News.Scotland.Org

Scotland, Apr 11: After enduring ten years of theft attempt, a collection of rare paintings of David Roberts worth £500,000 will be kept for display next year at the National Galleries of Scotland. The 19th century art works of David Roberts were owned by Helen Guiterman who left the painting to The Art Fund charity in 1998 and it didn’t get fulfilled. For forging Helen Guiterman’s will her cousin’s grandson Shaun Gray was sentenced to three years of imprisonment.

The Art Fund has taken several steps to make sure the wishes of Guiterman to get fulfilled. They began to study the case after a delay occurred in handing over of the art work and they also found that Gray is the executor of the will. When The Art Fund found that Gray had forged the will and indulging in false accounting they raised the alarm. Gray was arrested when he plead guilty of charges levelled against him.

Gray also forged the documents to make himself owner to the valuable properties of Helen Guiterman that includes estate and collection of six oil paintings and 51 watercolours of David Roberts. The Art Funds finally recovered the art works and will take necessary steps to ensure its safety until it could be legally owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.

The collection of rare art works of renowned painter David Roberts includes famous Nuns in the Calefactory at Carmona. Robert hailed from Stockbridge in Edinburgh and was born in the year 1796. He is very popular and critically acclaimed during his lifetime. The paintings from the collection will be kept for display in the exhibition named Imagining Spain: From Goya to Picasso, The British and Spain to be held from 18 July to 11 October next year.

Scotland, Mar 24: As an attempt to restrict the number of forced marriages several initiatives were put forth by various organisations. The Scotland based Islamic foundation has suggested for a new legislation to tackle the issue effectively. They feel the civil powers in England are sufficient enough to take restrictive measures to help the people to get rid of forced marriages.

While commenting on this the chairman of the Islamic foundation, Osama Saeed said: “A comprehensive debate is what needed to find an effective solution. According to Islam a marriage will be valid only after both parties are agreed to it. He termed forced marriages as an injustice held responsible in many cases by people who happen to be Muslim and they originate from certain parts of the world where it does happen.”

He also pointed out that: “There seems a decrease in the number of forced marriages that is because of the change in the attitude of the people in Scotland. An effective legislation will intensify the process and bring in effective changes in the mindset of the people. Giving shape to new legislation will help to tackle the issue of forced marriage that exist in our society and it will send a positive message that this is a violation of human rights and it cannot be tolerated.”

Ms Saeed also added that an explicit debate is what needed in Scotland. The issue of criminality should be an option on the table and it is up to the victims to decide about the changes need, they can also get the help they need.

March 19

If you are a dog owner then think twice before freeing rein of your dog while taking them on a walk. In one of such interesting case a woman claimed £160,000 damages as she injured her knee when she was knocked over by a black labrador. The judge sentenced the dog owner to pay her the compensation amount. Ruling the claim of the women the dog owner said the woman was just victim of an accident.

This case has added another number to the innumerable compensation cases which has now taken shape of a growing culture in Scotland. Daily several such incidents occur regularly in Scotland. In the case of Caroline Spencer a taxi passenger who went to court to get compensation after she suffered a whiplash in a low speed accident. Many such cases are registered daily in the law records.

These figures are raising a severe concern of how immature are people behaving and has highlighted a serious problem creeping in our society. But as every coin has two sides, in the same way few people are also cashing in with such bogus claims and skipping away with compensation.

March, 12

The plastic money is making news this time for a whopping 25 per cent rise in its false use in UK. These debit and credit card frauds have jumped to a great level in the past three years. Even the banks suffered a loss of £535m by the use of such stolen or counterfeit cards.

These cases of fraud use of UK credit cards were recorded at a high in overseas, where those cards were used to buy products through internet, phones and mails. The banks suffered a loss of £208m this year by the fake use of these cards in overseas.

It was noticed that the chip-and-pin technology has proved to be help in reducing this growing fraud. With the launch of this new card such frauds will have an adverse effect. Meanwhile those countries where this technology is still not available, there the criminals are getting away with their fraud acts.

Meanwhile the banks are planning to bring out the chip-and-pin cards all over the Europe by 2010. This move will curb all such card frauds and would help the baking sectors to lower their losses by such fake cases.

March, 5

Britain now-a-days is facing a severe problem of road rage; the situation has become so grim that one in every three driver is a victim of road rage. Research has revealed that more than ten million motorists had been always on the receiving end of another’s aggressive behaviour. Even the study shows that this strange behaviour of road rage, not only restricts to obscene gestures and abusive languages, but many a times takes dangerous form.

It is also known that the actual figure of this growing problem is far more, as many cases are not reported for various reasons. Looking at the figures one can trace that about 64 percent of the people admitted to have suffered with aggressive behaviour. Even the the approach of motorists has changed a lot as few of the motorists claims that it is good to be slightly aggressive on roads.

Study also shows that bad driving makes people to loose their temper. About 59 percent of the people who admitted to road rage have agreed that, it was bad driving which has put them to this situation. The growing stress is making their problems worse and making life dangerous for drivers.

The problem needs to be tackled soon as the cases of road rage have taken a major toll on the motorist of Britain. And this trouble has to be sought out soon, to make driving safer and stress free for the people.

