Bride jailed for stealing £200,000 towards wedding

A bride who stole £200,000 from her employers to pay for a lavish wedding has been jailed.

Part-time accounts assistant Kirsty Lane, 30, transferred the funds from Pure AV's bank account into that of her and her future husband, Graham.
The fraud was discovered shortly after the pair's wedding at the Great Hall at Mains, near Blackpool in January 2011.
Lane, of Lewis Close, Adlington, Lancashire was sentenced to 20 months in prison at Preston Crown Court.
She stole about £122,000 from the Leyland company, which installs audio-visual equipment, by putting in fake invoices, marking them as paid and then depositing the money into her own account.
She also diverted about £70,000 through her husband's account, which she told him were savings, salary and bonuses. About £6,000 was transferred into a third account.
Company director Peter Sutton said Lane had cost the firm about £300,000, due to tax and VAT payments, and put the "livelihoods of 20-plus people" in jeopardy.
'Lavish wedding'
Police said Lane began working for Pure AV in May 2007 and started siphoning money into her account in December 2008.
A spokesman said the offences had continued until she left the company for her wedding on 23 January 2011 by which time she had made a total of 122 fraudulent transactions.

Lane spent a large proportion of the money on a lavish wedding at the Great Hall at Mains

He said a large proportion of the money had been used to fund her "lavish wedding" which included a free bar, musicians, fireworks, a magician and face-painting.
He added that Lane had also used the cash to pay for home improvements and items such as a large television, a Tag Heuer watch, an iPod, compact mirrors and car keys covered in Swarovski crystals and personalised car registration plates.
He said she had "abused her position of trust to steal from her employer and fund a lavish lifestyle".
Speaking in Lane's defence, Amanda Johnson said she was a woman of good character who suffered from low self-esteem and the offending coincided with the time she met her husband.
"She felt that money and the trappings that money could buy would make her a more attractive proposition," she said.
She said Lane thought she could "make herself more attractive to him by having money and being able to spend it on gifts and holidays".
'Cynical exploitation'
Passing sentence, Judge Pamela Badley said the "modest" first amounts of cash Lane stole from the company had escalated and gone on to fund a luxury lifestyle.
Judge Badley said her behaviour had been "fraudulent from the outset" and told her she had taken part in a "cynical exploitation of the small company for which you worked".
Speaking after sentencing, Mr Sutton said Lane had been "a trusted member of the team and she had been in that position for a number of years".
He said she defrauded the company in a complex way and there had been no obvious "digital trail".
"We just wanted it over. It's the end of a traumatic time in our existence and the legal system has prevailed," he said.
Graham Lane was found not guilty to one count of money laundering at Preston Crown Court on an earlier date.

Windows Phone 8 system update announced by Microsoft

Microsoft has unveiled the next version of its smartphone operating system.

Windows Phone 8 shares much of its code with the firm's PC system, making it easier for developers to write programs for different types of devices.
The company said it should mean there would be some "amazing games" for handsets running its new release.
A tie-up with Nokia has already bought several Windows Phone devices to market, but sales lag some way behind models running Android or Apple's iOS.
Microsoft said Nokia, Samsung, HTC and Huawei would all be making devices powered by the system upgrade.
High-def handsets
Other new features announced at the Windows Phone Summit event in San Francisco included:

• Support for multi-core chips, allowing devices to turn on cores to access extra processing power when needed, and to switch off cores when not to preserve battery life
• The ability to work with different screen resolutions including the high definition 720p format
• Support for removable Micro SD cards allowing users to store more media files or install apps saved on the format
• A new "wallet" app allowing the phone to act as both credit and membership cards. It also supports NFC (near field communication) payments
• Built-in maps from Nokia's Navteq division with turn-by-turn navigation
• A more customisable start screen allowing users the choice of three tile sizes to represent installed software and more colour options
• A warning alert if the software believes a website contains malware or is otherwise unsafe

