If prostitution is the oldest profession, then the brothel must be the oldest public institution. We’re going to give this a real shot.”He added: “The team is about offering families a thorough and independent reappraisal of unsolved cases. The work will be carried out by a new unit called the Historical Enquiries Team, led by a former Metropolitan Police commander, Dave Cox. It will include serving and former officers from Northern Ireland and police forces in Britain.Bereaved families have made differing demands, ranging from fresh prosecutions to simple requests for more information about the circumstances of the death of a relative. Mr Cox said the unit would be “looking at cases again with a modern professional policing eye. These and other agencies are said to have promised their full co-operation.In many cases, DNA and other scientific techniques not available in the 1960s and 1970s will be brought to bear on cases which were never solved.Prosecutions may eventually result, but anyone convicted of murder is expected to serve a maximum of two years in prison. Police in Northern Ireland are to reopen investigations into the more than 3,000 deaths of the Troubles.

Although the move is a police operation, its main aim is said to be helping bereaved families achieve “a measure of resolution”. Described by Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde as “a massive challenge”, the task is being handled by a new unit with a £30m budget.
Officially it will have a timescale of six years, but there is speculation that the exercise could take longer.The plan is to re-examine deaths since 1969, contacting officers who ran murder inquiries and trawling through any intelligence held by Special Branch and Military Intelligence. By 2pm a communiqu?rom Special Branch noted: “There are 150 anarchists marching under banner ‘Freemasons Against Poll Tax’ who are under the influence of drink/drugs and have joined rear of march.”Forty-five minutes later the reports included the first references to violence and by 3pm crowd-control barriers had been pulled down and smoke bombs were being thrown at officers.A Metropolitan Police report sent to the Home Secretary the next day said the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the day concluded that the peaceful intentions of 40,000 had been “thwarted by a violent element of 3,000.” Later reports put the crowd at nearer 200,000.In the criminal trials of anti-poll tax demonstrators many were acquitted when video evidence showed that some of the charges had been unsubstantiated.. Confidential police radio messages and surveillance reports show how officers made strategic mistakes, surrendered control of parts of central London and ended up calling for armed response teams when all appeared lost.
By midnight nearly 5,000 civilians and police officers had been injured and 339 people had been arrested. The final bill for damages ran into millions of pounds.But the political cost was even greater as many believe the protests signalled the demise of Margaret Thatcher, who was forced to resign eight months later.The documents, released yesterday under Freedom of Information laws, show the day started with police reporting a crowd of 25,000 at Kennington Park at 11am to be “peaceful and friendly”.

The scale of the chaos and panic at the heart of the police response to the Poll Tax riots of 31 March 1990 – one of the most violent protests to ever take place in Britain – is revealed for the first time in classified documents released by the Government. Peter Kilfoyle, a former defence minister, said: “If there is an attempt to play down the nature or the number of these injuries, it is to be deplored.” Speaking on a visit to Headley Court defence medical rehabilitation centre, Mr Reid said: “I get bowled over by the courage, enthusiasm and endurance of ordinary squaddies. People have the most traumatic experiences, have lost limbs, and what they want to do is get rehabilitated and get back into the services.”. She asked why the Ministry of Defence, unlike the Pentagon, do not publish details of combat injuries. In reply, Mr Reid said that of the 230 soldiers, 40 had been injured seriously Little has been said about injuries suffered by troops. Mr Reid said categorising the injured, wounded and sick was simply not a priority for forces in Iraq.

Disclosure of the figures prompted renewed calls for greater transparency as well as scepticism from some quarters. Stephen Enright, 29, from Exeter, Devon, was killed when an explosive hit the vehicle in which he was travelling on Thursday. He was employed by the London-based Armor Group, a subcontractor providing security to the Environmental Chemical Corporation, of Colorado. Mr Reid was visiting injured British soldiers at a military rehabilitation clinic in south London yesterday, where he was confronted by Sue Norton, whose husband, Captain Peter Norton, lost an arm and a leg in a bomb blast. It may be that Overall will eventually come to regard the 19th century as a constraint on her very considerable imagination.D J Taylor’s ‘Kept’ appears next month from Chatto. Labour opponents of secondary school reform said opposition to the plans was growing and that 100 MPs would have signed a rebel motion by next week.

Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, is faced with having to back down over her White Paper proposals that the rebels say will lead to a return to selection for 11-year-olds.. A British civilian has been killed in an explosion in Iraq. The news emerged as the Defence Secretary, John Reid, revealed for the first time that 230 British troops have been wounded in action since the invasion of Iraq began in 2003. There are Georgette Heyer-ish adhesions about dashing young bucks, secret engagements and New Year balls. Only towards the end, at which Fanny glimpses something very nasty in the woodshed, do the real themes of manipulation and betrayal move into the foreground and the novel’s slight resemblance to L P Hartley’s The Go Between become clear.While Fanny’s voice, full of onomatopoeic accounts of household noise and incident, is thoroughly engaging, some of the best things here – in particular the scenes in which Fanny teaches George the gardener’s boy to read – are perhaps the least Victorian in character.