Animals rights group SPEAK this week handed over a 65,000-signature petition to Oxford University, calling for an end to all animal testing.

This act was timed to coincide with the end of the World Month for Laboratory Animals, with which SPEAK has been heavily involved. The group has organised demonstrations throughout UK against the use of animals in research and testing.

A march on Cornmarket was held on Friday in support of the petition’s message.

The submission of the petition, for which signatures have been gathered over the last five years, comes after a major victory for the animal rights movement last week, when Oxford and other universities were forced to disclose information about primate testing, which they had previously refused to do.

The university have released a statement about the latest development, defending the work they carry out with animals. “Animals are only used when no other research method is possible,” a spokesperson said, adding “We recognise that people have a range of views on this issue. The university has always said the building (the biomedical sciences centre) is going to be better for animal welfare and is supporting research into disabilities and deadly diseases.”

The petition has been met with criticism by some Oxford students. Robert Smith, a Biochemist in his first year at St Hilda’s College, believes the public should focus on the rewards that animal testing can reap in the field of medicine: ‘When we think of animal testing cruelty and exploitation are often the first things that come to mind. It is sometimes easy to lose sight of what it can actually achieve. As soon as one looks at the number of instances where new cures for human diseases have been found thanks to tests on animals it becomes much harder to condemn.’

SPEAK has opposed the biomedical sciences centre since it was first publically proposed in 2004. Although the principal contractor, Walter Lilly, withdrew after its shareholders received threatening letters, the project was completed and the building was officially opened at the end of 2008.

Oxfordshire County Council has this week announced plans to make Oxford a 20mph city.

 The new speed limit will be introduced on most residential streets, as well as sections of A and B roads in busy shopping areas.

The initiative, which will cost around £250,000, is designed to reduce fatal road accidents. Councillors hope to see a five percent reduction in casualties as a result of the change.

Oxford follows Portsmouth to become the second UK city to introduce the new blanket speed limit.

The oldest-known book dust jacket has been discovered by a librarian in the Bodleian. The jacket, dated from 1830, wraps a silk-covered gift book entitled “Friendship’s Offering”.

Michael Turner, the Bodleian’s head of conservation, made the discovery when ordering an archive of book trade memorabilia bought by the Bodleian in 1892. The jacket had been removed from the book. It has been discovered when an American scholar of dust jackets contacted the library looking for the earliest known example.

Silk-bound books tend to be very vulnerable, so the dust jackets were used by booksellers to protect the binding. As a result, the jackets were often removed as soon as the book was bought. Thus, very few have survived.

A former Oxford University scientist has been jailed after pleading guilty to charges of sexual assault on a toddler and the possession of 20,000 images of child pornography.

Andrew Lintern, 55, pleaded guilty to 31 charges at Southwark Crown Court on Monday. These included an indecent assault on a 17-month infant, taking sexualised photographs of his victims and distributing the images.
Lintern, who used to work as a chemistry researcher at Oxford, was caught by the London Metropolitan Police’s Paedophile Unit while posing as a 9-year-old girl on an online messenger service.

Lintern contacted someone he believed to be a 13-year old girl, who was, in fact, an undercover police officer. Police arrested Lintern after he arranged to meet the “13-year-old.”

The former chemist is suspected to have indulged in paedophilic activities for the last 10 years. He has been found to collect stories describing the rape and murder of children. He also wore nappies while at home.
Detective sergeant Jason Tunn from the Met’s Paedophile Unit said, “certainly by 2002 he was abusing children hands-on… He is a dangerous sexual predator on children.”

Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC said that the evidence raised “concerns about [Lintern’s] state of mind.” He considered him to be “a significant threat to the public.”

He told Lintern, “taken all in all, the charges you have pleaded guilty to amount to such a great catalogue of offences involving child abuse that it is difficult to grasp the scale of your offending.

“And it is just as difficult to grasp what has prompted a man like yourself to become steeped in activities involving the serious exploitation of children and the literally immeasurable harm that was done to them.”

Lintern was given an Indeterminate Public Protection sentence, with the minimum jail time of three-and-a-half years. He will only be freed if the release is approved by the parole board or the Secretary of State, and will otherwise face an indeterminate sentence.

