I FEEL confident no more parents will go through the same heartache as those who have suffered in the grotesque Alder Hey body parts scandal. Action has already been taken to make sure of that.

But I am troubled by the ease, yet again, with which an inadequate, if not criminal, doctor was able to practise in England without being questioned or reported by his peers.

Dutch pathologist Professor Dick van Velzen worked in Liverpool from 1988 to 1995, even though colleagues knew he was breaking rules and falsifying notes. He was even given a glowing reference by Liverpool University's faculty of medicine for a job in Canada, which he took up in 1995.

He lasted there just six months before colleagues reported him for incompetence.

There are echoes of the case of our own disgraced consultant gynaecologist Richard Neale, who was struck off in Canada, yet allowed to continue working in the North-East.

We all must wonder how many more rogue doctors are now treating patients in England without question, thanks, largely, to the collusion of colleagues and management.

And Alan Milburn should be asking why our medical profession doesn't meet the same exacting standards we have seen practised in Canada.

THE apparently respectable North-East granddad who appeared before his magistrate wife on charges of buying drugs for a prostitute should count himself lucky. Brian Lacey's wife, who knew nothing about the charges until he appeared before her, had the case moved to another court. If she had been allowed to sentence him, perhaps he wouldn't have got away with a mere suspended sentence. More like a public flogging, followed by castration

RANK-and-file police officers have condemned plans by one force to train civilians to take statements. Once, following an unprovoked attack on myself and friends in a city centre one New Year's Eve, I had to go to a police station to make a statement. The officer was slow, couldn't spell and took down half of what I said incorrectly. I wondered then why officers didn't have to learn shorthand to take accurate, contemporaneous notes, suitable to read out as evidence in court. Given the number of cases overturned because such statements have proved unreliable, perhaps more forces should question whether their officers are the best people to do the job.

COMMUNITIES all over the North-East are protesting at the siting of mobile phone masts near schools and other public places because of health fears. Yet half of all children now have mobile phones, with numbers increasing. A case of Not In Our School Yard?

I HAVE a bad cold. My husband, suffering the same symptoms, would call it double pneumonia. As I lay on the sofa, coughing and spluttering, shivering and clutching my head, he looked uncharacteristically concerned. "I can tell you really do feel bad, don't you?" he said. I thought I was going to get some sympathy, maybe even a hot lemon drink, until he added: "Do you mind sleeping in another room? I really don't want to pick up your germs at the moment."

IN THE new film What Women Want, Mel Gibson plays a man who can hear the thoughts of women around him. This has sparked off much debate, with many men claiming they will never understand what women are thinking. But it's so easy. If a man really wants to know what a woman is thinking, all he has to do is ask her. But - and here comes the tricky bit - he must listen to her reply.

THE Royal Mail admits a single gummed stamp contains 5.9 calories. So that explains it. That half stone I put on over Christmas - it was all those cards I sent.

www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/news/ campbell.htm