Three of the eight cities hosting the Euro 96 football championships are to hold Britain's first night-time courts to deal with soccer thugs. In the event of violence after matches played in Newcastle, Birmingham and Nottingham, offenders will be dealt with during sittings that could run until 11pm. Hundreds of thousands of football fans from all over Europe will descend upon London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leeds and Newcastle during the three-week international tournament in June.Their presence, coupled with widespread relaxation of pub licensing hours, is expected to lead to an increase in crimes ranging from public order offences to robbery.In order to deal with offenders, all the cities have pruned court lists on the day after scheduled matches and three have gone further by preparing to hold evening sessions. Peters, 41, traded in dead wildlife from his home in the remote village of Aberhafesp, near Newtown, mid-Wales. He had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to eight charges of importing and exporting endangered species, six of which are listed as under serious threat of extinction, including a Philippine monkey-eating eagle of which just 50 pairs survive. Customs officials who raided his home last August seized more than 250 carefully labelled skins of birds from all over the Philippines, including 42 individual specimens of 16 protected endangered species.. A wildlife dealer who smuggled the skulls and skins of some of the world's most endangered species was jailed for two years yesterday. Chester Crown Court was told that Dutchman Nicolaas Peters had creatures on the brink of extinction hunted to order in the Philippines.

The team which spent two years investigating widespread child abuse in North Wales has laid down ground rules over publication of its suppressed report. The inquiry team wants to see the legal advice which Clwyd County Council obtained before making it's decision not to publish the report, whose findings were detailed in the Independent earlier this week. The members of the team have also made it clear in a letter that although they are prepared to look at the report again, they will not alter the main findings or recommendations, which include a call for a full judicial inquiry into what went on in children's homes in Clwyd over 21 years.The Secretary of State for Wales, William Hague, who is coming under increasing pressure to hold such an inquiry, has told the councils which took over from Clwyd in local government reorganisation, to produce a timetable for publication of the report.Concerns highlighted are thought to include the possibility of libel and the risks of identifying people who have not been prosecuted.John Jillings, former director of social services in Derbyshire who chaired the inquiry, said: "It may seem strange, but we have not yet had sight of the legal advice about our report."I have now written to the council saying we are prepared to look at our report and setting out our requirements."Mr Jillings added: "We will not fundamentally alter it, our main findings will remain.". He was concerned also at the use of imprisonment to punish women and young people for minor offences.Dr Carey's message was: "If you treat people with respect and justice, they are more likely to behave in a way which is more respectful of themselves and others and open themselves to the possibility of law-abiding values."If you harass and humiliate them, they will store up destructive anger which is to nobody's benefit.". Last night it stood at 54,334.This was the second assault in a year on the Government's penal policy by Dr Carey who adopted the theme of Lord Taylor, the Lord Chief Justice, in attacking the new sentencing proposals - saying that long terms did not deter criminals, fear of being caught did."Penal policy is weighted far too heavily in favour of imprisonment, to the detriment of those forms of correction, which I firmly believe offer more hope in the long term," Dr Carey said.He was concerned about the number of unconvicted prisoners held on remand who are ultimately acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence They often lose jobs, homes or families. "Prison protects the public by taking people out of circulation and gives us a chance to rehabilitate them," she said.Dr Carey's speech to the Prison Reform Trust will embarrass the Home Secretary, forcing him to justify spending of billions of pounds on new jails.The speech comes day after Conservative and Labour MPs attacked Mr Howard for eroding the Prison Ombudsman's powers, reducing him to a "complaints investigator who does as much as the Home Office allows him to do".Dr Carey was speaking as the prison population continued its advance to record levels.

Ann Winterton, Tory MP for Congleton, said he had given "only a one-sided and unbalanced view". The Home Office minister, Ann Widde- combe, said the archbishop had made an important contribution to the debate. The Archbishop of Canterbury last night launched a withering attack on Michael Howard's "prison works" criminal justice policy, warning of the dangers of creating a culture of revenge. "If you treat people like animals, they will respond like animals," said Dr George Carey as he joined the growing ranks of judges, police and lawyers calling into question a justice system which puts jail and "austere" punishment at its core. The attack led him straight into a furious row, with Tory MPs demanding his removal from office if he continued to talk "this dangerous twaddle".They were led by David Evans, a senior member of the influential executive of the Tory 1922 Committee, who said Dr Carey "has not a glimmer of an idea of what people who suffer from crime think about these matters". No, it was Mr Blair who was to be condemned for a "shameless betrayal of the legal system".Shameless What an appropriate word.Scandal: pages 4,5. Although being rich does seem to help you put it over and over again.Not that Mr Gummer was averse to a bit of hellfire Far from it. But the sulphurous flames and pitchforks were not for those found guilty of wilful misconduct in the most serious case of political corruption for a generation.

Emotional Conservatives like Bill Cash and Teresa Gorman rose to condemn the unfairness of a system that could see small folk, like the heiress to the Tesco fortune, forced to pay out millions at the say-so of some accountant. That was only supposed to happen to Labour councillors.To an Opposition MP who ventured the thought that the councillors of Clay Cross - including a humble school caretaker - had not enjoyed much charity at the hands the Heath government in the early Seventies, the Rev Gummer gripped his Bible and declared that "every person in her Majesty's domain has the right to put the case, be they rich or poor". Poor Dame Shirley and colleagues, unable by virtue of their poverty or disabilities adequately to put their side of the story - either to a vicious press, or an adamantine auditor, and thus condemned after only the best part of a decade and endless hearings And in England!I wasn't alone. That I hope he is never in the position of having to accept the words of someone outside that he is no position to comment in any way upon" Amen.Despite myself I felt the tears begin to prick my eyes.