March, 1

The thieves are these days cashing in with a new valuable commodity in Scotland. It seems they have shifted their trend of stealing and are moving as per the market condition. It is noticed that the rise in the fuel prices across Scotland has given rise to the incidents of diesel thefts immensely. This jump in the prices of fuels have made diesel as important as any other valuable item, thus giving the thieves many reasons to make quick money.

Many cases of diesel theft from farms and good yards across Scotland are reported on a daily basis. It is also known that these thieves use to combine copper and lead with diesel and resale it making good profits. According to police sources these thieves are targeting fuel tanks at farms and goods yards to perform their thefts. Police have also warned the farmers and yard owners to take security measures and be watchful for any such incidents.

Other than that many spates of diesel thefts has also been reported in many areas around Aberdeenshire and Borders. In one of such incident over 1000 litres of diesel were stolen from a farm in Balquidder, Stirlingshire recently. It was told that the thieves drain off the fuel from three 5000-litre tanks. Many more such cases have occurred in recent months across Scotland raising an alarm for police to curb these increasing diesel thefts soon or this problem would take a big shape.

Scotland, Feb 29: A dog was electrocuted as it walks past the lamp post in Dundee. The owner of that dog Keith Baar and Barbara Miltner have demanded a full and formal investigation about the incident. The dog named Milou is aged 12. Technical fault on the low voltage electricity network is considered as the reason behind the incident.

While responding to this Scottish Hydro Electric said that the problem will not affect human being, although when a person touches the post he will feel an itchy sensation.

“When I, my husband and Milou walk past the post Milou suddenly fell on the ground. It was not even barking instead we heard a horrible shrieking noise. We can’t understand the reason behind that. My husband bends down on his knees to hold her still. He immediately withdrew on identifying something wrong with the spot as the dog was tingling all over. Later we found that she was electrocuted,” said Ms Miltner.

She further added that: “I’m angry and shocked. Milou was like a member of our family for the past 12 years. We flew her across the Atlantic because we couldn’t stay away from her. She came everywhere with us and did everything with us for the past 12 years.

“The tragic death of the dog has created disturbance in the minds of the neighbouring residents. The Taits lane, the spot where the incident happened is always busy as it is used by several pedestrians every day,” said the councillor for the west end, Fraser Macpherson.

Meanwhile a spokeswoman for the Scottish Hydro Electric said: “It is an unusual situation and we are investigating the reasons behind this sad incident. We are in direct communication with the owners of the dog. We assure the resident that there is no risk to them at any time.”

Scotland, Feb 27: Christopher Brookmyre the writer renowned for his crime novels including Quite Early One Morning, A Big Boy Did it and Ran Away and Boiling a Frog, visited Baldragon Academy a school in Dundee.

He also interacted with the pupils and shared his views about writing crime stories. He was impressed by the interest shown by the pupils of Baldragon. The students of the Baldragon Academy are composing short stories that will be published as a single volume; this is as part of Write Here, Right Now project put forth by BCC Radio Scotland.

While commenting on this Mr. Brookmyre said: “The main challenge of short story writing doesn’t lies in making it exciting but the real challenge lies in making it short as possibly. The students are keen to hear the tips and are excited about their work being published in a book form.”

He further added that: “A perfect crime story needs some essential elements such as intrigue, mystery, some kind of suspense, violence and in my case usually something totally inappropriate.”

The Baldragon Academy pupils are eagerly expecting their compiled short stories to be released by the end of May. The budding writers will get a new mould and their perspective of story writing will also be widened as a result of these initiatives.

Scotland, Feb 12: According to a new statistics released by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) the number of prisoners in Scotland jail has reached an all time high. At present there are 7,609 people left behind bars including 393 women.

Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary opined that the total number of prisoners were about 1,000 beyond its maximum capacity. The Justice Secretary will visit the only female prison in Scotland, HMP Cornton Vale to monitor the functioning of the jail while coping with the overcrowding issue. The minister will be accompanied by the members of the justice committee of the Scottish parliament.

While commenting on this he said: “The number of female inmates has experienced a 90% rise in the last decade. The other side of the problem is that we imprison far greater than other countries in the world. The chief inspector of our prison used to hint regularly about the problem linked to overcrowding.”

He further added that: “We have to implement some fresh policies in this area the formation of independent Prison Commission to gat a wide perspective about the purpose of prison in a modern Scotland, is considered as the first step in this regard.”

Since 1991 the average prison population of Scotland has increased by 51.6%.

January, 30

With the growing terrorism and terrorist activities, a new initiative was taken to eradicate this huge threat in Edinburgh. The shop workers in Edinburgh are not only busy in their daily work these days, but are also learning the art of tracking these terrorist. These shop workers are taught the skills to spot out these terrorist and also to identify suspicious packages. In this training program several delegates from various retail and security sectors took part.

The project named Griffin training seminar not only included the Edinburgh shop workers, but it also roped in several experts from Edinburgh City Council, Lothian and Borders police and Counter terrorism branch from London police. All these expert minds discussed about the growing terrorism and the ways and measures to contour them with proper planning and formulation.

They also put forth the need for civilians to step up and contribute their efforts to slow down the terrorist activities around them. In this seminar it was also discussed that, the police look for positive assistance from public to identify any such suspicious activities which can be helpful to stop any untoward incidents. It was also felt that time has come when all should act together to throw out terrorism from our society.

Meanwhile plans are to make Edinburgh safe from all such terror threats and improve the security of the place for a better and safe tomorrow.