Application tiles can be made to look smaller

Background Skype
The update also allows internet call software based on VoIP (voice over internet protocol) and video chat technologies to run in the background.
This addresses a complaint that the firm's own Skype program could not be used to receive calls while its owner was using another application - a function offered on rival platforms.
The firm said VoIP calls should now "feel like any other call" made or received by Windows Phone handsets.
Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 strongly resemble each other - at least when the PC system is run under its Metro interface - and Microsoft was keen to stress that their relationship goes deeper than appearance alone.
The two will share a range of components including graphic drivers, the DirectX collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) and the NT kernel that ties application software to the hardware it is installed on. They can also both support native code in the C and C++ programming languages.
Microsoft said this should not only make it easier to port software between the two environments, but should speed up the time it takes developers to recode programs originally built for iOS and Android.
More games
Microsoft noted more than 100,000 apps had been released for Windows Phone 7.
By contrast there are more than 466,500 programs in the Android marketplace according to search site Appbrain, and "over 500,000" in Apple's app store according to the iPhone maker.

The system software that powers Microsoft's Surface tablets shares many components with Windows Phone 8

Securing "marquee titles" is more important to some than raw numbers, and Microsoft addressed this too with news that Gameloft's Nova 3 and Zynga's Draw Something were coming to Windows Phone.
"Until now handsets running Microsoft's system have been missing some of the most innovative applications and popular games," said Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms.
"Now with the update from Windows Phone 7 to 8 this should be addressed. Many of the developers I had spoken to had said they were holding off until they knew more about the new system. It looks like that

Hamas 'ready for truce' following fighting with Israel

Hamas is ready to agree to an Egyptian-brokered truce with Israel, its military wing has said in a statement.

Hamas was committed to halt three days of fighting, "as long as the occupation [Israel] stops this aggression", said the al-Qassam Brigades.
Eight Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes in Gaza since Monday. Several Israelis have been hurt in a hail of rocket fire from Gaza.
It is the worst flare-up of violence between the two sides for months

First test tube baby mother Lesley Brown dies

The woman who gave birth to the world's first test tube baby has died.

Lesley Brown, 64, who lived in Whitchurch, Bristol, made history in July 1978 when her daughter Louise was born at Oldham General Hospital.
Mrs Brown had been trying for a baby with her husband John for nine years before she became the first woman to give birth following IVF treatment.
She died at the Bristol Royal Infirmary on 6 June with her family by her side, it has been announced.
She successfully conceived following pioneering treatment by Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards.
She leaves behind daughters Louise and Natalie, who were both born following IVF treatment, her stepdaughter Sharon and five grandchildren.

Mrs Brown successfully conceived following pioneering treatment

Her husband died five years ago.
A private funeral service was held in Bristol on Wednesday morning.
Louise Brown said: "Mum was a very quiet and private person who ended up in the world spotlight because she wanted a family so much.
"We are all missing her terribly."
Dr Steptoe and Prof Edwards set up the Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridge two years after Louise Brown's birth. It is now a leading centre for IVF treatment.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

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Lesley Brown is part of medical history. When in 1978 she gave birth to her "test tube baby"' she also gave birth to IVF treatment and gave hope to millions of childless couples.
Her daughter Louise was the first of what stands at around four million children born through in vitro fertilisation.
It is a technique which has transformed fertility treatment. Fertilising an egg with sperm outside of the body and later implanting the resulting embryo into the mother, means being infertile is no longer a barrier to having children.
Prof Robert Edwards won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2010 for devising the technique, which was described as "a milestone of modern medicine".
One marker of the success of IVF is how the technique has gone from being a medical marvel attracting media attention from around the world to one which seems so normal, so day-to-day, that people barely bat an eyelid when it is mentioned.

Speaking on behalf of Mr Edwards and the team at the clinic, chief executive Mike Macamee said: "Lesley was a devoted mum and grandmother and through her bravery and determination many millions of women have been given the chance to become mothers.

