Woman in dock over baby found dead 26 years ago
Staff offered cash to drop pension
A woman appeared in court yesterday charged with the murder of a baby who was discovered in woodland 26 years ago.
Baby “Callum” was found close to the Gulliver’s World theme park in Warrington in March 1998.
Joanne Sharkey, 54, of West Derby, Liverpool, appeared at Warrington magistrates’ court charged with murder and concealment of the birth of a child.
Wearing a brown sweatshirt and with brown hair tied up in a short ponytail, she spoke only to confirm her name, date of birth and address.
Ms Sharkey was arrested in July 2023 along with a man who has since been released without charge, Cheshire Police said.
Detectives named the infant Callum after the Callands district of Warrington where he was found dead, because his true identity could not be confirmed at the time.
Detective Inspector Hannah Friend, of Cheshire Police’s major crime review team, said: “I understand that this is an extremely emotional case which has attracted a lot of attention over the past 26 years, however, I would ask people not to speculate.”
Private schools are offering payments or increased salaries to teaching staff in return for them agreeing to pull out of their gold-plated pension schemes.
Hundreds of independent schools have already withdrawn from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) and enrolled staff in alternative schemes because of the increased cost to employers.
More schools are now enticing staff to leave the scheme with cash offers of about £2,000 in some cases, though union leaders have said that these are “irresponsible”. The TPS is a generous defined benefits pension scheme which guarantees staff a fixed annual income in their retirement. But in September 2019, employers went from having to pay 16.48 per cent of an employee’s pay towards the scheme to help fund it, to 23.68 per cent.
While for the state sector this was paid for with government money, the private sector had to stump up the cash itself, prompting an exodus of schools from the scheme.
From this month, the contribution rate has risen again, to 28.68 per cent.