also noted that Pilkington had neither "sought nor accepted" help on occasions.

Pilkington's blue Austin Maestro was found in flames on a layby by the side of the A47 near the family's home on the night of 23 October, 2007. Inside the car, which had been set ablaze with petrol, were the severely burned bodies of Pilkington and Francecca. The inquest was told that Pilkington probably took the family's pet rabbit in the car as well to soothe Francecca, who had a mental age of about four.

The six-day hearing was told a mass of evidence, at times deeply harrowing, of the way in which gangs of teenagers and children, some as young as 10, had kept Pilkington, Francecca and Pilkington's son, Anthony, who has milder learning difficulties, "under siege".

It also learned of the increasingly desperate attempts of a depressed, timid single mother with borderline learning difficulties herself to attract the sustained attention of officialdom to her plight.

Pilkington's 1930s semi-detached house, where she had lived for 15 years, was pelted with stones, while youths smashed bottles outside and jumped into the front hedge. On some weekend nights young people hung outside the house for hours on end, shouting taunts and insults.

In a harassment diary briefly kept by Pilkington in the year of her death, she recounted shouts outside her living room window from 11.30pm until the early hours. The entry ends: "Sat in the dark until 2.30am, stressed out."

One child of a particular family, named at the inquest as Family A, was identified as being heavily involved, with the inquest hearing that that family remained a menace to neighbours "to this day".

Apart from contacting police ? she did so 13 times in the year of her death ? Pilkington discussed matters with two antisocial behaviour officers from her borough council, dealt with a series of social workers and even wrote to her MP.

But no one was convicted of a crime, or even arrested before her death, although the identities of the main culprits were known to police and council officials.

The inquest was left with an increasing impression of organisational haphazardness ? even chaos ? with different agencies meeting regularly but failing to share information or establish basic facts.

Although much of the abuse centred on the taunts about the children's disabilities, police failed to recognise it as a hate crime rather than simple antisocial behaviour, which would have made it a far higher priority.

The inquest heard that at the time of Pilkington's death, Leicestershire police had not implemented the Home Office guidance on hate crimes issued two years earlier.

Hinckley and Bosworth council's community officers visited Pilkington but never learned until after she was dead that anyone in the family was disabled.

An official who dealt with her case in 2004 moved to Australia and his successor never learned of the family's problems for three years. Case files went missing or were destroyed.

The home secretary, Alan Johnson, called the case "shocking" and said police and councils had "some hard lessons to learn about past failures, which will be the subject of further investigations".

Responding to the verdict, the Conservative shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, said: "This case has horrified the nation, and the police claim that they aren't responsible for tackling antisocial behaviour was completely shocking.

"We need real action to stamp out antisocial behaviour, to get more police out of police stations and on to the streets, and to demonstrate to law-abiding citizens that the criminal justice system really is on their side."

Should Polanski be above the law?

The Chinatown director's arrest on a 32-year-old charge of underage sex has outraged the French government and his fellow film-makers. But then, France has a long tradition of treating artists differently

Jean Genet, the poet, novelist and playwright considered one of France's greatest 20th-century literary talents, was given up for adoption by his mother, a young prostitute, when he was one. Brilliant at school, he spent his childhood thieving and running away from home. Half his adolescence was spent in a young offenders' institution. He was dishonourably discharged from the army on a charge of indecency, roamed Europe as a vagrant, thief and homosexual prostitute, then spent a lengthy period in and out of jail in Paris following a dozen or so arrests for larceny, the use of false papers, vagabondage and lewd behaviour. By the time it was eventually published, his work, a subversive celebration of homosexuality, dishonesty and theft, was banned in America.

Long before that, however, the poet, novelist, dramatist and designer Jean Cocteau had stood up at one of Genet's many trials and unhesitatingly declared the as yet barely published author ? threatened by that stage with a life sentence as a repeat offender ? as "the greatest writer of the modern era". Genet stole, Cocteau added, "to nourish his soul and his body". Six years later, in the wake of a petition launched by Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso, the French president, Vincent Auriol, granted Genet ? by now the author of five novels, three plays and numerous poems ? a full and irrevocable pardon; he would never again be sent to prison.

