An animal rights activist planted two home-made petrol bombs at Oxford University, a court heard this week.

Mel Broughton was said to have worked with others to wage a terrorist campaign against the University’s plans to build a controversial animal testing laboratory.

The jury heard this week that two devices allegedly set off by the defendant ripped apart a sports pavilion owned by The Queen’s College and that a further two unexploded bombs were found beneath a portacabin used by the then Templeton College.

John Price, prosecuting, told the jury at Oxford Crown Court that Broughton was a prominent member of SPEAK, the animal rights organisation that has been campaigning against Oxford University since it announced plans in 2004 to build a bio-medical research laboratory on South Parks Road.

“a fanatic”

“He is a renowned self-proclaimed activist – a fanatic,” he said.

“He is a, if not the, leading figure of SPEAK, which campaigned against Oxford University’s laboratory.”

The organisation was formed to conduct legal and legitimate protest, but the court heard that there were those within the group that waged a violent and very frightening terrorist campaign against the University.

The jury was also told that Broughton’s DNA was found on one of the components used within one of the discovered unexploded devices.

Speaking as a witness, scientist Dr Rosalyn Hammond confirmed that traces she found on a swab used on one of the unexploded bombs was a match for the defendant.

“The match corresponds with Mr Broughton,” she said.

“The probability of getting this result profile from someone other than Mr Broughton is one in one billion.”

Mr Price added that Broughton had a history of being found in possession of incendiary devices and was convicted in 2000 at Northampton Crown Court of conspiracy to cause an explosion likely to endanger life.

Hidden notebook

He told the court that police who raided the defendant’s home in Semilong Road, Northampton, found items used in the home-made explosives and a notebook containing a list of those people he had been targetting hidden under the carpet.

The officers also found 14 packets of sparklers, a security pass for Oxford University and a battery connector hidden inside a water tank in his bathroom.

“The devices shared one feature, which was of particularly distinctive importance,” said Mr Price.

“They all, the two devices found at the sports pavilion, and the two devices at the portacabin, were improvised from fuses involving ordinary fireworks bound together as a thread.”

“He did not have them (the sparklers) for use at a future children’s firework party,” said Mr Price.

Mr Price said that the portacabin owned by The Queen’s College was targeted by activists claiming to work for the Animal Liberation Front on the 18th November 2006, with familiar unexploded devices found in an office at Templeton College on February 26th in 2007.

Authorities found 12 litres of fuel in the device at Queen’s College, and 20 litres of fuel in the device found at Templeton College.

Police who searched the destroyed premises found two home-made devices in the roof which had used ordinary firework sparklers as a fuse.

“Bite-Back”

Mr Price said that on both occasions anonymous messages had been placed on the “Bite-Back” animal rights website claiming responsibility for the attacks.

Extremists have consistently posted threats on the website pledging to continue direct action against those associated with the University until the laboratory project is scrapped.

Mr Price said other petrol bomb attacks had also been carried out by the group on cars owned by professors and the University boathouse, although neither of these particular cases necessarily involved the accused.

Broughton denies conspiracy to commit arson, possesion of an article or articles with intent to destroy or damage property, and keeping explosive substances with intent.

He listened carefully as the evidence was given about him and intently studied paperwork relating to the matters before the jury during hearings this week.

The trial continues.

Brasenose has allegedly spent £18,000 on plants and plant pots emblazoned with the college’s iconic knocker as part of their quincentenary anniversary celebrations in 2009.

The quads of Brasenose have been littered with an array of plants and pots, though the flora and fauna are already withering and wilting in the cold. The Bursary refused to deny that they had spent the reported amount of money on plants and plant pots.

Students and staff alike expressed bemusement over the amount purportedly spent of the plant pots. One student remarked, “I was quite impressed to think that we were a college so satisfied and contented by our financial prowess that such a sum could be deemed viable.”

Members of the JCR were quick to suggest other ways in which college money could be spent. One finalist suggested, “hiring a boiler-man – or several at that price – to work out how to control temperature in the library – I go in there merely to perspire.”

Another student proposed “room improvements, student welfare, or a sizable contribution to our ever diminishing sports funds. They could even lower the price of college accommodation if that’s the excess of cash they’ve got lying around.”

Balliol College has invited Shimon Peres, the current President of Israel, to give a special lecture entitled ‘The Globalisation of Peace’.

