The trio, all members of a diving club in Folkestone, were thought to be suffering from “the bends” when they surfaced, a Dover coastguard said. He said that a helicopter had first planned to take the three men to a decompression unit at Portsmouth, Hampshire, but it was unable to land because of fog The next nearest unit was in Ostend.. Environmental experts have expressed confidence that oil washed ashore from the Antiguan-registered cargo ship Cita, which went aground off the Scilly Isles last week, would cause little coastal damage. In an operation to clean a beach at Porth Hellick bay, a site of special scientific interest on St Mary’s, oiled sand will be removed by mechanical diggers, cleaned and returned to the beach, and rocks will be washed by local authority workmen and Marine Control Pollution Unit personnel. The tug Salvage Chief continued pumping around 90 tonnes of fuel oil from the wrecked vessel..

Two teenagers died after being hit by a passenger train at a notorious blackspot for rail vandals in Leeds. One was killed instantly and the other was declared dead at hospital soon after they were struck by the Middlesbrough-to-Manchester airport train travelling at around 70mph on Sunday night. The youths, 15 and 17, were found near the main trans-Pennine line. A Railtrack spokeswoman said yesterday that a third youth who was present ran away but was later traced and was being questioned by police. She said the accident scene, near a road bridge over the two rail lines, was known as a blackspot for trespassing and vandalism. Railtrack and British Transport Police launched an immediate inquiry.. Pregnancy in prison conjures up images of extremely hard labour; of women giving birth in chains.

Roisin McAliskey, the pregnant IRA suspect who is on remand in Holloway prison, might have been subjected to such a regime had she not complained of harsh treatment. She was eventually told that she could give birth without shackles, and she has now been offered a place in the prison’s mother and baby unit. At Askham Grange, the Victorian institution featured in Witness: Babies Behind Bars, a Channel 4 documentary being shown this evening, they take a rather more modern approach: female prisoners and their babies are routinely lodged together in a mother and baby unit in an attempt to encourage the emotional survival of both parent and child.
The open prison near York looks rather like a boarding school, and the atmosphere is not dissimilar: institutional furniture, small beds, and walls papered with snapshots. The only bars are on the wrought-iron gate and each prisoner holds a key to her room.