The parallels with an Oscar-winning film-maker regarded as one of the most gifted cineastes of his generation, who was born in Paris of Polish refugee parents but spent his childhood in the Krakow ghetto, lost his mother in Auschwitz and his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, to a famously brutal murder, and was later accused of child molestation, unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, rape by use of drugs, oral copulation and sodomy are, of course, far from perfect. But they may go some way to explaining the French reaction to the arrest of Roman Polanski last weekend in Switzerland, on an outstanding 2005 international arrest warrant.

While other politicians decline to comment, the French culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, says he is "dumbfounded" by Polanski's "absolutely dreadful" detention, declaring forcibly that it made "no sense" for the director to be "thrown to the lions for an ancient story, imprisoned while travelling to an event that was intending to honour him: caught, in short, in a trap". The film-maker, Mitterrand continued, has "had a difficult life" but has "always said how much he loves France, and he is a wonderful man". There is, he added for good measure, "a generous America that we love, and a certain America that frightens us. It's that America that has just shown its face."

Meanwhile, a large group of French actors and cinematographers including Fanny Ardant, Pierre Jolivet, Jean-Jacques Beineix and Bertrand Tavernier have signed an angry petition calling for Polanski's "immediate liberation", considering it "inadmissible" that "an international cultural event paying homage to one of the greatest of contemporary cineastes" should be turned into "a police trap". Polanski, said their petition ? organised by Thierry Frémaux, director of the Cannes film festival ? is "a French citizen, an artist of international renown, and is now threatened with extradition. That extradition . . . would deprive him of his liberty. We demand that he be freed immediately."

France, acknowledges Edouard Waintrop, a veteran French critic who now programmes the Fribourg film festival, certainly has a longstanding tradition, dating back to the 19th century, of treating artists differently. "There's the notion of art for art's sake," he says, "a certain leeway that's always allowed to the creative artist. In the 19th century it was elevated into an ideology. It's true we have a rather different vision of artistic licence ? and, come to that, of licence in love." Agnès Poirier, a London-based French film critic and writer, agrees that "we are prepared to forgive artists a lot more than we are prepared to forgive ordinary mortals". Cocteau's celebrated 1943 testimony at the trial of Genet and the writer's subsequent presidential pardon, Poirier says, are a perfect demonstration of the notion that "in France, creative genius can usually get away with a great deal".

But in a country that has known its own share of child sexual abuse scandals, and been rocked rigid by the horrors of the Dutroux case in neighbouring Belgium, French commentators are well aware that leaping to the defence of a man who in 1977 pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl may not be universally appreciated or understood. Indeed, commenters on many of the French newspaper websites yesterday appeared more or less evenly divided between those who felt Polanski was being unjustly hounded for an unfortunate and long-forgotten mistake, and those outraged by any assumption that the film-maker merited special treatment.

This withering comment by "Acouphène" on Le Monde's website is typical of many: "You have to understand them, these poor stars. What's the point of being a celebrity if you can't have the women you want, whether they're above the age of consent or not, whether they're willing or not; if you can't flee abroad and prosper there while our country's justice system looks after you, circulate freely wherever you want to go to be awarded medals and charms at international festivals, and then mobilise opinion in your favour when things start to get tricky?" (Polanski's French citizenship protects him from extradition.) "PatrickO" wonders: "what would have happened if Mohamed, a factory worker from a working-class, immigrant-heavy suburb, had been accused of the same crime?"

Waintrop reckons that in the face of any accusation of paedophilia, child abuse or sex with a minor, "the reaction of the average French person will be pretty much the same as the reaction of the average American ? everyone finds that appalling." But many more French people, he reckons, will be moved to object to Polanski's arrest simply because of the way it was handled. "It's shocking, extremely shocking, that it was done like this, at a festival that was out to honour him; bizarre that Switzerland, a country where he has a house and spends time each year, should suddenly decide to be the only European country that's prepared to take this step, while so many others have allowed Polanski to travel freely," he says. "Why? It's all very strange."

