The Driving Standards Agency (DSA) has finally bowed to industry pressure, not least from Commercial Motor, to make HGV driving tests more realistic by agreeing to look at tests with loaded vehicles in its latest consultation document.

While current HGV candidates in the UK are tested in unladen trucks or trailers, the latest DSA proposals suggest  loading vehicles with water containers or sandbags instead, in order to simulate a normal load.

The change would ensure a lorry or trailer used in the HGV driving test would mirror the weight of the vehicle that successful candidates would drive on the road after they have passed their test, therefore improving road safety and making them a more attractive employment proposition to operators.

“More realistic testing can only be a good thing,” says Ian Gallagher, policy manager at the Freight Transport Association (FTA), “The way a truck behaves alters dramatically depending on the weight being carried, with stopping distances and cornering becoming entirely different propositions, so the driver should be tested on their ability to adjust their driving to suit the load being carried.”

Skills for Logistics (SfL) has also confirmed it welcomes the proposal within the DSA’s  latest consultation document, which runs until 3 September. According to the agency, the changes would bring the UK in line with European regulations on vehicles used in tests. However, some training schools have already raised fears that the cost of an HGV test will increase as a result of having to use heavier trucks.

The managing director at London-based Wallace School of Transport, Ruth Wallace, comments: “The additional weight would increase the cost of driver training, which some may say is already high enough, especially taking into account the increased expense due to the forthcoming introduction of Driver CPC.”

A spokesman at The HGV Academy agrees: “I can see why they are doing this, but it will increase the costs because we will be burning more fuel with bigger loads.” Before laden testing can be adopted though, the industry and DSA will have to agree on the exact nature of a test load and who would provide it.

There are also likely to be discussions over insurance, not least regarding HGV test examiners in laden vehicles Ð a point raised in the past when CM has made the call for laden testing. The DSA is keen to hear what the road transport and haulage industry thinks. More information is available at http://www.dsa.gov.uk/consultation

Source: Road Transport

A MOTHER killed on the A127 while visiting relatives in Wickford has been named by police

Michelle Williams , 38, from Breeze Hill in Anglesey died after her Renault struck the rear of a Polish-registered articulated lorry, which was parked in a lay-by on the London-bound carriageway at East Horndon.

Her three-year-old daughter, who was travelling in the front seat, received serious injuries and was taken to Basildon Hospital, but has since been transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

Police says she remains in a serious condition.

The crash took place just after the Halfway House at around 4.30am this morning (Wednesday) as the pair made their way back to Wales after visiting their relatives, said police.

TIN.adverts.adWriteDC('article-detail-impact-tile', '452x118');

The lorry driver was asleep in his cab at the time of the collision and escaped uninjured.

Long tailbacks formed along the road during rush-hour as one lane of the road remained closed until late in the morning.

Any witnesses to the collision are asked to contact police at Chigwell road policing unit on 0300 333 4444.

Source: total essex

An investigation will be carried out into the incident

A suspected illegal immigrant has been arrested as he tried to escape from a lorry inside Portsmouth Naval Base.

The man, who claimed to be from Afghanistan, tried to flee from the back of a German-registered lorry delivering stores to the base.

A Royal Navy spokesman said an investigation would be carried out.

It comes two weeks after an illegal immigrant was found inside Sandhurst military academy after stowing away on an Army coach from Germany.

The suspect was apprehended in the naval base not far from the gates, the spokesman said.

He was arrested by Ministry of Defence (MoD) police and later handed over to the UK Border Agency.

"Reports that he got near a warship are absolute nonsense," the spokesman added.

He said until an investigation was completed "it would be inappropriate to comment further".

The lorry had entered the UK from Calais, France.

Source : BBC NEWS

Nearly 20,000 attempts by immigrants to enter Britain illegally were thwarted in Calais last year compared to 7,500 in 2004.

A further 9,000 were stopped in Coquelle and Dunkirk, Belgium and Paris. It is not known how many more immigrants succeeded in outwitting the UK border forces.

The Home Office figures paint a picture of an increasingly desperate battle between the UK Border Agency and the growing number of foreigners who believe they have a chance of a better life in the UK.

