Second chance’ for drunk drivers rejected by alcohol charities

NEW PROPOSALS TO reduce the penalties for drivers just over the blood alcohol limit have been criticised by alcohol charities.
Under the new measures, motorists caught just above the new limit of 50mg alcohol per 100ml of blood will only face penalty points and a €220 fine – although if they are caught a second time, they will be banned. It will also be a three-tier system where drivers breath-tested between 80mg and 100mg will be fined €400 and banned for six months, while anyone above 100mg faces a 12-month ban, the Irish Independent reports.
Currently, anyone caught even slightly over the limit will have to appear in caught and faces a 12-month ban if convicted. The limit is currently 80mg, but will be reduced to 50mg – or less than a pint of beer – next month in line with several other European countries. It’s understood the reduced penalties are designed to avoid the courts being glutted with drink-drivers after the new limits come into force.
However, Fiona Ryan, director of Alcohol Action Ireland, rejected the new regime. “We know there are no safe levels for drinking and driving,” she told TheJournal.ie. “It is estimated that one in three crash deaths are alcohol-related.
The penalties involved in breaking the law should reflect the gravity of the situation. The message is don’t drink and drive because someone may lose their life as a result – surely the penalties should reflect this fact?
Fionnuala Sheehan, chief executive of alcohol responsibility group MEAS, also urged drivers to avoid drinking anything at all. “Even a small amount of alcohol in your system will seriously affect your ability to drive safely,” she said. “If people plan to drink I would encourage them to designate a driver or to use public transport.”
RSA chief executive Noel Brett has defended the new system, telling the Irish Independent: “We believe that these are proportionate penalties, fairly targeted and we are comfortable with them.”

 

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Girl's father was 'never fully in favour' of relationship with Turkish teenager

teenage waiter knifed two British women to death in Turkey after one refused to let him marry her 15-year-old daughter.

The obsessed 17-year-old lured the women to a secluded wood where he cut their throats. The girl, Shannon Graham, had been dating Recep Cetin for two years. He was said to be ‘totally infatuated’ and ‘very possessive’. 

Last week her mother Marion, 53, had a blazing row with Cetin, who uses the name Alex.

Suspect: Suspect Recep Celik, left, is accused of killing the mother of his girlfriend Shannon Graham, pictured, in a frenzied attack

 

Recep Celik is accused of stabbing Marion Graham (left) and Kathy Dinsmore, both 54 and from Northern Ireland 

After he kicked Shannon during an altercation, Miss Graham ‘went ballistic’ and told him never to lay a finger on her daughter again.

The waiter apparently responded by threatening to kill Miss Graham if she came between him and Shannon.

Last night Turkey’s state-run news agency Anatolia said Cetin had confessed to killing Miss Graham and her friend Cathy Dinsmore, also 53, who both came from Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland.

 

 

Shannon was being cared for by an Irish Embassy official. ‘She is in an absolutely dreadful state but we are doing our best to comfort her,’ a consular source said.

For several years Miss Graham, Miss Dinsmore and Shannon have been regular visitors to Turkey, where Miss Graham’s family own a holiday home in the popular seaside resort of Kusadasi.

Shannon and Alex started dating after she and her mother visited the restaurant where he worked.

Like many naive British girls who find love on holiday in Turkey, she was bowled over by his attention and soon found what started as a holiday romance turned into a marriage proposal. She travelled to see him every school holiday.

Media reports in Turkey have named Recep Celik as the 17-year-old Turkish suspect said to have carried out the attacks

 

Pictures of them together show them holding hands and smiling. But yesterday Shannon’s father, Raymond McGuinness, said her mother was terrified Cetin was abusing her. 

Mr McGuinness, who was flying out to be with his daughter early today, said he was never fully in favour of the relationship.

‘There was always something that was not quite right,’ he said.

An English holidaymaker who became friendly with Shannon and Cetin said the Turkish youth seemed to be ‘very possessive’ and ‘desperate’ to marry Shannon.

The woman, who asked not to be named, said: ‘He used to write to Shannon on Facebook when she was back in Northern Ireland. If she didn’t message him regularly enough, he would be messaging her asking why.

Arrest: Eyup Cetin, the father of the 17-year-old murder suspect named by Turkish media as Recep Celik is pictured being led away in handcuffs for questioning, while right, the Turkish youth and Shannon Graham are photographed together

‘He was even strange to people like me, just friends. If I passed him in the street without hugging him he’d hold it against me and act strangely for the next few days.’

On Thursday, Cetin sent Shannon on a boat tour off Kusadasi while he offered to take her mother and Miss Dinsmore on a sightseeing tour of Izmir, 60 miles away.

They travelled there by taxi. Once in the city, Cetin collected his father’s car and drove the women to a wooded area in Buca, a suburb of Izmir notorious locally as a crime hotspot, where he slashed their throats.

Shannon raised the alarm yesterday after the two women failed to return from the trip.

Search: Emergency crews scour the woods where the two women were discovered for evidence after the brutal killings

Frenzied attack: Officials remove the bodies of two women who have were stabbed to death in Turkey.

Mrs Graham's home in Newry, Co Down, after she and Kathy Dinsmore were stabbed to death in Turkey

It is believed that Mrs Graham had a property in Kusadasi

Cetin initially denied to police any connection to the women or involvement with their disappearance.

But after their bloodstained clothes were reportedly found in a bin near his family home, he admitted driving them to the woods and stabbing them on Thursday night. He then led police to the bodies.

Mr McGuinness said that after the women disappeared, Alex came back to Shannon saying they had all been kidnapped and he had a bad cut on his hand.

‘I don’t know what has gone on really. But there has been some sort of kidnap and then this tragedy has taken place and now Alex is in custody,’ he said.

