The Times - UK (2022-02-16)

22 Wednesday February 16 2022 | the times

News

The mother of the footballer Emiliano
Sala told an inquest of her family’s
anguish after he died in a plane crash.
Mercedes Carina Taffarel said that
she and Sala’s siblings, Dario and
Romina, roamed the beaches of the
Channel Islands trying to find him.

court. “We walked on those islands call-

ing his name... We still had hope, which

ended in pain which abides to this day.”

A month after the plane went down,

the Argentine striker’s body was recov-

ered 21 miles off Guernsey. A post-mor-

tem examination found deadly levels of

carbon monoxide, and that he had died

from injuries to his head and torso.

Ibbotson’s body has not been found.

Will Humphries
Southwest Correspondent

The four-week jury inquest was

delayed as David Henderson, 67, who

organised the flight, was convicted for

recklessly endangering the safety of an

aircraft. He had asked Ibbotson to

make the flight, although Ibbotson was

not licensed to carry passengers or to

fly at night. Henderson was jailed for 18

months in October last year.

The inquest continues.

Electric cars

outpacing

charge sites

Robert Lea Industrial Editor

FOUR SEASONS HEALTH CARE GROUP/SWNS

Sala’s family called his name on beaches after plane crash

The single-engine aircraft carrying

Sala, 28, from Nantes in France to his

new club in Cardiff crashed into the

Channel on January 21, 2019, killing

him and the pilot, David Ibbotson, 59.

Carina Taffarel told the inquest her

family had battled the British aviation

authorities after they called off a search.

“We didn’t hesitate to hire a private

team,” she told Bournemouth coroner’s

The UK needs a new regulator —

Ofcharge — to ensure there are

enough public electric car recharging

posts in the right places and to protect

zero-emission motorists from excessive

prices, the motor industry says.

The take-up of plug-in vehicles is

outpacing the amount of charging in-

frastructure, the industry says, and

there is a deep north-south divide.

The number of pure electric battery

cars nearly doubled last year with

190,000 registrations — one in six new

cars sold — taking the total to 390,000.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers

and Traders (SMMT) estimates that

there is one rapid charger for every 32

all-electric cars. It says that in the past

three years, the sale of pure battery

electric cars is up more than 500 per

cent, but the number of rapid chargers

installed grew by only 82 per cent.

Figures for all public charging posts

and all plug-in vehicles show one con-

nection for every 30 plug-ins in the

south and one for every 50 in the north.

The government has committed it-

self to banning the sale of new petrol-

only and diesel-only cars from 2030.

As Ofwat, Ofgem and Ofcom at-

tempt to rein in, respectively, the water,

energy and media industries, so the

SMMT is calling for an independent

Office of Charging or Ofcharge.

It says the body should be in charge of

planning to ensure an equitable geo-

graphical and regional spread of infra-

structure and should also monitor

prices. Recharging at motorway service

stations can cost several times more per

unit of electricity than at home. Mike

Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said:

“We need clear, equivalent targets and

support for operators and local author-

ities that match consumer needs.”

Olympic games Care home resident Anne MacDonald, 89, enjoyed some snowball throwing in a mini competition in appreciation of Team GB at the Four Seasons
home in Blackburn, while Jennifer Morgan, 85, and Marjorie Brownlee, 93, showed off their contest medals and Doreen Wilkinson held her own homemade flame

An online gaming platform popular
with children around the world is
hosting virtual Nazi sex parties featur-
ing bondage acts and digital strippers.
Roblox, which is rated as suitable for
children as young as seven, has been
found to have games in which avatars
take off their clothes or simulate sex in
virtual rooms.
People can watch and comment
about the characters’ sex acts.
The virtual sex rooms, discovered in
a BBC investigation, also included
avatars dressed in Nazi uniforms and a
naked man “wearing just a dog collar
and a lead being led across the floor by

Nazi sex parties on children’s gaming site

Tom Knowles
Technology Correspondent

a woman in a bondage outfit”. Roblox

stressed it was very unlikely a child

would stumble across these digital sex

rooms unless actively looking for them

and that the games were usually only

up online for as little as an hour before

moderators took them down.

Roblox is an online platform that lets

users design and build their own

computer games, which anyone else

can then play.

There are more than 40 million

games to choose from and these can

range from adopting a virtual pet or

living in a fantasy castle to shoot ’em up

challenges and obstacle courses.

The sprawling universe of games and

digital worlds that users can explore

within the Roblox platform is consid-

ered to be an early version of the

“metaverse”, the digital world that

Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Face-

book, predicted will one day be where

people do the bulk of their socialising

and working. However, it can be hard

for Roblox moderators to keep up with

some of the games and virtual worlds

being created on the platform.

The sex games are often referred to

as “condos”, where people can allow

their avatars to have virtual sex and talk

about sex with other users in an instant

messenger chat box.

Hannah Rüschen, senior online

safety policy officer at the NSPCC, said:

“It is completely unacceptable that

these adult environments are available

on a game so popular with children. It is

not enough for Roblox to play cat and

mouse to shut down these rooms only

after children have been exposed to

harm. They must fix the dangerous

design flaws that allow them to be

created in the first place.”

There were nearly 50 million daily

active players across 180 countries on

Roblox last year and a report by the

5Rights charity estimated that half of

British children between six and nine

go on the platform at least once a week.

Roblox said it had developed paren-

tal control tools and took swift action

against anyone breaking its communi-

ty standards. It has also banned the

word “condo” on the site. “We have zero

tolerance for sexual content or behav-

iour of any kind,” a spokesman said.

The lockdown favourite

About half of six to nine-year-olds in

the UK are estimated to use Roblox,

created in 2004. Players use a

digital currency called Robux — 800

of which cost £8.99 — to buy virtual

costumes, pets, weapons, vehicles

and private servers that allow them

to play a game only with invited

friends. Users who build games get

a cut of the related revenue. During

the pandemic Roblox’s popularity

soared, with many children using it

to meet friends online and play

games. It is rated suitable in the UK

for those aged seven and above.

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