Maria: Roma Couple Charged With Abduction

A Roma couple have been formally charged with abducting a mystery blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl in Greece.

The pair, named in local papers as Hristos Salis, 39, and Eleftheria Dimopoulou, 40, were escorted into the back of a courthouse in Larissa from a police van.

Their friends and family waited at the front of the building, with reporters and TV satellite crews, as a dozen police officers stood guard. No press were allowed into the court.

The couple told the investigative magistrate the girl's biological mother gave the little girl to them as a baby because she could not look after her.

They deny charges of abduction and procuring false documents relating to the girl's birth certificate.

One of their lawyers, Constantinos Katsavos, told reporters outside court: "It was an adoption that was not exactly legal but took place with the mother's consent." 

The pair were taken by police van into the back of the courthouse

The court will decide whether the pair will be kept in custody pending trial or released on bail.

The mystery girl, known as Maria, was discovered living in a Roma camp near the Greek town of Farsala on Wednesday after a raid by police looking for drugs and weapons.

British police say there is no link between her case and that of missing boy Ben Needham, who was 21 months old when he vanished on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.

A prosecutor who accompanied police on the raid thought it odd that Maria did not look like her darker-skinned "parents".

DNA tests later confirmed the couple are not her biological parents.

The couple appeared at a court in Larissa

The pair claim they were given the child by a Bulgarian woman who was unable to look after her, two weeks after she was born on January 31, 2009.

Greek authorities have put out a worldwide appeal to help identify the youngster and find her real family.

Maria, who utters just a few words in Greek and Roma dialect, is being cared for in Athens by the Greek charity Smile Of The Child and is said to be "doing well".

Charity spokesman Panagiotis Pardalis told Sky News that Maria is still in hospital and waiting for medical examinations to be completed.

"She is talking to hospital staff and seems happy, and is playing with staff and showing normal child behaviour," he said.

Maria seen in a family video as a toddler

The Roma couple claim Maria is four years old, although medical and dental tests have confirmed she is a year or two older than that.

The little girl, dubbed the "blonde angel" by Greek media, will be transferred to one of the charity's homes when she leaves hospital.

The charity has been inundated with more than 8,000 calls about the girl from around the world, including from people in the US, Scandinavia, Australia and South Africa.

Some of the calls had specific details and have been forwarded to police.

Neighbours in Farsala's ramshackle Roma camp said Maria's real father had come to look for her soon after she was taken away by police.

Maria was found in a Roma camp in Farsala

Babis Dimitriou, chairman of the local Roma community, told The Daily Telegraph: "There was a Bulgarian husband and wife who were working around Greece in temporary jobs, who used to stay here sometimes.

"At one point they left the girl to be raised by the family here in the village.

"The family raised the child as if it was their own, although her father would come back every now and then to see her. The last time he visited was only five days ago, after the arrests had been made.

"All the other Roma here were telling the Bulgarian man to explain to the police that the girl was his, but he has now disappeared."

His account was backed by other residents, the paper reported.

The Roma community in Farsala is said to be anxious about the worldwide media attention the case is attracting.

In a country already devastated by economic crisis, the Roma in the camp make a living selling fruit, carpets, blankets, baskets and shoes at local markets.

They are already considered by some to be social outcasts, thieves and beggars, and they are now worried they will be stigmatised as kidnappers and child traffickers.

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'White Widow' Lewthwaite's Ode To Bin Laden

By Alex Crawford, Special Correspondent

The British terror suspect sought by police following the Nairobi shopping mall massacre wrote a poem in praise of Osama bin Laden in which she warned that al Qaeda is "stronger and fiercer'" than ever, Sky News can reveal.

Samantha Lewthwaite - known as "The White Widow" - pledged to continue the fight to bring terror to the West and suggested that she is prepared to be a martyr for the Islamic cause.

In the 34-line Ode to Osama - found by police on a computer in her Kenyan home - Lewthwaite said her love for the mastermind of the 9/11 attack "is like no other".

