pharmacist Mitesh Patel jailed for life after murdering wife to start new life in Australia with boyfriend

Crime reporter(wp/es):

An "evil" pharmacist has been jailed for life after murdering his wife so he could start a new life with his boyfriend in Australia.

Mitesh Patel, 37, received a minimum sentence of 30 years for killing Jessica Patel at their Middlesbrough home in May.

Patel injected the 34-year-old with insulin and strangled her with a Tesco "bag for life".

He then staged a break-in to make it look like an intruder had attacked her and bound her with tape.

Jailing him at Teesside Crown Court on Wednesday, Mr Justice Goss told Patel: "You have no remorse for your actions.

"Any pity you have is for yourself."

The victim's younger sister, Divya, had read a statement on behalf of the victim's sisters and close cousins ahead of the judge passing sentence.

She said: "The one thing we hope and prayed for, above anything else, was that in her final moments she did not suffer.

"The cruel reality is that she did in fact suffer, she knew exactly who her killer was, and he mercilessly ignored her attempts to fight for her own life as he ended it.

"We can only imagine the fear and panic she must have felt knowing herself this was it. Thinking of that moment makes our hearts so heavy."

Addressing her brother-in-law in the dock, she said: "As will she rest in heaven, you will rot in hell."

She added: "Only Mitesh himself can truly answer why he did this. Everything he has done has been purely for selfish reasons.

"He could've divorced her, taken everything he wanted - he did not need to take her life, he had no right to take this evil, cruel and malicious step."

Patel had been found guilty on Tuesday after a 12-day trial.

The couple ran a successful pharmacy together but their marriage was unhappy, with the husband repeatedly seeking sex with men he met on the Grindr dating app.

And he was secretly in a relationship with his "soulmate" boyfriend, who had emigrated to Sydney.

May's Brexit deal under fire as legal advice stiffens opposition

Political reporter(wp/Reuters):
Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal came under fire from allies and opponents alike on Wednesday after the government was forced to publish legal advice showing the United Kingdom could be locked indefinitely in the European Union’s orbit.
After a string of humiliating parliamentary defeats for May the day before cast new doubt over her ability to get a deal approved, U.S. investment bank J.P. Morgan said the chances of Britain calling off Brexit altogether had increased.

As investors and allies tried to work out the ultimate destination for the world’s fifth largest economy, the Northern Irish party which props up May’s government said legal advice about the deal was “devastating”.

May was forced by parliament to publish advice from the government’s top lawyer about the fallback mechanism, or backstop, to prevent the return of border controls between British-ruled Northern Ireland and the EU-member Irish Republic.

“Despite statements in the Protocol that it is not intended to be permanent and the clear intention of the parties that it should be replaced by alternative, permanent arrangements, in international law the Protocol would endure indefinitely until a superseding agreement took its place,” the advice said.

“In the absence of a right of termination, there is a legal risk that the United Kingdom might become subject to protracted and repeating rounds of negotiations.”

Brexit, the United Kingdom’s biggest economic and political shift since World War Two, has repeatedly plunged British politics into crisis since the shock 2016 vote to leave the EU.

Now May is trying to get her deal approved by a parliament which shows every sign of striking it down in a vote on Dec. 11. It is unclear what happens if the deal is rejected as Britain is due to leave on March 29.

Nigel Dodds, the deputy leader of the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party, said the legal advice proved that Northern Ireland would be treated differently to the rest of the United Kingdom.

BREXIT REVERSED?

On Tuesday, just hours before the start of a five-day debate in the British parliament on May’s Brexit deal, a top law official at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) said Britain could pull back its formal divorce notice.

“The UK now appears to have the option of revoking unilaterally and taking a period of time of its own choosing to decide what happens next,” J.P. Morgan economist Malcolm Barr wrote in a note to clients.

He placed a 10 percent probability on a no-deal Brexit, down from 20 percent, and a 50 percent probability on an orderly Brexit, down from 60 percent. The chance of no Brexit at all doubled to 40 percent from 20 percent, in a sign of perhaps the biggest shift in perception since the 2016 vote to leave.

Britain’s pro-Brexit trade minister Liam Fox said it was now possible that Brexit would not happen. There was a real danger that parliament would try to “steal” Brexit from the British people, Fox told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday.

Sterling, which has see-sawed on Brexit news since the referendum, traded well off the 17-month lows it hit on Tuesday, lifted by suggestions that Britain may opt not to leave the European Union after all.

In the June 23, 2016 referendum, 17.4 million voters, or 52 percent, backed Brexit while 16.1 million, or 48 percent, backed staying in the bloc.

If parliament rejects her deal, May has warned Britain could leave without a deal or that there could be no Brexit at all.

Supporters of Brexit have said that if Brexit is reversed, the United Kingdom will be thrust into a constitutional crisis as what they say the financial and political elite will have thwarted the democratic will of the people.

While May’s Conservatives and the main opposition Labour Party both say they respect the 2016 vote to leave, a growing number of backbench members of parliament say the only solution may be a new referendum giving voters an option to stay in the EU.

