PAUL ROUTLEDGE Taxing questions arise out of this T

SHAKE my head in disbelief at the latest school massacre in the USA that claimed 17 young lives. And then I ponder reports, all too frequent, in my Examiner of shots being fired in Huddersfield.

Gun crime is the worst because it’s so often fatal. After Hungerford, Dunblane (from where I reported) and other atrocities we have the world’s strictest firearms laws.

Yet still these maniacs can get hold of guns. This isn’t Happy Valley, it’s real life – and death.

Currently the mandatory sentence for carrying an unlicensed firearm is five years or three years’ detention for youths.

This isn’t enough. If arrogant Huddersfield offender Aaron Joseph can get 10 years for owning a dog that caused the death of a 51-year-old man, then gun criminals should get the same. MONTHS ago I argued that it can’t be beyond the wit of man to design an anti-suicide fence for Scammonden bridge over the M62. And so it has proved. Despite saying that the structure could not take the weight of barriers, the Highways Agency is now looking at solutions.

Public health officials at Kirklees Council say measures on the famous Golden Gate Bridge halved suicides.

Strong, lightweight materials becoming available since 120ft high Scammonden was built 47 years ago could cut the deplorable death toll.

The human argument is overriding, but the Highways Agency also has a responsibility to keep traffic moving on the motorway.

Its bosses should tell us now what they intend to do. HE tax man has come down on Christa Ackroyd like a ton of bricks.

After a five-year investigation, the former Look North presenter has been hit with a bill for £420,000 arrears.

The Tax Chamber Tribunal ruled that, effectively, she was an employee of the BBC and should have been taxed as such.

But with the encouragement of Beeb bosses, she was paid through a “personal service company” called Christa Ackroyd Media Ltd.

This gave her favourable tax breaks.

HM Revenue and Customs is investigating these vehicles and she’s the first to feel the full weight of the crackdown, but not the last.

More than 100 BBC so-called “talents” were paid like this and could face bills running into millions of pounds.

Christa wasn’t accused of cheating or acting dishonestly and complained bitterly of “five horrendous years of innuendo and gossip” over her finances since being fired from the BBC in 2015 over an alleged contract breach.

The tribunal ruled that despite claiming freelance status she was really an employee of the BBC and should have paid income tax accordingly.

Earning up to £200,000 a year, that’s a lot of money.

I’ve read the full 44-page decision. And I have some experience of this stuff, but my sympathy for Christa is limited.

When I joined the Daily Mirror as chief political commentator in 1998, editor Piers Morgan offered me a “Birt-style contract.”

John Birt was then directorgeneral of the BBC, but, astonishingly, he wasn’t on the staff either. His bumper salary was paid to a personal services company.

I chose to be a staffer – “part of the family.” I don’t mind paying income tax.

The government has to get its money for the NHS from somewhere.

Mired in a ratings battle with ITV, the Beeb was desperate to lure Christa from Calendar in 2001.

Could she not have insisted on being on the payroll – as I did, and as news presenter Huw Edwards also did – rather than minimise her tax through a fancy personal deal?

We’ll never know, but she’s certainly paying the price for starstatus employment.

HMRC sleuths went through Christa’s case with a fine toothcomb. They should now turn the spotlight on the BBC, for actively encouraging (“requiring”, says Paxman) her and others to pay less than their full whack.

If the Beeb has, as seems likely, actually coerced highly-paid performers into these tax-dodging arrangements, then Ms Ackroyd is as much sinned against as sinning, if not more so.