Family of soldier shot in Afghanistan: 'This has devastated all of us'

only flown out to Afghanistan last month for a tour of duty with the Royal Military Police. Telford's uncle, William Ferrand, said the sergeant came from a military family in Grimsby and had "absolutely loved" his work training Afghan military and police in Helmand. "My sister came round to me last night around 10pm with her husband and gave me the news and I knew immediately what it was," he said. Asked his thoughts on Sgt Telford's deployment, he said: "Nobody wants their family to go out there, but it's what he wanted to do. It was his job and he absolutely loved it. But it has devastated all of us." Telford's wife, Kerry, and her sons, aged four and nine, are being consoled by other family members, amid a stream of messages. Posts to the Grimsby Telegraph described "Mattie" as a giant of man who was also loving, caring and kind. Ferrand added: "His two sons are going to be devastated and will miss their father. Whatever Kerry wants we will as a family make sure we do as much as we can to help her." Telford signed up with the army at the first possible opportunity, when he was 16, and kept his family posted about his work in Helmand. In a message to his brother-in-law last week, he said he was "in the thick of it". A friend of Telford's, Richard Heron, said: "I don't think he could wait to get back out there because he was a soldier's soldier." Flags flew at half-mast in Aldershot, where two of the other three Grenadier Guards had connections – one based in the long-standing garrison town and the other with family nearby. The chief executive of the local Rushmoor council, Andrew Lloyd, said: "Military losses are felt very deeply indeed here, because there is a deep sense of pride from the association with the army. The families are part of the community." The two other victims are known to have been members of the Royal Military Police, which is based in Southwick, Hampshire. Afghanistan Military Martin Wainwright Peter Walker guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

One of the five soldiers killed in Afghanistan todaywas a father of two young boys who had been in the army for more than 20 years. Relatives and friends of Sergeant Matthew Telford said the 37-year-old, a long-serving guardsman in the Grenadiers, had...

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04.11.2009. 23:49h

Rapist charged with murder as police work to identify 11 bodies

with five counts of murder, in connection with the deaths of five women confirmed by investigators to have been strangled. A total of 11 bodies have been discovered in or around his house in Cleveland, and investigators are struggling to identify the women and determine how the other five died. Sowell was arrested last week when police investigating a 22 September rape accusation found the bodies. He has been charged with kidnapping, assault and rape in connection with that alleged attack. He faces the death penalty if convicted. Five of the decomposing corpses were found on Tuesday, along with a skull wrapped in paper and stored in a bucket. The 10 corpses had been hidden inside Sowell's house, in the backyard and basement. "It appears this man had an insatiable appetite he had to fill," Cleveland police chief Michael McGrath said. Local people had noticed a foul smell but thought it came from a sausage shop. Sowell had previously served 15 years in prison for rape and was required to check in frequently with authorities, leading many to question why police did not discover the bodies earlier. In addition, police have been criticised for not heeding reports of violence in Sowell's house. Records show that in December a woman accused Sowell of forcing her into his house then punching, choking and attempting to rape her, the New York Times reported. Investigators today planned to tear down interior walls and pull up floors in the search for more bodies, and have scoured abandoned houses in the area. McGrath speculated that few of the victims had been the subject of missing persons reports "indicating some may have been homeless and drug users", and that they had entered the house willingly. City councilman Zachary Reed said he alerted city health officials to the smell. "What happened from there, we don't know," he told the Associated Press. United States Daniel Nasaw guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

A convicted rapist who was living in a house strewn with rotting corpses was remanded in custody today pending trial for murder, after a prosecutor called him "an incredibly dangerous threat". Anthony Sowell appeared in court in Cleveland, Ohio, charged...

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04.11.2009. 23:40h

A little more on governance | Michael Tomasky

Matt Yglesias notes today that Bob McDonnell ran on the idea of building more roads in northern Virginia but not coming up with a way to pay for them. Why? Well, I reckon cuz people like roads but they don't like taxes. That's responsible governance for...

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04.11.2009. 23:40h

Photographer Tom Hunter's best shot

a letter addressed to "persons unknown". The council wanted to knock down the street and build warehouses. The Tories had brought in the Criminal Justice Act, which was designed to stop parties. Every time you saw a picture of a squatter or a traveller, it was to go with a story about how antisocial they were. I just wanted to take a picture showing the dignity of squatter life – a piece of propaganda to save my neighbourhood. I took this in 1997, for my master's degree show at the Royal College of Art. The 17th-century golden age of Dutch painting had had a massive impact on me: the way they dealt with ordinary people, not kings, queens and generals. I thought if I could borrow their style for squatters and travellers, it would elevate their status. In this shot, inspired by Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, my next-door neighbour is reading the possession order. Filipa had just had her first baby. We spent the whole day trying things out: we had a bowl of fruit, then we tried some curtains, then incorporated the baby. The light was perfect, a late winter sun coming through the window, really low, like the northern European light. I used a large-format camera, which really captures that light. And I used the Supachrome process to print it – old-fashioned even then. The exposure was about a second, so it was like sitting for a painting: she had to stand still. I was waiting for the light to pour into the lens, rather than snapping at something. I phoned her up last week and she's still happy with the picture. It's a record of her, her child and her home at the time. The great thing is, the picture got a dialogue going with the council – and we managed to save the houses. CV Born: Dorset, 1965. Studied: Royal College of Art, London. Influences: "Painters inspire me most – Caravaggio, Vermeer – but I also like Dorothea Lange and Sally Mann." High point: "Graduating from the RCA. I never thought I'd have an A-level, let alone an MA." Top tip: "Find something that drives you on. Being threatened with eviction was a real spur for me." Photography Andrew Pulver guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

'It's inspired by Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter – except she's a squatter reading a possession order' I was living in Hackney in London, in a whole street of squats, having spent two years travelling around Europe in a doubledecker bus. Everyone got...

