The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 5

THE OBSERVER, SUNDAY 22 JANUARY 1084 NEWS Smoke alarms could have saved 6 killed in Maze 9 ADVERTISEMENT Don't Worry About Your Hearing Refugee is star pupil by, MARTIN BAILEY A VIETNAMESE boat by PETER DURISCH and BOB RODWELL Waiting flona Eradhun and Stephen Rlgby. Catholics split by wedding ban ft refugee who could not speak English when he arrived four years ago is now one of the country's brightest pupils. Fifteen-year-old Phac Manh Chan, known as Richard to Us school friends, has just come top of his class in every subject except for English at which he came second. Brian Wilson, headmaster of the private Uugwell School in Essex, said that this result is quite exceptional and he has never had a pupil who achieved such Richard and his family escaped from Saigon with 150 refugees in a small fishing boat and after two months in a Hoik Kong transit camp they settled maioon, ussex. Following a newspaper art' icle about Richard on his arrival in 1980, film star Yul Brynner offered to pay for his first year at Chigwell.

Although half of Richard's fees are paid for by a scholarship, a flood of other donations has already covered his entire education at the boarding school. Richard finds his fellow pupils are not jealous of his success and he says that coming top is simply a matter or Hard work. irrespective of its The importance of smoke detect ore was underlined by Dr Eric Marchant, of Edinburgh University's department of fire safety engineering, who was commissioned by the BBC last week to inspect the leisure centre. Smoke detectors would have given a warning within 30 seconds and would have saved he said, adding that in his opinion they should be obligatory. Mr Mervyn Elder, Belfast's Director of Leisure Services, told us We are not able to say whether sprinklers and smoke detectors should be installed; that is a question for the fire authority and' the Building Inspectorate to The law relating to fire precautions is complex.

Under the 1971 Fire Precautions Act and the 1982 Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act power and control is passed to local authorities, who must act on the advice of local fire brigades. If the local authority is not satisfied it can withhold an entertainment licence. In Rnghmd, ft seems, most local authorities would have insisted on smoke detectors in such a building. We probably wouldn't insist on sprinklers in a leisure centre, but we probably would want smoke detectors, depending on the said Mr Bob Graham, Assistant Chief Fire Officer for Greater Manchester. 'Sprinklers are mainly a structural protection measure, but smoke detection is a life-saving A spokesman for the London Fire Brigade said We would normally recommend or insist on smoke detectors, because they alert people to the existence of a fire.

This is important because smoke from burning plastic materials can be lethal in seconds rather than minutes. The cause of the fire is still not clear, but police are considering the possibility of arson after a similar blaze at the Andersontown leisure centre last October. Literally thousands of people who are not really deal but who strain to hear clearly are using a new tiny clarifier with no strings or wires attached. It is specially designed to neip uus problem of clear, harp hearing and it ii available now from Hidden Hearing, the company who specialises in the' world's latest hearing devices. Sheila Ingram, the Marketing Director of this company, say 'People with a slight hearing problem don't always need traditional hearing aids.

Modern science has given most people the right to clear hearing in a completely inconspicuous form and the public should know about it. If you, like so many people today, can hear sounds (sometimes only too well but have difficulty in understanding every word particularly in crowds or group conversations, or when watching TV you should telephone 01-486 3808 or send the coupon on page 8 to Hidden Hearing Ltd, 146 Marylebone Road, London Nwl, for full details of the new darifiers and a cojJy of a helpful book called A Simple Way To Better It will be sent to you by return of post without cost or obligation. We also run a special plan for pensioners JANE BOWN by ROBIN LUST IQ THE Catholic Church is deeply split over how to deal with the problems encountered by physically disabled people who plan to marry. The furore which erupted last week over a decision by the Bishop of Nottingham, Right Rev. James McGuinness, to seek advice from Rome on whether to authorise the marriage of a disabled ex-soldier illustrates the dilemma facing Church authorities.

Many priests, however, believe the question of whether a marriage can be consummated is not one which must necessarily be asked. I know priests who wouldn't dream of asking such a thing. If someone volunteered the information, they'd be told to shut said one Catholic source. Canon law does not automatically forbid the marriage of couples who cannot consummate their union. Although Canon 1084 of the new code states that antecedent and perpetual impotence invalidates it also days down that if the impediment of impotence is doubtful, whether the doubt be one of law or one of fact, a marriage is not to be prevented, nor while doubt persists is it to be declared This is often taken to mean that where there is a chance, no matter how remote, that a state of impotence may at some future date be overcome, a marriage may be performed in accordance with canon law.

The disabled ex-soldier, Mr Stephen Rigby, 31, from Bor-rowash, Derby, is paralysed from the neck down following an accident during a gymnastics display as an army PT instructor He hopes to marry the nurse who looked after him, 29-year-old Mrs Dona Eradhum, whose former marriage is not recognised as an impediment by the Catholic Church because her first husband was a Muslim, Father Anthony Ford, head of counselling and training for the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council, said yesterday that he knew of priests who had wed couples despite their inability to consummate the marriage. Non-consummation does not undermine the validity of a marriage in the Catholic Church's eyes, he said. It's only if a couple found a partner's impotence an intolerable burden and requested a nullity of the marriage that the Church would question the state of the Now that the matter has been passed to Rome, however, it is thought unlikely that the Vatican will feel able to sanction the marriage between Mr Rigby and Mrs Eradhum. According to canon law, the sexual act consists of three separate activities erection, penetration and ejaculation. Mrs Eradhum was quoted as saying last week that her fiance was capable of only the first two of these acts.

