telegraph.co.uk/expat

1062

November 30 - December 6 2011

| 3

T Take a weekly tablet You can now get the World Edition on your iPad telegraph.co.uk/expatsubscriptions

News

By Daily Telegraph Reporter POLICE interrupted a funeral to fingerprint the body after receiving a tip-off that the coffin contained a fraudster who had fled Britain 24 years ago.

Andrew Paterson went on the run in 1987 after he was charged with using his position as a solicitor in Guildford, Surrey, to defraud a client of £17,200 in an imported car scam.

He adopted a fake identity as Mark Attwood and became a wealthy property developer, setting up a series of successful holiday resorts, marrying three times and having six children.

But he longed to return home — and gave instruction for his body to be laid to rest in Begelly, west Wales, where he grew up.

After his death from a heart attack aged 58 in the beach resort of Goa in India, his wishes were carried out by his third wife, Chatchanok, who paid for his body to be flown back to Wales.

Police, who were tipped off, allowed the service to go ahead but delayed the burial for several days while the dead man’s fingerprints were taken. Their inquiries proved that the body in the coffin was Paterson.

Stewart Treharne, the funeral director, said: “It was an incredible end to a very dramatic life.”

As Attwood, Paterson cofounded the Karma Royal group, which expanded to become Asia-Pacific’s largest timeshare resort development with villas in Bali, Thailand, Indonesia and Greece. His funeral was attended by his six children and three wives.

By Tom Whitehead Home Affairs Editor AS AN example of the success of a scheme encouraging young criminals to show remorse to their victims, it leaves a lot to be desired. As an insight into the mind of a burglar, it is priceless.

Given the opportunity to write a letter of apology to the owners of a house he had broken into, this particular teenager chose to blame the crime on them.

Far from showing any remorse, the 16 year-old said it was the “dumb” family’s own fault because they lived in a high-crime area and had left a window open.

The teenager even attacked the householders for having left their curtains open and said he was “not bothered or sorry”.

The letter, which was as lacking in good spelling as it was in good manners, was so abusive that it was never sent to the intended recipients.

The police have decided to publish it, however, as a warning to householders of how burglars take advantage of failures to take simple security measures.

Officers said it showed the “cold and dispassionate way” in which a criminal targets a property.

AP;ADRIANBROOKS/IMAGEWISE

The teenager was told to write a letter of apology as part of the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance (ISS) programme which is offered as an alternative to custody for the most serious or persistent juvenile offenders. He was put on the court order for 12 months after being convicted of the burglary at a house in the Stainburns area of Leeds.

But instead of apologising for his offence, he wrote: “I don’t no why I am writing a letter to you! I have been forced to write this letter by ISSP.

“To be honest I’m not bothered or sorry about the fact that I burgled your house. Basicly it was your own fault anyways. I’m going to run you through the dumb mistakes you made.

“Firstly you didn’t draw your curtains which most people now to do before they go to sleep. Secondly your dumb you live in Stainburns a high risk burglary area and your thick enough to leave your downstairs kitchen window open.

“I wouldnt do that in a million years. But anyways I don’t feel sorry for you and Im not going to show any sympath or remores.” During the burglary, the family had a PlayStation 3, a camera, a

The 16 year-old says the family made ‘dumb mistakes’

camcorder, two television sets and two speakers stolen by the young criminal. Police arrested him soon afterwards and recovered all the items except for the PlayStation and camera.

Chief Insp Melanie Jones, of West Yorkshire police, said: “The contents of the letter are disgusting but it highlights the cold and dispassionate way burglars select a property to target.”

The force, which pointed out that one in five break-ins is the result of an insecure property, said it was worth publishing the letter to warn householders to lock doors, keep downstairs windows closed and set alarms.

Others could not contain their anger at the offender in question.

“Is he so brazen he is actually warning the community that if they don’t lock up he will break in?” said a spokesman for the Neighbourhood Watch Trust.

“He is saying what the Neighbourhood Watch have been saying for the best part of 30 years. We advise people how to keep their homes secure.

“But to come from a perpetrator who is not indicating any level of remorse and basically laying the blame on the victims is appalling.”

Javed Khan, the chief executive of Victim Support, added: “This is a disgraceful letter that shows a total lack of concern for the victim.

“It goes completely against the spirit of restorative justice, which many victims find extremely helpful in coming to terms with what they’ve been through and which can also have a positive effect in reforming offenders.

“It’s a very good thing that the professionals involved intervened to stop this letter going to the victim.”

Sharon Hamilton, a Labour councillor who represents the Moortown ward where the burglary occurred, said: “It’s not for him to be telling people in the area who have worked hard to have what they have to tell them how to look after their homes.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said last: “If the letter does not show suitable understanding or remorse… it will not be sent.”

By Mark Hughes Crime Correspondent THE Metropolitan Police Commissioner says he is “deeply disappointed” by a court ruling that swearing at the police was not a crime.

Bernard Hogan-Howe, Britain’s most senior police officer, said that officers could find ways around the ruling, which was made by a Court of Appeal judge last week.

Mr Justice Bean overturned the public order conviction of a suspect who repeatedly used the F-word while being searched for drugs.

Quashing Denzel Cassius Harvey’s conviction, Mr Justice Bean said officers were so regularly on the receiving end of the “rather commonplace” expletive that it was unlikely to cause them “harassment, alarm or distress”.

But Mr Hogan-Howe said: “I do not agree. I can only speak as a police officer with a few years’ experience. It is not acceptable to be sworn at for anybody, so why would it be any more acceptable for a police officer?”

‘What’s the ****** time?’

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley opens M&S Paris

By Henry Samuel in Paris THE queue that snaked 150 yards up the Champs-Elysées towards the Arc de Triomphe was curiously orderly by French standards.

But then, at least half of the 500-odd queuers were British, mostly women, stoically waiting to get a foot in the door of the first Marks & Spencer outlet on French soil since the group shut up shop 10 years ago.

No sooner were the doors of M&S’s three-floor Gallic flagship flung open, however, than calm gave way to an unseemly stampede for Scotch eggs as expats and French Anglophiles succumbed to their cravings for British “delicacies”.

Staff distributed free Rich Tea biscuits to keep bloodsugar levels in check, as one disconsolate woman complained that the scone shelf had been savagely plundered and was now empty. “It’s mayhem in there. People are throwing themselves at the stuff,” said Maxime Boathier, 23, a student who spent a year living in Britain. She took consolation from managing to bag spicy mango chutney, English mustard, shortbread and flapjacks. With exotic-sounding labels such as “feuilletés à la saucisse” and “oeufs écossais”, this wasn’t quite the M&S of Middle England, but then none of its other stores is situated on the world’s “most beautiful” avenue. Items were on average 10 per cent more expensive than in Britain.

Still, the relief was palpable among Britons living in Paris, who felt as if a vital link to the mother country had been severed when M&S withdrew its 18 stores from France in 2001, causing bitter ructions with unions and French politicians. “I knew it was opening, all my English friends did,” said Joanne Robinson, from Keswick, married to a Frenchman and living in Paris for 16 years. Mrs Robinson said she would “always buy [her] basic underwear” in the 15,000 sq ft store, which sells a full range of women’s clothes, but, like most of those in the queue, she was mainly interested in the food.

“I’ve missed the chicken pies, scones, Percy Pig gums, and the atmosphere really,” she said. But it is not just the British who are pleased. According to an internet poll by Le Figaro, more than 80 per cent of French people also “welcomed” the return of M&S.

Queues in the Champs-Elysees; pork pies on display; and shoppers in the new Paris store