Eternally indulged, Ms Spears is a wreck, incapable of taking care of her most basic needs. Of course her lawyers claim she should care for her children, and there is nothing wrong with her owning a gun.
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The girlfriend of Wayne Carey claims she was glassed by him, but she still loves him. Maybe it is the drugs they share?
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The lawyer for Haneef Mohammed has been cleared of wrongdoing in leaking a highly prejudicial transcript of police interviews.
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A man who hid his wife's remains in a drum for 25 years, telling his adolescent children that their mother ran off with a truck driver, has claimed he did not kill his wife, only hid her remains.
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An off duty policeman has been shot, a few months after he had been stabbed. Turns out that crime statistics have been masking the truth that violence is on the rise. The reason why the statistics haven't surfaced is because healthcare has prevented the deaths.
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January is said to be the hottest on record, although that is not the experience anywhere outside the meteorologists garden.
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Rudd warns his budget will look nothing like the election promise.
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Sacked nurses are working as cleaners. One guesses that IR advert will come back to haunt the ALP.
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Hicks has been warned not to tell his story. Rudd says he hasn't the bottle to stop him.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Haunted By Our Mistakes
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Britney Spears 'classified as gravely disabled'
from news.com
TROUBLED pop princess Britney Spears has reportedly been classified as "Gravely Disabled".
Spears was taken to the UCLA Medical Centre at about 8.30am (last night AEDT) and was to be placed on a 5150 hold, the involuntary confinement of a person deemed a danger to themselves or others, celebrity website TMZ.com said.
TMZ has since reported that Spears's classificiation - one of the criteria for involuntary commitment - means that she is unable to care for basic needs such as the acquisition of food, clothing or shelter.
"Several health care professionals tell us Britney has fallen into a 'manic state' due to her bipolar disorder," TMZ reported.
"We're told Britney screamed, 'The only reason she's admitting me is because she wants to be alone with her boyfriend! She wants to sleep with my boyfriend!!' Britney never said exactly who she was talking about."
A psychiatrist treating the singer contacted Los Angeles police to set the events in motion, TMZ said, citing “law enforcement sources.”
A Los Angeles Fire Department ambulance transporting the 26-year-old singer was escorted by dozens of police on motorcycles, while a police helicopter hovered overhead, according to a Los Angeles Times account.
The operation appeared to have been “carefully planned over a period of time,” the Times said, with a motorcade the length of a football field surrounding the pop star and keeping photographers and onlookers at bay.
Spears was told of her impending confinement by her psychiatrist and did not resist when paramedics arrived and placed her on a gurney, TMZ said.
The doctor told police of concerns about her reckless driving and erratic behaviour, the website said.
Spears had not slept since Saturday, it said.
The troubled singer was stripped of access to her two young boys at the beginning of the month, after another hospital drama.
During that incident Spears was wheeled out of her home on a stretcher following a stand-off which began when she reportedly refused to release her two children - Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1 - to ex-husband Kevin Federline's bodyguard.
Spears was taken to the Cedars Sinai Medical Centre for mental evaluation before she discharged herself two days later.
Spears, one of the most successful pop stars of her generation, has been locked in the custody feud with Federline since the couple separated in 2006.
A judge limited the pop star's access to her children in October after she failed to submit to random drug testing as demanded at an earlier hearing where the court ruled Spears was a “habitual and continuous drug user.”
Her latest attempt to regain visitation rights to her two sons was rejected last week after she failed to appear for a Los Angeles court hearing, officials said.
With AFP
Wayne Carey's girlfriend heard on 911 call
By Stefanie Balogh
WAYNE Carey's distraught girlfriend Kate Neilson can be heard in the background of the dramatic 911 tape which details the fallen AFL legend's alleged "glassing" of her in a five-star Miami hotel last October.
The tape, released by Miami Police, is between a hotel security officer and an emergency services 911 dispatcher and a fire rescue operator sometime after midnight on October 27.
A hotel security officer at the exclusive Mandarin Oriental Miami hotel from the Azul Restaurant who identifies himself as Charles says on the tape Neilson was allegedly assaulted "just inside the restaurant we have a lady who has a cut lip on her mouth. She ah, glass was broken. Right now it appears there was a disturbance …"
He describes Neilson about 30-years-old.
Dispatcher: "Is she conscious?"
Charles: "Yes she is."
Dispatcher: "And is she breathing?"
