The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 4

THE GUARDIAN Thursday February 16 Aviation seen as falling apart as sky traffic booms Airlines 'trace crisis in public confidence' 4 HOME NEWS Owwi Boweott In Montreal ageing aircraft, IATA believes there should be no compulsory age at which jets should be removed from service. Many old aircraft consist largely of more recent replacement parts, according to Mr Norman Jackson, the head of IATA's technical department. Air traffic congestion in Europe might be solved by releasing military air corridors and eventually integrating air traffic control areas. But improvements in the air would lead to more congestion at airports, Mr Eser warned. Airlines should regularly check engines of the type in the Ml crash, the French manufacturers warned last night, after discovering a fan blade in the left engine had been damaged, possibly by vibration.

Two days ago the Civil Aviation Authority said airlines could return to normal maintenance procedures. more than a billion people a year. Last year, traffic increased by more than 9 per cent faster than expected. In America the airworthiness of older aircraft their maintenance and repair was being reviewed, Mr Gunter Eser, IA-TA's director-general, revealed. "Air travel is a very safe means of transport," he said.

"The American Air Transport Association recorded its fourth safest year last year since records were started over 60 years ago." The Lockerbie deaths are not included. At any one time there were about 1,340 Boeing jets airborne. Keeping up production was a problem. "Boeing has never been busier. There is a tremendous backlog of orders," an IATA spokesman said.

"We believe we need about 10,000 aircraft to carry the expected increase." Despite growing concern over KLINES are facing a crisis in public conil-. dence. with a belief that "aviation is fall ing the International Air Transport Association said in Montreal yesterday. "We have old aircraft, many pilots nearing retirement, air congestion and the threat of terrorism," said a spokesman for the association, which represents most of the world's big airlines. Of the 7,000 civil passenger transport planes operating around the world, 2,500 are more than 12 years old, according to the association, and some DC3s in Canada have been in service since the end of the second world war.

Yet international air traffic could double before the year 2000, it says. Airlines carry Photographer Norman Parkinson shows off his Porkinson Banger at its national launch in the Ritz, London, yesterday PHOTOGRAPH. DAVID SILLITOE 'Dirty tricks' book halted School cash 'for Tory front body' Magistrate cleared after sums mix-up "dirty tricks" carried out by MI5. The publisher, Harrap has told him they cannot go ahead with the book because of the Official Secrets Act. They also fear libel problems.

Harrap has asked Mr Hoi-royd who questions their reasons for- not going ahead with the book to sign a statement prohibiting him from making derogatory comments about the company. Mr Jean-Luc Barbanneau, Harrap's deputy managing director, said yesterday that his company which published the autobiography of Mr John Stalker, the former Greater Manchester deputy chief constable who investigated an al Richard Norton-Taylor A BOOK by a former army intelligence officer in which he alleges a shoot-to-kill policy by the security forces in Northern Ireland is being blocked by his publisher on the grounds that it is likely to breach the Official Secrets Act Fighting on Two Fronts is an account of Mr Fred Holroyd's experiences while serving in military intelligence in Northern Ireland in the mid-1970s, and what he describes as a decision by the authorities to remove him from the scene by classifying him as unfit to serve after he complained about leged shoot-to-kill policy by the Royal Ulster Constabulary had acted in good faith and no outside pressure had been put on it. Some of Mr Holroyd's allegations have already appeared in the press and have been taken up in the Commons by Mr Ken Livingstone, Labour MP for Brent East The Ministry of Defence has said that Mr Holroyd's allegations have been investigated and have no foundation. It has also confirmed that it does not intend to take legal action against him for making his allegations, including claims that MI5 was "eager for quick success and brought in a bunch of ruthless SAS man shot in Spain The police had been tipped off that a Sri Lankan involved in the drugs trade was travelling on the same flight taken by Mr Rajiah. Mr Rajiah was a British-Sri Lankan dual national.

One of the officers. Inspector Alberto Del-gado, banged on the window. He was carrying a gun in the same hand. The gun went off fatally wounding Mr Rajiah In the neck. Last Monday a court in Seville gave the officer a six months suspended sentence.

A MAGISTRATE accused of taking 43,000 from a children's charity was cleared at Southwark Crown Court, south London, yesterday, after the prosecution admitted it got its sums wrong. The judge told Mrs Florence Cameron, aged 56, there was not a stain on her character and immediately called for. an inquiry after the prosecution said that almost all the money had been accounted for. The case against Mrs Cameron, made an MBE for her services to the Brixton community, and her two daughters collapsed after an accountant's report was checked during a two-day adjournment. The seven-day hearing cost at least 150,000.

