- Angie Dowds, 42, sent text saying 'my heart is broken; my spirit is broken' before death leap
- Starred in ITV's The Biggest Loser with Davina McCall
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A celebrity personal trainer jumped off Beachy Head after losing her job and having problems with her girlfriend, an inquest heard yesterday.
Angie Dowds, 42, sent a text in her final moments at the notorious Sussex suicide spot saying: 'My heart is broken; my spirit is broken'.
At the time of her death last November, presenter Davina McCall, who she appeared on hit ITV show The Biggest Loser with, led tributes to her.
She said: 'Rest in peace Angie Dowds. So so sad.'
Tragic suicide: Angie Dowds was a health guru on ITV show The Biggest Loser
The inquest heard that Miss Dowds had drinks and drugs in her system, a combination described as 'severely toxic', when she threw herself off the cliff.
Her GP said she had experienced ongoing addictions to alcohol and drugs and had taken overdoses and made a number of suicide threats in the past.
The award-winning fitness guru had contact with mental health services and had refused treatment at one point.
After her death, it was revealed that local health services had neglected to book an outpatient's appointment for her after she declined treatment.
It was put down to an 'administrative error' initially, but a 'serious untoward incident' inquiry has since begun into what happened.
Yesterday, her brother Kevin Dowds accused doctors of letting down his younger sister.
Shocking death: Miss Dowds jumped from the cliffs at Sussex beauty spot Beachy Head
Health expert: Ms Dowds with presenter Davina McCall and fellow trainer Richard Callender on The Biggest Loser
He said: 'I feel she's been failed. Letting her decide whether she continues with mental health doesn't seem appropriate to me.'
Heartache: Ms Dowds had gone through another break-up earlier the same year
He also vowed to further investigate the failure to book the appointment.
In the days and weeks prior to her death, Miss Dowds told friends and family she was worried about having lost her job.
She was also concerned about where to live as she did not intend to continue living with her girlfriend Edwina Benson, with whom she was having 'troubles'.
Miss Dowds had a meeting with a housing officer to discuss where to live and had also discussed claiming benefits.
Her girlfriend Miss Benson, an administrator at a primary school, said that she exchanged texts with her shortly before she jumped.
Miss Dowds sent a series of heartbreaking texts to her partner, including one saying: 'My heart's broken; my spirit's broken'.
She added: 'On your head be it' and 'I'll be at peace very soon.'
Miss Benson then called the police after her partner revealed she was at Beachy Head.
Miss Dowds' body was discovered hours later.
Catherine Palmer, assistant deputy coroner for East Sussex, returned a verdict of suicide.
- For confidential support call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90, visit a local Samaritans branch or see www.samaritans.org
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
Law Experts Say Health Measure Legal as Some Doubt Court Agrees - Bloomberg
The U.S. Supreme Court should uphold a law requiring most Americans to have health insurance if the justices follow legal precedent, according to 19 of 21 constitutional law professors who ventured an opinion on the most-anticipated ruling in years.
Only eight of them predicted the court would do so.
“The precedent makes this a very easy case,” said Christina Whitman, a University of Michigan law professor. “But the oral argument indicated that the more conservative justices are striving to find a way to strike down the mandate.”
A ruling on the constitutionality of the individual mandate is among the last pieces of business heading into the final week of the Supreme Court’s term. Bloomberg News last week e-mailed questionnaires to constitutional law experts at the top 12 U.S. law schools in U.S. News & World Report magazine’s 2012 college rankings.
Five of the 21 professors who responded, including Whitman, said the court is likely to strike down the coverage requirement. Underscoring the high stakes and complexity of the debate, eight described the outcome as a toss-up.
During arguments in March, four justices appointed by Republican presidents questioned Congress’s constitutional power to enact the mandate, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had been viewed as potential swing votes. A fifth, Justice Clarence Thomas, rarely speaks during courtroom sessions. Questioning by four Democratic appointees was more sympathetic to the provision, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s health-care law.
‘Hostile Questioning’
“There was certainly a lot of hostile questioning by the more conservative members of the court,” said Jesse Choper, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley who described the court as likely to support the mandate. “It’s relatively straightforward -- if they adhere to existing doctrine, it seemed to me they’re likely to uphold it.”
There was broad agreement that the ruling, barely four months before November’s presidential election, has the potential to hurt the Supreme Court’s reputation as an impartial institution.
Eighteen of the 21 professors said the court’s credibility will be damaged if the insurance requirement -- which passed Congress without a single Republican vote -- is ruled unconstitutional by a 5-4 majority of justices appointed by Republican presidents.
