A woman suffocated her two young children and put them in the boot of her car after her relationship with their father broke down, a court has heard.
Fiona Donnison, 45, suffocated Harry, three, and Elise, two, while wrongly believing their father Paul had started an affair.
The bodies of the children were later found in holdalls in the boot of her Nissan car on the morning of January 27 last year, dressed in pyjamas.
Lewes Crown Court heard they had been suffocated, probably with a pillow or some other form of bedding.
Opening the trial on Monday, prosecutor Christine Laing QC said Donnison – a former City worker who had enjoyed a successful career in financial services – killed the youngsters to hurt their father in the most extreme way possible.
She said Donnison, who was not married to the children’s father but had changed her name by deed poll, was a narcissist with an overdeveloped sense of self-importance.
The couple, who had met in 1999 when both were married to other people, had an often strained relationship which was exacerbated by issues concerning her two teenage sons who lived with them and debt problems.
Donnison was also jealous and controlling of her partner, and often exhibited highly manipulative behaviour, the court heard.
On September 1, 2009, the day after returning from a family holiday to Ireland, Mr Donnison came home from work to find the defendant had moved out of their home in Heathfield, east Sussex, taking all four children with her.
He later found out she had moved into a house in Lightwater, Surrey, 100 yards from where his first wife lived with their two children, despite having no connections to the area.
Ms Laing said the couple later reconciled and made plans to move in together again but Donnison remained jealous of a woman he had struck up a platonic relationship with after she had left.
She said the two children, “described by everyone who knew them as delightful, well-mannered, affectionate children”, were last seen alive on the afternoon of January 26 last year.
The next day the defendant went to Heathfield police station and told officers she had killed her children.
She would not tell them where they were, but police soon found them in the car.
Donnison denies two charges of murder. The trial continues.
LONDON–It’s not often you take a train, look out the window all during the journey, and see people standing alongside the tracks with cameras at the ready so they can take pictures of the carriages going by.
The British Pullman, one of the Venice-Simplon Orient Express lines offering day trips in England, steams into Victoria Station, in London. (Credit: Orient Express) Read more: https://www.cnet.com/culture/luxury-aboard-the-orient-express-british-pullman/#ixzz1RjuO6V4h
The British Pullman, one of the Venice-Simplon Orient Express lines offering day trips in England, steams into Victoria Station, in London.
(Credit: Orient Express)
Not often, that is, unless you’re prone to taking Venice-Simplon Orient Express trains. If you are, be prepared for an almost uncountable number of train spotters looking for a rare glimpse of one of the most luxurious and storied conveyances in modern history.
I got a chance to take one of the Venice-Simplon Orient Express journeys recently as part of Road Trip 2011, a daylong meander from London to Bristol, England, and back aboard what’s known as the British Pullman. Many people may think that the Venice-Simplon Orient Express is only a train that goes from London to Venice, or Istanbul, but in fact, these days the famous moniker belongs to a company that offers train rides, cruises, hotel stays, and other high end experiences all throughout the world, each of which has its own distinctive name.
The original Orient Express, operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, stopped running in 2009, but the Venice-Simplon Orient Express employs original, ’20s- and ’30s-era cars, and encompasses the original Paris-to-Istanbul route.
I had originally hoped to take the five-day trip from London to Venice and back, part of the Venice-Simplon route that also reaches cities like Bucharest, Rome, Krakow, and others, but that wasn’t possible. Yet, there’s no doubt that if, like me, you find yourself aboard a train like the British Pullman, you’ll spend nearly 12 hours in a state of luxury that’s well worth your time, and money.
My voyage began at London’s Victoria Station, and almost immediately I had in front of me a Bellini and a plate of delicious scrambled eggs with chives and Inverawe smoked salmon (served on a warm potato-and-herb rosti). This was just to set the stage for a day of leisure, lovely views, a lot of champagne, and much more.
Drinking a Bellini at about nine in the morning may seem a bit decadent, but as my escort for the day put it, “It doesn’t matter what time it is when you’re on the Orient Express.”
The British Pullman runs regular routes throughout England from Victoria Station. Each features the same “rake,” or set of 11 classic carriages. “The carriages appear in such good condition you would be forgiven for thinking they had lain under dust sheets for most of their life,” a British Pullman brochure boasts. “But nothing could be further from the truth. Before forming the magnificent British Pullman train, its cars were part of the most famous services in Britain–the Bournemouth Belle, the Brighton Belle, the Queen of Scots, and the Golden Arrow.”