Jason Tunn commented, “the probation officer that assessed him, the judge and the psychologist agreed that the risk of re-offending is high and the fact that he’s been given an indeterminate sentence reflects that.”

Some have found the sentence to be insufficient. A second-year medic from Christ Church said, “three and a half years minimum is a disgustingly short sentence for someone who basically was planning to rape a thirteen year old girl. Even if he doesn’t get out that soon, that the minimum was set so low really trivialises rape and that is going to put women and children at risk.”
Rosanna McBeath, OUSU VP for welfare, commented, “I’m shocked and disgusted to hear about this case. It is upsetting to hear that someone who was once part of the Oxford community committed such heinous actions. If anyone at the University was affected by this, I would urge them to seek support.”

A first year CAAH student commented, “that’s really disturbing. It’s scary that there are people around like that. You think of Oxford as a safe place and put your trust in the people who work here… this news comes and it makes you feel sick.”

A third-year Magdalen student added, “it’s horrifying to think that this pervert ever had a connection with a teaching institution; even more horrifying that the institution is the same one I go to. The man was clearly messed up.”

The University refused to comment on whether Lintern could have posed a threat to students and staff during his career at Oxford.

A National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children spokesperson noted, “we must not forget the fact that behind many abusive images are real children. Receiving or downloading abusive images of children perpetuates its production and reinforces the cycle of sexual exploitation.”

An OUSU blunder has cost the Student Union thousands of pounds in lost affiliation fees over the past five years, a Cherwell investigation has revealed.

It was only in September of last year that financial officers discovered that OUSU had been using the wrong inflation rate to calculate how much college common rooms should be paying.

The lost revenue – calculated to exceed £16,000 – will have served to further worsen the financial situation of the Student Union, which still owes £250,000 to the University.

Lewis Iwu, the OUSU President, admitted, “An administrative error has led to common rooms over the past 5 years being undercharged for their affiliation fee. This had been corrected at the start of this year and now the correct amount is being charged.”

OUSU Representative of Trinity College commented that the problem might have been caused to the lack of long-term planning. She said, “The fact they have been using the wrong index is indicative of the management of OUSU. This however does not seem to be because of a lack of enthusiasm or competence of individual members of staff or executive, rather not having any planning and the relatively quick turnover of staff. Without any real long-term plan, financial mis-management is inevitable.”

A graduate student commented, “I find it hilarious that OUSU bungled this simple calculation for so many years.”

Alex Bulfin, JCR President of University College expressed his relief that the problem has been solved. He said, “It’s a shame that this will add further to the perception of some students in the University that OUSU is unprofessional and ineffective. OUSU provides many valuable and vital services to students and common rooms, but events like these only seek to undermine much of the good work the Students’ Union does.”

He added, “That said, the problem has now been remedied and the work that the current Executive are conducting into funding at the moment should ensure that OUSU are far better placed financially than they have been hitherto. This is why it is important that OUSU continues to professionalise its operations in the future.”

Iwu praised the enthusiasm of OUSU’s accounts staff, “I would like to reiterate that the staff of the Student Union have done the students of Oxford a service through their hard work, commitment and enthusiasm since this Student Union was created.”

OUSU is meant to base its annual increase in common room affiliation fees on Retail Price Index from September each year. However, it was found that in the last 5 out of 6 years the figures on common room invoices do not match RPI indices published by the government.

Cherwell’s examination of invoices revealed that the percentage increases correspond instead to an increase in the value of a basket of goods bought in 1987. The finance teams had then divided these indices by 100 in order to obtain a percentage used to increase the subscription fees.

The figures obtained have been consistently lower than the Retail Price Index, resulting in OUSU undercharging common rooms by thousands of pounds over the past years.

A scholarship fund for gifted students has been created in the memory of John Ddungu, a Lady Margaret Hall student who died in February.

John Kavuma Ddungu Memorial Trust for Academic and Sports has been created by the mother of the student.

The fund will support talented children from “Britain and all over the world” who “don’t have the opportunity and don’t know the system.”

Gladys May Kavuma explained that she decided to set up the trust in order to honour her son’s memory. She wanted to realize her son’s dream to set up a charity to help children in Africa.