France's famed anti-Americanism has little to do with the official French reaction, insists Frémaux. "I think the fact that so many foreign artistes have signed the petition ? Wim Wenders, Almodóvar, Kusturica, Michael Mann ? shows there is international disapproval of what's happened," he says. "And it's perfectly normal for our culture minister to defend Polanski. His job, his passion, is to be at the side of our artists, whether in moments of triumph or difficulty. No, we're not denouncing America here ? the American justice system must take its course, no one disputes that. No one is saying Roman is above the law, no one's saying that because he's rich and famous and a brilliant cineaste he shouldn't face justice. We're denouncing the form ? the fact that he was arrested on his way to an international festival."

What has inspired many French people's objections, agrees Poirier, is not anti-Americanism but "anti-prudishness, anti self-righteousness. There's a kind of feeling in France that America is acting essentially out of revenge against a very great talent, a man who basically never abided by America's rules ? even when he was the most celebrated director in Hollywood." The more so, Poirier adds, because a documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, by the investigative film-maker Marina Zenovich was widely seen in France last year.

The film argued convincingly that Polanski never denied the charges against him and that they were dismissed under the terms of a plea bargain: if he pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor and agreed to be confined for psychiatric examination (which he was, for 42 days), the American authorities' requirement for punishment would be satisfied. Judge Laurence Rittenband, however, was apparently prepared to tear up the deal, possibly because he was worried about public reaction to a lenient verdict. Polanski therefore fled ? as, his victim Samantha Geimer's lawyer implied strongly to Zenovich, anyone in their right mind would have done under those circumstances.

"It's obviously not a straightforward case, says Frémaux. "To look again at this now you'd almost need to put the 1970s on trial. Roman has always been extremely reticent about the whole episode. He never talks about it. But it's clear that the judge told him to plead guilty and do some time, and then he'd be OK. That's just one reason why this seems wrong." The fact that the man concerned carries a French passport and was responsible for Cul-de-Sac, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, The Tenant, Tess and The Pianist might also have something to do with it.

Should Roman Polanski be extradited?

Free Polanski, say France and Poland

Diplomatic war brewing as politicians and filmmakers lobby for release of Oscar-winning director after arrest on 1978 US warrant

Blog: Hollywood unites in Roman Polanski's defence

A diplomatic war was brewing today over the arrest of the filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was detained in Switzerland on a decades-old warrant relating to the rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

France and Poland urged Switzerland to free the 76-year-old director on bail and said they would be lobbying the US government all the way up to the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.

Frédéric Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said the arrest was proof of the "frightening" side of America.

"In the same way as there is a generous America which we love, there is also a certain kind of America which is frightening, and it is this America which has now shown us its face," he said.

Reports this afternoon said the director had refused to voluntarily go to the US to face charges, raising the prospect of a long and drawn-out legal saga.

Despite being held in Swiss custody for two nights, Polanski remains "totally combative and determined to defend himself", one of his French lawyers said.

Hervé Temime told France Info radio a request for bail would be made today and that he would be "surprised and disappointed" if permission was not granted.

"We are going to start by requesting he be let out of detention, which should in theory happen today," said Temime. "There is no reason ... to keep Roman Polanski in prison.

"I hope we can very quickly bring to an end this situation which seems to me to be totally grotesque."

Polanski is in good spirits, his agent said today. "His voice is strong ... he's very anxious to get this resolved and go home," Jeff Berg told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Berg said the film director's arrest on a 1978 US warrant as he arrived in Switzerland from France was a surprise because he has had a house in the country for more than a decade.

"It is surprising because Roman, for the last 12, 15 years, has lived in Switzerland. He has a home; he travels there; he works there," he said.

"His presence there is well-known, as it is through much of Europe, so this came kind of as a shock, given the fact that he was invited to Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award."