It turns out, however, that the cars were mostly withdrawn from service in the 1960s and 1970s, and gradually were neglected. Some were purchased by enthusiasts, but most spent their days ignored on railway sidings or worse, were consigned to the scrap heap. But in 1977, at a Sotheby’s auction in Monte Carlo, James Sherwood, a man who had long hoped to someday bring back the original Orient Express, began the process of purchasing 35 historic Pullmans, restaurant cars, and sleepers. Many had to be restored, and before they could be put in service, they were totally stripped, and other changes were made to make the carriages ready for a modern clientele.
Perhaps the most important task was that of creating what’s known as the marquetry, the beautiful art deco designs that highlight each car. “Restoring the marquetry was a very skilled job–luckily, there was Bob Dunn to assist,” the brochure reads. “His grandfather, Albert, started the family marquetry business in 1895…. The family had made the original panels in the Pullman carriages Minerva, Ibis, and Audrey. Other prestigious commissions included the Titanic, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and even Buckingham Palace.”
The British Pullman today consists of 11 cars: Audrey, Cygnus, Gwen, Ibis, Ione, Lucille, Minerva, Perseus, Vera, Zena, and Phoenix. My comfortable chair was in the Phoenix, a carriage that was built in 1927 but which burned in a fire in 1936. Its chassis was saved, however, and in 1952, it was rebuilt and, having risen from its ashes, returned to service with the Golden Arrow. The Phoenix features marquetry of flowers on American cherry wood. And it was a favorite of Britain’s beloved Queen Mother, and over the years carried dignitaries like French General Charles de Gaulle.
The steam engine
My choice of a date for my British Pullman journey turned out to be lucky: it was one of the few each year on which a steam Clanline engine is used. Most trips use diesel engines. And the steam engine meant that once during each leg of the journey, the train had to stop so the engine could be refilled with water.
This turned out to be one of the biggest parties of the whole day. We stopped for about 20 minutes for the refilling, and there were quite a number of people waiting for the chance to see the train up close. And as 6,000 gallons of water was pumped in from a fire truck that pulled up in order to do the job, several volunteers stood atop the engine, shoveling in coal. Nearly every passenger got off and everywhere you looked people were posing for pictures, talking, and enjoying what might otherwise have been an annoying delay.
As we waited, steam rose from little valves underneath the engine and around the wheels, and of course, off the top. Suddenly, an ear-splitting steam sound startled everyone and major jets of steam shot from the top of the train.
Weddings, proposals, anniversaries, and more
Being for most people a once-in-a-lifetime experience, it’s no wonder the British Pullman and other Orient Express trains are a natural for all kinds of essential celebrations–marriage proposals, wedding receptions, anniversaries, birthday parties, and pretty much every other similar event you can think of.
And why not? If you have the means, you can reserve most or all of a carriage and bring along a bunch of friends. And spend the day toasting each other in style as the lovely British countryside and classic English towns like Bath roll by outside.
And even though it’s 2011 on the other side of the window, inside you’re deep in the 1920s and 1930s, hopefully not clinging to your mobile phone, and enjoying the sommelier’s choice of wine to go along with the seared Kentish guinea fowl entree that’s part of your five-course dinner. And of course, lots more champagne. When the day was over, just about all the people who disembarked did so with big grin on their faces, and a bit of a wobble as they moved on down the Victoria Station platform toward the exits.
Before I got off, I had a few minutes to talk with Jeff Monk, the British Pullman train manager. He’s worked for the Orient Express for decades, and has countless stories of life on the famous trains.
Though his favorite stories tended to be from other Orient Express trains, they nonetheless are representative of what can happen aboard such a famous line. For example, Monk recalled having Paul Newman on one of the overnight trains, and the famous actor waking up at 5:30 in the morning and just talking with him like a regular guy for more than an hour. Or when George Lucas reserved a whole carriage and his young daughter asked to have each of the beds set for her Care Bears. Keith Richards was also a passenger, Monk recalled, and he, too, woke up early, not being able to sleep. At 6:30 in the morning, the Rolling Stone pulled out his guitar and started singing “Johnny B Good.” The other passengers couldn’t help but open their doors and enjoy the show.
But while Monk has fun stories of someone asking the chef to prepare a Christmas dinner in August, and of a gentle but soused Bjork riding along, his best story might be about the English ’80s band The Cure riding one of the overnight trains and partying in their black hair and makeup. An American passenger, unaware of his famous carriage-mates came up to Monk and quietly said, “Jeff, there’s beatniks on board. Make sure my cabin’s locked.”
