Member News

August Newsletter Racing Special

Recent local media reports have indicated that more over 60s are getting divorced. This follows a recent report published by the Office for National Statistics.

Emma Alfieri from our family team comments: “The team has seen an increasing number of Divorce Petitions being brought amongst the older generation, particularly those in their 60s and 70s. The reason for the steady rise appears to be down to a number of social factors, including the fact that both sexes are living longer as it is reported that life expectancy has increased, particularly for men.

We are experiencing many older clients that are becoming disillusioned with their marriages once the children have flown the nest and for many, the view seems to be that retirement is the start of the next phase of their lives, not the end.

There also appears to be an increase in women’s independence, and cultural values give the perception that divorces are now more socially acceptable”.

Financial matters can be more complicated when over 60s are going through divorce proceedings, particularly when pensions are in payment. Therefore we would suggest that early legal advice is sought.

For further information please contact our family team.

Leathes Prior are delighted to announce the appointment of Sarah Appleton, who joined the firm in August 2013.

Sarah has previously worked at Birketts having joined their firm as a Trainee in 2009 and qualifying in 2011. Sarah brings experience in acting for Employers in a wide range of contentious and non-contentious work and with her passion and enthusiasm she will be a great asset to our firm. Sarah will be joining our Employment team which is led by Partner, Dan Chapman and she will work alongside Partner, Paula Lawn and Solicitor, Catherine Hepworth in our busy and growing Employment team. In particular, we believe that Sarah’s expertise will be appreciated by the many subscribers to our Employmentor® service.

Dan Chapman, Partner and head of the Employment team comments: “We are thrilled that Sarah has chosen to join Leathes Prior and become part of our Employment team. We aim to build on our reputation for providing first class, pragmatic and commercial employment advice and I am sure that Sarah will be a valuable member of the team and will help us achieve our desired objectives.”

Sarah Appleton comments “I am excited to be joining Leathes Prior which signals a new chapter in my career. I look forward to working with the first class team at Leathes Prior, and being a part of the firm’s future success”

In the current heatwave, Labour MP Linda Riordan has tabled an early day motion which could make it law for workplaces to send staff home when temperatures reach more than 30C. The group of MPs behind the campaign, which it seems is unlikely to succeed, claim that it could prevent potentially fatal accidents.

The Halifax MP said ministers should “resolve uncertainty for employers about their duty to combat excessive heat in the workplace by introducing a maximum working workplace temperature of 30 degrees C (86F) and of 27 degrees C (81 degrees F) for those doing strenuous work”.

The motion warns that employees in workplaces are often subjected to temperatures which can “impact seriously on their health and well-being”.

“While the current warm weather can make some workplaces uncomfortable, I think it would be very difficult to enforce a maximum temperature as humidity and air quality vary so much from one workplace to another,” said Big Sky Additions’ director, Justin Murray. “We would encourage all employers to do as much as they can to make workplace temperatures bearable to ensure high levels of productivity and staff welfare are maintained,” he added. “Simple things like using blinds to block out direct sunlight, providing free standing fans close to windows to circulate cooler air and turning off unnecessary computer equipment can all help to keep office temperatures down,” suggested Justin.

There are currently guidelines regarding minimum workplace temperatures, but nothing to cover the current heatwave conditions. An official code of practice introduced in 1992 as part of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations states that workplace temperatures should not normally drop below 16 degrees C – or 13 degrees C if the work involves severe physical effort – but there is no suggested maximum limit.

Clear skies and low winds finally enabled our intrepid team to take the ‘plunge’ and complete their solo sky dives on Friday 26th July at Beccles.

We are very proud of Simon, Mo, Carl and Laura who bravely took to the skies and all performed perfect dives before landing safely in the surrounding fields. In fact Laura achieved the best ‘first’ jump that the club had seen in the last six months.

Their efforts have already raised £846.25. Thank you to everyone who have so kindly donated. In a world that has so many good causes to support, we are grateful that we could direct funds to the centres as they literally change young peoples lives.

It’s not too late to show your support and so if you wish to make a donation, please visit the link https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/nurtureforthehighjump

Don’t forget, if you would like to be in with the chance of winning two VIP tickets to see NCFC V Aston Villa on the 21st September, simply email your details to [email protected]

Once again, thank you for your ongoing support.

