Section:GDN 1N PaGe:18 Edition Date:190801 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 31/7/2019 19:53 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Thursday 1 August 2019
(^18) National
Eight addresses raided in
Swansea university inquiry
Sally Weale
Police have searche d eight addresses
in south Wales and Kent as part of a
“complex” investigation into alleged
bribery off ences following a complaint
by the University of Swansea.
Offi cers from the regional organ-
ised crime unit seized documents
and electronic equipment during the
raids, which police said related to a
complaint to the Serious Fraud Offi ce
by the university late last year.
South Wales police said: “No arrests
have been made during the searches.
However, a number of documents
and electronic equipment have been
seized. The investigation is complex
and remains ongoing.”
The university confi rmed a formal
criminal complaint had been made
about the conduct of a number of
individuals from inside and outside
the university, as a result of evidence
uncovered during an internal
investigation.
“ Four employees were suspended
and the university appointed an
external and independent barrister
to conduct an independent investiga-
tion into the alleged conduct,” it said.
Last week Swansea dismissed its
vice-chancellor, Richard Davies, and
the dean of the school of manage-
ment, Marc Clement, with immediate
eff ect for gross misconduct following
a lengthy internal investigation and
disciplinary process. Both deny any
wrongdoing.
A decision is pending on a third
employee, who has been the subject
of a disciplinary investigation, while
a fourth has resigned. It was not clear
which – if any – of the employees are
being investigated by police.
“As the university has not completed
its disciplinary process, it would not
be appropriate to comment further,”
the university’s spokeswoman said.
“We continue to cooperate with the
authorities in relation to this matter.”
Davies last week expressed dis belief
at his dismissal. “I will be appealing
this decision and will thereafter take
such formal action as is open to me to
clear my name and seek to restore [my]
reputation ,” he said
Clement said: “ I feel wholly let
down by the institution I have strived
so hard to support and progress over
the last decade.”
Aamna Mohdin
About 1,700 pregnant women, some
due to give birth within weeks, will
need to fi nd new midwives after a
maternity care service serving women
in Essex and the north-west of England
was forced to close because of fi nancial
diffi culties.
One to One Midwives, which
specialises in home births, announced
it was withdrawing the services
it provided for the NHS and will
enter insolvency proceedings. The
company said the contracts did not
pay enough to make the service
fi nancially sustainable. Patients were
told on Monday that they must fi nd an
alternative NHS service.
Elle Torry, 39, a music tutor and
hypnotherapist due to give birth in
four weeks, said she was shocked to
hear the service was closing and the
midwives would be losing their jobs.
“ We planned to have a home birth and
now I have to decide whether to go to
the hospital.”
She said the One to One Midwives
service was like the TV programme
Associated Press
New York
Harold “Hal” Prince, the Broadway
director and producer who pushed the
boundaries of musicals with shows
such as the Phantom of the Opera, Cab-
aret and Sweeney Todd, and won 21
Tony s, has died in Reykjavik after a
brief illness. He was 91.
Prince was known for his fl uid direc-
tor’s touch and was unpredictable and
uncompromising in his choice of stage
material. He often picked challenging,
offb eat subjects, such as a murderous,
knife-wielding barber who baked his
victims in pies, or the 19th-century
opening of Japan to the west.
Along the way he helped create
some of America’s most enduring
musical hits, fi rst as a producer of
such shows as The Pajama Game,
Damn Yankees, West Side Story, A
Funny Thing Happened on the Way
to the Forum and Fiddler on the Roof.
He later became a director, overseeing
such landmark musicals as Company,
Follies and Evita.
Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber said it
was impossible to overestimate the
importance of Prince : “All of mod-
ern musical theatre owes practically
every thing to him.”
Call the Midwife , and she loved the
bond she had buil t. “You don’t get that
level of care in a hospital. I think hav-
ing this community-le d team is vital
for women’s emotional wellbeing,
to just be able to pick up the phone
and ask ‘is this ok?’” Karen Hagan, 49,
who has worked as a midwife for One
to One for two and a half years, said:
“It’s not what you get into midwifery
to do, phone women and tell them you
can’t support them anymore.” She said
she received an email about the clo-
sure on Monday and the news spread
on social media.
The collapse of One to One follows
the closure in January of Neighbour-
hood Midwives, which provided
midwifery services in the south-east.
A midwifery lead at One to One,
who wished to remain anonymous,
said the company had struggled to
keep up with certain charges they had
to pay to the NHS, including fees to
refer an expectant mother for a hos-
pital appointment. “Despite trying to
make changes to the way in which the
provider to provider payments work
for our upcoming contract, there has
been no willingness to assist us, which
has led to our demise,” she said.
A spokeswoman for One to One said
it was proud of the service it has pro-
vided over the last nine years, but the
“challenging NHS landscape” had left
it with little choice but to close.
A spokesperson for the NHS Wir-
ral clinical commissioning group said:
“Local commissioners have been
working with One to One for some
time and have been having an ongoing
dialogue to provide as much support
as possible. One to One have been paid
according to nationally agreed tariff s.
Pregnant NHS
patients lose
their midwives
as home-birth
service closes
Musical theatre
pioneer Prince
dies aged 91
▲ Hal Prince helped create hit shows
such as West Side Story and Cabaret
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