This year, immigration officers found 13 Afghanis and two Iranians hiding in a lorry-load of light bulbs. The Hungarian-registered lorry was stopped at Calais before it could board a ferry across the Channel.

Similarly, failed attempts were made by two Vietnamese men concealed in a consignment of nappies. And last year, border officers thwarted a bid by four Afghans who were found in lorry-load of champagne.

The immigration crisis in Calais, the temporary home to thousands of immigrants trying to come to Britain, has worsened in recent weeks.

On Monday, there were reports that the French town was under siege after hundreds of protesters arrived to demand an end to border controls between France and Britain. Riot police were on alert in the streets after intelligence reports raised fears of widespread violence.

The record number of successful interventions by UK border officers has been largely due to a marked increase in immigration controls and freight searches carried out by British officers on the Continent. Last year, there were 738,474 searches.

There have also been developments in methods used to detect people who are trying to cross the border. Body detection dogs are trained to smell humans who are inside vehicles simply by sniffing the air outside.

Heartbeat detector sheds contain mobile computers that uses four special vibration sensors to detect movement inside a vehicle.

And carbon dioxide probes detect carbon dioxide, the gas which is expelled by the lungs.

The Border and Immigration minister Phil Woolas said: "The UK has one of the strongest borders in the world. We work closely with our French partners to tackle illegal immigration using state-of-the-art technology such as carbon dioxide and heartbeat detectors.

"Last year alone, UK Border Agency staff at our French and Belgium controls not only searched more than one million lorries but also stopped 28,000 attempts to cross the Channel illegally.

"The illegal migrants in France are not queuing to get into Britain – they have been locked out," Mr Woolas said. But the Liberal Democrat spokesman for Home Affairs, Chris Huhne, said: "The huge rise in detections last year begs the question how many illegal immigrants were slipping through the net before.

"These figures are worrying precisely because they suggest that control at our borders is still far too weak, and for everyone detected there may be far more who are not.

"We need a national border force with police powers to ensure that only legal migrants enter Britain, and that the human trade in trafficked migrants is stopped and its organisers are brought to justice. Our borders have been too porous for too long.

"We need an immigration system that is firm but fair but we currently have neither."

Source:The Independent

Which of the following is true about "Lightning" Lee Murray?

(a) He's the meanest MMA fighter ever to walk the streets of London.

(b) He's suspected of masterminding the biggest bank heist in history.

(c) Although stuck in a Moroccan prison, he's a bit tricky to pin down.

Actually, it's (d) -- all of the above.

If the stories are true, Lee Murray is the meanest middleweight ever to come out of the projects of South London. His friends love to talk about the time he single-handedly fought nine bouncers at a disco. Left 'em sleeping like babies in the doorway, says one. Or the night he hit MMA tough Tito Ortiz with five head shots that put him flat on his back. Then punted him in the head, adds one witness. And they'll go on about the night he died not once but three times in an emergency room after being stabbed in the chest.

But if Lightning Lee's legends often sound far too fantastic to be true, there's one story that British authorities claim is beyond dispute: On a cold February night in 2006, seven masked gunmen raided a high-security bank warehouse outside London and made off with the greatest criminal cash haul in history, more than $100 million. Police say Murray was the mastermind, but by the time they could link him to the theft, he was living the posh life in Morocco.

Nevermind that Murray, 30, now sits in a Moroccan prison cell while authorities weigh a British request for extradition.

In London's underground, he's a hero. The problem -- for me, anyway -- is that he's a reclusive hero who won't speak to the press. Which means I have to fly to London to learn how a street thug turned MMA fighter gets accused of being the world's biggest bank robber. Along the way, yet another improbable tale develops, involving me: Every time I approach someone who knows Murray, he seems to have reached them first, having phoned from his prison cell, 1,000 miles away. He thinks a movie about his life would be big, says one of his cronies. Murray, a fan of American mob movies, apparently wants to shape the script. In interview after interview, I arrive to find Murray has already dictated the outcome. When I ask one member of his crew -- a scruffy tough who won't stop griping about women -- if he'll connect me with Murray's wife, I'm told that Lee says the women are off-limits.