A BLACKBURN woman is locked in a child custody battle with her estranged husband in Turkey.
HAPPIER TIMES Mehmet Baki Sakaraglu and Anisa with son Amani
Anisa Khansia, 29, was visiting 22-month-old son Amani’s grandparents when a bitter fight over the child broke out.
Friends and relatives of Miss Khansia in Blackburn claim husband Mehmet Baki Sakaraglu tried to snatch the child.
But Mr Sakaraglu, who has appeared on Britain’s Got Talent under the stage name of Ali Baba, has spoken out over the battle to Turkish newspapers, giving a different version of events.
The reports claim he feels the Turkish authorities should review custody as Ms Khansia is not a fit parent and that he has seen ‘inappropriate’ pictures of her on the Internet Friends of Miss Khansia said Turkish authorities had prevented her from leaving the country until the matter is settled in court.
The Foreign Office has been notified of the dispute. A spokesman said the matter was ‘contentious’ and that a police investigation was ongoing.
The partner of Ms Khansia’s cousin, Jeannine Astley, said the family had been offering support over the phone and some had travelled to be with her.
She said: “We don’t know how long this is going to drag on for.
“This was just supposed to be a holiday where Amani could see his relatives.
“She did the same thing last year and everything was fine. This time all hell has broken loose”.
Miss Astley said the couple married three years ago after meeting on holiday a year before.
Miss Khansia visited him in Turkey regularly before the couple wed in 2008.
Mr Sakaraglu came to Britain after the wedding, but her family said their relationship was under strain from early on.
They are said to have separated soon after Amani’s birth.
Miss Khansia is the daughter of a man labelled Blackburn’s ‘Mr Big’ for his drug dealing.
In 2005, she was ordered to pay back £45,000 of ill-gotten gains as she owned a house in Tintern Crescent, Blackburn, which had been bought with laundered drugs money.
She was jailed for six months for the offence.
Miss Astley said the prison sentence had ‘scared’ her and encouraged her to turn her life around.
She said: “Anisa got a job as a receptionist and settled down. She wanted to be married. She wanted to build a good life for her child after everything she had been through.”
via Blackburn woman in child custody battle in Turkey (From Blackburn Citizen).
Despite loose defense industry ties between Turkey and the UK, the British Aerospace Systems wants to develop, produce and export a combat ship with Turkey, according to an executive
The BAE Systems’ Global Combat Ship program is being developed to deliver multirole ships with anti-submarine, air defence and general purpose variants.
Britain, the world’s second largest defense exporter after the United States, but which has little presence in Turkey, has launched a major effort for joint manufacture and joint export to third countries of defense equipment with Ankara, a senior British industry official said Thursday.
Britain’s defense exports worldwide surpassed 7 billion pounds in 2009, taking a nearly 20 percent share of the global market. But its activities in Turkey, with a flourishing defense industry, in the last 15 years were limited to the production of electronic warfare systems for Turkish F-16 fighter planes by the American arm of BAE Systems, the largest defense company in Britain and Europe and the second-largest in the world.
Also the American arms of the same company has a 49 percent stake in FNSS, a top Turkish armored vehicles firm, which earlier this year signed a $600 million deal for the export of the Pars, an 8X8 wheeled vehicle, in the largest ever single export contract in Turkey’s history.
The government of British Prime Minister David Cameron, in power since last year, unofficially has designated Turkey, together with Brazil and India, as top potential strategic partners in the defense industry.
During a visit to Ankara in January, British Defense Secretary Liam Fox strongly backed Turkey’s membership in the European Union and pledged to bolster defense industry cooperation.
During IDEF-11 earlier this year, Turkey’s largest defense fair in Istanbul, Alan Garwood, group business development director for BAE Systems, said his company wanted to partner more with the Turkish defense industry.
Net exporter of defense equipment
“BAE Systems would be very pleased to collaborate further with Turkey and assist with the country’s aspiration to become a net exporter of defense and security equipment,” Garwood said on May 10.
The company has considerable experience of assisting in the development of indigenous defense capabilities in markets around the world. In terms of near-term defense collaboration, Garwood identified the naval sector as a good opportunity for Turkey and Britain to work closely together.
“Turkey has ambitions and aspirations for the development of its local defense industry. By 2023, it wants to become a net exporter of defense goods,” a senior official from BAE Systems told Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review here Thursday.
