He said that it clearly had no support, was not necessary and would not be pursued, although that was not the line he had steadfastly pursued in media interviews at the start of the week.Yesterday, however, Mr Robertson and his party's Scottish general secretary, Jack McConnell, denied that Labour was in disarray over devolution, or that the decision amounted to a change in policy. Labour was plunged into further acute embarrassment over devolution yesterday when George Robertson, the party's spokesman on Scotland, was forced to "clarify" the muddy confusion of its policy - and drop the party's latest referendum plan. Having last weekend decided to stage a third referendum, on activation of the Scottish parliament's tax-raising powers, Mr Robertson staged a Glasgow press conference to say the additional vote was "not necessary and will not be pursued by the Labour Party". The high-speed change, ridiculed by one Labour source as "not so much a U-turn as an S-bend", is the third change since June when the Labour leadership dropped its bombshell plan to ask the Scottish voters whether they wanted a Scottish parliament, and whether it should have the power to vary taxes by up to three pence in the pound.Last weekend, Labour's Scottish executive decided on the further referendum on the use of that tax power - so unceremoniously jettisoned by Mr Robertson yesterday. Molloy took her to another house where he raped her again, followed by three others. The following morning she was indecently assaulted by three of the gang.. Once there he raped her twice and, the judge said, "shared her around your friends as though she were an inanimate plaything". They said the trial had been prolonged due to a number of factors, including the need for an interpreter.The principal cross-examination is claimed to have taken about three days, but most of the others were much shorter.
Three to four days were spent giving evidence in chief for the prosecution.The Victim Support charity called on the Bar Council to examine the use of multiple defence counsel and repetitive questioning.A fortnight ago, victims and women's groups called for a change in the law after a rapist defending himself was allowed to cross-examine his victim for six days.The gang, which included three brothers, was led by Garrard Molloy, 16, who had promised the woman there would be no sexual contact after insisting that she stay at his Brixton home rather than cross London to her own flat after watching a film. You, not your counsel, added insult to injury and heaped further humiliation on her."Legal sources later challenged claims that the woman had been repeatedly asked the same questions. The victim, a 20-year-old Japanese student, was questioned by barristers for each of six defendants, aged from 15 to 23, who had kept her a sexual prisoner for nearly two days. Disclosure of the torment of the lengthy court proceedings, spanning 12 days in all, came as Judge Graham Boal handed down a total of 15 sentences ranging from 30 months to 10 years, for rape, aiding and abetting rape, and indecent assault.It is the responsibility of the judge to control oppressive questioning but Judge Boal told the attackers, who argued the woman had consented: "For over 30 hours this girl had to relive the ordeal in a public court and in front of total strangers Outrageous suggestions were put to her on your instructions. Pressure for a review of court procedures in sexual cases intensified yesterday after a gang-rape victim made legal history by spending 31 hours in an Old Bailey witness box. The law in this country needs to be looked at to protect others. This man lied and cheated his way into my life."Her MP, Sir Teddy Taylor, has written to Malcolm Rifkind, the Foreign Secretary, about the case and her family have asked for the help of Essex police.A police spokeswoman said: "We're working with the CPS to establish whether we have any jurisdiction to make any criminal prosecution."The case would be unprecedented in Britain but if Mr Georgiou was brought to trial here, he could face charges of grievous bodily harm or man slaughter, when Mrs Pink dies.A case on the holiday island would be more probable - though still very unlikely.Cyprus police are understood to be investigating.However, the Terrence Higgins Trust expressed caution at the idea of a criminal prosecution.
Her move echoed the play and film, Shirley Valentine, in which a frustrated housewife escapes her dull life in Britain to find romance on a Greek island.She became friendly with Mr Georgiou, 39, who told her his wife was dying of leukaemia. In truth, she had Aids and Mr Georgiou was HIV-positive.Unaware, Mrs Pink fell in love with him and became infected. She discovered last summer when she had an Aids test.When he began to see other women, she left Cyprus and returned to Britain where she is now "weak but comfortable" in a private room at Basildon Hospital in Essex.Mrs Pink, who has two grown-up children, told the Daily Mail yesterday: "I have been incredibly naive but I did not deserve this .. I really believed his wife had leukaemia What he has done is murder. Janette Pink, 44, wants to see an HIV-positive Cypriot fisherman, Pavlos Georgiou, behind bars for recklessly infecting her, within the 20 months she has been given to live. But as Essex police discussed what legal routes may be open to her with the Crown Prosecution Service yesterday, Aids experts and lawyers warned that legal action would be fraught with difficulty.Nick Partridge, chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust which helps people with Aids, said: "This is a tragic case but using the law creates more problems than solutions."Mrs Pink moved to Cyprus after her 20-year marriage to a City accountant crumbled. We would often sell them items for about pounds 1 each."They were a lot of fun, never cheeky and they had no roguishness about them.
Our sales are down about pounds 150 a week, so we miss them for that But we also miss them for their friendliness.". A divorcee who contracted HIV from a man she met after starting a new life in Cyprus has begun an extraordinary fight to have him jailed. They only earned about pounds 15 a month, so they saw us as a good source of clothing and we were pleased to help. Excited Russians were regular visitors to the Save the Children outlet, and would buy up the second-hand clothes for family members at home."They used to get shopping catalogues while they were over here and take them home for their wives," said Violet Laurenson, who runs the charity shop."Then they would come back with pages torn from the catalogues and buy the nearest thing we had to what their wives had chosen. The Shetland fishermen are now selling their catches in Denmark and Norway where they can demand around pounds 350 a tonne for herring, compared with the Klondikers' price of about pounds 120.Sadly, the place on Commercial Street, Lerwick centre's main high street, where the Klondikers are being most missed, is a charity shop.
I think they will be missed for more than just their money."With the reduction in the herring and mackerel quotas, local fish are too expensive for the eastern Europeans, who have returned to their own markets. They always went back to their boats by 6pm and they never caused any trouble. Over the past 15 years, as many as 100 factory ships from Russia, Poland, East Germany, Bulgaria and Romania have tied up outside the harbour for up to eight months of the year to buy the local fishermen's stocks. But this year, they have gone, driven away by reduced European Union fishing quotas that have seen prices double. Local shopkeepers are suffering a minor recession with the absence of the Klondikers because, although the sailors had very little money to spend, there were as many as 7,000 in port at any one time, a figure that doubled the town's population."We knew it couldn't last forever, so no one really accounted for their presence in long-term business plans, but they did bring an added boost to the local economy," said Drew Tulloch, a director of Hughson Brothers wholesalers, which used to supply meat and vegetables to the Klondikers."They didn't have much money, but they would save up for electrical goods like televisions and videos."Aside from that, they were always very polite and friendly and colourful. So it is with the people of Lerwick, in Shetland, who this year have said goodbye to the Klondikers, thousands of eastern European seamen who brought colour - and money - to the northern town while buying up cheap herring and mackerel.
