The ownership of Mont Orgueil Castle and Elizabeth Castle is to be transferred from the Crown to the people of Jersey today when Lieutenant-Governor General Sir Michael Wilkes, the Queen’s representative on the island, hands over the keys of each castle to the Bailiff of Jersey, Sir Philip Bailhache.
Sir Michael will be accompanied at the two ceremonies by a guard made up of members of the Company of Pikemen and Musketeers which forms part of Britain’s oldest regiment, the Honorary Artillery Company. The castle was built on a rocky outcrop where the Belgian hermit Helier lived in the sixth century before he was murdered by pirates.Like Mont Orgueil, Elizabeth Castle was used as a residence by the island’s governor. Their usual role is to provide a bodyguard for the Lord Mayor of London on ceremonial occasions.Mont Orgueil – Mount Pride – which overlooks Gorey Harbour on Jersey’s east coast, is an imposing mediaeval castle in an excellent state of preservation. “We’ll just have to hide the stuff in the vacuum flask, won’t we?” she said.. Britain has finally decided that two great castles, built on the Channel Island of Jersey to keep French invaders at bay, are no longer needed. Ian and Eileen, two undergraduates, were astonished at the prospect of street prohibition. Ian said: “Pardon? A drinks ban? You mean this picnic could become an illegal subversive gathering?”Eileen, on the other hand, appeared to take her prohibition lessons from the United States of the 1920s.

The trend towards drinking beer out of the bottle has meant that many customers take their purchases with them when they leave the pub. And if there is subsequent trouble, a ready weapon is to hand.The ban aims to stop people removing beer bottles, but how it would apply to citizens lawfully buying bottled or canned alcohol from off-licences, and drinking them peaceably, is something the council and the police will have to decide.Chief Superintendent James Guy said his force’s concern was with violent street crime, especially in the the Argyle Street, St Enoch’s Square and Charing Cross areas of the city.Yesterday, however, away from the city centre, in the park area of Kelvin Grove opposite Glasgow University, impromptu picnics were taking place. no one is quite sure how this prohibition will work.”Concern over drink-related violence centred on the numerous pubs and clubs in streets and squares around the city centre. However, he accepted that committed street drinkers may simply move to other areas.There is also concern among some city senior officials and police officers, as to how the ban is to be enforced One official said: “… Bell was fined pounds 800, and Waugh and Littley pounds 200 each, plus costs.All six men pleaded guilty..

Glasgow, the former European City of Culture, which likes to portray itself as a civilised city where alfresco wine bars sit happily alongside old-fashioned pubs, has decided to take the drastic step of making its streets alcohol-free. Worried about the growing number of street assaults and breaches of the peace related to hard drinking, and the use of beer bottles as portable weapons of violence, the police and the city’s Licensing Board have approved a new by-law to prohibit street drinking. Offenders may be fined up to pounds 100.
The by-law legislation is now in the hands of the Scottish Office and will become law by the autumn.Since January this year, according to police records, drink-related violent crime in Glasgow has soared: in city centres it is up by 50 per cent.The chairman of the city’s Licensing Board, James Coleman, confirmed that the measures were intended to solve the problem of drink-related crime. All three were banned for life from owning cockerels.Kelbie’s offence, the magistrate said, was aggravated by the fact that he took four birds to fight, and had his eight-year-old son with him.The court was told that the men had been arrested when police and RSPCA officers swooped on an allotment shed near Ross’s home in Kelloe on 19 March last year. Two cockerels were fighting in a ring with more than a dozen men standing watching.Thomas Waugh, 32, David Littley, 34, and John Bell, 27, all from Co Durham, admitted being present at a cockfight. Three men arrested when police and RSPCA officers swooped on a cockfight were yesterday jailed for what were described as “cruel and barbaric” offences. Stipendiary magistrate Ian Gillespie told them, and three other offenders at Durham City court, that it was “quite incredible that on the eve of the 21st century I should be dealing with such illegal and barbaric practices”.
William Ross, 49, of Kelloe, Co Durham, was jailed for four months after admitting cruelty to a cockerel by causing it to fight, permitting premises to be used for cockfighting, and possessing equipment for cockfighting use.Joseph Kelbie, 34, of Newark, Nottinghamshire, and John Hawthorn, 42, of Murton, Co Durham, were sentenced to 10 weeks and eight weeks respectively after admitting to having assisted in cockfighting.

However, police are still treating his death as suspicious.Police yesterday interviewed a 16-year-old about the incident. The chase occurred after a CMT Transport number 122 red bus had stopped in Byrom Street, in Liverpool city centre, at about 11am on Thursday, when youths jumped aboard.They snatched the driver’s cash dispenser and takings and fled, but he gave chase, leaving the double-decker unattended.Police believe that Mr Oakley ran through nearby streets in pursuit of the gang and entered a block of flats in Juvenal Street, about 400 yards away.Detective Chief Inspector Frank Thompson said: “He was found by a resident of the flats face down in a pool of blood on the third floor.”Paramedics were called but he was dead when they got there.”Mr Oakley’s widow, Audrey, said later: “It is hard to speak about what has happened. We’re just hoping the police catch whoever committed this crime. My husband was a lovely man.”It is understood that the post-mortem examination revealed that Mr Oakley had scarring on his heart caused by a previously unknown condition.Jeff Grant, a director of the firm Mr Oakley worked for, paid tribute to his heroism.”It was typical of Harry to stand up for what he thought was right,” he said.. Harry Oakley, 45, of Speke, Liverpool, was discovered dead on Thursday in a block of flats in the city centre after he pursued eight to 10 youths who stole the cash dispenser from his bus.
He was found in a pool of blood and his death was initially being investigated by murder squad detectives but yesterday a post-mortem examination revealed that Mr Oakley, who was married with a 21-year-old daughter, had died of natural causes.He had a cut to his head, believed to be caused as he collapsed on the third-floor landing. “The difficulty we have is that the partnership between parents and school is often based on tenuous ground.