The week in review: Home News

Rosie Waterhouse
Friday 14 August 1992 23:02 BST
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THE IMAGE of peaceable, nature-loving New Age travellers, formerly known as hippies, was damaged after an illegal festival near Winchester when an incineration plant was wrecked as an estimated pounds 1m-worth of damage was caused.

The reputation of policemen suffered more damage when a policewoman claimed at an industrial tribunal that she was victimised by the Metropolitan Police after she made a complaint that she was raped and buggered by a colleague.

Her allegation was treated as an internal affair by Scotland Yard's complaints investigation bureau. The officer concerned was not suspended, and after the Crown Prosecution Service decided he should not face charges, was not disciplined and is still serving.

The 24-year-old constable lost her claim for compensation under the Sex Discrimination Act because the alleged rapist was off duty at the time and the force could not be held responsible for his behaviour.

The Government was looking for ways to restrain the 'demand-led' social security budget - ie make benefit cuts - in the same week that unemployment rose by 29,100, increasing the seasonally adjusted total above 2.75 million for the first time in five years.

Options are said to include cutting unemployment benefit from a year to six months, giving the out of work supplementary benefit instead. Apparently paying pounds 30 a week instead of pounds 40 will encourage scroungers to seek a proper job.

Britain's solution to the plight of Yugoslav refugees seeking asylum - to deport them - brought international condemnation and by the end of the week Baroness Chalker, the Minister for Overseas Development, was shamed into urging the Home Office to relax its immigration rules.

In order to avoid protests about the level of council tax on the lines of the campaign against the poll tax, householders may not be told what their bills will be until next year, just before they arrive. This will also give the Government more time to soften its impact.

Paddy Ashdown's affair with his former secretary was back in the news with Simon Berkowitz, the Conservative supporter who tried to sell a stolen document revealing details of the affair to the News of the World, on trial at the Old Bailey.

He was found guilty of handling the stolen document, and acquitted of the alternative charge of stealing it, from a safe in a London law firm. The jury was then told Berkowitz had 244 previous convictions, 230 for burglary.

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