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Half Marathon and Sky Dive for Clatterbridge |
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 The leap in to Spring has seen a flurry of high adrenaline sports being completed by some of the Cobley’s teams.
The events kicked off with the Liverpool Half-Marathon on Sunday 28th March 2012 which saw our Laura Tipping and Jonathan Mc Ilveen complete their first half marathon. After the success of the Team Challenge 5k in October, the pair decided to take on the challenge of the 21 kilometre (13.1 mile) course.
The day itself was glorious and saw in excess of 6,300 runners from as far away as Mexico, Brazil and Australia line up at the Queens Dock by the Echo arena. Olympic silver medallist Kriss Akabusi was at the start to give runners some encouragement and to officially start the race.
The 13-mile course took runners through the fringes of the city centre onto Upper Parliament Street, Princes Park and Sefton Park, Otterspool promenade and back to Queens Dock by the ECHO arena. Both runners finished the race with respectable times of 1:56 (Laura) and 1:34 (Jonathan).
Both runners thoroughly enjoyed the experience and despite some aches and pains the following week, they are already planning the next race!!
Without much time to stop for breath, however, it was on to the next activity – a Sky Dive from 14,000ft!!
The event was scheduled for Sunday 25th March 2012 and saw our Laura Tipping and Laura Graham travelling to the airfield in Lancaster for the 8:00am start! Despite not jumping until 15:00, both Laura’s were surprisingly calm and enjoyed the sunshine whilst they waited. They both completed the jump without injury and described the experience as “incredible” and “amazing”.
 The Dive was initially a “one off” event, however, both Lauras enjoyed the experience so much that they are already busy recruiting other members of staff to repeat the experience.
Laura and Laura were raising money for Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology which provides treatment and care for more than 2.3 million people with Cancer across Merseyside, Cheshire, North Wales, the Isle of Man and parts of Lancashire. So far they have managed to raise over £1,000 via their JustGiving page – http://www.justgiving.com/teams/lauraskydive |
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‘I never gave up hope’ – taxi driver David Butler acquitted of Anne Marie Foy murder speaks out |
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A TAXI driver cleared of the 2005 murder of a Liverpool gran today told how he hopes her family will one day see justice.
David Butler spent an “horrendous” seven months in prison after being charged with killing sex worker Anne Marie Foy before he was acquitted by a jury last week.
Still getting used to being a free man again the frail and terminally-ill 65-year-old Wavertree dad-of-three told the ECHO he rarely gave up hope he would be found innocent but his time in HMP Walton saw him have “dark, dark days” where he contemplated giving it all up.
Mr Butler, who used to combine his time driving Hackney cabs with training young football teams at Mossley Hill Athletics Club, was arrested in November 2010 by the cold case team which re-opened the September 2005 murder of Ms Foy.
Mr Butler was linked to the crime, which saw the 46-year-old mum-of-four – originally from Dovecot but who also lived in Tuebrook and Kensington – battered to death in bushes in the city’s red light district, through a scientific breakthrough in DNA.
A partial profile found on Ms Foy’s clothing and under her finger nails was “more than a thousand billion times” more likely to be Mr Butler’s than anyone else’s, the prosecution told the Liverpool Crown Court trial last month.
But experts for the defence queried the validity of the findings and attacked the processes used to get them.
The jury deliberated for nearly eleven hours before clearing Mr Butler who suffers from debilitating COPD (a mix of chronic bronchitis and emphysema).
Today he told the ECHO: “Something comes along sometimes which is life-changing but you never see it coming so you are never prepared for it.
“It is difficult to put into words how I feel now.
“The major worry for me was how this would impact on my family, not on me. They are my life. I was never really worried about myself.
“We have to remember there were victims here and we all saw Anne Marie’s family and their reaction afterwards [some quickly left the courtroom in tears] and I didn’t expect anything else.
“No-one should lose their mother in those circumstances and I wish them every success in getting justice. This was another false dawn for them which must have been hard but it has to be the right man and it wasn’t here.”
Mr Butler was charged and, despite his failing health, remanded into custody last June.
He was kept on the “vulnerable prisoner” wing and attacked by another inmate in the mistaken belief he was a sex offender.
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Laura Fastest Woman in Team Challenege |
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 The 5K Team Challenge took place on Sunday 4th September, with Business and Charity Teams battling for supremacy in the shadow of the famous Liver Building. More than 1000 runners took part with over 100 teams from the Legal Community. The 5k Team Challenge requires teams of four competing with the aggregate timing deciding the winning team. Individual prizes are also awarded to the fastest Male and Female from the Legal Community, together with a prize for most money raised by a team.