Polanski, the director of Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby, had travelled to Switzerland to accept an award at the Zurich film festival. The event's organisers expressed "great consternation and shock" at his detention.

He has hired the Swiss lawyer Lorenz Erni, of the Eschmann & Erni firm, to fight any extradition charges.

The Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda and other Polish filmmakers have appealed to the US, Swiss and Polish authorities for the Paris-born Polanski to be freed.

Jacek Bromski, head of the Polish Filmmakers Association, said Polanski had spent all of August at his house in the German-speaking village of Gstaad, south-west Switzerland, working on his latest movie, The Ghost.

"Nothing happened" to him during that time, Bromski said, adding that in the eyes of the public, Polanski has already "atoned for the sins of his young years".

Polanski has strong links with Poland, having moved to the country with his Jewish family as a child shortly before the second world war.

His mother died in a Nazi concentration camp but he avoided capture and spent his youth in Poland before moving to the west.

The director has held French citizenship for many years and is married to the French singer and actor Emmanuelle Seigner.

He has spent much of his life in France since fleeing the US in 1978 but regularly visits countries that do not have extradition treaties with the US.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, wants to see the director reunited swiftly with his family, Mitterrand said.

Polanski pleaded guilty to the assault in 1977 but jumped bail and fled the US the following year to avoid a lengthy prison sentence.

He has spent more than three decades in exile in Paris, refusing to return to the US even when he won an Oscar for The Pianist in 2003.

Zurich police said he had been detained in the city on Saturday night at the request of the US justice department and was in custody awaiting extradition.

"There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming," Guido Balmer, of the Swiss justice ministry, said. "That's why he was taken into custody."

Polanski was 44 and already a twice Oscar-nominated director when he had sex with Samantha Gailey, a 13-year-old model he had hired for a photoshoot, at Jack Nicholson's home in Los Angeles in 1977.

He claimed the sex was consensual, saying the girl was "not unresponsive", but Gailey said he drugged her with painkillers and champagne before carrying out a "very scary" assault.

In recent months, Polanski's lawyers have been seeking, through the US courts, to have the rape charges against him dropped after saying new evidence had emerged in a documentary to show he was the victim of "judicial misconduct" at his original trial.

The documentary showed a former Los Angeles deputy district attorney admitting discussing the case with the trial judge while it was ongoing.

200 pages to save the world?

Draft agreement being discussed ahead of December's crucial Copenhagen summit is long, confusing and contradictory

Interactive: Beginner's guide to the negotiating text

It is a blueprint to save the world. And yet it is long, confusing and contradictory. Negotiators have released a draft version of a new global agreement on climate change, which is widely billed as the last chance to save the planet from the ravages of global warming.

Running to some 200 pages, the draft agreement is being discussed for the first time this week as officials from 190 countries gather in Bangkok for the latest round of UN talks. There is only one short meeting after this before they meet in Copenhagen aiming to hammer out a final version.

The draft text consolidates and reorders hundreds of changes demanded by countries to the previous version, which saw it balloon to an unmanageable 300 pages. It has no official status yet, and must be formally approved before negotiators can start to whittle it down. Here, we present key, edited sections from the text and attempt to decipher what the words mean.

The text includes sections on the traditional sticking points that have delayed progress on climate change for a decade or longer.

? How much are rich countries willing to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, and by when?

? Will large developing nations such as China make an effort to put at least a dent in their soaring levels of pollution?

? How much money must flow from the developed world to developing countries to grease the wheels and secure their approval? How much to compensate for the impact of past emissions, and how much to help prevent future emissions?

According to the UN rules, for a new treaty to be agreed, every country must sign up ? a challenging requirement. The new treaty is designed to follow the Kyoto protocol, the world's existing treaty to regulate greenhouse gases, the first phase of which expires in 2012. Because the US did not ratify Kyoto, the climate talks have been forced on to awkward parallel tracks, with one set of negotiations, from which the US is excluded, debating how the treaty could be extended past 2012. This new text comes from the second track, which lays out a plan to include all countries in long-term co-operative action.