Variations on this theme occur repeatedly. It's exhausting, being messed with like that. So when I meet Mark "The Beast" Epstein, a scowling British cage fighter and Murray confidant, at a kebab joint on my last night in London, I cut to the chase, forgetting he could snap my neck. I need to speak to him, I say -- now. Surprisingly, Epstein calls Morocco. But after some murmuring, he delivers bad news: Lee isn't ready to talk. But he says you can ask one question. I freeze. What question do you ask one of the world's most wanted men?

Murray was raised in the Barnfield housing projects in southeast London, where Somali kids ride their bikes with bandanas covering their faces. They're the law now. But back in the 1990s, the Barney Boys ran these streets. There were loads of fistfights, knife attacks, you name it, says Epstein, the gangs onetime leader, who says he once shot a man in the face over 200 kilos of coke.

Midway through a twilight tour of the alleys where the Barney Boys used to hang, Epstein disappears into a beat-up apartment. After some shouting on the third floor, he appears, clutching a wiry old man. It's Lee's father, Brahim Lamrani. When Epstein says we want to talk about his son, Lamrani wails, "My boy! Oh, my boy!" Maybe it's his Moroccan accent or the fact that his upper lip flaps over his lower one, but the conversation ends there. Murray started hanging with the Barney Boys in the mid-1990s. Epstein remembers Murray as a feral little thing, always chased by the police. The kid devoured books about U.S. mobsters, especially John Gotti. Soon Epstein began refereeing Murray's fights. "It was MMA on the streets," he says. :I never saw Lee lose." When Epstein went to prison in 1997 for selling heroin and crack (he's since turned his life around), Murray became one of the gang's leaders. He also discovered a sport that had as few rules as he did.

Getty ImagesMurray, after a (sanctioned) fight.

London Shootfighters, the city's premier MMA gym, sits under elevated-train arches and behind a garage in southeast London. Even with a GPS navigator, my cabdriver has a hard time finding it. An alley filled with junked cars leads to the sound of pounding fists behind a black door, the same one Murray first walked through in 1999. He was a little demonic looking, says the gym's co-owner, Alexis Demetriades, not the most angelic-looking guy himself. He had pointy eyes and a pointy head. Demetriades makes a point of telling me about Lee's fists -- calcified mounds, each finger broken at least once. Everything Lee touched broke. By 2002, Murray had won four of six low-rung MMA fights, becoming a hit in the London beer halls where they were staged. The press loved his mink coats and tight silk shirts. The crowds loved how he seemed to be one of them. "He got in fights with strangers because they saw the way he dressed and thought he was a pushover," says Demetriades. "They should have looked at the cuts on his face."

The more famous Murray grew as a cage fighter, the cagier he got about his private life. When I meet a local fight writer in a coffee shop, he drops his voice and looks around before telling me, "I went to one of Murray's fights once, and I was warned by one of his crowd, 'Don't ask too much about Lee.'" In fact, Murray's private life defied explanation. Though he wasn't making much money from MMA, he bought a home for his wife and daughter in the tony suburb of Sidcup. "Lee had his fingers in a lot of pies that interested the police," Epstein tells me, noting that Murray was often followed by the Kent PD. The unwanted attention grew in July 2002, when the UFC held its first card in London. Murray wasnt on the card for UFC 38, but he stole the show by crashing the after-party. Pat Miletich, the veteran MMA trainer, was at his side. "One of Tito Ortiz's friends jumped on my back as a joke. A buddy of Lee's thought it was a fight and jumped in," he tells me. "Then it exploded."

"Lee took off his jacket. Tito did too. Tito threw the first punch and missed. Then Lee flattened him with a five-punch combo.I told him to get the hell outta there. (Ortiz sighs when I call him: "The only thing he made of himself was a fight with me.")

But Murray couldn't lay low. At a sanctioned fight a few months later, he knocked his opponent unconscious in four seconds. His posse stormed the ring, sparking a table-toppling riot. "We have to ban Lee," the promoter said. "His people are crazy."