Charles: "Yes she is."
Asked by the dispatcher where the man is who assaulted her, the security officer says: "We don't know where he is. He left the restaurant."
He says she is bleeding. "Inside the mouth."
"Yeah. There's a big piece of glass. He broke the glass. Like he hit her with a piece of glass, inside her mouth, lip area."
Carey is described as a white male and Neilson is heard to answer the question that he is the guest of the hotel.
The security officer says Carey is about six feet, two inches tall but Neilson can be heard in the background in a distressed and high-pitched voice saying "six foot, four".
He then asks Neilson which room they are staying in. She is heard to say "room 1215".
The security officer asks if the man is her husband, she responds "boyfriend".
Another dispatcher says: "We're going to send the police out there. If anything happens…call back immediately okay."
Miami police were called to the five-star hotel about midnight on October 27 and found Carey asleep in his room.
Official police reports say when they woke him he appeared drunk, angry, starting yelling out obscenities and began lashing out at officers.
Miami police have described him as an "out of control thug" who "clearly has anger management issues".
He was allegedly so violent he was handcuffed and had to be placed in a "hobble" – a leg restraint used for out of control offenders.
Carey was taken to the Dade County Jail in Miami where he spent 14 hours in the lock up before being released on $32,500 bond.
He has been charged with assaulting a public servant, resisting an officer with violence, and aggravated battery and faces up to 15 years in a US jail.
His next court date is February 15 but it is a procedural matter and he is unlikely to be required to attend until his trial.
Revelations of the Miami charges come after Carey, now more infamous for his off-field behaviour than his prowess on the football field, was subdued in Port Melbourne on the weekend with capsicum spray and handcuffed after he allegedly assaulted two Victorian officers.
'I knew her body was in the drum'
from news.com.au
A MAN has told a Victorian court he was convinced the remains of his ex-wife's missing mother were inside a drum his father-in-law kept at the family home.
A MAN has told a Victorian court he was convinced the remains of his ex-wife's missing mother were inside a drum his father-in-law kept at the family home.
Frederick William Boyle, 58, of Carrum Downs, who is on trial in the Victorian Supreme Court, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife Edwina Ruth Boyle 25 years ago.
Mrs Boyle, then aged 30, disappeared from the home she shared with her husband and two young daughters, Careesa and Sharon, at Dandenong North, in Melbourne's outer southeast, on October 6, 1983.
Mr Boyle claimed she had run off with a truck driver named Ray.
Michael Hegarty, the former husband of Mr Boyle's eldest daughter Careesa, told a court that he had had a fixation with a drum kept in the backyard of the Boyles' home since 1990 when he met Careesa.
"It gave me chills and I was positive I knew what was in it," Mr Hegarty told the court.
Mr Hegarty said that he decided to finally open the drum on September 16, 2006, during a clean-up of the family home in Denis Court, Carrum Downs, in Melbourne's outer southeast.
"I had a thing about the drum for years," he told the court.
"For 16 years I thought Careesa's mum was in that drum and I was cutting it open."
When he cut the drum open he found women's clothes, including underwear and a large hessian bag, Mr Hegarty told the court.
But he did not look inside the hessian bag and later thought that Mr Boyle had loaded it and the other contents of the drum onto a trailer to be taken to the tip.
He said two weeks later he found the same hessian bag in a wheelie bin in the garage of the house, so he decided to look inside it.
"I pulled out what appeared to be a pelvis and human leg bone," he said.
"I continued to look through the bag and found a (human) skull."
Mr Hegarty told the court he then phoned Careesa and asked her to come home, before contacting police.
The remains found in the hessian bag were later identified as being Edwina Boyle.
The prosecutor told the jury Mrs Boyle was a devoted and loving mother who would never had left her two daughters, who were 10 and eight when their mother disappeared.
Defence lawyer Jane Dixon, SC, told the jury her client did not dispute that his wife died on the evening of October 6 and appeared to have been a homicide victim.
Ms Dixon said Mr Boyle did not dispute that he concealed her death and body for 23 years and falsely claimed she left him for a truckie.
"What is disputed is he cause her death and had any part to play in it,'' she said.
Mr Boyle never took "that logical step'' of destroying his wife's remains and had no motive to kill her.
The trial before Justice John Forrest is continuing.
WIth The Daily Telegraph
Haneef lawyer cleared of misconduct
from news.com.au
A LAWYER for Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef has been cleared of acting unprofessionally in the leaking of a police transcript to the media.