"She was a lovely, gentle lady and we will all remember her with deep affection."
Speaking in 2008, Mrs Brown said she had been so desperate to have a baby that she was willing to put up with anything to give birth.
At the time, she said: "I'm just so grateful that I'm a mum at all because without IVF I never would have been and I wouldn't have my grandchildren."
Her blocked fallopian tubes meant getting pregnant naturally was impossible.
In 1976, she heard about new research and was referred to Dr Steptoe, after which she agreed to the experimental procedure.
Although other women had been implanted with fertilised eggs, Mrs Brown was the first to achieve a pregnancy which went beyond a few weeks.
The attention around the pregnancy brought with it concerns for her baby's safety.
Mr Edwards said in an interview in 2008: "We were concerned that she would lose the baby, the foetus, because the press were chasing Mrs Brown all over Bristol where she lived.
"So, secretly Patrick Steptoe hid the mother in his car and drove her to his mother's house in Lincoln - the press didn't know where she was."
Mrs Brown recounted that once she was in Oldham hospital reporters tried a variety of methods to sneak into her room from a bomb hoax to

Federal Reserve cuts forecast for US economic growth

Bernanke says most members of the central bank's monetary policy committee have marked down their economic forecasts for the US

US Economy

The Federal Reserve has cut its forecast for economic growth in 2012 from 2.9% to 2.4%.

It has also predicted a central unemployment rate of up to 8.2%, having forecast up to 8% on 25 April.
The central bank also extended its programme of swapping short-term bonds for long-term ones, known as Operation Twist, until the end of the year.
The idea of the programme is to cut the long-term cost of borrowing for businesses and households.
The programme is worth $267bn (£170bn).
In a news conference, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said unemployment was still too high and was going down too slowly.
"We are prepared to take further steps if necessary to promote sustainable growth and recovery in the labour market," he said.
The rise in the central prediction of the unemployment rate came after the jobless rate rose from 8.1% to 8.2% in April.
The Federal Reserve Monetary Policy Committee's decision on Operation Twist was not unanimous, with one of the 12 members voting against it.

Analysis Mark Mardell

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The Fed's twisting in a chill economic wind. Its move is a reaction to its fairly gloomy assessment of the state of the US economy. It says the recovery in America is still happening, but it has slowed down, and what's going on in the rest of the world poses "significant risks".
So it's acting to keep long-term interest rates low, which it hopes will encourage people to spend and businesses to take on more workers. It's the extension of a policy that began last September and the jury is out on whether it has worked so far.
In the current political environment the Fed is the only actor with a role. Even if there wasn't a presidential election looming, Congress would still be deadlocked and neither Democratic nor Republican plans stand a chance of being turned into reality. The Fed could print more money (or the modern equivalent) but that would be hugely politically controversial. The bottom line is it's not doing much, but it's the only one doing anything to prop up a faltering recovery.

Jeffery Lacker, the president of the Richmond Regional Fed Bank, had also voted against the previous three decisions.

Operation Twist involves the Federal Reserve buying bonds that have between six and 30 years left on them and selling equal amount of bonds with less than three years left.
"The Fed was more concerned about the economy than they have been and eased by extending Operation Twist," said Allen Sinai, chief executive of Decision Economics in New York.
"They appear to be holding more firepower in reserve in case things get worse."
The central bank's statement pointed out that "growth in employment has slowed in recent months, and the unemployment rate remains elevated".
It kept interest rates unchanged at the level of zero to 0.25%.
There was a muted response on the markets to the Federal Reserve's borrowing decision, although much of the rally earlier in the week was attributed to hopes of more stimulus measures.
Wall Street shares were barely moved by the decision, the yields on US government bonds were also unaffected and the dollar rose against the euro.
"The Fed extending Twist was expected," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at DA Davidson and Co in Oregon.
"There may be some disappointment that the Fed didn't provide any strong hints in terms of new policy announcements."

