Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Pine marten has a taste for hunting grey squirrels
Officer, 28, in tears as she fights for job after 10mth affair with married boss
RESEARCHERS at Queen’s have found that pine martens prefer eating grey squirrels to red ones.
The findings, published in Mammalian Biology earlier this year and funded by UK wildlife charity People’s Trust for Endangered Species, also show that although both squirrel species are on the pine martens’ menu, they predate on greys exclusively in spring and summer, during the squirrels’ breeding season.
Researchers also think pine martens may raid grey squirrel nests – known as “dreys” – specifically targeting juveniles and females caring for young which provides a “plausible mechanism for the decline in grey squirrels seen across Ireland and Britain”.
The research, led by Dr Joshua Twining from the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast, also showed pine martens do predate on native red squirrels, but at a much lower level.
The species were once abundant predators in Ireland and Britain.
But, Queen’s says, after centuries of widespread persecution and habitat loss, most recent estimates suggest there are only around 3,000 in Ireland and 9,000 in Britain.
A POLICE officer broke down in tears as she told a hearing she performed sex acts on her sergeant while on police premises.
PC Jemma Dicks, 28, admitted having many sexual encounters with the married sergeant at work.
Ex-sgt Adam Reed, 40, who has since left the South Wales force, had told his wife it happened just once.
PC Dicks is now battling to save her career.
She told the hearing how the pair began the 10-month affair after kissing outside a nightclub in 2017, then how they allegedly had sex at his home.
The relationship then turned to her performing sex acts in their station, while they were both on duty. She outlined how she performed the acts in the officers’ private bar.
PC Dicks told the hearing: “The first incident that happened, I was working with a male colleague when I received a text from Reed telling me to come upstairs.
“He told me to clean the bar there. Reed began shouting at me.
“He was being really blunt with me. Reed was arguing with me, telling me I didn’t show him enough attention and I didn’t tell him how big he was – referring to his penis.”
She claimed: “Then he unzipped his trousers and undid his belt and exposed his penis, before pushing my head towards it.” She said she then performed a sex act on Sgt Reed. She told the hearing that the sergeant had told her he fancied her “from her first day on duty”.
PC Dicks also related how she had always longed to join the service so she could follow in her father’s footsteps.
The hearing heard that PC Dicks completed several years of training for her dream job and applied to join South Wales Police in May 2015, on the advice of her father.
She was posted to Roath station in Cardiff, where she first met Sgt Reed.
PC Dicks said: “I’ve wanted to be a police officer since I was little because my dad was a serving police officer.
“Ever since I was a little girl, I have always admired my dad.” Breaking down in tears as her representative Lucy Crowther finished her questioning, PC Dicks said: “I just want to express how remorseful I am for what I have done.”
PC Dicks argued that her breaches of professional behaviour only amounted to misconduct and are not serious enough to warrant her being sacked.
Mr Reed was not at the hearing but the Police Federation had been communicating with him through wife Alexandra, 45.
The disciplinary hearing by South Wales Police, being held in Pencoed, near Bridgend, is expected to continue all week.