Former cabinet minister Patricia Hewitt has said that the organisation to which she and her former Labour colleague Harriet Harman belonged was "naive and wrong" to accept the assurances of a paedophile group that it was a campaigning and counselling organisation.

Hewitt said that, as general secretary of the National Council for Civil Liberties in the 1970s, she took responsibility for the mistakes that were made and apologised for having "got it wrong" on the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). The two organisations were affiliated for eight years from 1975 to 1983.

In her first public statement since the scandal came to light earlier this week, Hewitt said: "I got it wrong on PIE and I apologise for having done so.

A suspended deputy headteacher accused of videoing teenagers using the toilet for his sexual pleasure has appeared in court to face child pornography charges and allegations of voyeurism.

Teacher Gareth Williams, who has been suspended from Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf, appeared before magistrates in Cardiff accused of 48 offences.

Charges relating to voyeurism took place at the school he worked at, while other alleged offences took place at two addresses - one in south Wales and one in north Wales, Justices of the Peace were told on Thursday.

Sheila Holt was contacted by the Department for Work and Pensions who invited her to attend 'intensive job-focused activity'

A government minister has apologised after it emerged that a Whitehall department sent letters to a woman demanding she make an effort to find work even though she was in a coma.

The minister for disabled people, Mike Penning, said he apologised "unreservedly" to the family of Sheila Holt after he was challenged in the Commons.

"It's about time politicians did stand up and apologise when things went wrong. It clearly has gone wrong and the family have every right to be aggrieved and I hope she makes a full recovery, as much as she can," said Penning.

Holt, who has suffered from physical and mental health problems, was contacted by the Department for Work and Pensions, which invited her to attend "intensive job-focused activity", according to her MP Simon Danczuk. She fell into a coma in December last year and the government and its contractor were informed, the Labour MP told the Commons.

The body of a missing Inuit woman who was herself researching the plight of missing and murdered indigenous women in New Brunswick has been found just days after her tenants were arrested with her car hundreds of miles away.

Loretta Saunders, 26, was last seen alive on February 13, according to news accounts. Surveillance cameras filmed her as she left her apartment building, where she had gone to collect rent from her subletters, police told the National Post. Over the next few days, family members received odd text messages from her phone. Then silence. Concerned, especially when one of the messages asked for information about accessing her bank account, the family reported her missing on February 17. Saunders's car was found in Ontario, near Michigan, on February 18 in the possession of her roommates, who were arrested and charged with fraud and possession of stolen goods. Police also discovered outstanding warrants for their arrest elsewhere in the country.

Then on Wednesday February 26 the pregnant Saunders's body was "found on a median off Route 2 of the Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick," the National Post reported. It was hundreds of miles from where she lived and was last seen.

Blake Leggette, 25, and 28-year-old Victoria Henneberry were arrested near Windsor, Ontario, 2,000 miles away and brought back to Nova Scotia to face the charges in Halifax. Police said they are treating Saunders's death as a homicide but did not immediately reveal whether more charges were pending. Saunders had left her boyfriend's apartment on the day of her disappearance to meet with them and collect back rent, The Globe and Mail said.

Tiffany Rent is eight-months pregnant, but that didn't stop a Chicago police officer from using a taser on her. The assault and arrest occurred Wednesday morning outside of a drug store on Chicago's South Side.

The Chicago Police Department Superintendent Garry McCarthy said that even though Rent was only a week or two away from giving birth, "you can't always tell whether somebody is pregnant."

Tiffany, however, said it should have been obvious.

"I was standing at the squad car close enough for him to see that I was pregnant," Rent explained to the Chicago Tribune.

The Chicago Police Department, however says that their officers did nothing wrong. Rent, they said, had "attempted to take off" after parking in a handicap space outside of a Walgreens drug store. Why was she parking in a handicap space? Because she was almost ready to give birth and it was severely uncomfortable - even painful - to walk far.

