Price-fixing health firm fined £1.2m
ITV’s Trevor embroiled in ‘camel cruelty’ show
APOLOGY Spire Healthcare
ONE of the UK’s biggest private healthcare firms has been fined £1.2million for a price-fixing scheme.
Seven opthalmologists illegally agreed to charge £200 for initial consultations, with four eye doctors raising their prices by £20 to match the others.
A Spire Healthcare employee suggested it in an email after hosting them to dinner at its hospital in Macclesfield, Cheshire.
Over two years about 150 patients booked the appointments until a consultant blew the whistle.
The ophthalmologists were each fined between £642 and £3,859.
Spire apologised and the Competition and Markets Authority said: “It is unacceptable patients were unable to shop around and get the best deal.”
Trevor visits the wrestling event
Shot in Secret Mediterranean
FIND The 1958 Austin A35
SIR Trevor McDonald and ITV have been plunged into a new animal cruelty row – over “camel wrestling”.
Campaigners have accused the broadcaster of “legitimising” cruelty by showing Sir Trevor visiting the event in Turkey.
The Secret Mediterranean With Trevor McDonald on Tuesday night showed tens of thousands of people gathered to watch the spectacle where camels were seen physically tethered with ropes.
Camel wrestling is a sport in which two male camels wrestle in response to a female camel in heat. It is most common in the Aegean region of the country.
Sir Trevor, 80, says in the show: “This sport is nothing if not bizarre but after a while you could almost begin to see its attraction.” He asks his guide whether it was
“cruel” to have the camels wrestle to which he replies: “It’s not... they do it naturally. In the mating season they wrestle each other.”
But campaigners argue that there was nothing “natural” about the “humanorchestrated event”.
Audrey Gaffney, of Ethical Bucket List, said: “Trevor McDonald did at least question the nature of the event. These animals are bred specifically for this event, so what their lives are like the rest of the time is unclear. Legitimising this on prime-time television is irresponsible and may lead to people becoming immune to tell-tale signs of cruelty.”
Viewer Catherine Joy said: “Utterly horrified to see camel wrestling. This ‘sport’ should not be on our screens.”
An ITV spokesman said: “The sequence was presented in a balanced way within which Trevor McDonald clearly raised the issue of animal cruelty and questioned the ethics.”
Last July the veteran broadcaster was caught up in a row over welfare concerns at an “ethical” elephant sanctuary featured in his Indian Train Adventure show on ITV.
AUDREY GAFFNEY OF ETHICAL BUCKET LIST
These animals are bred specifically for this
Ropes are used on robed males