Around the seedy gyms and back alleys where Murray's groupies remain, Jan. 31, 2004, is regarded with reverence -- it's the day Murray finally got a shot with the UFC. He entered the Octagon at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas for UFC 46 dressed in a Silence of the Lambs mask and an orange jumpsuit. Early in the fight, Jorge Rivera speared him to the mat, but Murray wrapped his legs around Rivera's neck and flipped him onto his side, tightening his grip until the veins in Rivera's head began to pop. At 1:45 in the first round, Rivera signaled submission. "I got the win," Murray said afterward. "I'll come back another day and show the KO."

Actually, he wouldn't.

The summer following his UFC triumph, Murray was indicted on charges of grievous bodily harm with intent, stemming from a road rage incident months earlier. On Christmas Day 2003, he was driving with his pregnant wife and young daughter when a car hit his Range Rover.

Derek Parker, Murray's London attorney, describes the incident bluntly: "Lee disabled the vehicle, then disabled the driver." A judge threw out the charge, but the incident torpedoed Murray's UFC career. With a reported $78,000 contract on the table in the U.S., the State Department denied him a visa to enter the country. My chat with Parker confirms what I was starting to suspect: Murray was a target for all sorts of nasty types. "He was flashy and mixed with people the police didn't like," says Parker. In fall 2005, two men attacked Murray with knives outside his favorite London haunt, the Funky Buddha. Murray fought them off but lost his left nipple. Undaunted, he returned to the club a week later to celebrate the 50th birthday of his boxing coach, Terry Carlton. He was ambushed again, and a melee erupted, with more than 30 people trading blows and wielding knives. Carlton tells me that when he spotted Murray in the scrum, blood was spurting out of his chest. "I'm dying," Murray yelled. With a severed artery, he staggered to a train station, where paramedics found him. The legend only grows from there.

Carlton: "At the hospital, his face was bloated like a rugby ball. I knelt beside him and said, 'Boy, this is one fight you have to win.'"

Epstein: "Nurses sprinted blood up the halls. He lost eight pints and had to be resuscitated."

Mehmet Kavez, another friend: "He died three times that night. When he came to, he asked for a pen and wrote one word on his chart: Warrior."

By early December, Murray was back in the gym, just not as fierce as before. "Being to death and back changes a man, you know?" says Kavez.

Tonbridge is a sleepy town outside London. In early 2006, few paid much attention to the unmarked building on its outskirts run by Securitas, a global security firm. But to Lea Rusha, a mixed martial artist with a rap sheet who lived a few miles away, the structure represented a dream score.

Getty ImagesThis Silence of the Lambs outfit is how Murray came to the ring at UFC 46.

On the drive to Tonbridge, I find the abandoned church where Rusha trained.

I walk inside and meet a helpful trainer who remembers him. "Rusha knew Lee from the London fight club scene," he says. Rusha kickboxed at the church for a few hundred bucks a match, but as he later testified under oath, he made his real money buying marijuana from Murray for $1,600 a kilo and reselling it for twice that. According to police, Murray and Rusha concocted an elaborate plan to loot the Securitas depot after Murray recovered from the stabbing. It hinged on kidnapping the depot's manager, Colin Dixon, and his family.

At 8:40 p.m. on Feb. 21, 2006, two men dressed as Kent police knocked on the door at Dixon's home in Herne Bay. When Dixons wife, Lynn, answered, the men told her that her 52-year-old husband had been in an accident; she and her 7-year-old son, Craig, needed to come with them. In fact, two other conspirators, who police allege were Rusha and Murray, had kidnapped Dixon as he drove home from work. They reunited their hostages at a farm in the English countryside shortly before 10 p.m. Lynn Dixon says that when she saw her husband blindfolded and handcuffed in the back of a van, she didn't think "we would survive the night."

At 1 a.m. on Feb. 22, the men piled Dixon into a Volvo and drove toward the depot, trailed by a seven-ton truck ferrying his wife and son. The vehicles hit Tonbridge around 1:30 a.m., when the police station was closed and the streets were empty.

One kidnapper piloted the Volvo to the depot's entrance and walked Dixon through the front door, holding him tight. As Dixon's kidnapper forced the watchman to open the gates to the vault, six accomplices followed in ski masks, weapons drawn. Fourteen Securitas employees were inside, counting cash. "Do what they say," Dixon pleaded. "They have my family."