Has your local police officer, member of police staff or community volunteer gone that extra mile for you? Is there something they do for your community you would like to acknowledge?

Norfolk Constabulary is asking you to show your appreciation by voting for them in our Norfolk Safer Community Award (NOSCAs).

Now entering its sixth year, the Norfolk Safer Community Awards offer people the opportunity to support the continuing efforts of the community and the Constabulary in keeping Norfolk a safe county to live, work and visit.

The awards combine internal recognition with local communities voting for officers deserving of an award for their contributions to their local community. Additionally, if people know of an exceptional individual or group who deserve to be thanked they are encouraged to nominate them for an award.

T/Chief Constable Simon Bailey praised the Norfolk Safer Community Awards saying:

“Highlighting the crucial work officers, staff and members of our local communities undertake every single day to help keep their neighbourhoods safe is a fundamental part of policing. The Norfolk Safer Community Awards offer us the opportunity to recognise their contributions appropriately.

“If you know a police officer, police community support officer, special constable or member of the community who has helped you to feel safe in your home or neighbourhood, perhaps by tackling an issue which matters to you, then please vote for them in these awards.”

Readers of the Eastern Daily Press can choose their Community Officer of the Year from those nominated by district commanders at Norfolk Constabulary. Voting forms will be available in paper and online.

The three other categories that members of the public can nominate someone for are The John (Cecil) Mason Volunteer of the Year, Young Citizen(s) of the Year and Community Citizen(s) of the Year.

The Chief Constable’s Special Recognition Award is a new category for 2013. It is an opportunity for the Chief Constable to recognise the work of an individual or team where their contribution to delivering the Constabulary’s performance has been significant yet under-recognised.

Norfolk Safer Community Awards are funded by sponsorship from commercial and community partners.

The event has two gold sponsors who significantly contribute to the awards and we are grateful for their support. As media partner, the EDP promotes the event in paper and on the EDP24 website and Holiday Inn, Norwich Airport provides the venue and catering at a reduced rate.

Sponsors for 2013 include:

• Eastern Daily Press – Community Police Officers of the Year • Holiday Inn – venue sponsorship • Office for the Police and Crime Commissioner for Norfolk • City College Norwich • Norfolk Chamber of Commerce • Shell UK Ltd • Reed Specialist Recruitment • GSL Dardan

Nominations can be made for people from local communities through to police officers and police staff, who with their actions and words have made a difference to the area we live and work in.

The deadline for nominations is 7 August 2013. The winners and runners-up will be invited to a special awards evening taking place at Holiday Inn, Norwich Airport on 3 October 2013.

Entry criteria and voting forms are available to download on the Norfolk Constabulary website www.norfolk.police.uk

Ashton KCJ Solicitors is delighted to announce a number of new Associate appointments from within the firm.

Four members of staff have been appointed as Associates, having successfully completed Ashton KCJ’s Development Programme.

Congratulations go to Gillian Brasher, Jennie Kingham and Teresa Callender, from our Lifetime Planning team and Mark Watson from the Corporate & Commercial team. Gillian, who heads our Trust and Tax team, is based in our Cambridge office, Jennie is based in Ipswich, Teresa works at our Bury St Edmunds Guildhall Street office and Mark is based in Norwich.

Ashton KCJ’s CEO, Edward O’Rourke says: “I would like to congratulate Gillian, Jennie, Teresa and Mark on this achievement, which is richly deserved. These appointments demonstrate Ashton KCJ’s commitment to investing in the professional development of our staff. It is always rewarding to be able to promote talented team members from within the firm. These appointments take the number of associates in the firm to 17 – together with our 40 partners, they are working to meet a wide range of legal needs across the region and beyond.”

As part of our commitment to keeping you informed about police and crime issues affecting the business community, we will be issuing brief monthly email updates on any areas relevant to you.

Please see below for July’s update. If you require any further information on the issues noted, please contact Norfolk Police on 101.