She lamented his death in 2011 at the hands of American special forces and called on Muslims to follow his example.

Investigators found an "Ode to Osama" on Lewthwaite's computer

"Us we are left to continue what you started," she wrote. "To seek the victory until we are martyred. To instill (sic) terror into kuffar (non-Muslims) …Your life an example of how we should be.

"Oh Muslims listen to our beloved sheik's words, Let not his struggle and efforts go unheard, Revive what he started and strive to success, Then maybe we can be raised with the best."

Lewthwaite was married to 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay and lived with him in Buckinghamshire before the 2005 attacks. They had two children together.

The British suspect rented an apartment overlooking the Junction mall

Last year it emerged she had left Britain for East Africa and had been linked to the al Qaeda terror group al Shabaab.

Despite her sorrow at bin Laden's death, she warned the West - and US President Barack Obama - that the jihad is not over.

"As for our enemies our words will be less," she wrote. "You picked the wrong army to contest. Al Qaeda are stronger and fiercer than ever. Their (sic) was no victory for you Mr Obama The honour is his on martyred Osama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Sky News gained access to a flat directly below the one Lewthwaite rented

As part of an investigation, Sky News has discovered that Lewthwaite - being hunted by Interpol in the aftermath of the Westgate shopping mall massacre - lived in a flat in the Kenyan capital overlooking a different shopping mall for seven months in 2011.

She used her South African alias Natalie Faye Webb while she rented the apartment with her four children.

Sky News sources who are involved in the hunt for her have said that this was one of three addresses she acquired in the capital.

Sky's Alex Crawford spoke to a block supervisor, who recognised Lewthwaite

It is the first time she has been specifically placed in the city where last month's attack - which left at least 67 people dead - took place.

Detectives examining the hard drive of a computer left at her house in Mombasa found several self-portraits of Lewthwaite, including one where she posed with two of her children.

They also discovered evidence which led them to an apartment block in Nairobi overlooking the Junction shopping mall - which British and Kenyan intelligence believe was a potential target for the al Shabaab terror group with which Lewthwaite has been linked.

Lewthwaite rented the apartment using her known alias, Natalie Faye Webb

She lived there with her four children and despite having no apparent income paid 60,000 shillings or nearly £500 a month for the three bedroom flat.

A man from the apartment block said she used to go shopping at the nearby mall - popular just like Westgate with wealthy expats - for up to four hours at a time.

Police also traced a flash drive back to her which showed the British woman who married a suicide bomber had spent eight years researching chemicals, explosive ingredients and how to make bombs.

The clean-up at the site of the Westgate mall attacks is ongoing

One document she downloaded is entitled the Mujahideen explosives handbook.

The examination of her hard drive showed she had also Googled a significant number of dieting and fitness sites, including websites with workout routines to help you lose weight and makeover sites which demonstrated how to have hair like the singer Taylor Swift.

Out of nearly 2,000 files found, a vast number were about health and body image and she had downloaded documents about getting started in bodybuilding and visited one site about self-defence.

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Australia Battles Blazes To Prevent 'Mega-Fire'

Firefighters are trying to tame an enormous bushfire in southeastern Australia which could merge with other blazes to create a "mega-fire" if weather conditions worsen.

Crews have been battling fires that flared in high winds and searing heat across the state of New South Wales last week which destroyed 200 homes and left many others damaged.

While dozens of blazes have been contained, 58 were still alight and 14 of them out of control, enveloping Sydney in a thick white smoke haze that prompted warnings for people to stay indoors and avoid exercising.

The main area of concern was near the town of Lithgow, west of Sydney, where a huge fire that has already burned nearly 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) was threatening the communities of Bilpin, Bell, Clarence and Dargan.

Tea cups sit on a letterbox at a home destroyed by bushfire

Officials fear intensifying heat and winds this week could push it into another blaze at nearby Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains and then move towards the populated areas of Katoomba and Leura.

"I don't think I've ever used the word mega-fire," said New South Wales rural fire service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons.

