A model who tried to steal £1,000 worth of designer goods from Harrods was let off with a conditional discharge after a magistrate said she was a woman of ‘considerable talents’.

Natalia Sikorska, 28, attempted to make off with a Markus Lupfer jacket, a pair of Claudie Pierlot shoes, a Pinko handbag and the silver knife on 5 July.

But she was stopped before she left the Knightsbridge, London, store with the haul worth £959.59.

After she admitted theft Westminster Magistrate Grant McCrostie gave her a conditional discharge for 12 months and said: ‘You are a newcomer to this county, you are a student with a place at university.

‘You are obviously a woman of considerable talents, you are obviously intelligent.

‘Taking goods from any store, including Harrods is wrong.

‘Your future has been put at risk by these actions.

‘Because of the fact that you pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and you do have a potentially bright future, we will deal with this more leniently than we should have. ‘It will be a conditional discharge for a period of 12 months.’

Mr McCrostie said if Sikorska stays out of trouble for that period she will not face any further punishment.

‘You have been given another opportunity do not abuse the opportunity we have given you, stay out of trouble,’ he said.

Sikorska replied: ‘Thank you so much.’

The Polish model and actress is currently studying business management and economics at the University of Westminster. She also works as a business development manager for drinks bottle manufacturers Aquatiser and an interpreter.

She previously studied psychology at the University of Warsaw and has worked as a sales associate with variety of luxurious brands such as Saint Laurent Paris, Globe Trotter and Hugo Boss.

Sikorska, of Chelsea, West London, was given a conditional discharge, ordered to pay £85 costs and a £20 victim surcharge. 

A surgeon jailed for 15 years after carrying out needless breast operations faces a bid to increase his sentence.

Ian Paterson, who left victims scarred and disfigured, was handed the prison term in May following a trial at Nottingham Crown Court.

But Court of Appeal judges are now being asked to rule on whether a term of 15 years for his crimes is 'unduly lenient' and should be increased.

The case has been referred to the court by Solicitor General Robert Buckland.

Lady Justice Hallett, Mrs Justice Carr and Mr Justice Goss will review the sentence at a hearing in London on Thursday.

Paterson, 59, from Altrincham, Greater Manchester, was convicted by a jury of offences of wounding with intent and unlawful wounding against ten patients.

Sentencing him to a total of 15 years, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker told Paterson: 'You deliberately played upon their worst fears, either by inventing or deliberately exaggerating the risk that they would develop cancer.'

The judge added that Paterson therefore gained his patients' trust and confidence to manipulate them into consenting to the surgical procedures he carried out. Victims told the court of how Paterson's crimes had left them in constant pain and struggling to trust medical professionals.

The judge said that because of his actions, most of his victims were suffering from 'prolonged psychological conditions' including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression.

In 2012, more than 700 patients of Paterson, who also worked in the NHS, were recalled after concerns about unnecessary or incomplete operations.

Following his trial, Paterson was struck off from the medical profession. 

A tribunal ruled that his actions were 'serious' as well as 'intentionally harmful' over a period of 14 years.

His failure to acknowledge any of his faults showed a lack of insight that indicated he still posed a serious risk to patients, the medical practitioners tribunal also concluded. 

THE father of one who died after being arrested by a police officer in an East London shop did NOT swallow drugs before he was tackled by cops, the police watchdog said.                           he 20-year-old’s death sparked violent crashes the following week when protesters marched on Stoke Newington police station.

A Independent Police Complaints Commission spokesman said: “The IPCC’s investigation into the circumstances of Rashan Charles’ death following contact with police in Hackney on 22 July is ongoing and making good progress.

“Our independent investigation is thoroughly examining all aspects of police interaction with Rashan prior to his death and has already undertaken a large number of investigative actions.

“The IPCC has now received results of forensic analysis of an object that was removed from Rashan’s airway by paramedics.

“The object did not contain a controlled substance.                       

Rashan charles was chased by police into a shop in Dalston on July 22 but later collapsed and died in custody. PCC staff met with Rashan’s family this afternoon (Wednesday 2 August) and updated them with this information and on the investigation’s progress.

“A post mortem took place on Monday 24 July and the IPCC is awaiting the preliminary findings from the pathologist.”