With help from an inside man -- a guard who took photos of the vault with a belt camera -- they had crude blueprints of the depot. In 40 minutes they looted steel cages full of pound notes, using a forklift and a shopping cart to move the cash into the truck. By 2:34 a.m., the truck was full. Two robbers drove it away while the remaining five locked the hostages in empty cages and left in the Volvo and a Vauxhall. Nobody was hurt. It took 30 minutes for Craig Dixon to escape his cage and sound the alarm. When the police arrived, they realized they were dealing with the biggest cash crime in history.

They posted a $4 million reward, and three days into the investigation a tip led them to Rusha's home, where they found depot blueprints and keys to a garage with 8.6 million (about $17 million) inside. A week later, Rusha was nabbed while trying to leave the country in a Volkswagen. After finding traces of Murray's DNA at the depot, Kent police realized they'd been sitting on crucial evidence. Weeks before the heist, Murray had been pulled over on suspicion of drunken driving after he ran his yellow Ferrari Spider off Old Kent Road.

Murray was released, but the car was impounded. Now the police searched the Ferrari and found a cell phone under a seat. In the cell's memory was a recording of a call in which two men discussed the robbery. Cops identified them as Rusha and Murray. Details of the recording are few because of U.K. pretrial publicity laws, but I'm able to convince someone with access to the transcript to let me see it. "I dont give a f who goes to the door," says Rusha. "I can't show my face in there," replies the man cops think is Murray. "Been in the newspapers and on the f-ing telly."

Getty ImagesLee Murray, in more focused days.

It was a major break in the case, but there was one tiny problem: Murray was already in Morocco. Little is known about how he got to Rabat, which is why I'm stunned when I find a guy at a bar Murray used to frequent who says he fled the U.K. with Murray and an alleged co-conspirator, Paul "The Enforcer" Allen. This gent is a wanna-be gangster whom, for my own protection, we'll call Owen. Shouting over the din of a dance club at 2 a.m., Owen says, "Paul was chain-smoking the whole time we was in the car to the ferry. He was nervous." But Murray was cool. Too cool. "Lee put 'Diamonds Are Forever' on the CD player," Owen says. "He looked at me and said, 'We've done it.' God's honest truth."

Standing in the kebab joint two days later with Epstein, I wonder if Owens story is even remotely true. Hell, I'm wondering if anything I've heard is true. Five members of the heist crew, including Rusha, were convicted in January after a six-month trial and sentenced to a total of 140 years. A sixth, Allen, is awaiting trial. But Owen was never called as a witness, and no one backs up his claims. "Lee says he had nothing to do with this robbery," Murray's Moroccan attorney, Ben Aissaoui, tells me.

Still, Murray's friends talk about his dramatic exit. When he arrived in Amsterdam, four days after the heist, Murray told Epstein he was being protected by a hit man who worked with the Dutch mob. As cops closed in, Murray fled to Morocco, where his father's Moroccan citizenship extends to him, protecting him from extradition since Morocco has no agreement with the U.K. At the request of the British government, police in Rabat tailed Murray as he rolled around in a gold Mercedes and moved into a $1.5 million villa in the posh suburb of Souissi. Within months, the jig was up.

On June 25, 2006, police crafted a raid on Morocco's biggest mall, where Murray and Allen were shopping with two friends. Fifty officers jumped the fugitives and -- after a struggle -- arrested them. After finding cocaine in Murray's villa, police lodged drug charges and threw in counts of battery. In February 2007, Murray and Allen were convicted and sentenced to eight months in lockup. Murray has been incarcerated 26 months while Morocco has fielded British appeals to extradite him. Aissaoui says Murray passes the time watching movies on a DVD player in his cell and reading books about the mob.