Mrs Barbara Creedon, secretary of the 81 Group, which campaigns on behalf of disabled and handicapped Catholics, said last week I'm quite certain this is not what God would want. Can you imagine Christ turning away two people with the words Go away, I don't want you you're handicapped 1 1 si jt ii ii 9 ww 2 I II II II II II Ir II IV II llll II I II llll Ir II 1117 UV2sLW Vdi LSI -LSi L4 70 -jf -JIT A aT A aV m'pwsfrip to Soviet' faked is rock group i THE DEATH of six people in a fire at a Belfast leisure centre a week ago could have been prevented if automatic smoke detectors had been fitted. That is the view of Billy Beggs, Deputy Chief Fire Officer of the Northern Ireland Fire Authority. He said I am sure a single optical smoke detector a photo-electric cell in the storeroom (the seat of the fire) would have been of great benefit It would have given an early warning and probably would have saved six lives. Fire safety in the hundreds of leisure centres throughout the country is in the hands of the local authority, and there has never been any compulsion to fit detectors, or water sprinkler systems.

Fire brigade chiefs in large cities interviewed by Tht Observer last week said that they would normally require, smoke detectors in leisure centres as a life-saving measure. Belfast City Council is to announce tomorrow evening the form of the inquiry into the fire at the Maysfield centre, a disaster the more tragic because of its small beginnings. The store room contained polyure thane gymnastic and judo mats, which once ablaze gave off a dense, lethalj black smoke filling a corridor and adjoining rooms before the alarm was raised. The fire was discovered only when British judo champion Terry Watt smelled smoke and opened a door into the store room. Thick smoke, belched out and Mr Watt evacuated his judo class.

From the way that thing took off, I would expect smoke temperature near the seat of the fire to be above 500 degrees said Dr Jack Han-vey, of Ulster's Lambeg Industrial Research Association, which specialises in textiles and fire retardation on the BBC's 'Spotlight' programme. 'Any smoke at 120 degrees Centigrade is lethal if inhaled, tape hoax the West's press Key lines the tape include Mr Reagan apparently asking why the Belgrano was sunk during the Falklands war, when Secretary of State Haig was nearing a peace agreement. Mrs Thatcher appears to reply: Argentina was the invader. Force had to. be used now, punishing them as quickly as possible.

Mr Reagan then says: 'Oh God, it is not right. You caused the Sheffield to have been hit. Those missiles we followed on the screen. You must have, too, and not let them know Later, a discussion on nuclear strategy, Mr Reagan is made to say: II there is a conflict we shall fire missiles at our allies to see to it that the Soviet Union stays within its borders. The tape was first brought to The Observer by a Belgian journalist last June, we con eluded, like most of the' other newspapers, that it was a fake.

The quest for the real hand behind the tape led to an isolated farmhouse in north Essex, where the eight members of the band Jive with then- children. Reluctantly the members of the band, who sport names like Joy De Vivre, Sus and Sybil Right, admitted faking the tape. They showed how they had put it together over two and a half months, using parts of TV and radio broadcasts made by the two leaders, then overdubbing with telephone noises. We wanted to precipitate a debate on those subjects to damage Mrs Thatcher's position in the election. We also did it because of the appalling way Tarn Dalyell was treated oyer the Belgrano debate, they said We believe that although the tape is a noax, what is said in it is in eftec: true.

Beverley Nichols' will Author and journalist Beverley Nichols, who died last September, agea eo, len net in will, rjuhlished VMtmulav After bequests to his brother, riannn Paul "KlifhOo of friends, Mr Nichols, of Sudbrook nonage, nam uommon, Surrey, left the reit of bis property to Cyril Butcher, also of Sadbrook Cottag. LASHMAR How the KGB fools How tht tape fooled the Sunday Russian disinformation The real authors of the hoax tape, the anarchist punk rock group Crass, said that they had been amused and amazed that the tape had been attributed to the KGB. The recording first appeared in the offices of a number of Continental newspapers shortly before the British general election last year. A covering note said it was a recording of a crossed line on which was heard partof the two leaders' telephone conversation, and that the person who sent it wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. by DAVID LEIGH and PAUL A TAPE recording, purporting to carry details of a secret telephone conversation between Mrs Thatcher and President Reagan, has been revealed as a hoax manufactured deliberately by an anarchist rock group The recording was taken to newspapers throughout Europe including The Observer but, apart from one Italian newspaper, nobody had been taken in by the hoax tape until it appeared in the Sunday Times earlier this month.

That newspaper described it as part of a KGB propaganda war. Unfortunately the tape was recorded not in Moscow but in an Essex farmhouse The New York correspondent of the paper reported that the State Department believed the tape was evidence of 'an increasingly sophisticated O0 phis Over 9 Million Pounds of Chinese Works of Art sold worldwide in 1983 Christie's sale of Fine Chinese and Korean Ceramics, Works of Art and You hear a lot of prices being bandied about regarding the cost of a. business computer. 4,000. 3,500.

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