Mr Charles’ death sparked riots on the streets of the area with furious protesters pelting cops with missiles and setting objects on fire.   

The study authors are Jayanth Suryanarayanan Shankaranarayanan, Jagat R. Kanwar, Afrah Jalil Abd AL-Juhaishi and Rupinder Kaur Kanwar.

The first author, Jayanth Suryanarayanan Shankaranarayanan, is a recent Deakin PhD graduate who is now working as postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego.

Dr Rupinder Kanwar, a senior research fellow with the Deakin Medical School’s Centre for Molecular and Medical Research, explained that doctors had stopped using Dox to treat prostate cancer because of the side-effects.

However, the results of this new research suggest that it may soon be possible to reintroduce Dox, coupled with lactoferrin, to the treatment regime – and make it even more effective than before.

“Dox is used widely for treating several types of cancers and is known for causing toxicity to the heart, brain and kidneys and for leading to cardiac arrest/heart failure,” Dr Kanwar said.

“Prostate cancer is one of the few cancers where chemotherapy is not the primary treatment. This is because these particular cancer cells are able to flush out the drug and become resistant to it, while the administered Dox continues to kill off the body’s normal cells, resulting in a range of side effects, the most damaging of which is heart failure. With this latest study, we have shown that by coupling Dox with lactoferrin the cancer cells take in the drug rather than pump it straight out.  Lactoferrin is an iron-binding protein found in cow’s milk and human milk. It is known for its immune boosting and antimicrobial properties, making it an important part of the body’s protection against infection. It is also added as a key ingredient in baby formula.

Lactoferrin’s ability as an iron transporting protein – mopping up much-needed iron for growth of microbes (bacteria and parasites) from the site of infection – and its cancer cell killing activities have been exploited by the Deakin scientists to create an anti-cancer biodrug that has no side-effects and improves the immune system.

Previous work by the team with other types of cancer, funded by the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund (AISRF) to Professor Jagat Kanwar and Dr Kanwar, found that lactoferrin is not digested by the gut enzymes when fully saturated with iron and given as smart nanocapsules.

“We also developed MRI / CT scan-trackable, orally administered, smart nanocapsules, containing lactoferrin that can be taken by the blood directly to the cancer site,” Professor Jagat Kanwar said.

“This latest study builds on our previous work, whereby, to target toxicity and drug resistance, we coupled the Dox with lactoferrin, which was then fed to a particular breed of mice that naturally develop prostate cancer.

“Rather than being pumped out by the cancer cells, Dox was taken to these cells by lactoferrin through its receptors. It then stays in the nucleus of the cancer cells to perform its lethal action.

“Within 96 hours, all the cancer cells were dead when grown in 3D cancers in a culture dish from drug resistant and cancer stem cells. In feeding experiments, as an added benefit, there was an increase in red blood cells, white blood cells and haemoglobin, indicating that the immune system had also been boosted. Interestingly, this combination not only targeted the prostate tumour development in mice, it also led to repair of the Dox-induced damage to vital organs, including the heart and brain. 

I never give to people who approach me in the street asking for money to cure cancer. The reasons I don’t give are numerous: we’ll never cure cancer; too much is spent on cancer research and treatment; cancer is a better way die than most others; and the whole enterprise carries a terrifying utopian odour of trying to achieve human perfection.

“Cancer, we have discovered, is stitched into our genome,” writes oncologist Siddartha Mukherjee in his Pulitzer prize-winning history of cancer, The Emperor of all Maladies. “Cancer is a flaw in our growth, but this flaw is deeply entrenched in ourselves….We can rid ourselves of cancer, then, only as much as we can rid ourselves of the processes in our physiology that depend on growth—aging, regeneration, healing, reproduction.” In other words, cancer is us. Cure of us of cancer and you cure us of being human.

There are, of course, many cancers, and we must be careful of lumping them all together, although the underlying processes of uncontrolled cell reproduction are the same. The commonest skin cancers can be removed without any threat to life, and deaths from childhood leukaemia have been dramatically reduced in my lifetime. But is cancer ever “cured”? Death may be averted at considerable cost, perhaps at the possibility of being able to reproduce - but cancer is always there, lurking. In 2014 the UK spent £370m on cancer research, far more than on any other disease category. Compare that expenditure with £109m on mental health or £9m on injuries and accidents, the major killer of young people.

