Publican jailed for killing wife

A LOVE-CHEAT publican was jailed for life yesterday for murdering his wife to avoid sharing the money from the sale of their country inn. James Garside boasted to one of his girlfriends that he would shoot his wife Marilyn, 54, "like a rabbit". She was stabbed to death by Richard Bates, a man hired by Garside, after the couple sold the Cross Keys, at Redgrave, Suffolk. Garside, 54, and Bates, 50, both of King's Lynn, Norfolk, were found guilty of murder and jailed for life.

BETTER TEACHERS: Newly-qualified teachers are "the best-trained ever" but there remains a shortage of students signing up to teach mathematics, science and modern languages, the schools inspectorate Ofsted said yesterday.

PETROL POWER: Scientists have invented a petrol engine a few millimetres wide which could soon replace conventional batteries. The minute micro-engines developed at the University of Birmingham need only a squirt of lighter fluid to get them running.

TERROR BILL: Measures to strengthen the power of the authorities to deal with the aftermath of a major terrorist attack or other civil emergency have been unveiled by the Government. The draft Civil Contingencies Bill sets out plans to extend the scope of existing emergency legislation to deal with emergencies.

IRAQ MISSION: Charity workers are taking a major shipment of veterinary supplies to Baghdad to help animals caught up in war-torn Iraq. The mission by the World Society for the Protection of Animals aims to restock the country's impoverished veterinary system with desperately needed medicines.

FACING PRISON: A former police officer was warned yesterday he might be sent to jail after admitting child pornography charges. Martin Parsons, 32, of Long Stratton, Norfolk, pleaded guilty at Norwich Crown Court to one charge of possessing indecent photographs of children for show or distribution in October last year.

NHS FRAUD: The amount of NHS money lost to fraud in England has fallen by almost £300m during the past four years, the Counter Fraud Service revealed yesterday.

STAR'S BABY: Emmerdale star Sheree Murphy, who plays Trisha, and footballer Harry Kewell are celebrating the birth of a girl. Ruby Heather Toni Kewell was born on Tuesday afternoon.

FAKE GOODS: Criminal gangs, rather than harmless "Del Boy" style traders, are running Britain's £10bn-a-year fake goods industry, a report by the Alliance Against Counterfeiting claims. Triad gangs, the Russian mafia and Northern Irish paramilitaries are among the groups connected to the fraud.

DRUGS HAUL: Police in Northern Ireland have helped to net the largest ever haul of Ecstasy bound for the province. Customs officers in Dover, acting on information from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, arrested one man from the province and seized £4.5m worth in a lorry at the port.

LESBIAN'S APPEAL: Lesbian teacher Shirley Pearce, 55, who says she was forced out of her job by a sustained campaign of homophobic harassment by pupils, lost her House of Lords appeal yesterday. She worked as a science teacher at Mayfield School, Portsmouth.

FOREIGN BLOOD: More foreigners than ever before - but fewer Roman Catholics - are living in the Irish Republic, according to figures from last year's census.

GORE TV: Former US Vice President Al Gore plans to start a liberal TV network to challenge the conservative media in the US.

SHUTTLE FLIGHT: Nasa expects to launch the first space shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster by next April, a senior official at the agency has said.