Mrs Cameron, with her two daughters, was accused of stealing and defrauding money from the West Indian Parents Action Group she founded to provide nursery care for under-fives in the Brixton area: The organisation received grants of up to 126,000 a year. The prosecution had claimed that after Mrs Cameron and her daughters bought a 200,000 house in Purley, south London, stolen money helped to pay the mortgage. Yesterday Mr Bruce Houlder, prosecuting, offered no further evidence and said: "We have formed the view that within a few thousand pounds it was possible to account for all the money going into her account The accountant has regrettably utterly failed to correctly add up the petty cash book and the computer has also made a number of errors." Mrs Cameron, and her daughters, Ms Christine Cam-eron-Bynoe, aged 30, and Ms Jennifer Cameron, aged 27, were cleared of all charges along with the charity's treasurer, Ms Jennifer Bean, aged 29, of Camden, north London. Mr Martin Thomas QC. for the defence, said: "A small and tightly-organised group of people were desperate to destroy Mrs Cameron and her family.

These people have not heard the last of this." Judge Valerie Pearlman ordered defence costs to be paid out of central funds and said: "This case has caused me enormous concern. It is quite an appalling injustice that any defendant should have had to face worrying allegations and months of anxiety over what appears to be a prosecution witness statement which did not on inquiry support these allegations. I hope there will be an investigation into how this happened." 250,000 damages for family of AA he obtained parliamentary approval to pay the trust "grants of such amounts as he may determine" to provide educational support services and financial advice for schools which have opted out. Neither the trust nor the DES would say how much money was involved. But the OES said yesterday the trust would not be allowed to use public money to promote opting out only to provide support to schools where parents had already voted in favour and which had received Secretary of State approval.

Mr Turner, the trust's director, is due to meet the Charity Commissioners again next week. He will attempt to assure them that private donations will pay for his salary, visits to schools before parents vote on opting out and propaganda materials. The trust intends to use a holding company, Grant Maintained Schools, to lodge money to fund its non-charitable activities. Mr Turner said yesterday: "Lots of charities have to do it this way. It's perfectly normal." Mr Straw, however, has also tabled a series of parliamentary questions asking Mr Baker to explain exactly what the limited company is and its purpose, and how much money he intends to grant 1 CatlaWMton THE LABOUR Party is demanding a full Commons debate on what it alleges is the Government's misuse of public funds to promote grant-maintained schools.

In the latest development of the row over schools opUng-out, Mr Jack Straw, the Opposition's education spokesman, yesterday said the Education Secretary's plans to channel taxpayer's money to the Grant Maintained Schools Trust amounted to funding a body which was "little more than a Conservative front organisation." The trust's chairman is Mr Stephen Norris, elected Tory MP for Epping Forest and its director, Mr Andrew Turner, is a Tory councillor in Oxford. The trust's application for charitable status has not yet been granted because the Charity Commissioners are concerned about "reported political or propagandist Twenty-four schools have now voted to opt out Mr Kenneth Baker, the Education Secretary, is expected next month to announce whether he has decided to award them grant maintained status. Last week slim i i vm (W if, Cr-'M, Wapping print plant police in court fWENTY-FOUR police offi-I cers and a former policeman appeared in court yesterday charged in connection with disturbances outside Mr Rupert Murdoch's News International printing plant at Wapping, east London, two years ago. The accused face 10 charges of assault causing actual bodily harm, one of unlawful wounding, and charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perjury. The group, which is believed to be the largest number of police officers charged in relation to a single incident includes an inspector, four sergeants and a WPC; the rest are serving or former PCs.

A 26th accused, a former officer, is on holiday abroad and was not present for the hearing at Bow Street magistrates. The charges arise from alleged incidents outside the Wapping plant on the night of January 24, 1987, after which officers from Northamptonshire were called in to investigate complaints about police conduct. Sir David Hopkin, the chief magistrate, adjourned the case and bailed the accused to three different dates March 9, 14 and 29 after hearing that key prosecution papers were not yet available, and that video and photographic evidence was being prepared. It might surprise the policeman and the state are understood to be preparing an appeal. Mr Joe Rajiah, head of the AA publications production division at Basingstoke, died on October 1986 alter he bad flown to Seville by way of Madrid to help revise a road map of southern Spain.

He and his daughter and two Spanish colleagues were setting off on the road to Cordoba when they were forced to stop by drug squad officers. We're extending our Business Class so it won't always 3 From John Hooper in Madrid THE WIDOW and daughter of an Automobile Associa tion executive accidentally killed by a Spanish policeman have been awarded SO million pesetas (250,000) damages by a Spanish court. Bat Mrs Jasmin Raj tab. and her 13-year-old daughter, Shanta, will have to wait for more than a year for the award to be confirmed because lawyers representing you to learn that -vail naAscnhtaam be Full to the brim. New Scientist is one of the best-selling news weeklies in Britain.

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