A television actress who left her mother’s rotting corpse “wedged” behind a bedroom door so she could claim her pension money has been jailed for 11 months.
The body of Olive Maddock, 95, was left to decompose on the floor of the bedroom of her Merseyside home by daughter Olive Hazel Maddock, known as Hazel, and granddaughter Jasmine Maddock, 35.
The pair were sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court after Hazel Maddock, 61, pleaded guilty to unlawful prevention of burial at an earlier hearing. Ms Maddock, a television extra who has worked on Channel 4 dramas Brookside and Hollyoaks, also admitted fraudulently obtaining one payment of her dead mother’s state pension of £176.92 and a single payment of pension credit of £34.44. (AFP)
999 mix-up
An MP has called for an inquiry after surgeons battling to save the life of a heart attack patient were told to ring 999 because emergency back-up had been axed.
Medics were carrying out a routine operation at Rochdale Infirmary when the male patient went into cardiac arrest. They pressed a buzzer to summon emergency back-up, known as a “crash team”, to help restart the patient’s heart. But the team had been moved to other hospitals after a shake-up of local services. When no one responded to the alarm, the medics called the security office and were advised to phone 999 and ask for an ambulance. (PA)
Genital mutilation
A former Australian gynaecologist has been sentenced to three-and-a- half years in prison for mutilating a patient’s genitals and indecently assaulting two other patients.
Graeme Reeves was sentenced in a Sydney court yesterday after a judge found him guilty of assaulting two patients during internal examinations. Earlier, a jury convicted him of inflicting grievous bodily harm by removing a patient’s clitoris during surgery in 2002 to remove a lesion from her labia. Dr Reeves has denied the accusations.
The court was told he was suffering from depression at the time of the offences. (PA)
Polite burglar
A burglar offered to repair a screen he damaged while breaking into a New Jersey home after he was confronted by the homeowner, and told her he meant to break into a neighbour’s home.
The homeowner, Maria Cardona, said the man made her nervous as he told her about his family and kept a hand in his pocket. She says he was “really polite”, but she just wanted him to leave. (PA)
Child killer executed
A man convicted of molesting and fatally bludgeoning a nine-year-old girl in 1988 has been executed in Arizona.
Forty-nine-year-old Richard Lynn Bible received a lethal injection at the state prison in Florence and died.
He had been on death row for more than two decades. (PA)
Scorpions on planes
A man got a big surprise on a commercial flight from Seattle to Anchorage, Alaska, when he was stung by a scorpion while sitting in his plane seat.
Jeff Ellis, of Oregon, said he was trying to sleep on an overnight Alaska Airlines flight on June 17 when he felt something in his sleeve and tried to brush it away. He said he felt the crawling again, looked down and saw the culprit.
“I picked my hand up and said, ‘Oh, my God. That’s a scorpion’,” Ellis said.
He said he grabbed the scorpion with a napkin and showed it to his girlfriend, but not before it stung him on the elbow. “At first I didn’t believe him,” said Suzanne Foster, Ellis’ girlfriend.
“But then I saw it. He held the napkin up for me to see, and I saw the tail wiggling. I pretty much jumped out of my seat.” (PA)
Cola attacks
A man in the UK has been charged with assault after a series of water and cola attacks on women and girls, police said.
Christopher Attwood, 24, will face magistrates in Gloucester later this month accused of three charges of assault by beating.
He was arrested earlier this week when he was spotted acting suspiciously by an off-duty police officer. In 10 cases which police say are linked, a man was reported to have approached his victims from behind before tipping water from a container over them. In two other attacks, cola was used. (PA)