Peter Gay, 38, of Whitechapel, east London, who faces up to five years in jail, last November deliberately ran over a journalist who had given evidence against him in another court hearing, Southwark Crown Court was told. The council had sold around 4,000 of the crown-sized tokens at its various outlets and allowed them to be exchanged for goods. The council hopes it can persuade the Treasury to drop its legal objections to the tokens, which have been said to contravene currency legislation. The council says it will resume sales from Saturday, but each token will now carry a sticker stressing they are not coinage and cannot be exchanged for goods. In defiance of a Treasury ban, the Isle of Wight Council has decided to resume the sale of Ecu-style tokens. He claimed that the poem was written while he was smoking cannabis and had nothing to do with the robbery.. Peter Roddy, 41, Dion Gray, 21, and Malcolm Bird, 29, all from Blackpool, denied the robbery at the WH Smith wholesale depot in the resort last October Almost pounds 10,000 was stolen and nothing was recovered.

The jury was told that police officers discovered that one of the men, Roddy, had scribbled a poem about the robbery on a table top when they went to arrest him. It read: "I would never rob a pauper of that I am sure./The best buzz I have ever had is robbing Securicor". We shall be able to put together and deploy a joint force .. specially tailored to meet the demands of each crisis. "The first Chief of JRDF Operations is Brigadier Jonathan Thomson Christopher Bellamy. Defence sources said the "Joint" force would enable Britain to respond more quickly to crises, either as part of a multinational operation or a purely British operation and was a reflection of the move from a "continental" to an "expeditionary" strategy. Three men convicted of an armed robbery on a Securicor guard were each jailed for 14 years at Preston Crown Court yesterday.

Michael Portillo, the Secretary of State for Defence, said: "From today we will be able to respond to crises worldwide more quickly. He told BBC1's Nine O'Clock News: "If judges knew what trouble juries had ... in coming to a verdict they could perhaps alter the form of their summing up to make it easier for juries to understand the issues but as long as we have no idea on what basis juries reach their conclusions it's difficult to answer any of those questions." Patricia Wynn Davies. Britain's new Joint Rapid Deployment Force, comprising elite Commandos and paratroops and other quick-reaction forces from the Navy, Marines, Army and Air Force, became operational yesterday under the direction of the new Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood, Middlesex, which was opened on 3 April. "On very many issues," he said, "Tony Blair is well to the right of me." As examples he gave Mr Blair's proposals to introduce curfews for children and take grants away from students, proposals which the Republican Party would consider blasphemy to oppose.. Research into how juries reach their verdicts was last night demanded by Lord Donaldson, the former Master of the Rolls, following the failure of Ian Botham and Allan Lamb's libel action against Imran Khan and the acquittal at a trial in Liverpool of four women accused of criminal damage after an attack on a British Aerospace Hawk jet.

"I'm not recommending that in the British situation."Mr Redwood admitted he occupied positions some way to the left of his Republican friends. Nearly 13 million Americans are on welfare and 25.6 million receive food stamps.Mr Redwood backpedalled somewhat when asked whether he believed Britain might adopt some of its provisions, notably the one imposing five-year limits on access to welfare "No," he said. Jefferson warned us all that the coat which fits the boy needs replacing in manhood. So it is with the welfare coat, as we grow to greater prosperity."Mr Redwood's metaphor was perhaps ill-judged since the Bill's American opponents - among them senior members of Mr Clinton's Democratic Party - estimate that 1 million children will be thrown into coat-less poverty.What the Bill does, among other things, is reduce families' eligibility for cash welfare payments to a maximum of five years in total, and reduce help with food. At a news conference yesterday morning, he congratulated President Clinton three times on his decision to sign the Republican Bill.Mr Redwood approved of the emphasis on "self-help" in legislation which "offers people the chance of a job rather than a welfare chit". He said: "Your welfare Bill has broken new ground here in the US."In Britain we are also making important changes.