And only cancer has its special fund for treatment, avoiding the rational decision-making of the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). When it comes to cancer, the emperor of all the maladies, we are downright irrational. The NHS is spending millions keeping people alive for a few more weeks, which may make sense for them but not for society.

“In Glasgow, where I was born, death seemed imminent; in Canada, where I trained it was inevitable; but in California, where I live now, it’s optional,” says Ian Morrison, once president of the Institute for the Future. Death is not yet optional in Britain, and of the four main ways to die—sudden death, dementia, organ failure, and cancer—cancer has been the best. (I know you chose sudden death, but think of those around you—no time to say goodbye. I write “has been” because death from cancer is beginning to look like death from dementia or frailty, taking years and years with quality of life slowly draining away. Life expectancy in Britain has increased by 10 years since 1960, but the length of time in ill health has increased more—and can now be over 20 years for women. Is this progress?

What is the ultimate aim of cancer researchers? Most won’t think about this: they are immersed in their particular projects, hoping to achieve further funding—sometimes by hyping their achievements. But somebody ought to think about the long term aim. I hope not in an overcrowded world--because without death, every birth would be a tragedy. Could the aim be the avoidance of aging? That might seem attractive to our profoundly ageist society, where the old are shoved into corners and looked after by underpaid staff, while women in their 50s are expected to look like women in their 20s.

We forget—or may never have fully accepted—that cancer is predominantly a disease of the elderly. Your chances of developing cancer increase exponentially as you age.

Geoffrey Rose, one of Britain’s leading epidemiologists, used to point out that if we were to eradicate death from cancer, life expectancy would rise by less than four years. Yet the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest in Britain is around 20 years.

The following year corrupt officials, businessmen and politicians pinched at least $30m from the Malawian treasury. A bureaucrat investigating the thefts was shot three times (he survived, somehow). Germany said it would help pay for an investigation; later, burglars raided the home of a German official and stole documents relating to the scandal. Malawi is no longer a donor darling. It now resembles a clingy lover, which would be dumped were it not so needy. It still gets a lot of foreign aid ($930m in 2014), but donors try to keep the cash out of the government’s hands. 

Foreign aid can work wonders. It set South Korea and Taiwan on the path to riches, helped extinguish smallpox in the 1970s and has almost eliminated polio. Unfortunately, as Malawi shows, it is liable to be snaffled by crooks. Aid can also burden Foreign aid can work wonders. It set South Korea and Taiwan on the path to riches, helped extinguish smallpox in the 1970s and has almost eliminated polio. Unfortunately, as Malawi shows, it is liable to be snaffled by crooks. Aid can also burden weak bureaucracies, distort markets, prop up dictators and help prolong civil wars. Taxpayers in rich countries dislike their cash being spent on Mercedes-Benzes. So donors strive to send the right sort of aid to the places where it will do the most good. How are they doing?

A decade ago governments rich and poor set out to define good aid. They declared that aid should be for improving the lot of poor people—and not, implicitly, for propping up friendly dictators or winning business for exporters. It should be co-ordinated; otherwise, says William Easterly of New York University, “the poor health minister is dealing with dozens of different donors and dozens of different forms to fill out.” It should be transparent. Where possible, it should flow through governments.

These are high-minded ideals, reflecting the time they were laid down: the cold war was over and the West had plenty of money. They are nonetheless sound. Aid-watchers, who row bitterly over whether the world needs more foreign aid or less, mostly agree with them. They tend to add that aid should go to relatively free, well-governed countries.

By almost all of these measures, foreign aid is failing. It is as co-ordinated as a demolition derby. Much goes neither to poor people nor to well-run countries, and on some measures the targeting is getting worse. Donors try to reward decent regimes and punish bad ones, but their efforts are undermined by other countries and by their own impatience. It is extraordinary that so many clever, well-intentioned people have made such a mess.

Official development aid, which includes grants, loans, technical advice and debt forgiveness, is worth about $130 billion a year. The channels originating in Berlin, London, Paris, Tokyo and Washington are deep and fast-flowing; others are rivulets, though the Nordic countries are generous for their size. More than two-fifths flows through multilateral outfits such as the World Bank, the UN and the Global Fund. Last year 9% was spent on refugees in donor countries, reflecting the surge of migrants to Europe.