Cobleys entered 6 runners with the fastest 4 times going forward to the Team Result. All runners were awarded medals at the finish line by representatives from the two Liverpool Law Society nominated charities: Paula Widdison represented the Liverpool Mombasa Access to Justice Charity and Peter Davies OBE was there on behalf of Rotary's Life Education (Wirral) charity.
The Cobley's team including Partners Eric Williams and Jonathan McIlveen and the Cobleys Team finished a very respectable 2nd team from the Legal Community in a time of 1 hour 29 minutes and 22 seconds, missing out on 1st place by a mere 34 seconds!!
Our Laura Tipping also won the individual award for Fastest Female from the Legal Profession in a time of 22 minutes 50 seconds. She attended the Law Society AGM on 29th November 2011 where she was presented with a commemorative plaque by Law Society President Norman Jones.
The Team hope to continue their running success in the forthcoming Liverpool Half Marathon in March 2012.t |
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Flintshire businessman tells of how drug scam trial ruined his life |
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The report below details another successful outcome for a Cobleys client.
A BUSINESSMAN cleared of playing a role in a multi-million pound drug scam has told how the traumatic case ruined his life.
Speaking just days after a jury cleared him of all involvement in a plot to flood the UK market with fake Chinese-manufactured medicines, Richard Kemp said he “broke down” when the verdict was delivered.
The 61-year-old is now trying to rebuild his life at home in School Lane, Flint Mountain, with wife Carol. But he is still waiting for some of the damage as a result of the case – including being forced to surrender his passport and having his bank accounts frozen – to be reversed.
He said: “I had to wait four years to clear my name and the only way to do that was to stand in the dock in court and listen to what the prosecution were alleging about me.
“It has completely ruined my life. I was diagnosed with depression when my wife took me to the doctor’s because she said I just wasn’t right. It was because I spent four years laying awake at night wondering if I was going to be sent to prison.
“It was like watching a film where someone is no longer in control of their life – it’s not the sort of thing you ever expect to happen to you.
“When I was charged in October 2009 I had my passport taken away and my bank accounts frozen. I was told I wasn’t even allowed to sell an old van I had – it’s been sat on the drive for all this time.
“I was basically on house arrest for 18 months. As part of my bail conditions I couldn’t sleep anywhere else but my normal residence, so I wasn’t even able to have a weekend away in a hotel to try and forget about it for a while.
“I repeatedly said I was innocent, but because I was on my own with a small business, I had no-one to back me up and no support. I had no choice but to wait to go to court to clear my name.”
One of the defendants in the case, accountant Peter Gillespie, 64, of Carey Close, Windsor, Berkshire, was jailed for eight years at Croydon Crown Court on Friday. The other four men on trial, including Mr Kemp, who worked as a pharmaceutical wholesaler, were all acquitted.
Mr Kemp said: “As soon as I heard the verdict I just broke down. I called my wife and she was in bits.
“I was so grateful to my lawyers, Cobleys, who were absolutely fantastic, and to my QC, Gordon Cole, and his junior Nick Johnson. I genuinely do not know what position I would be in now if it wasn’t for them.
“Even when I was arrested, I still didn’t believe Peter Gillespie could have possibly done anything wrong. He had worked in the business for years and I trusted him. This market is based on trust and if you don’t trust someone, you don’t deal with them.”
He added: “I’m just trying to move on with my life now and put it behind me, but it’s hard. Sometimes I feel great and others I feel terrible. I still haven’t had my passport back or my accounts opened again. It was quick enough to have them taken away, but I am still waiting to get them back.
“My business, which I built up from nothing over 25 years, is gone. I had £500,000 of legitimate stock taken away and my whole business was destroyed in less than two weeks.
“It’s scary to think that this happened to me so easily. I just hope no-one else has to go through what I’ve been through these past four years.”
http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/2011/04/13/flintshire-businessman-tells-of-how-drug-scam-trial-ruined-his-life-55578-28510265/ |
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Judge criticises prosecution of Wirral teacher for assaulting pupil saying there was "no realistic prospect of a conviction" |
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A JUDGE has criticised the prosecution of a Wirral teacher for assaulting a pupil saying there was "no realistic prospect of a conviction".
A student at the Wirral Alternative School Programme (WASP) in Wallasey claimed to have been dragged along a wall and thrown into the hall by deputy head Gillian Alleyne.
It was said to have happened while students were gathered in the school hall after paramedics were called when a member of staff collapsed on October 5 last year.
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