London Times Online Reports
A model who featured in a fashion photograph for Polo Ralph Lauren, which was doctored to make her look abnormally thin, has been dropped by the clothing label, she says, for being too fat.
In the latest row over distorted body images in the fashion industry, Filippa Hamilton said yesterday that her contract with the luxury brand had been terminated after six years because she was too heavy.
“They fired me because they said I was overweight and couldn’t fit in their clothes any more,” she said. The company disputes her claim.
The 5ft 10in (1.79m) and 8½st (54kg) model who is a US size 4 (a UK size 8), found herself at the centre of a controversy after a digitally altered photograph of her appeared in a Ralph Lauren advertisement in Japan. In the image, which spread quickly via the internet last week, her waist had been reduced to almost the width of her head.
Critics said that the retouched image could be seen as realistic and so influence consumers, particularly the young, and encourage eating disorders or the kind of Tic-Tac-and-cigarette diet favoured by some models.
Hamilton, 23, was incensed that her image had been digitally retouched. “I was shocked to see that super-skinny girl with my face. It’s very sad, I think, that Ralph Lauren could do something like that,” she said.
Filippa Hamilton
Polo Ralph Lauren attempted to limit the damage, agreeing that the image should never have been used. “The image in question was mistakenly released and used in a department store in Japan and was not the approved image which ran in the US,” it said.
“We take full responsibility for allowing this image to run as this is completely inconsistent with our creative standards and brand values. This error has absolutely no connection to our relationship with Filippa Hamilton.”
But the company also confirmed that it had ended its relationship with Hamilton “as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under her contract”. A spokesman said: “Filippa Hamilton is a beautiful and healthy woman that we have worked closely with for over six years and we consider her an important part of our imaging and branding. We regret that our relationship has ended.”
He denied that she had been dropped for being overweight, but Geoffrey Menin, Hamilton’s lawyer, said she had been let go because the company said that she did not fit into the sample sizes that it needed her to wear for photoshoots.
“That photoshopped image pushed all this into the open. That image was a gross distortion of what she really looks like and was professionally and emotionally harmful to her.
“From a professional point of view, nobody would want to hire somebody looking like that. She was angry too. She had felt that Ralph Lauren was like a family to her as she had worked with them since she was 15,” Mr Menin said.
The debate over the responsibility of the fashion industry for disseminating images of unrealistically thin women has raged for years.
Earlier this year Alexandra Shulman, Editor of British Vogue, wrote to the world’s main designers expressing her concern that they were, in effect, making magazines hire models with “jutting bones and no breasts or hips” by supplying them with “minuscule” garments for their photoshoots.
Vogue was frequently “retouching” photographs of models to make them look larger, she said.
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NY Daily News Reports
A Floridian biology teacher fired after posing for racy pictures has landed a new career – in pornography.
Tiffany Shepherd, 31, made headlines in April after bikini-clad pictures of her on a fishing charter got her canned from Port St. Lucie High School. She turned to doing porn, she told a Florida news outlet, after losing custody of two of her three kids to her ex-husband and sending out 2,500 resumes – some even to prisons – without landing a new teaching job.
"I'm not particularly proud of it. To be honest, I hate it," Shepherd told Page2live.com. "I'm an educated woman, but I never thought it would come to this. No one gets brought up thinking they'll be a floozy."
On screen, Shepherd goes by the name Leah Lust and has filmed five feature films, including one titled ‘My first sex teacher,' where Shepherd portrays the very job she's been trying to get back.
"It's very professional," says Shepherd on the Web site. "Everyone's tested -- for venereal diseases and AIDS -- and I'm carrying around my little piece of paper that says I'm fine. They love me because I take care of myself and I don't run out to party with my money."
Shepherd got into the business after the captain of the fishing charter that got her into trouble in the first place recommended it as a way to make good money. Captain Gil Coombes, of the boat ‘Smokin ‘Em,' owns a porn Web cam studio with his wife, Kat, called KLC productions.
"We sat down with her and told her she'd never get a teaching job again," Coombes told Page2live.com. "So I told her, use ‘em before they fall to the ground. But God, does she need to work on her acting!"
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Sacramento Bee Reports
A 58-year-old convicted rapist and registered sex offender and his wife have been arrested in connection with the 1991 abduction of 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard, who surfaced alive in the Bay Area on Wednesday after disappearing for 18 years.
Authorities were swarming the neighborhood on Walnut Avenue in Antioch where Phillip Craig Garrido, a 6-foot, 4-inch, 196-pound registered sex offender lived with his wife, Nancy Garrido, is listed on the state's Megan's Law sex offender Web site as being convicted of rape.
Phillip Craig Garrido, a registered sex offender, is reportedly a suspect in the abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard.
State parole officials said Garrido came to their attention after someone reported suspicious activity because he was seen near UC-Berekley with two small children.
