Russell Findlay - @RussellFindlay1

MORE than 100 strangers joined politicians, soldiers, firefighters and police officers at the funeral of a 103-year-old widow who died with no family. Residents in Milton, Glasgow, defied icy conditions yesterday [January 18, 2017] to pay their respects to Annie Wallace after a plea by minister Rev Christopher Rowe. In an incredible display of community spirit, the area’s four councillors joined police officers, firefighters, Annie’s carers and four soldiers of 32 Royal Signal regiment who acted as pallbearers. Rev Rowe, who visited Annie at Ashgill Care Home hours before she died on December 23, told mourners at Colston Milton Parish Church: “ Annie has always loved singing and I can say with confidence that she was still singing the day that she died, and I rather suspect there was not a day in the last 100 years when she didn't sing. “She told me how she was singing in the church choir, and the choir master was telling them to roll their ‘rrrrs’, she laughed out...

AMBER Rudd is going after cowardly criminals who use corrosive substances as a weapon to blind, maim and destroy lives. The Home Secretary wants anyone caught twice carrying acid in public to receive a mandatory six-month prison sentence and to ban under-18s from buying it. As someone who has suffered the terror of sulphuric acid being hurled in my face, I welcome any action against the perpetrators. My attacker was William "Basil" Burns, an amoral hitman on the payroll of a millionaire criminal who for years has seethed at my journalistic interest in his own activities. Burns came to my front door two days before Christmas, dressed as a postman and armed with acid and a steak knife. While the planning was meticulous, the execution was botched. The acid hit my face but the knife was dropped and, when police arrived, Burns was trapped underneath me with a sore face and whining about his broken dentures. I was lucky. The quick application of water o...

LAW chiefs are allowing hearings designed to disrupt crooks who have made cash from crime to take place behind closed doors. We can reveal members of the public are banned from proceeds of crime cases in Scottish courts when the defendant doesn't challenge the action. Instead of being heard in an open court, lawyers and prosecutors handle the case in private chambers. It means details of alleged illegal activity and how much dirty money is being seized are not heard in public. Figures released last year by the Crown Office showed prosecutors had confiscated £3.5million - an increase of £1million on the previous 12 months. But politicians and an academic criticised the decision not to conduct all proceeds of crime hearings in open court - allowing offenders the chance to keep actions against them secret. Scottish Labour's justice spokesperson Daniel Johnson said: " The Proceeds of Crime Act is to show that crime does not pay but how can we do this...