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January 12
Robert Carr narrowly escaped injury in the explosion
1971: British minister"s home bombed
England have
Two bombs have exploded at the Hertfordshire home of Employment Secretary
Robert Carr causing serious damage.
The first device went off soon after 2200, near the kitchen of the house in
Barnet, where moments earlier Mr Carr"s wife Joan had been preparing some
drinks.
The second went off a few minutes later. A policeman answering an emergency
call after the first explosion was blown off his feet as he hurried towards the
house.
The explosions blew out windows and extensively damaged the ground floor of
the house.
Mr Carr, his wife and their youngest daughter, Virginia, 13, left the house
after the first explosion and took cover in a neighbour"s home. No-one was
hurt.
The blasts came after a day of protest against the new industrial relations
bill.
Mr Carr described what happened: "I had just opened my dispatch box to do
my evening"s work and there was this loud explosion.
"The windows in the room we were in weren"t blown in, but it was obvious we
could hear other windows blown in and when we looked out into the hall, the
front door had been blown open."
He said it was too soon to say who had planted the bomb and refused to be
drawn on whether the attack could have anything to do with the industrial
relations bill.
Mr Carr added: "I think it would be wrong to associate this with anything
at the moment.
"The police are investigating and until they"ve investigated it would
really be very foolish and wrong to suggest anything at all."
Mr Carr has been the chief negotiator with the unions over the industrial
relations bill, which passed its second reading in the Commons on 15
December.
The government hopes to reduce industrial disruption by introducing the
idea of strike ballots and a cooling off period before any action is taken.
There are also proposals aimed at limiting the practice of closed shop
agreements.
Labour and the unions claim the proposals are too restrictive and infringe
workers" freedoms.
Anna Climbie moved to Europe in 1998 for a better life
2001: Climbie carers guilty of murder
Artificially 1969:
The The carers of an eight-year-old girl who died after being tortured and
fed scraps of food like a dog have been found guilty of her murder.
The Home Office pathologist who examined her body declared it was the worst
case of child abuse he had ever encountered.
The girl"s aunt, Marie Therese Kouao, and her boyfriend Carl Manning were
sentenced to life imprisonment.
Judge Richard Hawkins described their treatment of Anna Climbie as "truly
unimaginable".
Manning denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter and child cruelty.
Kouao claimed that the girl"s death was due to witchcraft and denied all
charges.
Anna"s parents entrusted their daughter to her aunt in 1998. They sent her
away from her home in the Ivory Coast in the hope she would have a better life
in Europe.
The Judge told the court that Anna had left for France a "lovely child,
full of hope and love", but had become an "inconvenience" to Kouao and her
boyfriend.
The murder investigation and trial revealed a series of failings by the
police, two hospitals and three local authorities to protect Anna.
The Director of Social Services for Haringey Council, Anne Bristow
acknowledged that the first warnings of abuse were evident eight months before
Anna"s death.
"We should have acted to protect this child and accept responsibility for
our failure," she said.
The Health Secretary, Alan Milburn, has ordered a statutory inquiry. The
case has also been referred to the Police Complaints Authority.
Vocabulary:
infringe: to break; to violate; to transgress; to neglect to fulfill or
obey(侵犯;破坏) |
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发表于 2016-7-9 23:20:09