Trainspotting star Ewan backs electro therapy for addicts
Documentary features Scots doc’s cure
HOLLYWOOD star Ewan McGregor wants Scots heroin users to try a drug-free treatment to break the cycle of addiction. The actor, who played Mark Renton in Trainspotting, urged the Scottish Government to investigate neuro electric therapy after narrating a documentary charting successful trials in the US. NET was developed in the 70s by Hong Kongbased Scots surgeon Meg
Patterson, whose previous patients included rock stars Eric Clapton, Keith Moon and Boy George.
It uses tiny pulses of electrical currents to stimulate brain chemicals which can ease addicts through a comfortable, pain-free withdrawal.
Drugs minister Angela Constance has dismissed the treatment claiming it is “no more effective than a placebo”.
Scotland has the worst drug-death toll in Europe and McGregor, 49, wants ministers to consider NET by watching the film he narrated called The Final Fix, following volunteers in Lexington, Kentucky.
He said: “It really seems to work. I would hope that the authorities would take notice and perhaps explore for themselves.”
Plans for the first clinic to offer the treatment in Scotland are under way with a 34-bed private unit opening this summer.
Campaigners are calling on the Scottish
Government to back a proper pilot study.
Record columnist Darren McGarvey – who has battled drug issues – said: “The documentary is utterly compelling.”
Tory MSP Miles Briggs added: “I’ve implored the minister to see the documentary.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Advice previously received on NET highlighted a lack of evidence but if that changed, then we are open to looking at it again.”
THE Yorkshire Ripper’s brother has appealed to the serial killer’s former wife Sonia to tell him what happened to the will he left.
Mick Sutcliffe claims he has been kept in the dark since murderer Peter’s death from Covid-19 age 74 last November.
Sonia still owns their marital home and was given the power of attorney. Sutcliffe was reported to have had an interest in half the house, now said to be worth £250,000.
Mick said: “I appeal to Sonia to please tell us what is happening with the will. I’m not after any money, Peter may have left something for me that he wants me to have. I would like to know what’s going on and whether there is anything I should be knowing.
“I’ve not spoken to Sonia in 40 years. Since Peter became ill we have not heard anything from her.
“When Peter was dying the prison said they couldn’t tell us anything, despite me being in contact with Peter every week when we spoke on the phone.
“As Sonia was the point of contact it should have been up to her to be passing on information. Instead, we are left to find everything out from the news.
“I want her to speak to us about his affairs, there may be other things I should be knowing, and for her to know what she’s doing to us. I have a right to know.
“Forty years ago Peter told me I could have his Rover 3.5 but the police scrapped it. But it does show you that he wanted me to have something of his.
“What he did was horrific but his family didn’t do anything wrong and we have had our own punishment.”
Sutcliffe, who changed his name to Peter Coonan, was cremated at an undisclosed location. It cost the Prison Service £3000.
His cell at HMP Frankland was cleared of his paintings, letters, DVDs and books.
But Mick, of Bingley, Yorkshire – who is housebound with lung disease – has no idea where they are. The Ripper’s family said the home he shared with Sonia in Bradford had a room full of his paintings.
Some featured war scenes with the killer riding a horse. A collection of his works and pottery are unaccounted for.
Former lorry driver Sutcliffe killed 13 women during his reign of terror in the late 70s.
He was caught in 1981 and jailed for life. Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, he was transferred to Broadmoor Hospital in 1984. In 2016 he was declared mentally fit and sent to Frankland.
Peter may have left something for me. I have a right to know MICK SUTCLIFFE ON THE WILL HIS BROTHER LEFT
THE shadowy world of contract killers has always fired the public’s imagination.
The silent “hitman” is often the star of the show in books, games such as Hitman featuring Agent 47 or films like The Mechanic starring Jason Statham.
But the reality can be a long, long way from the fantasy.
A few years ago I was part of a team that carried out research about the reality of the British “hitman”.
We found that there were four types: novices, dilettantes, journeymen and – the most successful – the master hitman.
I used the description “hitman” as I could only discover one woman who had ever carried out a hit – a young Maori woman living in London who had degrees in maths and chemistry, called Te Rangimaria Ngarimu.
In 1992, despite seemingly being a committed Christian, she accepted a contract to kill a roofing contractor called Graeme Woodhatch.
Dressed as a man, and armed with a photograph of her target and a gun, she went to the Royal Free Hospital in London (where Graeme was receiving treatment) and shot him four times in the head and body.
For killing Graeme on behalf of his erstwhile business partners she received £1500, although she had been promised £7000 with which she was going to buy a mobile home. After the murder she fled back to New Zealand .
However, after visiting her local church in 1994, Ngarimu seemed to undergo some sort of religious epiphany and so decided to return to the UK and face the music.
Still no one is any the wiser as to why she agreed to kill Graeme – at her trial she said that “something just snapped and I did it”.
She has now served her sentence and once again returned to her native country.
I didn’t really think much more about the case until the beginning of this month when, through one of my former PhD students, I received the biography of a personal trainer, “T Ngarimu” from the Fit Futures Academy, which has offices in Auckland and Christchurch.
And there is “T” smiling happily for the camera and describing how “as far as she can remember I have always been active, whether it be playing bullrush at school or playing various sports socially or competitively”.
“T” says that the sports industry has allowed her to “grow and to be the person that I am today”.
Her favourite phrase is, she says, “Go Hard!”
No mention is made that she had
No one is any the wiser as to why she agreed to kill
served a sentence for murder. So should I think of this as a success story?
In other words, that this is how a convicted murderer can serve their sentence, turn their lives around and not be defined by the worst thing that they have ever done?
Or, should I continue to worry that we still don’t know what it was that “just snapped” when “T” pulled the trigger that killed Graeme?
Was her motivation really just the thought of being able to buy a mobile home, or were there psychological, rather than instrumental, reasons that led her to take the life of another human being?
I’m still not certain how to answer these questions and so all I can say with confidence is that “T” continues to make me confused.