GAS BLAST TRAGEDY
Woman dead, 2 hurt in horror explosion
A WOMAN was killed when a suspected gas blast reduced a stone cottage to rubble.
Dozens of nearby residents fled after the explosion destroyed the terraced home in a quiet village.
Emergency teams who raced to the scene found the body of a 61-year-old woman in the debris.
Neighbour Kerry Crompton, 36, said: “I’ve been told that at the time of the explosion, she was on a video call to friends.”
Nurse Kerry, who said she could smell gas, rushed to help a mum and her seven-year-old daughter who lived next door. She added: “I heard the explosion, went outside and there was smoke everywhere. I ran down the street and could hear screaming from next door.”
Both of the patients were taken to hospital and discharged.
The house, one of five in a terraced row in Summerseat, near Bury, Gtr Manchester, collapsed after the blast at 9.30pm on Wednesday. Homes either side had slates or bricks torn off.
Chief Insp Jamie Collins, of Greater Manchester Police said: “We are keeping an open mind in regards to the circumstances and inquiries are ongoing.”
PETROL prices could hit a record high as the soaring cost of oil reaches the pumps.
Figures show 143p a litre for unleaded and 148p for diesel is on the cards – beating the previous highs in April 2012 of 142.48p and 147.93p.
The RAC said motorists face a squeeze on budgets if oil hits $100 a barrel. It is at $64 now and is likely to reach $80 later this year. JP Morgan warns it could reach $100 in the next 12 months.
Only a strong pound is keeping prices down but if the dollar rallies “it is likely to lead to higher costs for drivers”, the RAC said.
And the AA revealed the cost of filling up has risen by more than £4 since December.
Average petrol prices are now 121.85p for unleaded and 124.9p for diesel – both up by 3p a litre month-on-month. And with a fuel duty hike on the cards in the
Chancellor’s Budget on March 3, experts fear a bumpy ride.
The RAC’s Simon Williams said: “The last thing drivers, and possibly the economy, need is a fuel duty increase.
“It could put pressure on lower-income households and might force everyone who depends on their cars to consider cutting back on other spending.”
CAMILA Batmanghelidjh has been called many things. She was the woman who “mesmerised” David Cameron. She was compared to a “torrent of verbal ectoplasm” by a Tory MP. She was falsely accused of child-trafficking, running a cult and operating a brothel.
Her charity, Kids Company, was at the centre of child abuse allegations, claims of financial mismanagement, and closed its gates at the height of a scandal. And yet, last Friday, Camila and the trustees of Kids Company were exonerated by the High Court.
Mrs Justice Falk said there had been no “dishonesty, bad faith or personal gain,” and “no allegation of inappropriate expenditure in relation to any children assisted by Kids Company”.
She added: “While aspects of the charity’s work were high-risk, the business model was not unsustainable.”
The case, brought by the Insolvency Service, followed the collapse of the police investigation into child abuse accusations in January 2016, after Scotland Yard found no evidence to justify referring allegations to prosecutors. Camila sees it as “yet another example of state bullying”.
TRAUMA
“It’s been six years, and it’s the first time someone’s actually looked at the facts,” she says.
“In 2010, Kids Company did research work on brain trauma that is now widely accepted. It changed how people thought about it. Yet I’m seen as this out-of-control mad female the white men have to control.
“I’m devoid of any intellect, like an explosion in a Nigerian fabric factory, there’s racist language, a preoccupation with my size.”
Camila was not at court. Immunodeficiency disorders mean she is still shielding and not able to have the Covid-19 vaccine.
Despite allegations she has three mansions, she was at home at the only property she says she’s ever owned, a small flat in North London, where she still counsels children remotely. “I never stopped one day, actually.”
I first met Camila in November 2000, in the bleak hours following the murder of Damilola Taylor. A teenage girl from the North Peckham estate said she’d take me to see ‘the lady who helps us’. The lady turned out to be Camila, in trademark colourful robes, chatting to a group of boys under some damp railway arches.
Kids Company went on from the arches to become a £20million charity with 600 staff, 500 trainees and 10,000 volunteers, feted by PM David Cameron and associated with A-list celebrities. Then, suddenly it was gone, shattered by a storm of allegations. Camila has always maintained that the charity was the victim of a political game played by those who wanted David Cameron’s Big Society, ‘Compassionate Conservatism’, and ultimately his Remainer project to fail.
Her High Court affidavit stated: “I believe the demise of Kids Company may have been politically driven, both to silence its child protection advocacy and attack David Cameron in preparation for the Brexit referendum… I found it surprising that Dominic Cummings was briefing against the charity in public in 2015 when he had never visited it, so far as I am aware, or had any dealings with it.”
Steve Hilton, Cameron’s former political adviser, has said “[Camila] was seen as a poster child for the Big Society. And that was a conscious decision on our part. As a result, she became a victim of attacks on the Big Society.” He added: “I do think there was a conspiracy, among parts of the establishment that she threatened.”
Camila is clear where the witch hunt began. “Dominic Cummings started publicly briefing against us in 2015,” she says.
As the charity went under, Cummings, then an adviser to Michael Gove, was quick to point the finger.
“Camila went directly to Cameron and it was his decision to overrule officials,” Cummings told C4 news.
“That was why the funding went ahead. If it had been just an official in No 10, we would have ignored them.”
Weeks later Cummings would formally become the campaign director of Vote Leave – and Cameron’s direct political adversary.
As UKIP gained seats and traction in the 2015 elections, more modern Conservatives such as Cameron were losing power, leaving Kids Company and the thousands of young people it supported politically stranded. Worse, Camila had begun to publicly question the government’s austerity policies.
The enormity of the work being done by Kids Company began to beg the question, why were so many children being failed by the state? Cameron’s austerity programme was hollowing out children’s services, for the Big Society to fill.
Kids Company’s unorthodox way of doing things often left it open to criticism. Many stories included the claim Camila used a chauffeur. “This man was actually a trained youth worker,” Camila says. “We would put a psychotic kid in the car and drive them to hospital. He would go in and get a kid from an alleyway while shots were being fired. Yet he and his family have been demonised.”
PRAISED
In the High Court, Mrs Justice Falk didn’t just exonerate Camila and her trustees, but praised her for the “enormous dedication she showed to vulnerable young people over many years” and her achievements in building the charity.
At the Public Accounts Committee inquiry, MP Bernard Jenkin said that “a trusted source” had told him if Kids Company closed, children would riot without money to pay their “drug pushers”.
In fact, Camila says “there were kids taking potatoes from our kitchen for something to eat, that’s how desperate they were when we closed”.
Her voice breaks for the only time during our conversation. “Kids were screaming at the gates. Because of a bunch of idiots playing political games... they didn’t see what they did to these kids and families.”
I wondered, did the woman who did so much heavy lifting for the Big Society ever hear from former PM David Cameron again?
“No.”
I’m seen as an out-of-control mad female the white men have to control