In 1994 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Oslo Accords. Last year Peres became the first Israeli President to address the legislature of a Muslim country when he spoke in Turkey and this year he has pursued joint economic initiatives with the Palestinians in a plan known as the Valley of Peace initiative.

The lecture is scheduled for 18th November and is open to all members of the University.

Scientists from Oxford University, Princeton and the U.S. Department of Energy have paved the way for the world’s smallest storage device.

They succeeded in storing data for nearly 2 seconds in the nucleus of an atom. The process has been hailed as the “ultimate miniaturization of computer memory.” Tests involved using the electron and nucleus of a phosphorous atom embedded in a silicon crystal.

Previously, quantum information has only been stored in silicon for a fraction of a second.

Several colleges were without electricity after power failures throughout Oxford on Thursday.

Wadham, Mansfield, New, Keble, St John’s and All Souls were all affected by the power failure. Wadham College the worst affected; students were without internet all day and many were without lights or heating.

A spokesperson for the National Grid said, “55 electricity supplies were interrupted at about eight o’clock on Thursday morning and our engineers connected mobile generators. Approximately 17 electricity supplies are still not working.”

Torrents of hot water have flooded rooms in Wadham College, devastating students’ personal possessions and forcing finalists to change their accommodation.

Michael Wood, a languages and philosophy student, said, “there was water completely pouring through my ceiling. It was really hot and steamy but fucking weird at the same time.”

The water poured from the attic at the top of the staircase and completely soaked through two floors, reaching rooms as far down as the first floor of the building. Three student rooms were damaged, as well as Wadham’s JCR kitchen and laundry room. The conference office two floors below was also affected.

The deluge occurred after a cold water tank overflowed. The flood is believed to be related to work carried out on the main boiler the previous day by building contractors.

One student whose room was soaked said, “I first noticed the flooding when I heard what I thought was a tap that I had left on in my bedroom.

“I looked around and saw that there was a quick stream of water falling from the ceiling over my bed. Within half an hour, there was hot water falling from all the corners of my room. The atmosphere was like a tropical rainforest.

“I managed to move most of my valuables out of the room, but the people living above me, who weren’t in their rooms at the time, weren’t so lucky.”

Michael Wood said, “I was in the bar when I had a phone call from the girl who lives below me saying, ‘there’s water pouring through my ceiling'”. When he reached his room there was two inches of water on the floor and seams of water along the ceiling where the concrete blocks join.

“The water got into all my cupboards, my drawers… pretty much everything it could.” The effect, he said, was “a bit like a sauna but more like a steam room.” He added, “I didn’t get scalded but it washed all the product out of my hair. College had just turned on these 2 boilers that they’d been repairing to avoid this happening.”

Pauline Linières-Hartley, Wadham’s Domestic Bursar, said that the cause of the flood was still unknown. She said, “the contractors are still looking at what went wrong. This is a very unfortunate incident, but these things do happen.”

She declined to confirm whether the contractors who had been doing related work on the main boiler were to blame. Problems with water pressure had led to the tank overflow.

Sharp and Howse, the buidling contractors who are working on the boiler, said that the incident was not directly related to their work on the boiler, “but it was related down the line.”

The contracts manager for the company said Sharp and Howse had rectified the problem but, “it wasn’t Sharp and Howse’s problem.” They are still investigating the cause of incident.

Two of the students have been moved to new rooms on college premises. However, since there were no free rooms for finalists on the Wadham main site, the third has been relocated to nearby New College until the flooded rooms have been repaired.

She said, “College staff have been very apologetic, but it’s still a massive inconvenience to have to move all my stuff to a different college where I don’t know anyone and to have to get all my clothes and bedding laundered and dry-cleaned.”

Wadham has offered to pay damage costs and compensation to all three students whose rooms were affected. The college expects to be able to move students back into their rooms by this Thursday.

Michael Wood said, “college have been fantastic. They’ve said that anything damaged will be replaced. They’re given me a lovely bottle of wine.” He added, “not to sound too stoical, these things happen.”

Wadham College guarantees in-college accommodation to all freshers and finalists. Ongoing building work has harassed Wadham students this term. Wadham’s iconic front quad is currently being gutted as part of renovation plans for the college.

