Interesting article in last nights local paper.
A Cambridge MEP has called on the govt to end its boycott of a new £3 billion European fund to provide food to the hungry in time for Christmas. Richard Howitt has teamed up with Trussel Trust who are charity behind food banks to campaign for them to be eligible for a new aid fund confirmed in Euro parliament last Tuesday.
Mr Howitt MEP said ' It is very sad that our Govt is opposing this much needed help for food banks on the basis that it is a national responsibility, when in reality it has no intention of providing the help itself'.
So we dont know how much they would be eligable for BUT.
Susan Currall with her dog RosieSusan Currall, 75, was so fed up with cyclists “hurtling” towards her on the path next to the guided busway in Trumpington, she emptied a bag of her pet’s excrement over a Cambridge University fellow, a court heard.
Currall, who used to work for the British Embassy in the USA, swung the bag of faeces at him while walking her dog by the allotments near Shelford Road and then held it up to allow the contents to spill over him and his clothes, Cambridge magistrates were told.
She was made to pay £25 compensation to cover his dry cleaning bill after admitting assault by beating on September 12, and given a one-year conditional discharge.
Reading from a statement by victim Michael Ramage, a fellow of Sidney Sussex College, prosecutor Paul Brown told the court Currall then taunted the senior architecture lecturer, telling him to “go cry to your mummy” and calling him a “big bully”.
After the hearing Mr Ramage, a 40-year-old American, told the News the faeces attack was “pretty unpleasant” and said he dreaded crossing paths with her after several encounters.
He said: “I would not change my route, but I do go down there with a lot of trepidation.
“I’m not physically intimidated, I know I won’t suffer any serious injury, but the mental anguish with having to deal with an encounter, that’s what it’s really all about. I have encountered her with my kids and it’s upsetting for them.”
Of the sentence, he said: “Hopefully it will mean something to her and change her behaviour so I think I’m happy from that point of view.”
The path where the incident happened is dual use, so is shared by both pedestrians and cyclists.
Monica Lentin, mitigating, said Currall, who lives in Trumpington, “felt anxious” walking along the path because of cyclists speeding past and that she was “provoked” by Mr Ramage, who lives in the same village, because he got too close.
She said: “I think many people who are pedestrians in Cambridge would agree that having cyclists and pedestrians together doesn’t work.
“The pedestrians do feel extremely harassed and I feel the same way myself.
“What makes it worse is you get lots of young men with powerful bikes riding at speed without any conscience that older people can’t get out of the way easily.”
She added: “These young people come hurtling towards her [Currall] and they do not give way to her.
“She did not see him [Ramage] coming in the opposite direction and he was not stopping for her which certainly in the olden days, a man on a bike would have got off and let her through.”
Mrs Lentin used the hearing to question what she saw as favourable treatment to cyclists over pedestrians and added: “The council seems to be pursuing a policy that bicycles are king here in Cambridge and have rights over everyone else.”
As well as the conditional discharge and compensation order Currall, who has no previous convictions but two cautions for common assault and criminal damage from 2007, was told to pay £100 costs.
Currall told the News after sentencing that she did not mean for the bag to split and said the fact it had ended up in court was “ridiculous”.
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