Other world news in brief
'Florence Nightingale' jailed after claiming benefits of almost £43,000
London – A woman who claimed almost £43,000 in benefits while secretly working in a nursing home under the false name of Florence Nightingale was jailed yesterday.
Dianah Woodriffe (54) fraudulently claimed thousands of pounds of incapacity benefit, housing benefit and council tax benefit over eight years while claiming she was not physically fit enough to work.
She admitted using the name of the woman credited with founding modern nursing to mask her identity.
Her lawyer, Steven Newcombe, said Woodriffe’s first name was Florence and that she once had a relationship with a man whose surname was Nightingale. – (Reuters)
British soldier who went awol is jailed
LONDON – A British soldier who refused to return to fight in Afghanistan and campaigned against the war was jailed for nine months yesterday after he admitted going absent without leave.
Joe Glenton (27) went missing from his barracks in southern England for two years in 2007, shortly before he was due to serve for a second time in Afghanistan.
Glenton, who was stripped of his rank of lance corporal, was led from the court martial by military police with his fist raised in the air.
After his first tour of duty in Afghanistan, Glenton told a psychiatrist he had nightmares about soldiers’ coffins, drank heavily and questioned the morality and legality of the war.
Sitting at a military court, Judge Advocate Emma Peters said Glenton should have sought professional help instead of leaving his regiment without permission. – (Reuters)
Anti-Semitic abuse scrawled on camp wall
VIENNA – A former concentration camp in Austria has been vandalised with anti-Semitic and anti-Turkish graffiti by suspected far-right activists, police and officials said yesterday.
Abuse was scrawled on the outer wall of the Mauthausen camp near Linz overnight and no culprits had been found, said Michael Tischlinger, head of the provincial anti-terrorism police.
“Such a desecration is not a prank – the culprits had a select target,” said Willi Mernyi, head of the Mauthausen Committee which helps oversee the site where about 100,000 people died during Nazi rule in Austria in 1938-45. “There is an active far-right scene in Upper Austria that does not even shrink away from vandalising a former concentration camp.” – (Reuters)