‘Narrowest Majority’
“When you take the fact of a high-profile, enormously controversial and politically salient case -- to have it decided by the narrowest majority with a party-line split looks very bad, it looks like the court is simply an arm of one political party,” University of Chicago Law Professor Dennis Hutchinson said in an interview.
Nine of the law professors said if the coverage mandate is invalidated the justices are likely or very likely to throw out several related provisions, such as requiring insurance companies to offer policies without regard to pre-existing medical conditions. Five respondents said the justices will leave those provisions in place; seven called it a toss-up.
By a large margin, 15 of the 21 professors predicted the Supreme Court won’t kill the entire Affordable Care Act even if justices throw out the insurance mandate and related provisions. Only three said the rest of the statute is likely to be voided and three called it a toss-up.
Political Freight
A decision on Obama’s most prominent legislative accomplishment will be the Supreme Court’s most politically freighted ruling since 2000’s Bush v. Gore, which halted a ballot recount in Florida and gave Republican George W. Bush -- who lost the nationwide popular vote -- enough electoral votes to win the White House.
The law professors split over whether they expect Republican and Democratic court appointees to line up on opposing sides: Eight said a partisan divide is likely, eight said it isn’t likely, and five called it a toss-up.
“I continue to find it extremely unlikely that Justices Roberts and Kennedy will support a 5-4 decision that has such an insubstantial basis in 75 years of Supreme Court case law,” said Yale University Professor Bruce Ackerman, the only respondent who said the court is very likely to uphold the insurance-coverage requirement.
Choper, who was a clerk for Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1960s, said in a telephone interview that questioning by justices doesn’t always predict how they’ll vote.
“You can be misled by oral arguments,” he said. “You can’t rely on their tone.”
‘Wing Nuts’
A party-line vote would prompt questions about political motives because most constitutional scholars thought courts would uphold a mandate before small-government Tea Party activists rallied Republicans around complaints that Congress exceeded its authority to regulate interstate commerce, said Harvard University Law Professor Charles Fried.
“It’s become just a very partisan battle cry on behalf of an argument which a few years ago was thought to be completely bogus,” Fried, who represented Republican President Ronald Reagan’s administration at the Supreme Court as U.S. solicitor general from 1985 to 1989, said in a telephone interview. “For objective observers on all sides, this was thought to be a lousy argument and the only people who were making it were sort of the wing nuts.”
In a separate Bloomberg National Poll of 1,002 adults released this week, 71 percent of Americans said politics will influence the Supreme Court’s ruling, compared with 20 percent who said the court will decide the case solely on legal merits.
Roberts Rules
University of Pennsylvania Professor Kermit Roosevelt said Kennedy is a key vote and that, “whatever happens,” Roberts is likely to be in the majority.
“If Kennedy joins the four Democratic appointees to uphold, I think Roberts will vote that way, too,” Roosevelt said in an e-mail. “If Kennedy goes the other way, Roberts will probably vote to strike it down.”
The Bloomberg News questionnaires were sent to 131 professors at the top law schools in U.S. News’s ranking who have taught or written about constitutional law or have professional experience with constitutional litigation, according to school biographies. Questions were sent to office e-mail addresses listed in faculty directories.
Law schools included were: Columbia University; Duke University; Harvard University; New York University; Northwestern University; Stanford University; the University of California at Berkeley; the University of Chicago; the University of Michigan; the University of Pennsylvania; the University of Virginia, and Yale University.
‘Disinterested Interpretation’
Hutchinson, who has edited the University of Chicago’s Supreme Court Review journal since 1981, said it’s important for the public to view the high court as staying above the political fray and providing “a disinterested interpretation” of the Constitution.
“We believe in something called the rule of law,” he said. “That’s why we have faith in courts, that they’re not just another arm of a political party, so it’s worth respecting their judgments.”
The Supreme Court has, during its history, often responded “over the course of a decade or two” to changing views in broader U.S. society on topics such as racial segregation and abortion, Harvard Professor Michael Klarman said.
Changing Law
If justices strike down the insurance mandate, it will show “that the ‘law’ in constitutional law is subject to change, based on politics, and in a much more rapid way than most people would have assumed,” Klarman said in an e-mail.
Respondents to the questionnaire were: Ackerman; Choper; Fried; Hutchinson; Klarman; Roosevelt; Whitman; Guy-Uriel Charles, Duke; Norman Dorsen, NYU; Jamal Greene, Columbia; Andrew Koppelman, Northwestern; Gillian Metzger, Columbia; Anne Joseph O’Connell, California; John David Ohlendorf, Northwestern; Richard Parker, Harvard; David Richards, NYU; Adam Samaha, Chicago; Neil Siegel, Duke; Fred Smith, California; Laurence Tribe, Harvard; G. Edward White, Virginia.