Crime across the county is down compared with this time last year. For the year 2012/13 to the end of June 2013, crime is down 4.5%, with 146 fewer crimes being recorded than the previous year. Current business crime issues are:

COUNTY – Diesel thefts – An increase in diesel thefts has been noted over the past month. Diesel is being targeted from motor vehicles, plant machinery, boats and containers. The key area targeted is around the Broads, also spreading into the Great Yarmouth district. The majority of offences are occurring overnight. In some offences large amounts of fuel is being taken which suggests that offenders are using a large lorry or container. Any containers or vehicles should be stored securely where possible and any suspicious behaviour should be reported immediately on 999.

COUNTY – New online advice for businesses – A wealth of advice and information relating to business safety is now available on the Norfolk Constabulary website. This section of the site has been update to include sections on key subjects for local businesses, including rural crime, scams, night time and licensing and fraud.

NORWICH – Cash exchange scam – Officers from Norwich North Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) have issued several images of a group of people they want to speak to after a number of cash exchange frauds were committed across Norwich during the weekend of 31 May 2013.

COUNTY – Rogue trader jailed – A rogue trader who charged overinflated prices for unnecessary and substandard work across East Anglia has been jailed for 18 months. Arthur Draper persuaded elderly homeowners in Norfolk and Suffolk to have work done on their properties, and also benefitted from overcharged work carried out in Cambridgeshire.

PORINGLAND – Truck and trailer stolen – Police are appealing for information after a pick-up truck was stolen during a burglary in Poringland. The incident happened between midnight and 6am onTuesday 2 July, in West Green.

Join Police Direct Police Direct is a high tech messaging service provided by Suffolk Police, which is designed to bring you up to date information about crime and policing issues in your area. We can send you information by email to your computer, by text to your mobile phone, or by leaving a message on your landline.

Norwich based SaxonAir Charter Ltd has seen a record increase in air charter use during the first six months trading of 2013.

Aeroplane charter hours for the first half of the year increased by over 65% against the same first six months trading of 2012, with Helicopter charter hours at its Norwich base up by 41% in the same period. Christopher Mace, Group Commercial Director, believes this positive news is a further sign of increased business activity from the UK as companies see the value in optimising travel time for key staff away from both the office environment and family life. SaxonAir has recently undertaken a campaign to promote private air charter to the business community highlighting the time saving benefits, flexibility and potential boost in productivity that can be gained by using the service.

“Air Charter is not necessarily about living a luxury lifestyle, being served champagne and caviar on-board” advises Mr Mace. “The majority of our clients are in fact businesses who appreciate that air charter enables them to make the very best use of their time with pre-cleared check-ins, the ability to undertake work on board in private and secure surroundings as well as landing at private airports closer to their destination not served by the airlines.”

Travelling with scheduled airlines can take you out of the office for several days, driving to major airports and adjusting your day to fit into the airline schedule – plus there’s the stress of delays or missing your flight if your meeting over-runs, lengthy check-in queues and pricy city hotel stopovers. With SaxonAir’s air charter service you can be in the air within minutes of arriving at your local airport, arrive refreshed and ready for a productive day’s business being back home to your family that evening – and back at your desk the next morning ensuring your business keeps flowing.

“There is no substitute for meeting face to face” adds Mace, “a major contract could be in the balance, presentations to be given or multiple sites to visit. These are many of the reasons when our business clients use the service as part of their overall transport solutions. The increased use of our aircraft in the first half of this year is down to a better understanding of air charter, our staff’s commitment to customer service and the varied modern aircraft fleet that we can offer”.

SaxonAir operates from their headquarters in Norwich alongside operating bases in London, Cannes and Thessaloniki in Greece. The varied aircraft fleet on offer ranges from entry level Citation Mustang jets to midsize Hawker 900XP and both a single and twin engine helicopter fleet. In its six years of operation the SaxonAir group of companies has continued to expand and today sees its total number of staff at almost 50, bringing a significant boost to the East Anglian region’s economy and infrastructure at Norwich International Airport.

BEST WESTERN Brook Hotel are looking to recruit a full time Receptionist in their Norwich Hotel, working 5 Reception shifts on a rota basis – early shifts are 7am to 3pm and late shifts are 3pm to 11pm, includes weekends.

Please apply if you have reception experience and a great customer care background.

