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The Guardian reports that in the five months since the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission began operating it has seized around 340 properties and frozen the bank accounts of more than 200 parents who defaulted on child maintenance payments.

Latest figures show a record 809,800 children are now benefiting from maintenance payments through the agency.  Compliance by non-resident parents rose to 74.5% and total arrears dropped slightly to £3.78bn.

The Government has today accepted formal commitments from Sky that it will divest a sizable chunk of its 17.9% shareholding in ITV.

Sky first announced it had acquired shares in ITV at the tail end of 2006.  In the spring of 2007, however, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry called in the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and Ofcom to investigate.

The Times reports John Terry paid lover Vanessa Perroncel £750,000 in hush money to stop her speaking out about the affair.

The costly gambit failed, however, after the story broke three weeks ago and he then lost his case for an injunction against the Sunday newspaper News of the World.

However, the gag has prevented Perroncel - until recently the girlfriend of Terry's former Chelsea teammate, neighbour and fellow England player Wayne Bridge - accepting a "six-figure offer" for her story.

The Observer reports Belize has failed to abide by a global accord to improve international transparency and exchange of information on tax.

Anyone who has visited Belize City, the country's capital, for more than a few hours knows it's a pretty lawless place.  Drugs and murder have ravaged the city and brought it to its knees.

But Belize itself is a country of contrasts: while there's terrible poverty and endemic gang crime in the capital, there's also incredible wealth.  The über rich - folks like Conservative party benefactor and deputy chairman Michael Ashcroft - flock there to take advantage of the glorious sunshine, paradise cayes, and low tax rates.

Who is Michael Ashcroft?

Ashcroft has bankrolled the Tories for the best part of three decades.  Yet it would seem he's spent most of that time in Belize.  Not only does he own significant property interests there, he's also the chairman of the country's biggest bank.

In 2000, Ashcroft was granted a seat in the Lords after promising to return to the UK and pay UK income tax.  It remains unclear, however. whether he ever fulfilled that pledge.

Under new student visa rules, Home Secretary Alan Johnson hopes to close the door to "tens of thousands" of purported international students.

According to BBC News, the new student visa rules do not require legislation and come into effect immediately.  They include:

• a requirement that students from outside the EU speak English to near-GCSE level, rather than beginner level;
  
  
• a 10 hour part-time work limit on students taking below degree-level courses (instead of a 20 hour limit);
  
  
• banning students enrolled on courses lasting less than six months bringing dependants with them;
  
  
• banning dependants of students on below degree-level courses working; &
  
  
• only granting student visas for courses below degree-level to institutions on a new register, the Highly Trusted Sponsors List.

A former dock worker at Inverness harbour has claimed the stevedoring company he used to work for failed to provide protective clothing.  William MacDonald, 35, of Evan Barron Road, Inverness is suing Scotlog Sales Ltd. for unfair constructive dismissal.  He claims "terrible" working conditions at the harbour forced him to quit the company in April last year.

The Press and Journal reports Mr. MacDonald drove a forklift truck for Scotlog.  He claims all the company gave him to work through the Highland winter was "a pair of boots and a high-visibility jacket."

He complained to line manager James Fraser that he felt like an "ice block" after loading a ship at the harbour in November 2007.  But Mr. Fraser responded: "If you don't like it, you know where the gate is."

The Ministry of Justice has begun a consultation on whether property owners who have failed to repay consumer credit debts should have a minimum level of debt before a court can order the sale of their home.

Under the current system, a court can place a 'charging order' on a property if the owner has failed to pay unsecured debts, for example on credit or store cards.  In some cases an 'order for sale' may follow if a judge decides a homeowner can only settle the unsecured debt by selling the property.  There is no minimum level of consumer credit debt required before an order for sale can be issued.

Twitter started out as a fairly cool way for individuals to connect.  Then, to the chagrin of some, businesses got in on the act.

What started out as a good-faith attempt to interact with customers, however, has actually had the inverse effect.

Last year, for example, the Telegraph newspaper set up an unmoderated "Twitterfall" account to cover the budget and received a deluge of embarrassing tweets, including the following: "Telegraph wankers #budget Didn't work".