Rio+20: Progress on Earth issues 'too slow' - UN chief

The UN sustainable development summit in Rio de Janeiro has formally opened with a warning from UN head Ban Ki-moon that progress on the issue is too slow.

The secretary-general told world leaders and other ministers that "words must translate into action".
On the summit's fringes, international finance institutions launched a $175bn fund to boost sustainable transport.
And the UK government announced that major businesses will have to report their carbon emissions from next year.
Mr Ban opened the session with a reference to the historic Earth Summit held here in Rio 20 years ago, which spawned UN conventions on climate change, biodiversity and desertification, as well as the Agenda 21 blueprint for sustainable development.
"Since then, progress has been too slow - we have not gone far enough down the road," he said.
"We are now in sight of a historic agreement - the world is waiting to see if words will translate into action, as we know they must."
Youth message
Mr Ban's comments suggested that there were still decisions for the estimated 130 heads of state and government, and ministers from other countries, to take here.
However, there has been no indication that any are planning to re-open talks on the agreement that their negotiators concluded on Tuesday, before the high-level talks began.
The opening session also heard from 17-year-old New Zealander Brittany Trilford, who won a competition organised by climate change campaign group tcktcktck to send a message behalf of the world's youth.

Syria 'truce agreed' to evacuate Homs civilians

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says the Syrian government and rebel fighters have agreed a temporary truce to allow civilians to be evacuated from the city of Homs.

The ICRC said that its teams - with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent - were ready to enter the worst-hit parts of Homs.
However despite the agreement, aid workers have been unable to enter.
Elsewhere in Syria, activists say that at least 20 soldiers were killed by rebels in the province of Latakia.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting took place in a region known as Jabal al-Akrad near the Turkish border.
Rebels blamed
Homs has been at the centre of the 15-month revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.
Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, the ICRC's regional head of operations, said fighting had been raging for more than 10 days in parts of the city.
"Hundreds of civilians are stuck in the old city, unable to leave and find refuge in safer areas," she said.

The ICRC said it had received promises from both sides that they would allow a two-hour pause in the fighting. The ICRC says it is essential it be given immediate access.
But although aid workers stood ready on Wednesday, they were not able to enter the city. It was not clear whether the heavy shelling and gunfire had stopped.
Heavy shelling by government forces in residential areas has killed hundreds of civilians and brought international condemnation.
The Syrian government blames the deaths on "terrorists" backed by foreign powers.
On Tuesday, the government said it was trying to evacuate civilians and blamed rebel fighters for obstructing its efforts.
UN mission 'staying'
Earlier on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 20 soldiers were killed in an overnight attack by rebels on an army barracks in Latakia.
It said that dozens of soldiers had been wounded and others - including an officer - captured.
The group added that 58 people had been killed in violence across the country on Wednesday.

UN monitors were fired on in Haffa and have suspended operations

Neither the reports of attacks nor the casualty figures can be independently verified.
Latakia has recently seen some of the worst of the fighting.
Last week, the Syrian government said it had taken control of the western mountain town of Haffa, in Latakia, after fierce fighting with rebels.
It said Haffa had been "purged of terrorists" and calm restored.
UN monitors were fired on and turned away by angry residents as they tried to enter the town amid fears of a massacre. They were able to return on Friday.
The UN observer mission has now suspended its operations in Syria amid the worsening violence.
Its leader, Maj Gen Robert Mood, told the UN Security Council that observers were targeted by hostile crowds and gunfire on at least 10 occasions, diplomats said.
But he said his decision to suspend operations did not mean the mission was leaving Syria or abandoning the Syrian people.
The UN mission has been observing the implementation of a peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.
However, a ceasefire that was supposed to have come into effect in April never took hold.
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to end the violence have been continuing.
At the G20 summit in Mexico on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama held separate talks with the leaders of Russia and China - both of which have blocked UN resolutions over Syria.
He said later that the talks had failed to achieve a breakthrough.