The health-care cases are National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 11-393; Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida, 11-398; and Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services, 11-400.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Drummond in Washington at bdrummond@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at skomarow1@bloomberg.net
Source: www.bloomberg.com
Sharks looking to complete ‘double’ - Lewes Today
Source: www.sussexexpress.co.uk
Judith Wallerstein Death: Read Her Top 10 HuffPost Blogs - Huffington Post
We were deeply saddened to hear about the death of Judith Wallerstein, a psychologist renowned for her analysis of the long-term effects of divorce on children.
According to the New York Times, Wallerstein, who died this week at age 90, published 60 to 70 articles in psychology and law journals, and authored five books, including "Surviving The Breakup: How Children And Parents Cope With Divorce."
Some of our favorite Wallerstein work can be found on this very site, where the researcher contributed a number of thoughtful, much-discussed blog posts. In fact, Wallerstein was right there with us when we launched HuffPost Divorce in November 2010, writing blogs that melded her groundbreaking research with practical, easy-to-digest advice.
To honor Wallerstein and her work, we've collected 10 of her best blogs for HuffPost Divorce. Click through for excerpts and links to the original pieces.
Related on HuffPost:
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
Great-value family-size homes in West Sussex - easier.com
Leading housebuilder Taylor Wimpey is offering the best of both worlds for home-hunters seeking a dream new house in West Sussex – plenty of space for all the family for an incredible value price.
The stunning family-size homes for sale in Billingshurst at Alders Edge and in Pulborough at The Ridings all boast generous accommodation and thoughtfully-designed layouts that are perfectly suited to today’s busy lifestyles.
What’s more, these high-quality four-bedroom houses are available for fantastic-value prices that compare very favourably with similar-sized second-hand houses for sale in West Sussex.
Four-bedroom homes at The Ridings, for example, are priced from as little as £319,995, whereas the average four-bedroom property in Pulborough costs more than £400,000* – that’s an instant saving of more than £80,000!
At Alders Edge, meanwhile, four-bedroom houses are available from only £364,995 – that’s £115,000 lower* than the typical four-bedroom property on sale in Billingshurst.
Fiona Creed, Regional Sales and Marketing Director for Taylor Wimpey, says: “Buyers would have to go a long way to beat the value for money on offer at The Ridings and Alders Edge, where our spacious four-bedroom homes offer amazing savings when compared with typical second-hand houses in West Sussex.
“Added to that, buying new offers a whole range of advantages compared with an older property. Buyers won’t need to pay out for a new kitchen or bathroom in their fabulous new low-maintenance home, and there’s the added peace of mind from the guarantees which come with a brand new home.
“And with contemporary designs which make fantastic use of space and light, these homes are proving incredibly attractive, so I’d urge anyone hoping to find their dream home in West Sussex to contact us without delay to make sure they don’t miss out.”
Just one of the impressive four-bedroom homes on sale now at The Ridings is the Plot 19 ‘Cherwell’ townhouse, priced at just £319,995. This handsome property features a fabulous living room leading through to a stunning garden room, which in turn opens through French doors to the private rear garden, with a contemporary kitchen/breakfast room and a guest cloakroom also located off the entrance hallway.
Upstairs, the first-floor landing leads to three well-proportioned bedrooms and a family bathroom, while the en-suite master bedroom enjoys appealing seclusion on the top floor. Outside, the property benefits from a garage and parking.
Alternative four-bedroom designs at The Ridings are available from only £339,995, while at Alders Edge, the four-bedroom detached ‘Chesham’ is priced at £364,995 and the four-bedroom detached ‘Thornford’ at £449,995 – including stamp duty paid.
Both developments enjoy superb locations bordering the picturesque West Sussex countryside, with local amenities and convenient transport links on the doorstep. To find out more about the great-value family-size homes on sale now at The Ridings and Alders Edge, visit taylorwimpey.co.uk.
Source: www.easier.com
Mental health services in this country are a joke...im sorry but it is true...armpit of the NHS and that really is saying something - apathy and ignorance, yesterday, 22/06/2012 08:50 Why blame the Mental Health Service !!!, they certainly have their hands Full in this day and age, what with all the Drug Fuelled Madness that has Exploded onto the Scene over the last 10 - 15 years. Don't blame them for this womans misfortune, they do the best they can with the little resources they have got.
- Morphious, Northeast England, 22/6/2012 11:00
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