But the embarrassment caused by that calamitous episode pales in comparison to the latest one enveloping Vodafone.  Last week a homophobic employee wrote the following message on its official Twitter account: "VodafoneUK is fed up of dirty homos and is going after beaver".

The UK Border Agency immigration crime team arrested six people - four Armenians and two Latvians - on suspicion of people trafficking at North Shields ferry terminal last week.  Agency staff at the port identified a 15-year-old Armenian girl, who had arrived on a ferry from Holland, attempting to enter the UK using a Latvian passport.

Two Armenian men, aged 49 and 25, and two Latvian women, aged 33 and 26, accompanied the girl.  The four adults said they were bound for Manchester.  Following further investigation, the UK Border Agency immigration crime team arrested two other Armenian men, aged 30 and 19, both from the Manchester area, on suspicion of people trafficking.

All of the arrested parties have been released on bail.  The girl remains in the care of the local authority.

Police have arrested 12 people in dawn raids across the UK on suspicion of VAT repayment fraud.  They're believed to be part of an organised crime organisation that purports to trade in the construction industry.

Collectively, they're suspected of trying to hoodwink the Revenue out of over £2 million.  It's alleged they created a contrived chain of companies that tried to reclaim VAT they never actually paid on the sale of non-existent equipment and concrete crushing machines.

Jilted ex- Lakhvir Singh, 45, of Southall faces charges of murder and attempted murder after her secret lover of 16 years Lakhvinder Cheema, 32, of Feltham, west London, died and his fiancée Gurjeet Choongh, 22, fell ill after eating a curry laced with the deadly toxin aconite.

The prosecution allege married mother-of-three Ms. Singh poisoned the curry because she could not accept Mr. Cheema's imminent marriage to Ms. Choongh.

Her trial drew to a close at the Old Bailey on Wednesday and a twelve person jury panel retired to deliberate their verdict.  BBC News report they asked to take the Tupperware that held the poisonous curry into the jury room with them.  Judge Worsley agreed but sensibly advised them not to remove the container from the transparent exhibit bag.

A knicker nicking ex-mayor was jailed for two years this week after breaking into the homes of three women and stealing their underwear.

BBC News reports Ian Stafford, 59, burglarised properties in the Lancashire towns of Preesall, Poulton-le-Fylde and Stalmine between 1 January and 26 June last year. 

Female residents called the police after multiple pairs of underwear disappeared.

One woman became so worried she installed a hidden camcorder in her bedroom.  The Sun reports she videoed a half-naked man break in, rummage through her drawers, and don the knickers before performing a sex act.

Bachelor Stafford worked as a handyman at the victim's homes and it didn't take long before the police identified him as the culprit.  According to The Sun, officers found "a haul of underwear" in his possession.

A High Court judge has ordered the destruction of a mock Tudor castle, secretly built on farmland and hidden behind giant bales of straw, because the landowner failed to apply for planning permission.

The Guardian reports Robert Fidler, 61, from Honeycrock farm, Redhill, Surrey started building the luxury four-bedroom property ("complete with ramparts, turrets, a cannon ... and two redundant grain silos transformed into towers") in 2002.

It took him two years to complete construction and he lived in the castle with his wife and son without disturbance (albeit behind haystacks and under a giant tarpaulin) from 2002 until 2006.

The Government has announced local authorities will soon have the power to impose blanket bans on the sale of alcohol after 3am in areas blighted by alcohol-related anti-social behaviour and disorder.

New rules contained in the Crime and Security Bill currently before Parliament would mean that, where disorder or public nuisance cannot be attributed to specific premises, local authorities could force businesses to close across an entire area.

In the latest twist in the ongoing BA cabin crew dispute, Unite union has alleged the airline may have leaked employees' private information to the press.

Unite union represents around 13,000 BA cabin crew.  It has challenged BA to explain how confidential information relating to cabin crew earnings, holiday records and unlisted home addresses fell into the hands of Daily Mail journalists in the run up to proposed industrial action last December.

The information subsequently formed the basis of a story printed in the paper.  Unite says the article caused "tremendous distress" to the individuals concerned and stoked a great deal of public resentment against cabin crew generally. 

The union has written to the Information Commissioner, the body charged with ensuring the Data Protection Act 1998 is upheld, to request an immediate investigation into the leak.