Behind the scenes, pessimism about the Copenhagen talks is rising. Despite references in the text to a global goal and collective emission cuts of 25-40% by 2020 for rich countries, many observers believe there is little chance such an approach will succeed.

Stuart Eizenstat, who negotiated Kyoto for the US, said: "Copenhagen is more likely to be a way station to a final agreement, where each country posts the best that it can do... The key thing is let's not go into Copenhagen with all the same kind of guns blazing like we did in Kyoto."

A top European official told the Guardian: "We've moved on from the idea that we can negotiate on targets. That's naive and just not the way the deal will be done. The best we can get is that countries will put in what they want to commit to."

Once all the carbon offsets ? buying pollution credits instead of cutting emissions ? and "fudges" are taken into account, the outcome is likely to be that emissions in 2020 from rich countries will be broadly similar to those in 1990, he said. "That's really scary stuff."

G20 officer to be charged with assault

Sergeant Delroy Smellie faces up to six months in prison if found guilty of attack on woman

A police officer who allegedly struck a woman during the G20 protests in London a woman is to be charged with assault, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.

A CPS spokeswoman said Sergeant Delroy Smellie would be charged with assault of Nicola Fisher and he will appear at Westminster magistrates court on 16 November. He faces up to six months in prison if found guilty.

Smellie, a member of the Metropolitan police's territorial support group, was suspended from duty two months ago after footage emerged of him near the Bank of England, apparently hitting Fisher, 35, with the back of his arm.

He was also shown appearing to strike her on her legs with a baton as she attended a vigil for the newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson, who had died the previous day. She said the incident left her with severe bruising.

A CPS spokeswoman said: "The Crown Prosecution Service has decided that there is sufficient evidence to charge Police Sergeant Delroy (Tony) Smellie with the offence of assault by beating of Nicola Fisher on 2 April, 2009 at a demonstration in the City of London.

"The CPS reviewed a file of evidence provided by the Independent Police Complaints Commission following their investigation into Ms Fisher's allegation. A summons has been served on Sgt Smellie."

The CPS said there was not sufficient evidence to charge him for a second assault, against another female protester.

Fisher gave evidence to the home affairs select committee last month, which has hosted one of two parliamentary inquiries into policing of the G20 protests. There has been five independent IPCC investigations following the G20 protests in April.

Prosecutors have also been asked to consider whether the Met officer who attacked Tomlinson should be charged with manslaughter. A CPS spokeswoman said that case remained under review and a decision would not be taken for a few months.

"We have been asked to look at whether the officer involved should be charged with any offence, and no decision has currently been taken," she said.

Tomlinson was attempting to find a route home from work through the protests when he was struck by police near the Bank of England. Video footage revealed that he had his hands in his pockets and was walking away from lines of police.

Three of the independent IPCC investigations into the G20 protests relate to alleged assaults on women. The commission has received 282 complaints about the police at the G20 event, 135 relate to the use of force and 79 relate to police tactics.

Investigator goes after Madoff's family

Trustee intends to sue fraudster's sons, brother and niece for $200m

The bankruptcy trustee picking apart Bernard Madoff's corrupt investment empire intends to sue the fraudster's sons, brother and niece for the recovery of nearly $200m (£126m) in ill-gotten gains as part of an attempt to recover funds for victims of Wall Street's biggest Ponzi scheme.

Irving Picard, who was appointed by the courts to wind down Madoff Investment Securities, told CBS he intends to file lawsuits as early as this week.

Madoff's sons, Andrew and Mark, ran the legitimate trading and market-making arm of their father's firm. The fraudster's brother, Peter, was chief compliance officer of the family business while Madoff's niece, Shana, was its compliance lawyer. All deny any knowledge of his corrupt activities.

Victims who lost their savings argue that even if those around him knew nothing, they should have smelled a rat. Picard says Madoff's relatives withdrew large sums from accounts at the firm with little or no original investment.