Barrister Stephen Keim SC admitted leaking the 142-page transcript to The Australian newspaper in July after his client was charged with providing support to a terrorist organisation.
In the police interview, Dr Haneef rejected several of the claims relied on by prosecutors, including that he lived with UK terror suspects Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed.
Within a fortnight, the charges against Dr Haneef had collapsed after Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions Damian Bugg reviewed the case and found there was no prospect of a conviction.
Dr Haneef, who worked as a registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital, has since returned to India to be with his family, but wants to return to Australia to complete his training.
Then prime minister John Howard and Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty condemned the leak and the AFP lodged a complaint with the Legal Services Commission (LSC) in Queensland.
A spokeswoman for Mr Keim said today the commission had decided not to pursue its inquiry.
She said the commission found Mr Keim had not acted unprofessionally.
Hicks warned not to sell story
By Steve Larkin
POLITICIANS have warned confessed terrorism supporter David Hicks not to test the law by trying to profit from his story, saying to do so would sicken Australians.
Hicks is reportedly fielding offers from about 30 media organisations worldwide to tell the story of his capture in Afghanistan and his more than five years in Guantanamo Bay.
His father, Terry Hicks, today said his son should challenge Commonwealth and South Australian laws prohibiting him from profiting from his story.
"This is only my view on what I would look at doing - go ahead and do it and see what happens," Mr Hicks said today.
"There are probably a few ways of testing the system.
"My personal view would be to write it, and put it out there and then let them deal with it."
Mr Hicks said his son had not decided whether to speak to the media when a gag order expires at the end of next month.
The gag order was a condition of Hicks' s plea deal with the US military commission that last year found him guilty of providing material support for terrorism, but let him serve out a jail term in Australia.
Hicks was released from Adelaide's Yatala Jail in late December, after the federal and SA governments passed legislation making it illegal for him to profit from telling his story.
"It is going to be a hell of a circus and people out there will want their ounce of blood and would be asking some pretty tough questions to him," Mr Hicks said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson both said today it was not their place to determine whether Hicks should profit from selling his story.
Both said it was up to relevant directors of public prosecutions to decide whether to apply for a freeze of proceeds from any paid interview.
"I'm not going to make a judgment as to how the detail of his case applies to the proceeds of crime act, that's up to others," Mr Rudd told the Fairfax Radio Network today.
Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson said it would be offensive for Hicks to sell his story.
"Mr Hicks selling his story for the money is sickening and I think it would be at the least offensive to those families of Australians who have given their lives to fighting terrorism," Dr Nelson said.
Mr Atkinson said Hicks should obey the law.
"It's clear that the Commonwealth and the State Parliament, by overwhelming majority, believe that he shouldn't engage in cheque book journalism about his experiences," he said.
"I'd like to see any money from David Hicks telling his story go into the victims of crime fund here in South Australia, that is what the law says, that is what should happen."
Hicks, 32, was detained by the US at Guantanamo Bay for five and a half years after being captured among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.
He pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism at a US military commission hearing last year and was jailed for seven years, with all but nine months of that term suspended.
Under a plea bargain, Hicks served out the sentence at Adelaide's Yatala jail and was released on December 29. He is currently subject to a control order, which restricts his movements.
Sacked nurses working as cleaners
By Michelle Draper
THE management of a small Victorian hospital which closed this week will front an industrial hearing on Monday amid claims nurses are being forced to work out their termination notice as cleaners and clerks.
The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) is taking the management of Phillip Island's Warley Hospital to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) for failing to provide the nurses with details of their entitlements.
The 85-year-old private not-for-profit Warley Hospital on Phillip Island, a popular holiday destination, closed yesterday, leaving the island without an acute care facility.
Nineteen nurses had lost their jobs as a result of the closure, ANF acting assistant secretary Paul Gilbert said.
He said "to add insult to injury'', nurses were being required to return to Warley after the closure to work as cleaners or clerks, until their notice periods expired.
Nurses also were told by a senior staff member that the hospital had less than $5000 in the bank to pay entitlements, Mr Gilbert said.
Warley Hospital chief executive Lindsay Lynch said he had not been notified of the hearing and refused to comment on any of the claims.
Mr Gilbert said the ANF sought Monday's hearing after Warley failed to comply with orders set out by a previous industrial relations commission hearing on January 22.
