Prisoner gets two years

A cleaning company manager who put weedkiller into the drink of a young assistant was jailed for two years yesterday. Peter Tyrell, who had worked blamelessly for 20 years for the Cleenol company in Banbury, Oxon, twice added sodium chlor­ate and borax to Lorraine Palmer's drinks.

Tyrell, 47, of Chipping Norton, Oxon, denied poisoning her. He was found guilty at an earlier hearing. He was jailed for two years on both poisoning charges with the sentences to run con­currently.

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Love-hate poisoner is jailed for two years

Boss who had a love-hate relationship with his girl assistant was jailed for two years yesterday for trying to poison her. Peter Tyrell had a "weird preoccupation" with 23-year-old Lorraine Palmer, a court heard. The 47-year-old cleaning company pur­chasing manager—who has been married for 25 years — named her in his will and showered her with presents.

Defence barrister Michael Fowler could shed no light on his motivation in putting potentially lethal sodium chlorate into Miss Palmer's coffee and squash. There was, however, what he called "a reference to revenge". He told Oxford Crown Court: "The full range of possibilities must include that whoever was responsible had the motive, but not of causing harm, but creating the situa­tion where Miss Palmer needed someone to turn to, someone to confide in. Fortunately, there was no substantial, immediate in­jury to Miss Palmer".

Judge Richard May told Tyrell: "The reason for committing them is known only to yourself but as you must understand poi­soning offences of this kind can only be regarded as very seri­ous". Tyrell, of Hitchman Drive, Chipping Norton, had earlier been found guilty of administering poison with intent to harm, attempting to administer poison and theft. He had denied the charges.

Miss Palmer, of Brackley, Northhamptonshire, was in court with her mother to hear the sentence. Afterwards, she hurried from the building without comment.

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25 Pc of children put video games before homework

A quarter of British schoolchildren are neglecting homework to play video games, according to a survey of youngsters' game playing habits published yesterday.

The study, presented at the British Psychological Society conference in York, classified 75 per cent of children as "heavy players" — devoting more than 20 hours per week to computer games — a smaller number of whom were addicts.

Mark Griffiths of Plymouth University, who presented the research, said it was the third such study and the consistent find­ings were that three quarters of children played computer games, with a third of those playing every day.

"The surprising thing about this study was that as many as one in four children said they neglected homework to play com­puter games. Also, contrary to expectations, those who played games were also more likely to be involved in sports outside of school", said Mr. Griffiths.

The survey of 868 teenagers attending two schools in a small Midlands town was carried out by researchers at Nene College, Northhampton, and found that 77 per cent of children played games, with 14 per cent playing for two hours or more at a time and 60 per cent playing for longer than they wished to. Boys played "significantly more" than girls and were "significantly more likely" to neglect homework.

Mr. Griffiths said further research was being conducted into the 50 or more "heavy players" identified in the survey to see if they were addicted to games.

The tell-tale signs of addiction were playing games daily, neglecting other types of play and homework, evidence of mood changes during and after game playing and evidence of with­drawal if deprived of games.

Mr. Griffiths said video games could provide both "a buzz" and create a tranquilizing effect and had a series of "psycholog­ical hooks" designed to keep people playing. "They are compo­nents that could create addiction", he added.

Mr.Griffiths urged parents to monitor their children's game playing and to "plug the more educational games rather than the beat-them-up-and-shoot-them ones", but said that he was not anti-computer games.

"They are very popular and for most kids they are not a prob­lem. But for a small subsection it does cause problems. If you are spending more than 20 hours a week playing video games then you are bound to be missing out on other things", he said.

Simon Jobling, head of marketing at Sony Computer Enter­tainment, insisted that children did not get addicted to the games.

He said: "Addiction is the wrong word. The whole point of entertainment is for the consumer to want more of it. Games are something children enjoy, so they do it a lot. Software today is far more involved in getting children interacting with others and using basic computer skills and reaction times".

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