"But the reality is that the modelling indicates that there's every likelihood that in the forecast weather conditions that these two fires, particularly up in the back end of the mountains, will merge at some point."

Lyndon Dunlop with his father among the ruins of his grandparent's home

The Australian military is investigating whether it was responsible for starting the blaze, northwest of Sydney.

The Australian Defence Force said its personnel were carrying out explosive ordnance training in the area on Wednesday, the day the blaze started.

Amid the worst fire disaster in the state for nearly 50 years, New South Wales declared a state of emergency on Sunday, which gives firefighters the power to forcibly evacuate people, with penalties for refusing.

Emergency Services Minister Mike Gallacher said every possible resource was being used, including firefighters being drafted in from interstate and the possibility that the military could also be deployed.

"Everything is being thrown at this, I can assure you," he said.

Sue Dunlop sits in front of her home of 41 years which was destroyed

With hundreds of people evacuated due to the encroaching flames, police revealed Monday they were dealing with reports of looting from victims, although the number of incidents was small.

State Premier Barry O'Farrell called looters "scumbags" and vowed to track them down.

"I'm just appalled that at these critical times, when people have been evacuated from homes or whether people have left homes because of fire dangers, that other scumbags in the community would front up and seek to rob them," he said.

Police, meanwhile, said a young boy, reportedly aged 11, was being questioned about deliberately lighting a fire on the New South Wales Central Coast last week that forced hundreds of people to flee their homes and saw the closure of Newcastle airport.

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Nuclear Power Plant 'Strike Price' Agreed

A deal to build Britain's first nuclear power plant in a generation is expected to be announced today.

The Government has been negotiating with French-owned EDF Energy for more than a year over two new plants which will be built at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

But ministers are now understood to have agreed on the crucial "strike price" which will give EDF a guaranteed rate for producing low-carbon electricity, raising concerns that this will hike up energy bills.

If wholesale prices drop below the strike price, investors who financed the project will be compensated. If prices rise above that level, EDF will pay the difference back to consumers.

The 'strike price' gives EDF a guaranteed rate for producing electricity

The two reactors proposed for Hinkley are a key part of the coalition's drive to shift the UK away from fossil fuels towards low-carbon power.

Energy policy has shot up the agenda since the party conference season, when Labour leader Ed Miliband pledged to freeze retail prices for 20 months.

Chancellor George Osborne removed another obstacle last week when he announced that Chinese firms will be allowed to invest in civil nuclear projects in the UK - even potentially taking a majority stake.

The funding agreement will almost certainly mean that the new reactor at Hinkley will be a mirror image of the Taishan plant in China.

Ed Miliband and George Osborne weighed into the energy debate last week

During a visit to the Taishan plant last week, Mr Osborne said: "It is an important potential part of the Government's plan for developing the next generation of nuclear power in Britain.

"It means the potential of more investment and jobs in Britain, and lower long-term energy costs for consumers".

But anti-nuclear activists living near the site say they have been misled by the decision process to site the plant at Hinkley.

Anti-nuclear campaigner, Theo Simon

Campaigner Theo Simon told Sky News: "We were told it would mean lower energy bills, but actually the announcement of the strike price is really the last nail in the coffin of this project.

"We were told that it would provide cheap energy; we were told it would help us to bridge the energy gap in the early 2000s, and now it seems it won't be built (until) 2025 and we will all be paying for the profits of EDF and Chinese nuclear corporations for the next 40 years."

The issue of prices has become even more controversial with the Big Six power firms unveiling hikes of more than 9% in electricity and gas prices.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has raised concerns about the increases, telling Sky News' Murnaghan programme that the energy firms needed to justify prices increases.

"Clearly the companies need to justify the bill increases that they are now announcing," he said.

"It cannot be right that people who are really struggling - many, many people still struggling to pay their weekly, their monthly bills, where electricity and gas bills for this winter are a looming worry.

"It can't be right that those bills are increased for those households in our country and yet it is all rather opaque about what drives these increases."