On Wednesday, parole agents and Concord police brought Garrido in for questioning, along with the two children and an adult female. During questioning, authorities said, Garrido confesse that he had abducted Dugard and the adult woman in his company revealed that she was Dugard.
Garrido had served time in a federal prison in Nevada for sexual assault.
Garrido's next-door neighbor said people in the area had known for years that Garrido was a registered sex offender and that at one point someone called authorities because they were concerned that there were children living in the home.
Haydee Perry, 32, said her boyfriend has a 7-year-old daughter and that he was concerned about Garrido living next door. She said a friend of her boyfriend had called police a few years ago because there were children living in the Garrido home and other people were living in the yard in tents.
Neighbors also noted that Garrido had a penchant for wandering the neighborhood distributing religious tracts and quoting Bible verse, she said. Perry added that nothing came of the call to police.
Perry said she talked to a young girl at the home recently who she estimated was 11 and that the girl had indicated she had two older sisters, one a young teen and the other 28, about the same age as Dugard today.
The El Dorado County Sheriff's Office this morning confirmed the identity of the 29-year-old woman who walked into a Bay Area police station claiming to be Dugard.
Further, in an extraordinary sequence of events today, federal and local law agencies renewed their focus on the 18-year-old mystery of what happened to the blond, blue-eyed girl who was abducted while walking to school June 10, 1991.
Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted in 1991.
El Dorado County sheriff's officials were preparing to release details on the case at a 3 p.m. press conference, but the girl's stepfather confirmed to The Bee early today that Jaycee had resurfaced and was being reunited with her mother.
Carl Probyn, Jaycee's stepfather, said his wife and daughter were flying to Northern California to meet Dugard and that his wife, Terry, spoke with the young woman by phone Wednesday night.
The Probyns, who are separated, live in Southern California, Carl in Orange County and Terry in Riverside. Terry Probyn and their daughter, Shayna, 19, boarded a 6 a.m. flight to the Bay Area to meet with Dugard, Carl Probyn said.
Probyn said he is elated.
"I'm just pleased that she is alive and well," said Probyn, a 60-year-old Orange County wallpaper contractor.
Probyn, who has yet to speak with his stepdaughter, said he believes suspects who might have been involved with the abduction are in custody.
Dugard's disappearance prompted a massive search, nationwide publicity and one of the largest police investigations in the region.
Dugard was on her way to school when authorities said she was pulled into a stranger's car just a block away from her South Lake Tahoe home.
Probyn said he heard her scream and saw a man and a woman drive his stepdaughter away in a gray two-tone sedan.
Despite several false sightings, Dugard was never seen again.
One person in the car was described as a 30-year-old woman with long, dark hair. Jaycee was last seen dressed in a pink windbreaker, white T-shirt and pink stretch pants.
The stepfather said Shayna Probyn called Wednesday about 4 p.m. and said, "Mom has something to say to you. Are you sitting down?"
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Prisoners in police cells will be asked to fill in questionnaires with 41 questions about issues such as comfort and quality of food
DailyMail Reports
It was once considered something of a punishment.
But a night in the cells is now followed by a 'customer satisfaction' survey, with those detained in custody asked to rate the 'services' on offer behind bars.
The hotel-style questionnaire asks their views on the brightness of the cells and the quality of the food on offer.
The survey will be given to 1,000 detainees as part of a pilot scheme by Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. Detainees will be invited to judge the quality of a variety of aspects of their incarceration, including the food, how 'safe' they felt, cleanliness, lighting and air temperature, and the provision of towels.
The questionnaire begins by stating: 'Devon & Cornwall are committed to providing the best possible service to people who are detained in custody.
'We would be grateful if you could complete the following survey and return it to the custody centre.'
Recipients of the questionnaire are asked a total of 41 questions, the results of which will eventually be entered into a database for analysis by senior officers.
One officer in the force, who did not wish to be named, said: 'It is a bit rich really. These people are in the cell for a reason, it's not like
they've come here on holiday. They are starting to treat the emergency cell buzzer like a room service hotline.'
He added: 'We are getting asked all sorts - to get them celebrity magazines, to put aircon on, to bring them a salad. It's not funny after a while.'
But Chief Inspector Ivan Trethewey, the force's head of custody, who is behind the project, told Police Review magazine yesterday: 'It does not mean we will be providing steak dinners as a result. There could be some valuable learning points, however.
'I wanted a reality check: what I think the service is that we are providing versus what detainees tell us we are giving them.'
The survey is being given to those currently in custody across the force and posted to others detained in June and July.
Dave James, secretary of Devon and Cornwall Police Federation, said: 'You would not get a questionnaire that detailed in a Holiday Inn.
'However, if it is being done as a one-off to identify best practice and to enable people to learn from areas of concern, I can understand it.'
Chief Inspector Trethewey said the scheme, which started on August 1, would cost 'a couple of hundred pounds at most'.