“BAE Systems has significant expertise in working with host countries. A commitment between Britain and Turkey to form more business partnership on Global Combat Ships could potentially be a specific opportunity,” said the British official.
The Global Combat Ship, being developed by BAE Systems, is a future vision of what is now known as frigates in present navies. It is a multirole warship designed to be offered in anti-submarine warfare, air defense and general purpose variants.
Turkey presently is working to design the features and specifications of its future naval vessels. The British company’s Global Combat Ship is likely to face strong rivals, including U.S. and Italian firms in a future competition.
BAE Systems also is a partner of the pan-European Eurofigher consortium, whose other partners include Italian, German and Spanish companies and which makes the European Typhoon fighter planes. Eurofighter seeks to include Turkey in the development and manufacture of the aircraft’s new versions.
via Britain seeks to boost defense cooperation with Turkey – Hurriyet Daily News.
SYNOPSIS: BD Otomotive group owns and operates production facilities in Turkey and Italy for the conversion of light commercial vehicles into electric vehicles, and related activities.
Istanbul, Turkey, 6 July 2011 – Sustainable transport group BD Otomotive (BD OTO AS) is in advanced negotiations with the Norwegian court-appointed Trustee of THINK Global – the electric vehicle maker – to rescue the brand from bankruptcy.
BD Otomotive is a Turkey-based investment group behind a host of successful corporate ventures across Europe, which in recent years has focused on electric transportation. The group owns and operates production facilities in Turkey and Italy for the conversion of light commercial vehicles into electric vehicles (EVs), automotive battery pack assembly, and a new recycling plant for lithium-ion and other industrial batteries.
The group has also made major investments into EV charging infrastructure, and owns and operates charging stations across Turkey.
In addition, the company operates sales and service networks across Europe to market its sustainable mobility products, and also is an appointed distributor of Fisker Automotive cars and BYD commercial vehicles and buses.
Chairman of BD Otomotive, Osman Boyner, said: “Our intentions are simple – to bring THINK out of bankruptcy and make it the affordable urban EV for Europe it was always designed to be. We have the manufacturing capabilities and sales network to do this, and combined with a core group of retained THINK talent in Norway we aim to launch new platforms and the next generation of vehicles if successful in our bid.”
He added: “We know our aspirations are realistic and are extremely hopeful for the future of the brand.”
Negotiations between BD Otomotive and the Norwegian court-appointed Trustee in charge of THINK Global are ongoing. The negotiations’ conclusion will be subject to a further announcement.
via Turkisk Group Negotiating Possible Rescue of Bankrupt THINK: EVWORLD.COM.
A major new exhibition explores the extraordinary work of Hussein Chalayan. Susannah Frankel celebrates a bright and unorthodox star
Monday, 4 July 2011
A mechanical dress in action
This looks set to be quite a month for the fashion designer Hussein Chalayan, who has long remained under the radar, relatively speaking, at least – he is both proudly individual and uncompromising.
Tomorrow at Les Arts Decoratifs in Paris, the largest retrospective of his work to date opens to the public. Pieces hitherto unseen away from the catwalk include the remote control dress from Before Minus Now (spring/summer 2000) and looks from Between (spring/summer 1998), which took as its starting point different aspects of worship, encompassing everything from convent girl to covered Muslim.
To coincide with this a new monograph will be published, which is unusually personal and compiled by the designer himself. Chalayan has painstakingly edited down his drawings from many thousands kept in binders in his studio. They provide an intriguing way into his process. No less revealing are family photographs. He has always stressed the importance of his background, and his ancestry in particular. And so there’s an engagement photograph of his mother and father; his aunt, cousins and grandmother all also have their moment in the sun. Chalayan’s own portraits follow his life path: as a child growing up in his bedroom in Cyprus; as a young man bearing an uncanny resemblance to a 1950s pin-up; while studying fashion at Central Saint Martins in London, from where he graduated in 1993, and rocking an equally retro look; and later, in his signature sweater and jeans but with rather less hair, as an established designer, back in his homeland again.
Here, too, are Chalayan’s art works. He is very much a pluralist – when he was at Saint Martin’s it was a more integrated place and the crossover between art and fashion especially was hugely productive. The critic Andrew Graham Dixon once said that Chalayan’s work was “as close to contemporary art as you can get”.
As well as running his own fashion business, the designer creates installations, sculpture and film, which he sells to collectors around the world.
