Legal news in brief - 8 August 2012
Posted: 8 August 2012
One of the world’s largest torrent file-sharing sites, Demonoid.com, has been shut down by Ukrainian authorities.
The country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs carried out a raid on the data centre where the site’s servers were based, after a request from Interpol.
This comes after similar action was taken against the file-sharing sites Megaupload and The Pirate Bay.
But editor of Torrentfreak Ernesto van der Sar said that authorities may be fighting a losing battle against torrent file-sharing.
He said: “It's not going to stop the majority of people from sharing files as the most popular items are available through hundreds of other BitTorrent sites."
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Charges have been dropped against a 17-year-old in the murder case of a retired surgeon.
Anthony Owen, 68, a respected cancer specialist, was discovered outside his house in Cheshire with serious head injuries, which he later died of in hospital.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had dropped the charges of manslaughter against the boy, who was at the scene, on the strength of a new pathologist report, which gave “supporting evidence” to the claim that he was acting in self-defence.
Two other boys, aged 14 and 17 at the time of the incident, were released due to insufficient evidence.
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A doctor who fraudulently claimed £30,000 of sick pay from the NHS was caught when an ex-lover reported her after seeing her boast on Twitter about her actions.
Lucy Dawson, 45, is alleged to have said that she was earning “a stupid amount of dosh” by finding other work while on sick leave from her hospital.
She was reported to the NHS fraud hotline by her boss, Dr Nick Jenkins, with whom she had a 13-year affair which came to an “acrimonious” end.
Dawson’s ill-advised comments were open for all to see and even showed up in internet searches. They were first spotted by Jenkins’ wife, who notified her husband.