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Mothers almost fed shards of metal to babies, court hears
Two mothers have described nearly feeding their babies food contaminated with shards of metal allegedly placed there by a sheep farmer as part of a plot to extort £1.4m in cryptocurrency from Tesco. Nigel Wright, a 45-year-old from Rochdale, is accused of bombarding the supermarket chain for nearly two years with letters and emails claiming he would only reveal the stores in which he had planted poisoned and dangerous goods if he was transferred 200 bitcoins.
He allegedly claimed to be part of a cohort of farmers angry at being underpaid by Tesco, signing off his threats as “Guy Brush and the Dairy Pirates”. Mr Wright admits carrying out various elements of the campaign, but claims travellers had threatened to kill him unless he paid them £1m. He denies planting shards of metal in baby food found in a Rochdale branch of Tesco, but accepts he placed a contaminated jar on a shelf in Lockerbie. The trial, which is expected to last three weeks, continues.
Teenager found guilty of murder
A 17-year-old boy has been found guilty of the murder of a teaching assistant who was found buried in a shallow grave at the back of a cemetery. The body of Lindsay Birbeck, 47, was discovered wrapped in two plastic bags in Accrington Cemetery in Lancashire on 24 August last year – 12 days after she went missing.
The mother-of-two left her home in Burnley Road, Accrington, for a late afternoon walk to a nearby wooded area known as the Coppice. She had invited her teenage daughter, Sarah, and Sarah’s boyfriend for tea at 6pm but when she did not return her worried family raised the alarm.
Her attacker had been on the prowl in the woods for lone females and is thought to have killed Ms Birbeck shortly after she entered the Coppice. Yesterday, a jury at Preston Crown Court convicted the youngster of murder after deliberating for more than four hours. The verdict was returned exactly a year after Ms Birbeck was murdered. PA
Marathon bars run again
After a year of bad news, nostalgic chocolate fans have something to celebrate as the classic Marathon bar returns to shelves. In 1990, the snack was rebranded as Snickers but now Mars Wrigley has reintroduced the classic chocolate bar under its original name at Morrisons and McColl’s stores. They will be on sale for three months.
Rare butterfly spreads its wings
The largest reintroduction of a rare butterfly that was once extinct in Britain has been hailed a success after the insects bred in the first year. The globally endangered large blue butterfly was introduced to Rodborough Common in Gloucestershire last year, after five years of landscape preparation. Large blue butterflies have a remarkable life cycle, which involves the larvae tricking a particular species of red ant into carrying them into their nest where they feed on ant grubs before emerging the next year as butterflies. The species was declared extinct in Britain in 1979, but was first reintroduced from populations on the continent nearly 40 years ago and has been established at a number of sites across southern England.