As the aid river twists and braids, it inundates some places and not others. India contains some 275m people living on less than $1.90 a day. It got $4.8 billion in “country programmable aid” (the most routine kind) in 2014, which is $17 per poor person. Vietnam also got $4.8 billion; but, because it is much smaller and rather better off, that works out to $1,658 per poor person (see map). By this measure South-East Asia and South America fare especially well.

African leaders pledged on Monday to reprioritise agriculture in their national policies and increase state spending to end hunger across the continent by 2025.

At the conclusion of a meeting at the African Union at addis ababa ministers agreed to take a more holistic approach to tackling hunger. They committed to working with the private sector, farmers' groups, civil society and academia to increase productivity, while also addressing the underlying causes of malnutrition.

Despite strong economic growth across many parts of Africa over the past 10 years, nearly a quarter of the population – about 240 million people – are undernourished, of whom more than 40% are children under five.

Ministers promised to accelerate efforts to meet the targets of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADp, which emerged from the Maputo agreement in 2003. The programme committed African governments to spend 10% of national budgets on agriculture and increase productivity by 6%. Over the past decade, only 10 countries have achieved these goals. Leaders also pledged to give women access to more land and credit – 70% of Africa's agriculture workforce is female – and make the sector more attractive to young people by increasing the use of technology. The final declaration did not set out any concrete targets or cash commitments, and it will therefore fall to delegates at next year's agriculture-focused AU summit to put flesh on the bones.

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, chairwoman of the AU commission, rejected suggestions that the declaration is just another document to be shelved alongside countless others. "What is important is the political commitment to end hunger, that we should make it our state policies and make sure the poor are taken care of," she said.

"Africa is a very different place now from the Africa that was [two decades ago] … We've spent these past days discussing these matters because we are committed to doing something about it [hunger]. We will implement, and we are already implementing, these things. We are not starting from scratch. This is just to escalate [progress] because we are troubled that people on the continent are still undernourished and don't get enough food. We are determined to deal with it. Rest assured this will not just be another piece of paper.  Asked how African governments can increase funding for agriculture when a large chunk of their money comes from international donors with their own ideas about how it should be spent, Dlamini-Zuma expressed confidence that donors will be supportive.

"What we are saying is when donors give us [money] they should be linked to what our priorities are and, if a country wants to end hunger, donors must also accept that their budgets will be used to end hunger. I do hope there is no donor that can say, 'No, I would like people to be hungry'."

She added that African countries, few of which trade beyond their own borders, need to increase their trading partners. Brazil and China were mentioned as important trading partners.  Delegates heard from former Brazil president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva about the Fome zero (zero hunger) programme, introduced during his two terms in office. Through job creation, targeted support for farmers, an increased minimum wage and a cash transfer programme, Brazil managed to achieve significant economic growth and poverty reduction within eight years.

Lula told the conference that the Brazilian experience could be adapted to suit the needs of African countries. But the crucial thing, he said, is the commitment of politicians to see through their vision to end hunger. He urged for the needs of the poor to be embedded across all government policy.

"If the state does not take care of these people, the national budgets will be fully directed to the organised sectors of the society. Therefore, the government needs to earmark a part of the budget for the poor. If this is not done, the problem of hunger will not be solved today, or by 2025, or never. 

Mariah Carey wayward sister is facing a $2 million lawsuit after the singer's older sibling 'nearly killed' a truck driver while allegedly drunk driving on the wrong side of the road, DailyMail.com can reveal.  

Alison Carey, 55, has been accused of causing an accident that left Long Island resident Joe Criscione permanently 'lame and disabled' in March 2014, court documents claim.

The older Carey, who has struggled with drug addiction and prostitution, was driving erratically along the County Rd 39 - a two-lane highway - in Southampton, New York around 6 am., according to the police report obtained by DailMail.com.

Carey failed to 'keep her motor vehicle on her own side of the roadway...negligently and carelessly crossing over into the portion of the roadway on which the plaintiff was operating his vehicle,' documents state. The collision resulted in 'serious injuries' for Criscione, who claims he was forced to quit work temporarily for a year and eventually had to retire early because of his injuries. He is now looking for $2 million in compensation. 