"Whether or not they have a criminal problem, we will pursue them as far as we can pursue them," Picard said. "And if that leads to bankrupting them ? then that's what will happen."

Picard says that money used by Madoff's sons to buy luxury property, including a $6.5m beach retreat in the island resort of Nantucket, amounted to "fraudulent transfers". Picard's chief counsel, David Sheehan, said: "When his brother took out money or his sons took out money, they were taking out customers' money."

Sheehan said he believed Madoff's brother and sons knew of the fraud, given their senior roles in the company: "I think clearly they would have to have known what was going on given their own personal transactions, the longevity of what was happening, and the responsibilities as officers of the company."

About 2,500 people lost a total of some $13bn at the hands of Madoff, who spent at least two decades passing himself off as a legitimate fund manager while doing virtually no genuine trading. The 71-year-old is serving a 150-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to fraud, theft and international money laundering.

When Madoff was arrested in December, his firm was claiming to clients that it had assets of $65bn. Liquidators have found $1.5bn to date but Picard believes that "millions and millions" of dollars have been secreted away. Picard has already sued Madoff's wife, Ruth, for $44.8m and the authorities have put the couple's homes in New York, Long Island and Palm Beach up for auction.

Among Madoff's victims were well-known figures such as the Nobel prize-winning author Elie Wiesel, the Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon and the Spanish movie director Pedro Almodovar.

The fraudster's family members maintain that they, too, should be considered victims. Martin Flumenbaum, a lawyer representing Madoff's sons, pointed out that Andrew and Mark Madoff turned their father into the FBI when he confessed his fraud to them in December.

"We strongly disagree with the trustee's allegations, which are entirely baseless," Flumenbaum said. "Mark and Andrew Madoff had no prior knowledge of Bernard Madoff's crimes and contacted the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission immediately after their father told them he had defrauded his investment advisory clients."

Madoff's sons have shunned their father, declining to visit him in prison. Andrew Madoff became so irate at accusations over his position at his father's firm that he became involved in a brawl with a former colleague outside a Chinese restaurant in Manhattan earlier this year.

Madoff's brother, Peter, issued a similarly robust response to Picard. John Wing, his lawyer, said his client had lost millions of dollars as a result of Madoff's activities: "Any suggestion that Peter Madoff knew that his brother was engaged in this Ponzi scheme is absurd."

Westerwelle sets sights on foreign ministry

He is in some senses the real winner of the German election. While Angela Merkel was savouring her re-election today and starting to form a centre-right coalition, Guido Westerwelle of the Free Democratic party was basking in his sudden emergence as kingmaker, a role likely to propel him to foreign minister in Germany's next government.

Westerwelle, 47, the first openly gay leader of a mainstream party, is credited with securing his pro-business FDP its best performance in six decades and sweeping them back into power for the first time in 11 years. Even though the coalition is not expected to be finalised until 27 October, Westerwelle wasted no time setting out his priorities.

Before talks had begun, he launched into what could be one of several sticking points between the FDP and Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), by declaring he wanted to get rid of the last US nuclear arms on German soil.

The Christian Democrats see the 20 weapons as a necessary deterrent and want them to stay for the time being. "I think Germany can do its part to open a new chapter of disarmament," he said. "It would be smart."

Earnest and durable, Westerwelle is known for a sharp tongue. When Peter Ramsauer of the Christian Social Union (CSU), Merkel's junior coalition partner, said the FDP had "borrowed" voters from the CSU, Westerwelle snapped back: "There are no borrowed voters. Anyone who voted for the FDP is now an FDP voter, it's that simple." When a BBC correspondent asked a question in English at a press conference, he replied: "In Great Britain people are expected to speak English and it is the same in Germany, people are expected to speak German."

Westerwelle hopes to make his mark on the new centre-right government by pushing for lower taxes, slimmer government, a relaxation of labour laws, more free market ideals and a lifting of restrictions on genetically-modified crops.