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Mystery Blonde Girl 'Was Well Looked After'

A relative of a Roma Gypsy couple accused of abducting a girl found in their care said the child was given to them and that she was well looked after.

The youngster, known as Maria and aged about four, was found living in squalid conditions in a Roma camp near the central Greek town of Farsala on Wednesday.

She was with people who were pretending to be her parents, but DNA tests later proved they were not.

Kostas said the child was very loved

The couple, a 39-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman, were arrested and charged with abducting a minor.

But a man calling himself Kostas, the brother of the 39-year-old male, said Maria was very loved and cared for.

"We got this girl in a very nice way. We raised her. We got her. She was given to us and we raised her," he said.

"She had problems with her eyes. We took her to the doctor, we took her everywhere.

"We didn't take her to sell her. We loved her so much, with so much passion."

A Roma woman walks next to the house where the girl lived

Giorgos Tsakiris, the general secretary of the Roma association in Farsala, said the girl had a good life with the people who were raising her.

"I can tell you better than her other siblings, the biological ones," Mr Tsakiris said.

"She spent her days very well and that is why the little girl loves them and what they say about abductions is not true."

The girl is being looked after by The Smile of the Child charity

An international search is now under way to find Maria's real family.

Authorities say they have received enquiries from all over the world, including the UK.

The girl, who is now being looked after by The Smile of the Child charity, was found when police raided the camp in search of drugs and weapons.

A police officer became suspicious when he noticed Maria bore no likeness to her supposed family.

Members of the Roma community where the girl was found living

Further investigations into the couple raised even more suspicions.

Authorities allege the mother claimed to have given birth to six children in less than 10 months, while 10 of the 14 children the couple registered as their own are unaccounted for.

Maria's discovery has given hope to the family of Ben Needham, a British boy who disappeared from outside his grandparent's farmhouse on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.

Ben's sister Leighanna, 20, told Sky News: "Obviously, it's been a strong belief of myself and all my family that Ben was taken by gypsies for child trafficking or illegal adoptions and this case just shows that they can be found.

A poster released in the search for Maria's real parents

She added: "I believe that the camp the little girl was found in was looked at (during the investigation into her brother's disappearance).

"But 22 years ago, the Greek police were scared of the gypsies and pretty much point-blank refused to go into the camps ... so our inquiries into these camps never fully got covered."

Ben Needham disappeared in Greece

Ms Needham said the same technology could help find her long-lost brother.

"I think that would be a brilliant thing to get our DNA out there, even if it's not actually Ben but any siblings or any children maybe of Ben (that are found) then that could hopefully lead us to him," she said.

Maria's discovery has also buoyed the hopes of missing Madeleine McCann's parents.

Clarence Mitchell, a spokesman for her parents Kate and Gerry McCann, said: "They have always maintained that until there is evidence to prove otherwise missing children can still be out there waiting to be found."

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Energy Bills: Welby Slams 'Severe' Price Rises

The Archbishop of Canterbury has launched a stinging attack on Britain's energy firms, warning the latest round of price hikes seem to be "inexplicable".

Justin Welby insisted the so-called Big Six energy companies had an obligation to behave morally rather than to simply maximise profit.

His intervention, published in an interview with the Mail on Sunday, came after British Gas followed in the footsteps of SSE by announcing a 9.2% increase in prices.

The head of the Church of England, himself a former oil executive, said he understood the anger the rises had generated.

"The impact on people, particularly on low incomes, is going to be really severe in this, and the companies have to justify fully what they are doing," Mr Welby said.

Last week British Gas announced a 9.2% increase in prices

"I do understand when people feel that this is inexplicable, and I can understand people being angry about it, because having spent years on a low income as a clergyman I know what it is like when your household budget is blown apart by a significant extra fuel bill and your anxiety levels become very high. That is the reality of it."

The Archbishop urged firms to be "conscious of their social obligations", saying they had to "behave with generosity and not merely to maximise opportunity".

"They have control because they sell something everyone has to buy. We have no choice about buying it. With that amount of power comes huge responsibility to serve society," he said.