If the deal is voted down, some members of parliament from both main parties have said they would act to stop a Brexit with no agreement, which business chiefs and investors fear would weaken the West, spook financial markets and block trade.

Drugmaker UCB backs Brexit Britain with 1 billion pound investment

Business reporter(wp/Reuters):

Belgian drugmaker UCB (UCB.BR) expects to invest about 1 billion pounds in Britain over the next five years, throwing its support behind the country’s life sciences sector despite Brexit uncertainty.

The move is a fillip for Prime Minister Theresa May, who is battling to win support for a Dec. 11 parliamentary vote on her agreement with Brussels on Britain leaving the European Union next March.

UCB said on Wednesday that its investment would include 150 million to 200 million pounds on a purpose-built research centre. The new site will also house an early manufacturing facility and a hub for commercial operations.

The Belgian group has had a major presence in Britain since buying Slough-based antibody drug developer Celltech in 2004. However, a looming lease expiry on its current site in the town west of London prompted it to review global options.

In the event, Chief Executive Jean-Christophe Tellier said Britain came out on top as the most suitable site, thanks to its strong science culture. The decision will support 650 jobs and means the UK will remain home to one of UCB’s two global discovery research centres, with the other being in Belgium.

A year ago the British government trumpeted similar investment commitments by MSD, known as Merck & Co (MRK.N) in the United States, and German-based diagnostics company Qiagen (QIA.DE).

The highly regulated drugs sector is one of the most vulnerable to Britain’s decision to leave the EU because of uncertainty over how medicines oversight will function in the event of an abrupt exit.

But pharmaceutical companies are still attracted by the country’s world-class talent in biological science and its reputation as a significant centre of drug development.

Man ‘who stabbed pregnant partner to death with pair of scissors did not want any more children,’ court hears

Pic:Attack: Andra Hilitanu suffered multiple injuries to her chest and neck
Crime reporter(wp/es):

An expectant father who stabbed his pregnant girlfriend to death with a pair of scissors and waited more than two hours to call 999 “had not wanted any more children”, the Old Bailey heard. 

Ioan Campeanu, 44, attacked Andra Hilitanu in the bathroom of their home in Neasden, killing the 28-year-old and their unborn child, it is said.

He was caught on CCTV leaving the flat after the stabbing and driving his red Mazda into central London before returning an hour later and eventually calling emergency services. 

Brian O’Neill QC, prosecuting, told jurors Campeanu was accused of being violent and abusive to Ms Hilitanu, and his grown-up daughter knew “her father had not wanted any more children”.

Mr O’Neill said Ms Hilitanu had told friends she wanted to leave Campeanu and she had been due to return to her native Romania on May 28. But she was still at their home when she was stabbed to death early on June 1. A flatmate had heard a noisy argument and screams.

Jurors heard that 40 minutes after Campeanu drove home he phoned emergency services and confessed to the killing. Mr O’Neill said he had already “confessed” over the phone to his daughter. Police found a bloodstained pair of scissors at the flat. Ms Hilitanu had suffered multiple injuries in the chest and neck.

Campeanu denies murder and child destruction. The trial continues.

You wanted it, you got it: Carney defends BoE Brexit report

Business reporter(wp/Reuters):
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney hit back at critics of the central bank’s warnings of a potentially big Brexit hit to the economy, denying allegations of scare-mongering made by some lawmakers who oppose Prime Minister Theresa May’s plans.

The BoE said last week that Britain could suffer greater damage to its economy than during the global financial crisis under a worst-case exit from the European Union.

Carney, speaking to lawmakers on Tuesday, denied a suggestion that the BoE’s scenarios were rushed out to help May get support for her Brexit plan and stressed that the central bank had been asked to provide them by lawmakers.

“There’s no exam crisis. We didn’t just stay up all night and write a letter to the Treasury Committee,” Carney said. “You asked for something that we had, and we brought it, and we gave it to you.”

Less than four months before Britain is due to exit the EU, it remains unclear whether it will leave with a transition deal in place to smooth the shock for the economy.

May’s Brexit agreement with EU leaders faces deep opposition in parliament, including from within her own Conservative Party, ahead of a key vote on Dec. 11.

Pro-Brexit critics of Carney, who regularly accuse him of political meddling, dismissed last week’s BoE report as part of a “Project Hysteria.”

Former BoE Governor Mervyn King on Tuesday lamented the central bank’s involvement in what he said was an attempt to frighten the country about Brexit.

“It saddens me to see the Bank of England unnecessarily drawn into this project,” he said in an article published by Bloomberg.

Carney took a couple of barely concealed swipes at King, saying Britain had paid the price for not focusing on risks from the banking sector before the global financial crisis and had misunderstood the importance of wholesale funding for lenders.

BREXIT SHOCKS

Asked by lawmakers about the BoE’s worst-case scenarios, he said they were “low-probability events” but ones the central bank needed to consider to make sure Britain’s banking system could withstand any Brexit shocks.