He must be watching too many movies, because lately he's been telling an unbelievable story about how the Brits extradited his sidekick, Allen. According to Murray, Allen was placed in manacles and taken to the Rabat airport, where Kent PD flew him to the U.K. in a Learjet.When it landed, he was taken by helicopter to Maidstone, where an armored Range Rover took him in a six-car convoy to the police station. Murray claims the roads were closed to traffic, with sharpshooters on roofs. It sounds a little too much like Silence of the Lambs. So I call Parker, who's also Allen's attorney. "It's all true," he tells me.

The Moroccan Supreme Court has, so far, denied extradition. But the legal code there allows the Brits to try Murray on Moroccan soil using local sentencing laws. Aissaoui believes a guilty verdict would get his client no more than 10 years, meaning Murray could be free at age 40, with more than $60 million of Securitas loot unaccounted for.

It's been 30 seconds since Epstein asked what I want to ask Murray. Then it hits me.

"Ask him what his favorite movie is," I say.

Epstein nods, as if I've done well. "The bloke wants to know your favorite movie." He listens to a voice on the other end of the line. "Lee has three," Epstein says.

Scarface.

The Bank Job.

Gotti.

Looking out the restaurant's steamy window, I suspect Epstein is feigning ignorance when he tells me he's not sure if Murray is behind the heist. "But if he was, I'm mad he didn't invite me," he says. "You dream about work like that." Most of Murray's friends concede that a $100 million robbery is just the kind of over-the-top heist he would pull. But why? Money? I doubt it. He could get rich through simpler illegal schemes. I think he did it because he knows it's the kind of story Hollywood loves, assuming the blokes in Hollywood get wind of it. And I've just followed his script.

Source: sports.espn

MYSTERY surrounds the death of a man whose body was found at a lorry park in Immingham.

Detectives are trying to piece together how the man, who has not been identified, suffered fatal injuries – but say not much is known at this stage.

As reported on www.thisis grimsby.co.uk, the man's body was discovered at the lorry park in Kings Road at about 6.10am yesterday.

Lorry drivers who had stayed at the park were forced to remain there as police carried out their investigations into the afternoon, forcing many to miss ferries.

Officers had to call in translators to speak to the drivers at the park, many of whom were Eastern European.

Forensic teams were at the scene, with a white tarpaulin erected where the body was found.

It is thought one of the lines of enquiry officers are pursuing is the man was hit by a lorry in the park and that the driver was unaware of what happened.

Detective Chief Inspector Bob Clark said: "We are currently trying to piece together the events that led to this man suffering fatal injuries in the truck park in Kings Road, Immingham.

"This is a busy part of Immingham that sees a lot of freight being transported to and from the docks by drivers from a number of different countries, many of whom may have stopped overnight in the lorry park.

"It is possible the death of this man was a tragic accident. However, not enough is known at this time to determine how the incident happened.

"It is vital any drivers in the area at the time who may have witnessed the incident or anyone with information contact us right away.

"Any information, no matter how small it may seem, could be vital to our investigation at this stage."

Anyone with information should call Humberside Police on 0845 6060222, quoting log 255 of June 28.

Click here to view video

A MAN was trapped for more than an hour in a vehicle after a crash between a car and a lorry.

Emergency crews were called to Belmont Village, Belmont Road, just before 1pm yesterday.

Police cordoned off both sides of the road as firefighters battled to free the man from the Citroen car he was driving. The vehicle was in a collision with a lorry carrying cattle feed.

Paramedics and a doctor, who was also called to the scene, administered treatment while crews from Darwen and Bolton North fire stations cut him free.

It took firefighters an hour to free the man, thought to be 50-years-old. He was taken to hospital suffering from leg injuries.

A number of road closures were put in place, including blocking traffic travelling up Egerton Road, down the A666 from Darwen, and Scout Road.

The closures — which caused long traffic queues throughout the day — were still in place into late afternoon as police started an investigation into the cause of the accident.

A spokeswoman for Lancashire Police said: “The driver was taken to the Royal Blackburn Hospital with leg injuries. His injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.”

Road closures remained in place until the road was cleared of debris and spillage resulting from the accident. It was reopened just after 4pm schaudhari@thebolton news.co.uk

Source: The Bolton News

New cases of swine flu could reach 100,000 a day by next month, the Government says.

The warning came as Health Secretary Andy Burnham today said it was now impossible to contain the virus indefinitely.