"It is not like some other sectors of business where people can walk away from you if they don't want to buy your product and you are entitled to seek to maximise your profit.

"The social licence to operate of the energy companies is something they have to take very, very seriously indeed."

Electricity prices are rising faster than those for gas

But the Church Of England owns a significant number of shares in energy companies.

Sky's Chief Political Correspondent Jon Craig said: "Justin Welby has now joined in this increasingly politically charged debate about energy prices - the only embarrassment really for the Church of England really is that it owns more than £7m of shares in Centrica and about £6bn of shares in SSE.

Craig added: "The remarks have been welcomed already by the Labour Party - but they will infuriate government ministers, the Prime Minister and the Energy Secretary."

An ongoing bitter political spat over energy has seen Labour leader Ed Miliband attempt to seize the initiative by pledging a 20-month-long price freeze.

But Prime Minister David Cameron has dismissed the idea as a "con", and encouraged consumers to switch suppliers to keep bills down.

But polls have suggested that Labour's promise is popular with voters, putting pressure on the coalition to respond.

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Greece Charity In Appeal Over Mystery Girl

An international search is under way to identify the parents of a blonde girl found in the care of a couple on a Roma camp in Greece.

DNA tests have shown the four-year-old is not related to the couple - and their accounts of how she came to be living with them differ.

Police found the girl, who recognises the name Maria, during a raid on the camp, in Farsala, central Greece, on Wednesday.

She has now been taken into the care of a Greek charity called The Smile Of The Child, which has put out a Europe-wide alert.

A poster released to help find the girl's parents

A statement from the charity said: "The features of the girl and the controversial claims of the persons who claimed to be the parents of the child led the authorities to collect a DNA sample test.

"The results of DNA testing proved that these people are not the biological parents of the child.

"The Smile of the Child in co-operation with national police authorities is taking all necessary steps to inform the competent actors at national and international level."

The director The Smile Of The Child praised an observant prosecutor who went on the camp raid along with dozens of police.

Costas Giannopoulos told Greece's Skai TV: "She saw a little blond head poking out from under the bedclothes. It struck her as odd, and that's how it all started."

The girl recognises the name Maria

Apparently, the couple's various excuses included that the girl was found in a blanket and that she was handed to them by strangers. They later claimed she had a foreign father.

Maria is described as: born around 2009, white, with blue eyes, long blonde hair, 100cm tall and weighing 17kg.

The couple - a 39-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman - have been arrested and are now under investigation for abduction and falsifying identity and family certificates.

The couple claimed to have a total 14 children, police said, and had registered different numbers with authorities in three different parts of Greece. Including Maria, the couple only actually had four.

The woman is also said to have claimed to have given birth to six children within a space of less than 10 months.

Police say they also found drugs and unregistered firearms in other parts of the camp, which is about 170 miles (280km) north of Athens.

Officers are now working on the theory that, because of her appearance, Maria may be northern or eastern European.

The case, which some people have likened to the Madeleine McCann disappearance, has raised concerns about how easy it appeared to be for people to get official documents for children who are not their own.

A spokesman for Madeleine's family last night last night told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "This gives Kate and Gerry great hope that Madeleine could be found alive."

The Smile Of The Child director Costas Giannopoulos said Maria was being examined by doctors.

"We are shocked by how easy it is for people to register children as their own," he told the Greek TV station Skai.

"There is much more to investigate ... and I believe police will unravel a thread that doesn't just have to do with the girl."

Greece has only acquired a central system of registration for births in the last five months.

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Al Shabaab Video Threatens British Muslims

A number of British Muslim figures say they have been offered police protection after a video purportedly released by the al Shabaab militant group threatened them for criticising jihadists.

The video, posted online, was targeted at British Muslims who had spoken out following the murder of drummer Lee Rigby in May.

Political commentator Mohammed Ansar, told Sky News he was one of those named in the video and described feeling "sickened and numb".

"It's very difficult to look at a video like that which is inciting hatred and violence and terror on British streets," he said.