Under an agreement reached at that hearing, Warley was required to provide details of pay entitlements owed to terminated employees by January 25.
Mr Gilbert said he hoped the AIRC hearing would resolve the dispute over entitlements.
"We definitely don't want people to be returning as cleaners and clerks,'' he said.
"It's to make sure they're getting paid and that they don't have to continue working beyond the 31st, when the acute ward closed.''
The latest claims follow speculation last year that the hospital had considered selling off vital medical equipment in order to pay staff their wages.
The hospital's board of management had pleaded with the Victorian and federal governments to intervene and save the facility.
While refusing to throw the hospital a lifeline, the Victorian Government yesterday pledged to provide alternative after-hours care for Phillip Island's 8000 residents.
The hospital's 35 aged care beds will be taken over by Mercy Health, along with its liabilities of about $2.5 million, but the 13 acute care beds have closed.
A mock funeral service will be held to mourn the loss of the hospital at the St John's Uniting Church in Cowes, at 2.30pm (AEDT) on Sunday.
Shot officer had been bashing, stabbing victim
By Kara Lawrence
AN off-duty police officer shot in the stomach in a central Sydney park this morning was bashed and stabbed in a nearby suburb almost three months ago.
The 48-year-old constable raised the alarm after he was shot by a man near a toilet block at Centennial Park today.
Two men have been detained by police after a chase involving a police helicopter.
The officer was also the victim of an attack outside his home in nearby Randwick on November 8.
In that incident he was hit in the head with a brick and stabbed in the stomach after he confronted a man who was lurking outside.
His attacker in the earlier incident was never found.
"I can confirm this officer has been involved in a previous incident but I can't release any identity at this stage as we haven't informed all of the family," Assistant Commissioner Catherine Burn said today.
Man held
Police said no arrests had yet been made over today's shooting.
Ms Burn said a car had been seized by police and a man was helping police with their inquiries into the Centennial Park incident.
"We're happy to look at the car but no one has been arrested at this stage," she said.
Witnesses said a rifle was used in the attack and that police had been seeking two men of Middle Eastern appearance.
Ms Burn said police had not issued any descriptions of anyone they were seeking.
Ms Burn declined to comment on why the officer had been in Centennial Park this morning.
She also could not reveal whether any weapons had been recovered, nor comment on reports that two men of Middle Eastern appearance, one with a rat's tail haircut, had been seen driving away from the area in a late model Commodore.
She also would not confirm reports that a car reportedly stopped at Bexley, in Sydney's south-west, was a silver Commodore sought in connection with the attack.
"I can't confirm anything at this stage as the investigation has only just commenced, Ms Burn said.
- With AAP
Rudd warns of 'pain, difficulty' in budget
from news.com.au
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has warned of "pain and difficulty" for Australians in this year's budget as he declared inflation to be public enemy number one.
Mr Rudd said Labor would keep its promise of $31 billion in tax cuts, despite fears the cuts will feed inflation.
But he said the Government would be ruthless in the May 13 budget, promising to cut spending by about $4 billion to deliver a surplus of $18 billion.
"I'm sure there's going to be pain and difficulty emerging from some of these cutback decisions,'' Mr Rudd told the Fairfax Radio Network today.
"I think there'll be a fair bit of general difficulty arising from these cuts but let's be frank, the overall problem which working families are going to face is if inflation is let loose and starts to rip into people.
"And we have an overriding national economic responsibility not only to declare it as public enemy No.1 but to launch a coherent fight against it.
"If our predecessors had started this two years ago, we'd be in a much better position.''
Mr Rudd said unions must agree to rein in excessive wage rises to help head off rising inflation and potential interest rate rises.
Mr Rudd met with union leaders in Canberra last night to spell out the dangers to the economy from inflation, which hit a 16-year high in the last three months of last year.
He said the Federal Government would shoulder its part of the burden by delivering a surplus of $18 billion in the May budget.
Mr Rudd, Treasurer Wayne Swan and government officials worked until midnight on Wednesday night going through spending line by line to identify potential cuts.
"There are many, many areas that we can look to, which frankly are not core business for the nation, which we can take the axe to,'' Mr Rudd said.
"There'll be screams and squeals here and there and there'll be cries of saying, 'Well, why was that cut and this not?'
"I accept responsibility for that. Tough decisions have to be taken - we're doing it.''
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