Portrait of the week
'There was increased concern about cor- ruption in the Metropolitan Police. A former Chief Constable of the Dorset force, who led Operation Countryman's in- quiry into London police corruption, said that senior officers at Scotland Yard had obstructed his investigation and that the Director of Public Prosecutions had failed to support him. The DPP and Scotland Yard both denied these charges. Lord Den- ning, the Master of the Rolls, retired at the age of 83. He had been a judge since 1944 and Master of the Rolls for 20 years. In one of his last judgments he ruled that the head- master of a private school who refused to admit a Sikh boy wearing a turban was not guilty of racial discrimination since the Sikhs were not an ethnic group. In the Court of Appeal the Lord Chief Justice rul- ed that an inquest should, after all, be held into the death of the nurse Helen Smith which took place in Saudi Arabia in 1979. Her body was subsequently brought back to England and has since been the object of numerous autopsies.
he aftermath of the Falklands war con- ' tinued to attract attention. The Government agreed to pay Cunard £15 million aid in order for the replacement ship for the Atlantic Conveyor to be built on Tyneside rather than in South Korea. It emerged that before she was requisitioned the Atlantic Conveyor had been laid up for months and that she was in any case near the end of her working life. Lord Mat- thews, the chairman of Cunard, declared himself highly satisfied with the deal. The Argentinian air force was re-equipped with Mirage jet fighters supplied by Israel. A Scots Guardsman, Philip Williams, aged 18, was found alive on the Falklands six weeks after he had been reported dead. He had been suffering from amnesia. Major- General Jeremy Moore, commander of British land forces in the Falklands and one of the few officers of his rank with recent fighting experience, was reported to be fac- ing enforced retirement due to his age (56).
In Lebanon, Israeli forces captured Beirut airport and strengthened their positions round the western part of the city. Few buildings within the besieged enclave were left undamaged by the Israeli bombard- ment, and hundreds more civilians were killed and wounded. Small amounts of water were obtained from East Beirut but this could not be distributed to the thirsty inhabitants as it was needed for fighting fires. Reporters visiting a Beirut hospital were shown the bodies of children who had been burnt to death by Israeli phosphorous
shells which had been fired at civilian areas. In Israel the cost of the eight-week war reached $1.2 billion, and the resulting infla- tion was said to be making life rather un- comfortable. In Kenya an attempt by members of the armed services to over- throw the government of President Daniel Arap Moi failed after nine people had died. There was fighting around the radio station in Nairobi and at a nearby air force base but order was restored within 24 hours. In Rome, the head of the Vatican's bank, Mgr Paul Marcinkus, adopted various diplo- matic stratagems in order to avoid being served with an official notice from the Milan investigating judge that he might be involved in forthcoming proceedings arising from the Sindona fraud case.
In Britain, the National Coal Board reported a record loss of £428 million. Lord Gormley, the former president of the National Union of Mineworkers, resigned as a governor of the BBC after he had taken a starring role in a commerical television advertisement for chocolate drops. In Belfast 29 men accused of Loyalist ter- rorism and murders were acquitted when a Loyalist 'supergrass' refused to give further evidence against them. There were en- thusiastic scenes as they left the court.
A 7Ib salmon was netted in the Thames near Hampton Court Palace. A Bristol fireman benefitted from an unusual opera- tion when the big toe and index toe from his right foot were amputated by surgeons and then transplanted on to his right hand which was fingerless following an accident. Surgeons said that more toes would be moved if the operation was a success. In France, 44' chidren were burnt to death when two holiday coaches crashed on a motorway outside Beaune. The strike by seamen working for British Rail channel ferries, which has become something of a summer holiday event, was settled this year within two days. Seamen's union leaders celebrated 'total victory'. British Rail simultaneously announced a 20 per cent cut in rail passenger services and explained that it was effectively bankrupt. PH M 'He should have kept his head down during the cease-fire.'
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