Customs and Excise are investigating claims that Sandline broke a UN embargo against the African country with the knowledge of Foreign Office officials.Papua New Guinea officials told last year’s inquiry that they met Mr Spicer in London in April 1996, on the same day as they also met Foreign Office officials to talk about arms purchases.They also said they believed they were recruiting serving British soldiers and not mercenaries.After Col Spicer was arrested in March 1997 he used the British High Commissioner’s residence to give a press conference.Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook was heading for a clash with the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.He is expected to rebuff a demand from the committee to hand over telegrams sent by diplomats in Sierra Leone to the Foreign Office.The Labour-dominated committee agreed the move in a private session before the Foreign Secretary’s Commons statement yesterday.However Mr Cook told the House that such telegrams were “restricted in circulation” as they could contain material “embarrassing to Her Majesty’s Government and others”.. His agents, Curtis Brown, said the conversation did not amount to a reference.The inquiry report into the affair reveals a number of parallels with recent events in Sierra Leone. Asked if the general had provided a good reference, he replied: “Yes, he did and indeed Spicer was his MA or executive officer or someone like that.”Yesterday Sir Peter confirmed through an aide that he believed he had been asked about Col Spicer and had responded with some “general comments” about his character He had no knowledge of Sandline. Spicer was arrested and the government of the former British protectorate was forced to resign.In 1991 Col Spicer spent six months as Military Assistant to Sir Peter, then the most senior British officer in the Gulf.Five years later, after Col Spicer had left to set up the mercenary firm Sandline International, Mr Haiveta asked Sir Peter about Col Spicer, after his company had been recommended to his government.

THE HEAD of Britain’s forces in the Gulf War gave a personal recommendation to a foreign politician supporting Tim Spicer, the man at the centre of the Sierra Leone affair, it emerged last night. General Sir Peter de la Billiere, gave a “favourable reference” for Col Spicer, who was once a personal aide, according to Chris Haiveta, then Deputy Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.
The country later engaged Spicer’s company Sandline International to recapture a rebel-held mine but the operation ended in ignominy. This is believed to include pounds 21,000 for every one of the 14 years remaining of her career.A police source, however, suggested that the undisclosed payment was significantly lower.The Police Federation, which represented Ms Mazur-kiewicz, described the award as a landmark decision. I have lost an awful lot.”My career was what was important to me and no compensation can make up for that.”Ms Mazurkiewicz will retire from the force on Sunday on the grounds of ill health.. It has taken four years of my life.”It has been very difficult for me I feel very emotional I have won my court case but I have lost my job. It said other cases had not gone the whole way: they had either been settled outside tribunals or decisions have been appealed against by police forces.Thames Valley police are currently appealing against another tribunal ruling in favour of a woman officer, Kay Kellaway, who won a sexual discrimination case last October.Ms Mazurkiewicz said yesterday: “It is a great relief for me that this is finally over. Dee Mazurkiewicz, 42, had her career with Thames Valley police ruined by a campaign of intimidation and insults including claims she obtained confessions from suspects by “getting her boobs out”.
An industrial tribunal in Reading, Berkshire, ruled in her favour last November, but yesterday the force agreed to pay her compensation.

The adult specialists in turn castigated the “paediatric mafia” with their conservative and inflexible attitudes.Jaymee’s last days, page 16Leading article, page 18. A WOMAN detective who was nicknamed “Massive Cleavage” and victimised when she complained of sexual harassment was awarded an estimated pounds 300,000 yesterday. You had the chance and you blew it,” she said.The report, published by the King’s Fund, says: “The central issue was less to do with finance than what care was appropriate for a child with Jaymee’s medical history.” The paediatricians at Addenbrooke’s hospital, Cambridge, and the Royal Marsden in London attacked the “maverick medicine” practised at Hammersmith hospital and the private Portman clinic in London, where she was finally treated, saying that they were prepared to go ahead whatever the human cost. VENOMOUS disagreements between the cancer specialists involved in the care of Child B, the 10-year-old girl who became the centre of worldwide media attention after the National Health Service refused to fund a second bone-marrow transplant for her leukaemia, are revealed in a report published today. The first detailed study of the case, which was presented as the worst example of NHS rationing when it occurred in 1995, shows a bitter dispute between the paediatricians who felt she should be allowed to die in peace and the adult leukaemia specialists prepared to buy more time at any cost.
Child B, later identified as Jaymee Bowen, who died in May 1996, won the hearts of millions when she was shown on a BBC Panorama programme in October 1995 delivering a crushing riposte to the managers of Cambridge Health Authority for refusing to fund the pounds 75,000 cost of her extra treatment.”Thank you for nothing Because now look at me, I’m fine You could have paid for it. I do believe that the peace agreement gives us the best way forward to ensure that there are not more victims in the future,” he said.

He repeated his demands that all parties to the peace deal should accept the Good Friday agreement in its entirety. He was responding to fears voiced by Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble that Sinn Fein might take the benefits of Assembly places and prisoner releases, without fully signing up to the deal.”Minister for victims”, page 4. On the other hand, the televising of the rapturous reception given to the Balcombe Street gang at the weekend Sinn Fein ard-fheis has obviously produced a negative reaction among Protestants.One observer said: “It’s volatile out there. People are having difficulty finally making up their minds one way or another, but equally they are listening to what is being said.”The No campaign led by the Rev Ian Paisley has meanwhile stepped up its activities, holding almost nightly rallies all over Northern Ireland to drum up opposition to the agreement.At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, Mr Blair condemned the “triumphalism” of men who had been involved in IRA killings at Sinn Fein’s weekend conference “The victims of violence have suffered enormously We do not forget their suffering. Mr Blair may well calculate, however, that with Catholic and nationalist votes essentially in the bag, his job is to reach Unionist opinion.He can be expected to address key Unionist concerns, which centre on the security of the union with Britain and the questions of decommissioning, the early release of prisoners and the future of policing.Unionist indecision is not due to apathy, since broadcasters report huge audiences for programmes on the agreement.It is believed that the recent visit to Belfast by Mr Blair and former prime minister John Major, together with the launch of the Ulster Unionist Party’s Yes campaign, had a significant impact on Protestant voting intentions. “There is still a large swathe of don’t knows that are yet to be persuaded and that may run right up to polling day,” said a Westminster source.Sinn Fein yesterday voiced concerns that Mr Blair might go too far today in his attempts to woo Unionists, warning that too many concessions might upset republican voters.