Send your CV with covering email to [email protected] or by post to Sarah Jones, B.W. Brook Hotel, 2 Barnard Road, Norwich, NR5 9JB

www.brookhotel.co.uk

Bidwells, one of the UK’s leading property consultancies, today announced the launch of Bidwells TV

The new channel, which is accessible via PCs, laptops, Tablets (such as iPads) and smart phones will feature every residential property marketed by Bidwells in their offices in Nprwich, Cambridge and Saffron Walden. Each featured property, whether for sale or to let, will be promoted via a tailored, high quality animated walk-through video.

Recent research conducted by Nielsen, a leading global information and measurement company, concluded that property marketing via online TV channels, is more effective than traditional advertising methods and the most compelling medium to show case property.

Commenting at the launch of Bidwells TV Marc Langdon, Bidwells said

“Online video walk-throughs allow potential buyers to view new homes without having to step outside their front door – or even on their smartphones – wherever and whenever they want.”

“This innovative way of marketing is particularly popular because it enables the seller to display particular features of the property, which may not always be easy with more traditional methods of marketing, such as newspaper advertising.”

” Bidwells TV will be an integral part of every property marketing campaign we implement – ie the campaign will comprise print ads, portal campaigns (such as Rightmove and Zoopla), digital marketing and now virtual tours on a dedicated channel. No competitor can match that potent mix”.

For a virtual tour of a property visit www.bidwells.tv or access it via Bidwells’ website www.bidwells.co.uk.

While more and more countries around the world try to emulate Silicon Valley-style digitally-fuelled economic success, it’s ironic that the free flow of data is increasingly problematic for the governments that run them. The ease with which the Internet moves information, sans frontiers, seems to emphasise the smallness of national government compared to the ‘bigness’ of data. Privacy, defamation, national security, taxation and, of course in the news at the moment, pornography, are the regular flashpoints between the big Internet brands and governments in a battle which pitches the freedom web users against the laws of the State they live in.

Transparency The negotiation between citizen and state is as old as humanity and historically has been resolved with revolution, execution, imprisonment and, thankfully, most often by legislation. However, the Internet is a new factor in the relationship – empowering citizens to make choices, (some good, some bad and some ghastly), independently of the laws of their land on an unprecedented scale. Not surprisingly governments try to assert the law when one of their citizens uses the Internet to do something that they consider ‘ghastly’ – the problem is that what the state considers ‘ghastly’ varies from country to country. In fact Google deals with so many requests to modify or block online material from governments around the world that it publishes a Transparency Report listing them all. As the search giant explains:

“Like other technology and communications companies, Google regularly receives requests from government agencies and courts around the world to remove content from our services or to review such content to determine if it should be removed for inconsistency with a product’s community policies. In this report, we disclose the number of requests we receive from each government in six-month periods with certain limitations.”

Fascinating Reading! And fascinating reading it is – the number of content removal requests from government agencies has doubled to close to 2,300 in the last three years with over 30% of the them being concerned with defamation compared to just 3% over adult content. The detail of requests by country is an insight into the sheer breadth of world’s diversity in terms of culture, values and laws … and the Internet’s border-traversing ability to trample all over them!

The kind of ‘micro-management’ offered by Google – taking requests, considering them and then sometimes removing the content – clearly frustrates governments. The UK Prime Minister’s is the latest political leader to take on the issue, focussing on blocking child pornography on which he has massive support. While the moral mandate is clearly there, what precise action should be taken is already proving problematic. When the rubber hits the road and national legislation comes up against the physical reality of that sprawling bundle of hardware and software we call the Internet, control is difficult. Behind the beguiling simplicity of the Cloud is an international patchwork of servers, data centres and networks that host and transport the content that users call up via their search box. Where these servers and data centres are located in the world and which borders the networks cross really does matter, not only because there’s some web-content that we want to block, but also because there is web-content that we want to protect.

Where is your data stored? For web-based businesses, the location of the data centre where your data is stored is a significant factor in how much tax you pay, what legal protection you have if someone tries to violate your copyright, and what level of control and ownership you have over your data. Clients of MigSolv’s colocation data centre in Norwich, for example, can rely on the strength of the UK legal systems, a stable tax rate and benign Government interference when it comes to freedom of speech and expression, all of which amounts to security. When they say that in the Cloud it doesn’t matter where your data’s stored, it’s simply not true – while it’s important that, (most), data moves freely, it’s vital that web businesses can rely on a stable, secure and fair legal environment for their data.