Superintendent Chris Brown, head of the force's criminal justice unit, said: 'We must also be mindful that not all those in our custody are charged with a crime, and indeed for some the custody centre is used as a place where members of the public, not guilty of any crime, can be assessed under the Mental Health Act.'
But Tory MP and former prisons minister Ann Widdecombe - who moved to Devon last year - added: 'This is a nonsense. If cells are not cleaned properly then you know they will be dirty.
'You don't need a prisoner to tell you that - or anything else for that matter.'
The questions in full:
Q1 What Police station were you held at recently?
Q2 How old are you?
Q3 Are you? Male/Female
Q4 Have you ever been held in police custody before?
Q5 How long were you held at the police station?
Q6 Were you given information about your arrest and your entitlements when you arrived there?
Q7 Were you told about the Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) Codes of Practice (the rule book)?
Q8 If your clothes were taken away, were you offered different clothing to wear?
Q9 If you used the toilet, were the following things provided on request? Toilet paper/Sanitary wear/soap/water/towel
Q10 How would you rate the condition of your cell for Cleanliness/ Ventilation/ Temperature/ Lighting
Q11 Did staff explain to you the correct use of the bell/buzzer?
Q12 If you were held over night, were you given bedding?
Q13 If you requested a shower, was this allowed?
Q14 If you requested outside exercise was this provided?
Q15 Were you offered anything to eat or drink?
Q16 Was the food/drink suitable for your dietary requirements?
Q17 If requested were you given reading material?
Q18 Was someone informed of your arrest?
Q19 If requesting a phone call, was this allowed?
Q20 If you were denied a free phone call, was a reason for this given?
Q21 Do you think you were treated fairly?
Q22 Were you interviewed by police officials about your case?
Q23 Were you kept updated as to the progress of your stay in custody?
Q24 How long did you have to wait for your solicitor to attend?
Q25 Were you officially charged?
Q26 Did you feel safe in the Custody Suite?
Q27 Were you handcuffed or restrained whilst in the custody suite?
Q28 Were you told how to make a complaint about your treatment, if you needed to?
Q29 Do you have any other comments to add about safety in the custody suite?
Q30 When you were in police custody were you on any medication?
Q31 Were you able to continue taking your medication whilst there?
Q32 Did someone explain your entitlement to see a health care professional, if required?
Q33 Were you seen by any of the following healthcare professionals during your time there? Doctor/Nurse/Paramedic/Psychiatrist
Q34 If requested were you able to see a healthcare professional of your own gender?
Q35 Did you have any drug or alcohol problems during your time in custody?
Q36 Did you see, or were you offered the chance to see a drug or alcohol worker?
Q37 Were you offered relief or medication for your immediate symptoms?
Q38 Please rate the quality of your healthcare whilst in police custody - Very good, good, bad, very bad.
Q39 Did you have any specific physical healthcare needs?
Q40 Did you have any specific mental healthcare needs?
Q41 Do you have any other comments to add about your time in police custody?
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MSNBC Reports
SYDNEY - A man whose relatives say had been sniffing gasoline burst into flames after a police officer Tasered him as he ran at officials carrying a container of fuel, police said Tuesday.
The man, identified by his family as 36-year-old Ronald Mitchell, was in critical condition at a Perth hospital in Western Australia state following Monday's incident in Warburton, an Aboriginal community 950 miles northeast of Perth.
Western Australia police said they were responding to a complaint at a house when Mitchell ran outside carrying a cigarette lighter and a large plastic bottle containing what they believe was fuel. When he refused to stop running toward them, one officer Tasered him, police said in a statement.
The man was immediately engulfed in flames. The officer threw him to the ground and smothered the blaze with his hands, the statement said. Mitchell was charged with assault to prevent arrest and possession of a sniffing substance.
An 18-year-old woman threw rocks at the officer as he tried to help, and he was later treated for a cut on his head and burns to his hands, police said.
Police say man sniffed gas
The woman was charged with two counts of assaulting an officer, police Sgt. Graham Clifford said. Two others at the house were charged with possessing a sniffing substance.
Mitchell's sister, Morinda West, told The Australian newspaper that her brother had been sniffing gasoline and that when he ran out of the house he was carrying a lighter and an orange juice container full of gasoline.
Police spokeswoman Susan Usher said Mitchell appeared to have received third-degree burns to about ten percent of his body.
Western Australia Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan defended the officer's actions on Tuesday, calling Mitchell a known gasoline sniffer and violent offender.
"The police officers were concerned that they were going to be burnt so they deployed a Taser," O'Callaghan told reporters in Perth. "The only other choice they would have had is to use a police-issue firearm and the circumstances would almost certainly have been far more grave."
O'Callaghan also said that while Mitchell did burst into flames after the Taser was deployed, it wasn't immediately clear if the stun gun actually sparked the fire.
"There is a very strong possibility the fire was caused by the lighter in the hand of the offender," he said.
The officer who Tasered Mitchell was not suspended, Clifford said.
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