“We’re already sleeping soundly at night, because we have the financial sector, the core of the financial sector, in a position that it needs to be for a tough scenario,” he said.

But he said the price of food could go up by 10 percent if Britain left the EU with no deal and with no mitigating arrangements to avoid chaos at the country’s ports.

Carney also said Britain’s ports were not ready for even a managed shift to World Trade Organization rules for the country’s exports and imports with the EU.

“Don’t assert what is not correct,” he snapped at one lawmaker who said the BoE had not considered the possibility of substituting trade with the EU for other markets.

Carney reiterated his opposition to ceding decision-making over rules for the banking sector to the EU after Brexit — a potential consequence of the ‘Norway-style’ arrangement which some lawmakers would prefer to May’s Brexit plans.

“We would not be comfortable...outsourcing supervision of this incredibly complex, incredibly important financial sector,” he said.

Scottish leader says path to independence is via proper referendum

Political reporter(wp/Reuters):
 Scotland’s pro-independence leader has ruled out seeking to secede from the United Kingdom in any other way but through a properly agreed referendum.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is facing pressure from some nationalists for a fresh push to split from the United Kingdom by calling a referendum without the British parliament’s permission or even just declaring independence outright.

“On the question of a referendum, it is (Scottish National Party) policy, it continues to be SNP policy, that the route to independence is through a referendum,” Sturgeon was reported as saying by The Herald newspaper.

“That is for good reason. That is the way to pass the test any vote of that nature has to pass, a chance for people to unambiguously express a majority view for independence in a process that is legitimate, and would be accepted,” she said.

After Catalonia’s ill-fated referendum on independence from Spain last year Madrid imposed direct rule, saying the vote was illegal. The Catalan nationalist movement has wide support among their peers in Scotland, including within the SNP.

The British parliament at Westminster has to approve any Scottish independence vote, according to British constitutional convention, and Prime Minister Theresa May has repeatedly ruled that out at present.

In a 2014 referendum, Scots voted 55.3 - 44.7 against breaking away from the United Kingdom.

Currently, support for independence is at around 45 percent, though polls show increasing Scottish opposition to May’s Brexit plans.

Last year, May refused to grant a so-called Section 30 order which would allow another independence vote to take place.

Britain’s main opposition Labour Party last weekend ruled out a deal with Sturgeon that would deliver a second referendum on independence in return for her party’s support for a Labour government.

May's government faces contempt vote over Brexit legal advice

Political reporter(wp/Reuters):
British Prime Minister Theresa May’s government could be found in contempt of parliament on Tuesday for refusing to release its full legal advice on Britain’s exit from the European Union, underlining the depth of opposition to her deal with Brussels.

The row threatens to overshadow the start of five days of debate in parliament on May’s Brexit deal ahead of a crucial vote on Dec. 11, when lawmakers will be asked to approve it.

Opposition parties and the small Northern Irish party which props up May’s minority government have condemned ministers for only providing an outline of the legal basis for its Brexit deal after parliament voted last month to force it to make public the full advice.

They have put forward a motion which, if passed following a debate later on Tuesday, would find government ministers in contempt of parliament and order the immediate publication of the advice.

It does not mention potential punishment but the sanctions ultimately available include suspending a lawmaker, most likely the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, from parliament.

This would be unprecedented, with such punishment usually reserved for backbench lawmakers guilty of individual wrongdoing including financial misconduct. In reality, the vote is about putting pressure on an already weakened government.

“Symbolically it would be very significant. Parliamentarians do take the sovereignty and privileges of parliament very seriously, it would not be a hollow strike against the government for them to be reprimanded in this way,” said Catherine Haddon, senior fellow at the Institute for Government.

“This is an opposition who are facing off with a government who are on the back foot so they are going to use every opportunity they have to show the instability of the government.”

With eurosceptics and europhiles from both May’s Conservatives and opposition parties having spoken out against the deal, the odds look stacked against her winning that vote.

“It is a show of force,” said Haddon of the contempt motion, adding that it could be indicative of both the final vote on the deal, and the various amendments lawmakers are trying to attach to that approval of the deal.

“What will be the role of the DUP for instance?,” she said, referring to May’s Northern Irish allies. “It will be interesting to see whether there is a show of parliamentary unity against the government on this issue or whether a majority of parliamentarians duck away from this particular one.”

Cox, who on Monday outlined the legal advice he gave to the government including over a contentious “backstop” arrangement to prevent the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and EU member state Ireland, has said it would not be in the public interest to publish the full advice.

“The House has at its disposal the means by which to enforce its will. It can bring forward a motion of contempt, seek to have that motion passed and seek ... to impose a sanction. I fully accept that,” he said on Monday.

The government are seeking to refer the issue to parliament’s Committee of Privileges, which would slow down the process and mean it would not be resolved before the crucial vote on the deal next week.

“Next week MPs face the most important vote of our political lives. Forcing us to make that decision without all the facts shows contempt for Parliament & the public. Government won’t get away with it,” Green Party lawmaker Caroline Lucas said on Twitter.