Please let April come home to us

METRO (Newspaper) Wednesday 3rd October, 2012
by NADIA GILANI

THE parents of missing five-year-old April Jones last night pleaded for her kidnapper to let her go.

Coral Jones, 40, and her husband Paul, 43, issued their heartfelt plea as police questioned a suspect over their daughter’s disappearance.

They said: ‘Last night our lives were shattered when our beautiful little girl, April, who was playing with friends, was taken from us.

‘We are devastated and our lives have stopped. Please, please if you have our little girl, let her come home to us.’

The appeal came hours after officers detained a 46-year-old man, thought to be Mark Bridger, as they patrolled the north of the Powys town of Machynlleth.

He was said to be a person they were looking for in connection with April’s disappearance on Monday evening. A vehicle, which he ‘had use of and which is of interest to the inquiry’, was also being examined by forensic officers last night.

Bridger was said to be well known in the town and to April’s family but was not a relative.

Det Supt Reg Bevan said officers were ‘hopeful the suspect will assist us in locating April’ and that the hunt was continuing ‘with the view that she is still alive’.

April was last seen getting willingly into a van while playing with friends near her home.

Hundreds of people joined the hunt for the five-year-old yesterday, while the armed forces and specialist teams equipped with thermal imaging cameras were drafted in.

Police are also checking for links to another attempted abduction in the area a week ago. They are investigating the movements of registered sex offenders living in the area.

Doctor struck off for abusing boys

Wednesday September 26, 2012, [as reported] by TARIQ TAHIR

A FORMER doctor at Great Ormond Street children’s hospital has been struck off the medical register after being found guilty of molesting boys.

Prof Philipp Bonhoeffer was judged by a tribunal panel to have acted inappropriately towards children in Kenya and France.

He was dismissed by the London hospital in 2010.

A Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service panel yesterday ruled his fitness to practise was impaired by reason of misconduct and decided to strike his name from the register.

Bonhoeffer’s actions were ‘calculated, deplorable and an abuse of his special position of trust,’ the panel ruled.

The cardiologist sexually touched a boy in France in 1997 and abused youngsters for more than 15 years while carrying out medical work for a charity in Kenya, the panel heard. Bonhoeffer was employed by Great Ormond Street in 2001 as a consultant cardiologist. In 2002, he became head of cardiology until his dismissal.

Panel chairman David Kyle said: ‘Prof Bonhoeffer has been found to have persistently exploited vulnerable young boys over an extended period of time with sexual motivation.

‘The panel has concluded his conduct is not merely unacceptable — it is fundamentally incompatible with continued medical registration.’

The panel’s decision was welcomed by the General Medical Council.

The doctor did not attend the panel hearing in Manchester or submit any evidence, but a statement from his lawyers said he denied the allegations made against him.

It went on: ‘He has no intention of resuming the practice of medicine in the United Kingdom.’