The officer was not moved by her plight. Poor and frustrated with the $350 ticket, Tiffany tore up the citation saying: "I ain't giving you sh#@," according to the police report. In effect, she was tased, for nothing more than saying she wouldn't pay a fine.

Superintendent McCarthy said this is a matter of "upholding the law" and that Rent should have been tased for her comments:

"Well, first of all, you can't always tell whether somebody is pregnant. So, you want to use it where you are overcoming assault or preventing escape. That's what it boils down to."

To make matters worse, Tiffany was pulled out of her car in front of her two young children and her boyfriend, held down to the ground before being tased. Joseph Hobbs tried to stop the assault. Hobbs is the father of the child and said he was afraid the full-term baby would be injured in the assault. He suffered a dislocated elbow as a result.

A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday ordered Google Inc to remove from its YouTube video-sharing website an anti-Islamic film that had sparked protests across the Muslim world.

By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Google's assertion that the removal of the film "Innocence of Muslims" amounted to a prior restraint of speech that violated the U.S. Constitution.

The plaintiff, Cindy Lee Garcia, had objected to the film after learning that it incorporated a clip she had made for a different movie, which had been partially dubbed and in which she appeared to be asking: "Is your Mohammed a child molester?"

In a statement, Google said: "We strongly disagree with this ruling and will fight it."

Cris Armenta, a lawyer for Garcia, said she is delighted with the decision.

Two police officers in Midland, Texas were reprimanded for a contest to see who could confiscate the most cardboard signs from homeless panhandlers, despite the fact that panhandling is not illegal in the city.

The officers, Derek Hester and Daniel Zoelzer, were suspended for three days without pay and, according to Police Chief Price Robinson, "reminded to respect individual rights and human dignity."

"We want to respect people, no matter who they are - homeless, whatever," he continued. "That situation's been dealt with. Those officers understand."

An attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, Cassandra Champion, said that "the fact that they are making sport out of collecting the personal property of homeless individuals could be seen as them targeting these individuals for discriminatory harassment. Simply holding a sign is absolutely a protected part of our free speech."

After three years of tortuous debate, the European Parliament voted and passed the Tobacco Product Directive by 514 votes to 66. Certainly, the sacking by Manuel Barroso of Maltese Health Commissioner John Dalli for allegedly soliciting a bribe of €60 million from a Swedish snus manufacturer did nothing to speed matters up.

The main points of the TPD are:

• Banning the sale of packs of ten cigarettes and small pouches of tobacco
• Health warnings to cover 65 percent of the front and back of all packaging
• Banning of flavours like menthol
• Minimum sized packets
• Allows member states to ban internet sales, specifically aimed at electronic cigarettes
• Regulation of electronic cigarettes
• Continuing ban on Swedish snus, a tobacco-based alternative to smoking

France's face veil ban is just the latest controversial law aimed at assimilating new immigrants in Europe. The Netherlands now requires Dutch fluency to become a citizen:

First a parrot rats out its owner for a DUI and now this: Last week, a talking parrot helped police solve the mysterious murder of its owner.

On February 20, Neelam Sharma and her pet dog were found murdered in Agra, India.

Police were baffled by the case until they got an tip from Sharma's husband, Vijayy Sharma.

After the murder, Sharma noticed that whenever his nephew Ashutosh visited his home or was mentioned, Hercule the parrot changed his behavior.

"During discussions too, whenever Ashutosh's name was mentioned, the parrot would start screeching. This raised my suspicion and I informed the police," Sharma told the Times of India.

Police detained Ashutosh, who quickly confessed to murdering his aunt and her dog.

"We checked his call details and took him in custody. He accepted his crime and informed us that he was accompanied by an accomplice. They had entered the house with the intention of taking away cash and other valuables," an Agra police spokesperson told the Times.

Ashutosh said he killed his aunt after she recognized him. The dog got the axe because he wouldn't stop barking. Unfortunately for Ashutosh, he didn't see the parrot, who silently witnessed the entire crime, according to police.