Michael Toney was convicted and sentenced to death in 1999 for his part in a car bombing which killed 3 people.
He maintained his innocence over the years and finally had his conviction overturned and was freed from jail on September 2 this year.
On Saturday he was killed in a car accident.
Bummer!
An Air India crew put a whole new spin on in-flight entertainment recently. Not for the passengers on this plane the usual movies and music programs – no, they got treated to a brawl between pilots and cabin crew. Crew members threw punches and hurled abuse – in full view of 106 passengers – after an air stewardess accused one of the co-pilots on flight IC-844 of sexually harassing her. At one point, the cockpit of the Airbus A320 was left unmanned.
It is still not clear precisely how or when the fight started, but it is believed to have stemmed from an angry exchange during the pre-flight briefing before the plane left Sharjah airport in the UAE. Police in Delhi said that a 24-year-old stewardess accused one of the flight deck crew of trying to molest her and of pushing her out of the cockpit when she resisted. Officers said they had registered a case against two pilots on suspicion of committing "assault or use of criminal force against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty". The pilots are reported to have made a counter-claim, saying that the harassment allegation was an attempt to divert attention from accusations of misconduct against a male flight attendant.
Air India said in a statement it had ordered an inquiry into what it described as a reported “scuffle”, adding that two pilots and two crew members had been suspended.
So lets scrub Air India from my list of airlines which I might use sometime – I prefer my in-flight entertainment to be more tame than that.
Footy season is really over now, the AFL grand final last weekend and the National Rugby League (NRL) one today. The Melbourne Storm beat the Parramatta Eels by 23 to 16. As a game it was nowhere near as good a contest as last Saturday’s game between Geelong and St Kilda. The Storm established dominance over the Eels quite early, and except for about 15 minutes late in the game where Parramatta came back from 22-6 down to get to 22-16, kept that up till the end.
Congratulations to the Storm – it was their fourth grand final in a row, and their second win. They really have been the premier team of the last few years. Not unlike the glory days of the late 80’s and early 90’s when the mighty Canberra Raiders were on top of the competition winning 3 premierships in 6 years. (wishes fervently that the Green Machine will get back to that status some time soon … they haven’t even looked like premiership material since about 2003.)
Given the core group of Storm’s best players are only in their early to mid 20’s, plus the fact that they also won the under-20’s championship today, you’d be brave to bet against them having more success over the next few years. (At least there is some hope for the Raiders, having won the under-20’s last year – the young players coming through to the NRL level should pay dividends in the near future.)