"And you wonder firstly is this a new dimension, attacking British Muslims beyond overseas, beyond British soldiers which has been diabolical.

The British Muslims had criticised the murder of Lee Rigby in May

"And you think about your own safety and the safety of your own family."

Imam and broadcaster Ajmal Masroor wrote on his Facebook page that two police detectives arrived at his home on Wednesday night to warn he was "in imminent danger from the terrorists".

He wrote: "The police officers were visiting me to give me a warning and asking me to be more vigilant.

"As soon as they left my house I started digging further and found an al Shabaab video has been uploaded on the internet and in it they name me as a Muslim who is an enemy of Islam and should be eliminated."

Muslim commentator Mohammed Shafiq tweeted: "I was also visited by the police and told of threats made against me."

Al Shabaab was behind the Nairobi shopping mall attack which killed 67

Those named in the video have reportedly been visited by police officers who informed them that they had been identified in the hour-long video.

The Metropolitan Police said it was assessing the content of the video. A spokesman confirmed a number of individuals had been spoken to following the release of the video.

In the hour-long video, a man with a British accent wearing a black mask over his face, accuses British Muslims who spoke out after Drummer Rigby's murder as having "mutilated the teachings of Islam".

Al Shabaab was formed to fight for a strict interpretation of Sharia law in Somalia but in recent years has broadened its aims to include international jihad operations.

Sixty-seven people were killed when the group's militants attacked the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, on September 21.

Earlier this month, US special forces aborted a mission to capture one of the group's leaders - Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr - in Somalia after they came under heavy attack.

Al Shabaab is fighting to create an Islamic state in Somalia and is banned as a terrorist group by the UK and US.

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Slavery Fight To Stop Traffickers Steps Up

Slavery Victims' Nightmare Stories

Updated: 11:57pm UK, Thursday 17 October 2013

By Liz Lane, Sky News Reporter

The safe house in southern England, where up to half a dozen women live at any time, has seen many human trafficking victims walk through its door in the six years it has been operating.

But Victims' Minister Damian Green's visit this week was the first time a man has been allowed in. It is run by Hestia, via the Salvation Army, and is the only place the women feel truly safe.

Two of those living in the house (not their real names) tell their stories to Sky News:

Rita, 25, from Nigeria

Rita's trafficker spent several years grooming her as she worked selling food on the side of a road in Nigeria with her mother. He befriended the family and persuaded her parents he could get her a job in Europe as a waitress or nanny.

As soon as Rita arrived in Germany, her trafficker's manner changed. He told her she would have to work as a prostitute to pay back her travel costs, then made her have sex with another girl and filmed it. Rita was beaten if she resisted the men who paid to have sex with her.

Her ordeal continued when she and three other girls were brought to the UK on a boat. She was repeatedly raped at the house where she was held, and told she would be killed, as would her family, if she tried to escape.

Rita says she only found the courage to do so in April this year, with the help of another trafficking victim. They took their chance when their captors were out and those supposed to be guarding them began to inject drugs.

The two girls grabbed shoes and a coat and ran into the streets where in their panic they became separated. Rita was eventually helped to a police station, and taken to the safe house, which she now calls home. This week she has been been granted refugee status.

Jenny, 20, from Albania

Jenny, the eldest of three girls, comes from a very poor family in Albania. Her home life turned even more difficult when her mother started a relationship with an extremely violent man.

Over the course of a year, Jenny became friends with a young man who came regularly to buy vegetables from her. At the age of 17, when she felt that her two younger sisters were old enough to cope without her, she agreed to leave for Italy with him. The man, who she regarded as her boyfriend, promised her a new life.

Almost as soon as they crossed the border his attitude changed completely.

She was taken to a house, gang raped, and then kept against her will in a basement with other girls, and forced to work as a prostitute.

Two years later she was sold to a group of Romanian men who arranged to have her trafficked to the UK in the back of a lorry.

After days of travelling, and while the lorry was stationary, Jenny found a piece of metal and managed to rip through the side and escape. She shouted for help, and was taken to the nearest police station.