She said to This is Croydon Today newspaper, “Last July he told me that he wanted to set up a charity to help children in Africa to go to school in the UK. He said to me that he wanted deprived children to have the same chance that he had.”

Ms Kavuma revealed has been left “numb” not knowing what caused her son’s death.

She explained, “It hasn’t really sunk in.”

Since Ddungu’s death many messages of support have appeared on his personal webpage.

Ms Kavuma commented, “Reading his Facebook page makes me see how many friends he had and lives he touched.”

She added, “I just need to know what happened to him. I’ve seen his body, which helped because he looked peaceful. I think it will hit me at the funeral but for now I am being strong.”

Ms Kavuma asked all those who attended John’s funeral to make a contribution to the fund instead of bringing flowers. She will need to raise £5,000 to register the charity.
The cause of the death is currently unknown. However, the police are not treating the death as suspicious.

LMH Principal Frances Lannon, speaking through the University Press Office, said “We were shocked and profoundly saddened by the death of John Ddungu, a second-year undergraduate at Lady Margaret Hall. Our thoughts and deepest sympathy are with his family and friends at this very difficult time.”

Sourav Choudhury, JCR President at LMH, echoed Lannon’s sentiments. “John was a universally popular and well liked student within LMH. His death has naturally upset and touched both his close friends and the wider college community. At this difficult time we ask to be allowed to grieve in private.”

Members of Oxford’s Bullingdon Club have denied the claims made by a Proctor last month that they have been threatened with Anti-Social Behaviour Orders.

In a speech he made in March, outgoing Proctor Professor Donald Fraser said that the first case he was given during his first week in office was to deal with complaints about the club members’ behaviour during incidents in October 2007 and March 2008.

Residents in Jericho, north Oxford, contacted the Proctors’ office to report that students living in a house near the Phoenix cinema ‘had taken habitually to the drunken braying of ‘We are the Bullingdon Club!’ at 3am.’

According to a transcript given to the Proctors’ office, a neighbour complained but was greeted with what the Times called ‘a well-educated torrent of abuse.’
Fraser added that, ‘the transcript of what they called the wife of the neighbour who complained was written in language that is not usually printed’.

The matter was then referred to the police because the incident did not occur on University property and the Bullingdon Club is not an official University society.

‘After conferring with the Proctors’ Officers, I thought that an ASBO might concentrate the minds of those concerned. I referred the matter to the police, who did mention the word ASBO before awarding the members of the club an ABC – Acceptable Behaviour Contract – that would magically and automatically turn into an ASBO if provoked within six months.’

Members of the club are denying the accusations, which recently appeared in the Daily Mail and The Times.

A 47 year old single mother and Jericho resident told the Daily Mail, ‘They had a party and were chanting again and started throwing glass champagne bottles out of the window. The street was carpeted with broken glass.’
She added that two of the students – Francesco Ciardi and Konstantin von Bismarck – later contacted her to apologise.

Bismarck, a descendant of the Prussian Imperial Chancellor who founded modern Germany, rang the woman up to offer apologies. Ciardi, a friend of Princess Beatrice, apologised in person and offered her chocolates, which she refused.

The two denied being members of the Bullingdon, but admitted that they allowed the club to use their house.
One member denied that they were given the disciplinary orders, saying that the newspapers’ allegations came ‘probably from their more exotic daydreams.’

He added, ‘But then again the Mail recently hazarded to allege that the club members ritually burn bags of cash exceeding £500, which really pushes the borders of insanity.’

While the inner workings of the club remain secret, the same member did comment that, ‘There is no formulaic trashing ritual’ and insisted that breakages ‘are always swiftly dealt with.’

In December 2004, four members of the Club were arrested following the alleged trashing of the cellar of the White Hart pub in Fyfield, an incident that prompted the press to refer to the club’s activities as ‘despicable’ and ‘reprehensible’.

The society was founded in the late 19th century as a hunting and cricket club, but has gained a reputation as an exclusive drinking society. It has made headlines in the last few years due to the prevalence of its ex-members on the Opposition front bench. Conservative Leader David Cameron and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne were both members of the society while students at Oxford, as well as the London Mayor Boris Johnson.

One member added, ‘We are not a bunch of vandalising socialite terrorists.’