In Newry, neighbour Brian Hyland said: ‘Marion was an absolutely lovely woman, very quiet and very polite  and absolutely dedicated to her children.

“Shannon is a lovely girl and is like any teenager really. But she’s very well behaved and polite.’

 

It is believed that a 17-year-old has confessed to attacking the two middle-aged women in Izmir, Turkey, pictured

 

 

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Turkish youth is expected to be formally charged today with the double murder of two Irish women in western Turkey on Thursday night.

Marion Graham and Kathy Dinsmore were found stabbed to death in a wooded area off a road near the port city of Izmir.

The dead women were both 54 years old and from the Newry area of Co Down. Both were travelling on Irish passports.

The killings followed Ms Graham’s attempts to prevent her daughter Shannon from marrying a 17-year-old youth she had met in the country.

The youth was detained by police yesterday, and is the only suspect for the double murder. His father and a local taxi driver were also helping police with their inquiries.

The suspect yesterday appeared at a preliminary hearing in Turkey and charges are expected to follow today.

Yesterday it emerged the two women had been threatened in recent weeks during a dispute over a proposed wedding between one of their daughters and a Turkish teenager.

Marion Graham had recently told family members in Ireland that an attempt had been made to assault her 15-year-old daughter in Turkey, and this led to her to put in place arrangements to bring the teenager back home.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is offering consular assistance to the families of Ms Graham and Kathy Dinsmore, both of whom were found stabbed to death.

Ms Graham’s daughter was yesterday being cared for by consular staff at the Irish embassy in Ankara. Her father was travelling to Turkey.

Ms Dinsmore’s brothers, John and George Dinsmore, said – in a statement issued through Newry SDLP councillor Sean O’Hare – that they were “devastated” by the tragic loss of their “beloved sister Kathy while on holiday in Turkey”.

Both women were killed on Thursday night. Local media reports claimed the women’s throats had been cut, but this could not be confirmed.

It is understood that Ms Graham was separated but she continued to use a family-owned property in Kusadasi several times a year.

Her daughter had been staying with her in Kusadasi where she had struck up a relationship with a 17-year-old boy who worked as a waiter. That relationship dated back to at least late last year.

Reports from Turkey and sources in Dublin yesterday said it appeared that Ms Graham’s daughter and her boyfriend were planning to get married in Turkey.

Ms Graham and her friend Ms Dinsmore strongly disapproved of the relationship and the wedding plans and were trying to frustrate those plans.

While details of the killings were still emerging from Turkey yesterday, it appeared Ms Graham’s daughter had gone on a boat trip on Thursday.

However, when she returned to her mother’s house she could not find her.

By the time she had gone to the police to report her missing, they were already questioning her boyfriend.

He had returned to his place of work, reportedly with a cut on his hands, and changed his clothes after claiming he had been on a trip with a friend and the murdered women.

When this was relayed to the police they began questioning him about the missing women.

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Community rallies for Montgomery man run over in Spain

People in Montgomery are rallying around a young man severely injured on the Isle of Ibiza off the coast of Spain.  Rob McLendon was riding a moped, when he was forced into oncoming traffic.  Both Rob and a friend, Zoe Bromberg from Jacksonville, Florida, were run over.  Bromberg died from her injuries.  Friends here at home have launched an effort to help Rob recover.

"He has cracked vertebrae, he has multiple fractures on his face, his liver, his kidneys are all damaged, he punctured lungs and he's really been in a fight for his life," said Chip Broadfoot, Associate Rector for the Church of the Ascension in Montgomery.

McLendon grew up in Montgomery, but his career took him to Europe.  His family and close friends have flown to the Isle of Ibiza to be with him.  And those who can't make the trip have shown their support in other ways.  A Facebook page titled Rob's Recovery has more than 700 likes. 

A CaringBridge site has more than 20,000 visits. They're encouraging people to send Rob cards for his birthday on the 14th.  But they say what's most important for the families, is prayer.

"If we can accept the fact that we are all connected like this, we can overcome anything," Broadfoot said   "We can show our connectedness by praying in the church, we pray for one another and we can send those prayers abroad."

The family said that Rob has opened and closed his eyes, and is making expressions.  Thursday is a key day for him, as he faces spinal surgery.

 

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Former St Andrews man jailed for killing in Barcelona

William Madley (47) had admitted hitting Lanarkshire man Derek Cowan over the head with a bottle before strangling him with his bare hands in Barcelona nearly three years ago.

The father of two confessed to the crime, which occurred in October 2008.

Lawyers struck a deal where it was agreed Madley, who spent his formative years in Yorkshire, would serve 10 years in prison. He was also ordered to pay £13,000 in compensation to the family of his victim.

The court in Barcelona heard a row, believed to have been over a failed business venture, had ended in the death of the 46-year-old Larkhall man in his apartment in the Spanish city's fashionable Eixample district.

It is thought the two Brits had at one time been business partners but had had a disagreement over money and ended the partnership some years before.

Mr Cowan, who had lived in Spain for seven years and had a Spanish girlfriend, was found lying in a pool of blood in his flat on October 8, 2008.

His current business partner, concerned that he couldn't contact Mr Cowan, went to his flat where he made the grim discovery.

Police launched a manhunt for Madley, who went on the run for five weeks and was only found during a routine police check at the city's main railway station in the middle of November.

Madley is alleged to have said he picked up a bottle and hit Mr Cowan over the head in anger. Mr Cowan then fell to the floor where Madley strangled him.

Madley admitted he did not know if his former business partner had been dead or alive when he left his apartment home.

Madley was originally from St Andrews but moved at a young age to Huddersfield where he attended primary and secondary schools and sixth form college.

He was 25 when he left the west Yorkshire town to join the Royal Navy. He served as a submarine officer aboard a nuclear vessel.

 

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