Since Jenny has lived in the safe house, she has been reunited with her two younger sisters.

In an incredible coincidence, they were living nearby, in the UK. They had escaped Albania after the middle sister, too, was sold into prostitution, this time by the stepfather.

The three are now living safely near each other in England, thousands of miles from what was their home.

:: Immigration UK: A week of special coverage on Sky from October 14 to 18 - watch on Sky 501, Virgin Media 602, Freesat 202, Freeview 82, Skynews.com and Sky News for iPad

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Fit-To-Work Benefits Test 'Unfit For Purpose'

By Anushka Asthana, Political Correspondent

More than 150,000 people have raised serious concerns about fit-for-work tests administered by a private healthcare company on behalf of the Government.

Figures obtained exclusively by Sky News show the charity Citizens Advice has been inundated by huge numbers of complaints about assessments carried out by Atos.

It warns that genuinely disabled and seriously ill people are being stripped of benefits following inadequate tests.

Meanwhile, doctors are warning that the service is "unfit for purpose".

Gillian Guy, the chief executive of Citizens Advice, warned: "Atos is failing to do its job properly, failing to give taxpayers value for money and worst of all, failing thousands of sick and disabled people who bear the brunt of wrong assessments."

It comes as a woman widowed just last week tells Sky News about how the decision that her husband was fit for work was not even overturned while he was dying from a rare and aggressive cancer.

The Coupes' local MP Dennis Skinner challenged the PM about the issue

Lyn Coupe's case was raised in Parliament this week by her local MP Dennis Skinner.

The 81-year-old Labour politician famed for his passionate performances in Parliament implored David Cameron to "abolish this cruel heartless monster called Atos, get rid of it".

The Prime Minister admitted that every MP had heard similar stories in their own constituencies.

Mrs Coupe, from Calow near Chesterfield, said she felt compelled to speak out even while organising her husband David's funeral.

He was assessed as able to work late last year despite ulcerated legs, back pain that left him in agony, diabetes and heart problems.

Lyn Coupe says she was shocked when her husband's benefits were cut

Mrs Coupe said the couple were forced to sacrifice food and heating to deal with the cut in benefits.

"We didn't have any heating on in the winter like other people would have had. We sat with coats on or blankets. I would go to bed at about 8am in the evening to try to get warm."

Food was also sacrificed, and the couple never went out.

The Coupes tried to launch an appeal but were told they would have to wait at least 10 months because of a backlog of cases.

Once Mr Coupe was diagnosed with terminal cancer that would kill him within months, his wife contacted Atos again but still the appeal was not brought forward.

David Coupe was deemed fit for work right up until his final days

Mr Coupe told her he wanted to survive long enough to see the decision overturned - but it was not to be.

Citizens Advice have also found that GPs are charging up to £130 to provide medical evidence for use in appeals.

Letters from health authorities, seen by Sky News, warn their GPs are not resourced to provide the services. One says that it understands the Atos system is viewed as "unfit for purpose" and says patients often complain of this, but says doctors can't help because they are under "huge and increasing" pressure each day.

Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the disability charity Scope, said: "The Government's fitness for work test is utterly broken."

He said most disabled people wanted to work but faced significant barriers such as a lack of skills, experience, confidence and even negative attitudes from employers.

"The Work Capability Assessment ignores all this. It's a tick-box test of someone's medical condition."

Atos insists it is only following Government guidelines

Those in Atos said they did not set policy but were simply carrying out the tests in line with Government guidelines.

They warned that the attack on them was scaring those facing the tests and creating hostility for medical staff employed to carry out the assessments.

They said all their doctors and nurses were fully trained and registered with their relevant professional body.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: "Our sympathy goes out to the family of Mr Coupe during what is obviously a very difficult time.

"A decision on whether someone is well enough to work is taken following a thorough assessment and after consideration of all the supporting medical evidence we are given.

"The previous Government appointed Atos. We have made significant improvements to the Work Capability Assessment and we are bringing on board additional providers to carry out assessments."

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