In a police report documented that morning, Carey told authorities she was 'not sure what happened.' She responded to the lawsuit claiming she has 'no knowledge or information sufficient enough to form a belief' as to the allegations against her.

In fact, Carey's attorney argued she acted in self-defense as she was 'suddenly confronted with, and was called upon to act in, an emergency situation not created by [her] own acts. 

Criscione has alleged Carey was driving drunk, however no DUI charges were ever filed.  

In an exclusive interview, his wife Lauri spoke about the traumatic event, claiming Carey was driving at high speed on the wrong side of the road and totaled her husband's truck and left him a virtual invalid.

'My husband was heading out to work, he worked for the town of East Hampton as a heavy equipment driver and had been a commercial driver for over 20 years, it was his first accident, he's a pretty good driver,' she says. 'It was lightly raining before she [Alison Carey] came into his lane and hit him, one witness was on the phone calling the cops, as before she took him out, she nearly took out a bunch of other people. 

'So she goes over to my husband's lane, he goes into the other lane to get out of the way, she then realizes, I guess, where she is, the wrong side of the road, and turns the car, and hits him head on. It totals a 14,000lb truck.'

Alison – who is eight years older than Mariah – has been rumored to be on the brink of homelessness, broke, working as a prostitute, and suffering from many health complications including HIV.

A 51-year-old man was today arrested over the murder of a 14-year-old girl feared to have been chopped up for kebab meat in 2003.

Schoolgirl Charlene Downes was last seen 14 years ago after disappearing from her home in Blackpool, Lancashire. 

No trace of her has ever been found but claims have been made that her body was chopped up and went 'into kebabs' at a takeaway in the seaside resort.

Last month her parents, Karen and Robert, vowed to sue Lancashire Police after learning crucial CCTV footage of her last movements was sat in archives for 12 years.

But yesterday the force finally announced a major breakout in the case - one of their longest investigations - after arrested a man on suspicion of her murder.

A Lancashire Police spokesman said: 'The man, aged 51, who lived in Blackpool at the time of Charlene's disappearance, is currently in custody.

'Charlene was just 14 years old when she was last seen in Blackpool on Saturday November 1 2003.

'A £100,000 reward remains on offer for information leading to the conviction of her killer or killers. 'The investigation is one of the largest and longest running in the history of Lancashire Constabulary.'

Charlene's murder investigation has been dogged by problems ever since in launched.

A 2007 murder trial collapsed because of police errors and the IPCC watchdog ruled the force's blunders mean the killer may never be found.

Social media posts have given an insight into the life of a young father who died after he was restrained by police. 

Father-of-one Rashan Charles died following a struggle with an officer in a shop in Hackney, east London, on July 22.

Members of the community have since rallied to pay tribute to the youngster - whose social media posts make reference to repeated attempts on his life, with his Instagram profile named, 'Hard to Kill'.

This comes amid violent clashes on the streets of London in recent days, as impassioned protesters seek justice for the 20-year-old's death. In 2013 he wrote: 'I've been shot at, I've been stabbed but I still aint leaving the block. Shout out to all my haters.'

In another he said, 'Respected by most and hated by many', and made reference to being held in youth custody.

Friends say Mr Charles was a good father to his baby daughter.​

Jada, Remiya's mother said her son was a 'caring and generous' father and a respected member of his local community. 

Harrowing CCTV footage has emerged which shows Mr Charles being chased amid claims that he was trying to 'swallow an object'. He ran into the store in Kingsland Road, London at 1.45am on July 22 after failing to stop for police. 

He can be seen wrestled to the floor as he appears to try to swallow an item. The policeman can be seen holding his hand briefly over the Mr Charles' mouth. 

Police and the IPCC said Mr Charles was pronounced dead at the Royal London Hospital but would not comment on whether he stopped breathing beforehand.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said the Independent Police Complaint's Commission was now investigating. 

A spokesman for the Charles family accused police officers of 'killing youths on the streets' and forcing them into gangs, during an impassioned speech at a vigil in the 20-year-old's memory last weekend. 

However protests followed as mobs of furious demonstrators set wheelie bins and mattresses on fire and attacked vehicles.