Then, of course, there are the clothes, from carefully chosen fashion editorials – gathered from publications including The New Yorker (Richard Avedon), American Vogue (Mario Testino), V Magazine (Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin), Dazed & Confused (Sofia Coppola) and more – to catwalk imagery. It is well known that Chalayan’s runway presentations have about as much in common with anything straightforward or conventional as chalk does with cheese. Consider One Hundred And Eleven (spring/summer 2007), with mechanical dresses that travelled through decades of fashion history in front of the audience’s very eyes, or Panoramic (autumn/winter 1998) that took as its starting point nothing more obvious than Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and, through mirrors and clothing that fused ethnic detailing with uniform, the limits of language and thought.
Given that Chalayan’s shows – and indeed his ideas more generally – are ambitious to say the very least, it is perhaps not surprising that the fact that he also makes beautiful clothes has at times been overlooked – and even upstaged. For Readings (spring/summer 2008), bodices were embedded with radiating Swarowski crystals (the company has long supported Chalayan and is a title sponsor of the Paris exhibition). In Ventriloquy (spring/summer 2001), clothing made out of sugar glass was duly smashed to pieces centre stage. Most famous of all is the table skirt from Afterwords (autumn/winter 2000). It’s small wonder, given their spectacular nature, that such show pieces have received more attention than even the designer himself might wish for. “The number of times I’ve seen that table skirt,” he once said of the latter. “I mean, I love that piece, but it’s only the tiniest part of what we’ve done. People think that creativity and commerce don’t go together in my brand, but that’s a misconception because we have always – always – made clothes that you can wear.”
More pictures – of striped wide-legged palazzo pants, say, in Dolce Far Niente (spring/summer 2010) later worn by Lady Gaga on uncharacteristically soignée form, and a floral print dress from Sakoku (spring/summer 2010) are testimony, if ever any were needed, that Chalayan is a rare talent where this, too, is concerned.
Of course, Chalayan is no stranger to the gallery setting – he had shows at both the Lisson Gallery and Spring Studios in London only last year. The Paris exhibition, meanwhile, started life in 2009 at the Design Museum in the British capital and has since travelled to Tokyo and Istanbul, adapting to its setting in each instance. Sitting in a café not far from his Shoreditch studio 10 days before the opening, he says it is unprecedented, primarily due to its focus on clothes. This, after all, is specifically a fashion museum and work will be displayed in a more traditional way and predominantly in vitrines for the first time. “It’s good for me to become part of that fashion institution discourse,” says Chalayan, before going on to point out also: “The show’s open in Paris all summer – a lot of people are going to see it.”
And that is nothing if not timely. Earlier this year, the designer changed the name of his label simply to Chalayan, dropping his first name, he argues, because it facilitates recognition in a heavily branded world and because:”I like the way it looks”.
As well as the main line there will be Chalayan Grey, a collection of more accessibly priced designs aimed at a younger audience, and Chalayan Red, which will only be available in Japan.
As befits a designer with his eye on more clearly commercial concerns, meanwhile, Chalayan’s first fragrance, Airborne – he came up with the concept and the packaging, Comme des Garcons with the juice – is also set to launch. Packaged in a bottle that is engraved with a vintage Hussein Chalayan print of the Nicosia shore and skyline (the same appears in colour on the inside of the box), even this exemplifies the unusually autobiographical and narrative touch that characterises so much of his output.
“Because of my family life when I was a child, I moved around and readapted to new scenarios, and smell marked a big part of these shifts in environment,” states the designer, whose parents separated when he was still young and who moved between London with his father and Cyprus with his mother from there on in.
“After selecting different elements such as neroli, lemon and lentiscus from Cyprus, I proposed an imaginary scenario as to how these ingredients could incur change during and after an air journey from Mediterranean Cyprus to a London urban setting.”
As for the name? Chalayan’s continued interest in flight has its roots here, too. “I spent so much time on planes as a child.”
Hussein Chalayan: Fashion Narratives is at Les Arts Decoratifs, Paris, July 7 to November 21, www.lesartsdecroatifs.fr; Hussein Chalayan, by Hussein Chalayan, with contributions by Judith Clark, Susannah Frankel, Pamela Golbin, Emily King, Rebecca Lowthorpe and Sarah Mower is published by Rizzoli; Hussein Chalayan, Airborne, launches at London’s Dover Street Market later this month.
A woman suffocated her two young children and put them in the boot of her car after her relationship with their father broke down, a court has heard.