He made it clear that the party expected to be treated with respect in a CDU coalition, stressing that it was only due to the FDP's strong poll results that the centre-right coalition had a chance of existing.

Westerwelle became leader of the FDP in 2001 and had two previous opportunities to enter a coalition government, but held out, saying he wanted to govern with the conservatives, because with them he would have to make fewer compromises.

But he has also said he wants to "free" Merkel from her "social democratic cage", a reference to criticism that she has turned to the left in the last four years. He has revamped the party, attracting new members, typically young or budding entrepreneurs with a penchant for Burberry checks and Ugg boots. After snide jokes from rightwing circles about his sexuality, he went on the offensive in 2004 by coming out and presenting his long-term partner, Micky Mronz, a sports events manager. He also famously invited the media to meet Mronz's mother.

Westerwelle is still ridiculed for his populist campaign for the 2002 elections when he printed the soles of his shoes with '18', the percentage the FDP hoped to achieve.

As foreign minister he would prioritise human rights in China and Russia, as well as disarmament, but generally he would like to see continuity in Germany's foreign policy, including supporting the Bundeswehr's participation in Afghanistan.

A government insider said he gets on well with Merkel. "They share a common interest in art and culture and speak regularly on the phone," the source said.

Pledge from 'Mum'

Angela Merkel vowed today not to change her leadership style, amid speculation that Germany's new political landscape would give her the freedom to pursue tougher policies. Discussion throughout the German media focused on whether a more hardline Merkel might emerge now that she has managed to discard her junior coalition partners of four years, the Social Democrats, in favour of the more rightwing FDP. Der Spiegel asked: "Will Merkel mutate from 'Mum' to 'Iron Lady'?" Merkel appeared amused at the speculation, telling a press conference: "Just as you've got to know me, a pleasure you've enjoyed for a few years, so I will remain."

Berlusconi paper urges TV licence boycott

? Public broadcaster RAI censured for airing interview with escort
? Berlusconi causes controversy over remarks about Obamas

A Berlusconi family newspaper has advised Italians to stop paying their television licence fee to punish Italy's public television service for broadcasting an interview with an escort who allegedly spent the night with the prime minister.

Patrizia D'Addario's first appearance on Italian television, broadcast last Thursday by the current events show Annozero, drew 5.6 million viewers, but triggered the ire of the economic development minister, Claudio Scajola, who threatened sanctions against the RAI network for broadcasting "trash, shame, infamy and dirt".

Berlusconi has denied paying for sex.

The Italian opposition leader Dario Franceschini called the threats against the state broadcaster an act of "censorship" and "intimidation".

On Sunday Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Berlusconi's brother, Paolo, launched a front-page campaign against the licence fee, as did Libero, a pro-Berlusconi newspaper.

"If RAI is a public service it should be at the service of the public that pays the licence fee and not at the service of haughty preachers whose toxic stump speeches twist information for political ends," wrote Il Giornale's editor, Vittorio Feltri, today.

The newspaper printed a sample letter to send to the tax office to request removal from the register of licence payers. The consequence, the paper stated, could be a visit from tax inspectors to see if a television was on.

"Reading between the lines, it appears Il Giornale does not think anyone will actually show up to check," said Gianluca Di Ascenzo, vice-president of the consumer group Codacons. Licence fee evasion already runs at 30% in Italy.

Feltri was singled out by Berlusconi for applause at a political rally on Sunday, during which Berlusconi again found time to produce another joke about Barack Obama's "tan". He told supporters he was bringing greetings from the G20 meeting in the US from "What's his name? Some tanned guy. Ah, Barack Obama!" He added: "You won't believe it, but two of them went to the beach, because the wife is also tanned."

His previous remarks about the US president's skin colour appear not to have gone down well with Michelle Obama. In photographs taken at last week's G20 summit in Pittsburgh, she was seen greeting many leaders with a kiss, but holding out a formal hand when the time came to say hello to Berlusconi.