Mr Burnham announced a shift in the approach to tackling the virus from “containment” to “treatment”.

Doctors will diagnose swine flu in patients instead of waiting for lab tests to give a positive confirmation. Patients will be told to stay at home while arrangements are made for them to get anti-viral drugs.

Until now, Health Protection Agency officials have been testing and swabbing everyone who has symptoms.

Mr Burnham said hundreds of people a day were now going down with the illness. “We have reached the next stage in management of the disease. The national focus will be on treating the increasing numbers affected by swine flu. We will move to this treatment phase across the UK with immediate effect,” he said.

The latest figures show there are 7,447 laboratory-confirmed cases in the UK, including at least 1,794 in London.

There have been three deaths — the latest a six-year-old girl in Birmingham.

Emergency planners at NHS London confirmed that plans were in place for the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to be handed out at hundreds of guarded sites.

Schools and police stations would be used and the drugs would be given to flu “buddies” acting on behalf of patients.

Each part of the capital will have between 10 and 70 points where people can pick up the medication through a specially issued registration number.

The Government's emergency planning committee Cobra will take the final decision on when to distribute Tamiflu. Lorry-loads of the drugs will be sent to distribution points from a warehouse at a secret location.

Some parts of the UK have already shifted to a “treatment” phase, including London on 19 June. But most of the country had still been taking a “containment” approach.

A spokesman for NHS London said the health service was coping but collection points would be set up if GPs became overwhelmed with cases.

Mr Burnham said antivirals would be offered to all those who have the illness with higher risk patients given priority.

The Government had signed contracts for enough vaccine to cover the whole population.

The first will become available next month with 60 million doses available by the end of the year.

It emerged today that a special helpline for distributing anti-virals will not be ready for another few weeks.

One person has been killed and several others injured after two fuel tankers and up to 60 cars were involved in a series of crashes in thick fog.

The accidents on the A19 in Country Durham late last night left a scene of 'absolute devastation' according to emergency workers who rushed to the scene.

The first crash saw two petrol tankers, another lorry and a car collide on the southbound route near Peterlee shortly before 10.15pm.

As firemen and police battled to rescue people from that pile-up, another two accidents happened on the other side of the dual carriageway.

One person was killed in the first smash, apparently after being trapped in a car caught between the two tankers. Pictures showed vehicles were totally crushed.

'Devastation': Two petrol tankers, two HGVs and a car were involved in the first of three crashes on the A19 in Country Durham last night

A police spokesman said: 'Thick fog on the east coast is thought to have been a contributory factor in what happened and police are urging drivers to avoid the area.'

Officers said drivers had been going too fast in the conditions.

At least 10 fire crews rushed to the scene and more than 50 firefighters helped rescue drivers. Five people had to be released after getting trapped in their cars.

Firemen also had to cut away a 20m section of the central barrier of the dual carriageway so vehicles could be pulled away from the crush around the tankers.

David Turnbull, the fire officer in charge, said: 'When they responded they found absolute devastation.'

There was added concern because one of the tankers had started leaking. An operation to drain the containers of 60,000 of fuel is now under way.

Pile-up: Wreckage of cars is strewn across the road by one of the tankers

As police were dealing with the incident on the southbound carriageway a second series of collisions took place on the other side of the A19 involving 18 vehicles.

A third crash then took place on the Wellfield slip road involving three vehicles, one of which was a Vauxhall Astra police car involved in directing traffic.

A police spokesman said there were not thought to be any casualties from the two subsequent incidents.

He added that the officers on the scene 'also say too many motorists are failing to take heed of the conditions and are simply going too fast'.

Mr Turnbull said: 'It could have been a lot worse. When you have a scene like that, with so many vehicles involved, it's surprising more people weren't seriously hurt.'

He added that the cars and lorries had collided in a 'concertina effect'.

Officers said this stretch of the A19 was notoriously prone to poor visibility caused by sea frets.

The A19 remains closed in both directions and is likely to remain closed for some time, police said.

Officers from Durham are working with colleagues from Northumbria and Cleveland Police to investigate the series of crashes.

Source: Mail Online