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04.11.2009. 23:30h

Assessing Obama one year on | Poll

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04.11.2009. 22:21h

Handbag gifts come back to haunt England 2018 World Cup bid

whether the World Cup finals return to these shores. The row over the bid's ?230 Mulberry freebies presented to the wives of Fifa executive-committee members last month has returned to haunt the Football Association after the organisation's vice-president, Jack Warner, yesterday revealed he was sending back the promotional gift. The made-in-England handbag was presented to Mrs Warner last month by the former FA chairman, Geoff Thompson, at a dinner event in London. The couple were attending the Leaders in Football conference where Warner, president of Concacaf, was a guest speaker. The goodwill gesture caused a furore at a time when England's 2018 team had hoped attention would focus on the unveiling of their star-studded team of ambassadors. Instead they found themselves defending the decision to dispatch 24 handbags. In a furious letter to the bid chairman, David Triesman, Warner, one of Sepp Blatter's right-hand men, says: "Had [my wife] or I known then that the acceptance of what we all felt was a kind gesture would have resulted in the tainting of her character and mine together with the untold embarrassment to which we are still being subjected, none of us would have attended the dinner, nor would she have accepted what we thought was a gift in honour of her birthday." He added: "I have faced and continue to face all kinds of indignities from all manner of persons, but when these insults touch my wife, it represents an all time low." Warner was incensed at media coverage of England 2018's purchase of the bags, the value of which was comfortably within Fifa guidelines over what is an acceptable gift from bidding nations. Embarrassingly for England 2018 the email was copied to the Fifa general secretary, Jérôme Valcke, and Concacaf's other Fifa ex-co member, Chuck Blazer. It is understood that this is not the first time Warner has written to Lord Triesman on the matter. A previous letter requesting a statement from the FA chairman to counter coverage of Warner's acceptance of the gift is said to have gone unacknowledged. "Equally disappointing is the deafening silence from you and the FA and which seems to support these allegations," Warner tells Triesman. "No one has sought to correct this betrayal in a way that would unequivocally remove any doubt or question not only in the global village at large but among my few peers where honour is valued and character is cherished. "This malaise of my wife and I has been allowed to fester for too long much to our embarrassment and the embarrassment of the institutions which I represent. In this regard, therefore, there is only one recourse: a return of this gift, which has become a symbol of derision, betrayal and embarrassment for me and my family." Warner says he "will continue to be a friend" of the FA but insists "there is nothing that your FA can offer me to get my vote". Warner adds: "If England does get it, it is because Concacaf and I sincerely believe that England is deserving of the honour." There is no suggestion that England 2018's gift was designed to be an inducement for Warner's vote in the ballot next December, nor that it broke any rules. "Fifa have a set of guidelines for all bidders which includes direction on what constitutes an acceptable campaign gift," said England 2018 last month. "All our gifts are carefully chosen so as to be within both the spirit and letter of that law." There is confidence at the Wembley bid headquarters that talks with Warner since the letter arrived have mollified the Fifa powerbroker and that an amiable meeting can be arranged with Triesman when the men are in South Africa for the Soccerex conference and World Cup draw in the coming weeks. World Cup 2018 The FA Matt Scott guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

• Fifa vice-president Jack Warner returns handbag • Describes gift as 'symbol of derision and betrayal' England 2018's handbags have become "a symbol of derision, betrayal and embarrassment for me and my family", according to one of the men who will decide...

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04.11.2009. 22:19h

Asus UL30 notebook

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04.11.2009. 20:00h

Julian Hope obituary

He had an encyclopedic memory for detail. As his friend the conductor Jane Glover put it, "there was no 'delete' in that brain". The hesitant, quietly-spoken authority which gave him an air of maturity as a young man never lost its underlying youthful enthusiasm in later life. Julian was born in London but his family moved to Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, where he grew up with his mother, Liza Maugham, only child of the novelist and granddaughter of the philanthropist Dr Barnardo. Julian's father was the Tory politician Lt Col Lord John Hope MP, later the 1st Baron Glendevon, and Julian inherited the title in 1996, but rarely used it. His parents' relationship with his famous grandfather was complex and the subject of bitter disputes, but Julian recalled visiting Cap Ferrat in the south of France as a child, on one occasion performing a creditable version of Knick-Knack Paddy-Wack for the ageing novelist. At Eton college, Berkshire, in the 1960s he developed his artistic enthusiasms as lead guitarist and vocalist of the Hellfire Club and running the film study group, introducing the Antonin Artaud-scripted La Coquille et le Clergyman, a graphic account of clerical lust, and Luis Bu?uel's Un Chien Andalou to his contemporaries. He also appeared in several stage productions, including Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, which visited Berlin, causing his father to exclaim: "You're at Eton, not Rada." We met at Oxford in 1969 – he was at Christ Church – on the first day of term at the first audition it was possible to attend, and we were both cast (as first and third soldier respectively) in a play about the Norfolk rebellion, The Blood on the Marsh. However, it was success as a director rather than actor which propelled him towards his future career. His college entry won a drama competition and this led to an invitation by the university opera club to direct Stravinsky's Mavra. Among the cast were Glover and the young composer Stephen Oliver. The three became close friends and went on to work together on highly acclaimed stu