However, Berlusconi insisted at yesterday's rally that the relationship between Rome and Washington remained intact.

He delivered a backhanded compliment to the US president when referring to Obama's use of a teleprompter in speeches: "He's not reckless, like those of us who say what comes to mind. We all asked ourselves: 'Does he know what he's doing, or is he just someone who knows how to read well?'"

He added: "But he's all there, in a big way, and that should make us all happy and satisfied because we need the greatest democracy, the greatest country, to be in trustworthy hands."

Sex abuse rife in other religions, says Vatican

The Vatican has lashed out at criticism over its handling of its paedophilia crisis by saying the Catholic church was "busy cleaning its own house" and that the problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches were as big, if not bigger.

In a defiant and provocative statement, issued following a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva, the Holy See said the majority of Catholic clergy who committed such acts were not paedophiles but homosexuals attracted to sex with adolescent males.

The statement, read out by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, defended its record by claiming that "available research" showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.

He also quoted statistics from the Christian Scientist Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common.

He added that sexual abuse was far more likely to be committed by family members, babysitters, friends, relatives or neighbours, and male children were quite often guilty of sexual molestation of other children.

Nor did The statement said that rather than paedophilia, it would "be more correct" to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males.

"Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."

The statement concluded: "As the Catholic church has been busy cleaning its own house, it would be good if other institutions and authorities, where the major part of abuses are reported, could do the same and inform the media about it."

The Holy See launched its counter?attack after an international representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, Keith Porteous Wood, accused it of covering up child abuse and being in breach of several articles under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Porteous Wood said the Holy See had not contradicted any of his accusations. "The many thousands of victims of abuse deserve the international community to hold the Vatican to account, something it has been unwilling to do, so far. Both states and children's organisations must unite to pressurise the Vatican to open its files, change its procedures worldwide, and report suspected abusers to civil authorities."

Representatives from other religions were dismayed by the Holy See's attempts to distance itself from controversy by pointing the finger at other faiths.

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, head of the New York Board of Rabbis, said: "Comparative tragedy is a dangerous path on which to travel. All of us need to look within our own communities. Child abuse is sinful and shameful and we must expel them immediately from our midst."

A spokesman for the US Episcopal Church said measures for the prevention of sexual misconduct and the safeguarding of children had been in place for years.

Of all the world religions, Roman Catholicism has been hardest hit by sex abuse scandals. In the US, churches have paid more than $2bn (£1.25bn) in compensation to victims. In Ireland, reports into clerical sexual abuse have rocked both the Catholic hierarchy and the state.

The Ryan Report, published last May, revealed that beatings and humiliation by nuns and priests were common at institutions that held up to 30,000 children. A nine-year investigation found that Catholic priests and nuns for decades terrorised thousands of boys and girls, while government inspectors failed to stop the abuse.

Guardian Daily: Labour fights back

Michael White reports on Labour's last-ditch conference before the next election. Political editor Patrick Wintour examines the party's Operation Fight-back. Climate Secretary Ed Miliband is enthusiastic, but blogger Paul Richards reckons many MPs and delegates have not turned up.

Victory for Angela Merkel and her right wing alliance in Germany's national election. The Guardian's Berlin correspondent Kate Connolly has been telling us about the main issues during the election campaign and our European editor Ian Traynor analyses the impact of the Chancellor's election success.

As Iran ramps up it's show of defiance with missile tests, diplomatic editor Julian Borger discusses the potential repercussions ahead of an important meeting this Thursday in Geneva between Iranian officials and the UN security council.

The Guardian recently gave half a dozen political household names the chance to turn the table on their TV interviewers. Hear Ann Widdecombe, George Osborne, Vince Cable and William Hague interview Jon Snow, Andrew Marr, Stephanie Flanders and Emily Maitlis respectively.

24 hours in pictures

A selection of the best images from around the world

Islamic prayers on Capitol Hill

Members of a Harlem mosque travel to Washington for a mass prayer service to inspire America's beleagured Muslim community