Portrait of the week | 2 May 2013

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In the run-up to local elections, Kenneth Clarke, the Minister without Portfolio, described the UK Independence Party candidates as ‘clowns’. RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, assumed control of ten Reaper drone aircraft in use over Afghanistan. Irfan Naseer, 31, from Birmingham, the ringleader of a plot to use eight suicide bombers in attacks that could have killed thousands, was sentenced to five life sentences; of ten others charged, four men who admitted an offence of travelling overseas for terrorism training were sentenced to three years, and six men to between four and 18 years. Six men from the West Midlands pleaded guilty to planning to bomb an English Defence League rally at Dewsbury; five took a homemade bomb to the rally but arrived too late. The government signed a treaty with Jordan in the hope of easing the deportation of Abu Qatada. Theresa May, the Home Secretary was to apply directly to the Supreme Court for a hearing of its case against a ruling by the Court of Appeal against the deportation. Mahmood al Zarooni, the trainer at the Maktoum family’s Godolphin stable at Newmarket, was banned for eight years after 11 horses tested positive for anabolic steroids.

Max Clifford, the publicist, was charged with 11 cases of indecent assaults against teenaged girls and women between 1966 and 1985. An independent investigation into claims of historical child abuse at children’s homes in north Wales found evidence of 140 alleged cases. A Sinn Fein motion calling for legalisation of same sex marriage was defeated in the Northern Ireland Assembly by 53 votes to 42. A headmistress found hanged at her school in Worcestershire had feared it would lose its ‘outstanding’ rating in an Ofsted inspection. Luis Suarez, the Liverpool striker who bit an opponent, was banned for ten matches.