One 2nd year said, “Back Quad is literally just portacabins since midsummer. It’s meant to be finished by May 09. The work is causing a lot of noise.” Another student commented, “Back Quad looks pretty awful. It’s eaten up by scaffolding.”

Atrocious speller can now blame their genetic make-up, after new research into dyslexia was published this week by Oxford University.

According to John Stein, Professor of Neuroscience at the Medical School, spelling, reading, or any form of activity associated with the written word foxes our brains because the skills are relatively recent, and human brains had to adapt quickly to them.

As opposed to linguistic ability, 30-40000 years old, the written word has only been around for around 5000. The study also labelled nutrition and proper sleep as major factors.

A girl from Christ Church was found unconscious and with severe injuries after a night out.

The second-year was discovered lying in the middle of Pembroke Street, bleeding from the head.

She was with a fresher who was trying, unsuccessfully, to pull her up from the ground, whilst cars were driving past.
They were discovered by two third years, Ashley Grossmann and Caroline Stevens, who were on their way back from the bar at about 11.30pm.

Stevens described how, seeing that the two were in trouble, Grossmann went into the middle of the road and successfully carried the injured girl off the road.

She said that the girl had appeared to have slipped and smashed her head on a drain, which was also drenched in blood, and was bleeding heavily from the back of her head.

Stevens recounts that she and Grossmann were “a bit concerned” as the injured girl was not responding to anything and her breathing was “erratic”: “she didn’t know where she was or who she was”.

Grossman and Stevens phoned for an ambulance and had to carry out first aid over the phone until more help arrived.

The girl was taken to the John Radcliffe hospital and had to be kept overnight.

Grossmann who saved the girl from the road last Friday said it was “no big deal” and that “any guy who saw it would have done the same”.

A spokesperson for the Oxfordshire ambulance services warned of the dangers of drinking following the incident.
She said, “all over the country, there have been peaks of activity during fresher’s week.”

“We understand that people want to go out, have a good time and do whatever but they have to be careful

“Our call rates have gone up in the last few weeks and drunken accidents really make the difference.”

A mystery Oxford University don is putting a lost painting by Sir Winston Churchill up for auction, after finding it in a dusty attic where it had been left untouched for decades.

The anonymous professor discovered the impressionist landscape wrapped up in a bin bag, but decided to sell the unsigned picture because he didn’t like it.

He then took the oil painting to an auction house, only to be informed that the portrayal of the first home lived in by The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh after they married had in fact been painted by the wartime Prime Minister.

Sir Winston’s landscape depicts Windlesham Moor, a luxury mansion near Ascot, Berkshire, which is now worth in excess of £60 million pounds and owned by Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum of the United Arab Emirates royal family.

Auctioneer John Dickens said that the retiring professor had asked him to sell the painting, before adding that there was a story in the family that it might have been painted by Churchill.

Churchill in the attic

“It had been in his attic for about 30 years,” said Mr Dickens.

“The owner’s mother apparently told him, ‘Winston Churchill painted this. It was given to me and I’m giving it to you.'”

Trying to explain why the work had lain untouched for so many years, the auctioneer added, “I think it’s generally easier to fall in love with something you know the name of.”

“The owner, who I believe is in his late 50’s and terribly shy, said he didn’t like the picture so I suppose it is understandable why it should be uncovered for so long.”

“To be honest with you, I think he’s rather embarrassed about the whole thing.”

Months of research confirmed that the portrait had indeed been painted by the former Conservative statesmen.

It is believed to have been painted in the late 1930’s rather than the 1940’s, as it is beleived that Churchill didn’t paint very much during the war.

“it’s definitely his”

“It’s certainly Winston,” said Mr Dickens. “It has all of the usual hallmarks: water and stone arches, a notable residence – it’s definitely his.”

The 37-year-old auctioneer has now valued the portrait at approximately £150,000 pounds, but expects the estimate to be well surpassed at auction.

“It is without doubt the most exciting piece I’ve come across in 10 years in this business,” he said.

“The estimate could be a little light, especially as Churchill works have risen steeply in value over the last 10 years but I won’t particularly mind if it goes for more.”

Churchill is widely known to have been a keen artist, first taking up a paint brush to stave off the “Black Dog” of depression following his resignation as First Lord of the Admiralty, after the failed Dardenelles expedition of 1915.

A date for the sale of the picture has not yet been set after a previous auction had to be cancelled due to technical difficulties.