Subsuming the Combat Poverty Agency into a Government department would destroy the watchdog’s independence and ability to carry out vital work, it was warned today.

British teacher Gillian Gibbons was today preparing to fly home from her ordeal in a Sudanese jail after being pardoned.

The British teacher facing 40 lashes for naming a teddy bear Mohammed was reported to police by an office worker at her Sudan school, it emerged today.

FEW would disagree with your editorial on puppy farms (June 23) — “cruel, inhumane and unacceptable by every civilised standard”.