However yesterday morning he failed to show up at Broadcasting House, leaving the BBC to put on a makeshift programme hosted by weekend DJ Kevin Greening which consisted almost entirely of continuous music.
Following Evans’s absence Radio 1 executives spoke to his agent and then decided to release him from his contract with immediate effect.. A headteacher and the warring factions on his governing body are largely to blame for bad management at a school closed for eight days over one disruptive 10-year-old boy, says a report published yesterday. The head and governors at Manton Junior School in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, were so preoccupied in fighting their own battles that children’s schooling suffered, says the report from local authority inspectors.
While governors breached the confidentiality of meetings, the head, Bill Skelley, withheld information from them and tried to dominate meetings.Last night, Mr Skelley’s union accused Nottinghamshire county council of trying to make the head a scapegoat for its own failings and for those of the governing body. Staff at Manton went on strike last autumn after governors twice overturned Mr Skelley’s decision to exclude Matthew Wilson.The dispute ended when the boy’s mother, who denied that he was disruptive, agreed that he should go to another school.The report says: “Relationships between the head-teacher and the governing body are unproductive.

The work of the governing body and the strategic management of the school have been adversely affected by lack of information to governors, mistrust, and too little involvement of governors in the life of the school.”The “development of factions within the governing body only served to worsen the situation.”The governors, say inspectors, are divided into those who feel they “are unable to make an effective contribution because of the domination of the head-teacher” and those who are “uncritically supportive of the head”.The balance of the governing body should be reconsidered because the recent resignation of some governors means that the majority are now strongly affiliated to the staff.”Governors need to ensure that they are always acting on behalf of the children of Manton and not uncritically backing staff proposals.”Pupil behaviour, which first brought the school into the limelight, is “sound and sometimes good”. Discipline and bad behaviour outside lessons occurs because the school puts too much emphasis on punishment and control and not enough on praise and personal responsibility.Relations between the head and staff are good, says the report, but it criticises them for insisting on retaining the maxi- mum number of teachers to keep class sizes low. “This has benefited staff morale more than pupil entitlement.”Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “I am deeply disappointed with the tone and partial content of the inspection re- port, in particular the summary.”The full report points to the generally sound school policy development and the significant progress made in the last two years under Mr Bill Skelley’s leadership.”Nigel de Gruchy, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, to which the school’s eight classroom teachers belong, said: “The report confirms my impressions that classroom teachers were doing a good competent job in difficulty circumstances.”. The television presenter and former Premier League footballer John Fashanu received up to pounds 800,000 in deals with the alleged representative of a Far Eastern betting syndicate, a court heard yesterday. Christopher Vincent, a former business partner of the goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar, told Winchester Crown Court that Fashanu’s payments were discussed after Grobbelaar had collected pounds 40,000 in an elephant-skin briefcase from the former striker for allegedly fixing a match between Liverpool and Newcastle.
Mr Vincent told the court: “When we were leaving … Grobbelaar told me Fashanu had made somewhere between pounds 400,000 and pounds 800,000 doing business with ‘the short man’ “.Giving evidence on the fourth day of the trial in which Fashanu, Grobbelaar and the former Wimbledon goalkeeper, Hans Segers, are accused of fixing matches, on which the syndicate betted, Mr Vincent said it was Fashanu who had introduced Grobbelaar to the Indonesian outfit.”Mr Grobbelaar told me that he had been introduced to some men from the Far East by John Fashanu. They were prepared to pay him pounds 1,500-pounds 2,000 a week for predicting the outcome of football games.”Later, Grobbelaar told his fellow Zimbabwean that this had changed to fixing games – by ensuring Liverpool lost.”I asked him how that was possible.

He said he had been Liverpool’s goalkeeper for 14 years and if he was standing a yard or a foot off his line, no one would know,” said Mr Vincent.Grobbelaar had told him he was unhappy about how much his club, Liverpool, paid him compared with new players such as Paul Stewart, and was particularly unhappy at his treatment by Liverpool’s then manager, Graeme Souness.Mr Vincent said apart from the pounds 40,000 paid to him at a north London address where Fashanu was present, he had been with the goalkeeper when he received payments of pounds 1,000, pounds 750 and pounds 500 from a man he knew as “the short man” – whom the prosecution say is the fourth defendant, Heng Lim, allegedly the Indonesian syndicate’s UK representative.On the first of these meetings, Grobbelaar and Mr Vincent had waited in the foyer of the Hilton Hotel at Manchester Airport when the short man came in and Grobbelaar said: “That’s my man”. Later, Mr Vincent said Grobbelaar had received pounds 1,000 in a brown envelope handed over in the gents toilet.The court heard that Grob-belaar and Mr Vincent had become close friends after the goalkeeper invested pounds 65,000 in a safari and golf-trip companies but had fallen out when the safari company collapsed in summer, 1994.Mr Vincent said that he then contacted the Sun newspaper, which arranged for him to meet Grobbelaar in a series of videotaped interviews with Mr Vincent, offering him the chance of a new match-fixing syndicate.Grobbelaar, 38, Fashanu, 33, and Malaysian-born Lim, 31, all deny giving or receiving money in a corrupt conspiracy to influence the outcome of a foot- ball match or as a reward for doing so.Fashanu, Lim and 34-year-old Segers deny a similar charge. Grobbelaar denies a separate charge of receiving pounds 2,000 as an inducement for influencing a football match.Mr Vincent is at present in custody in connection with a charge on a separate matter.The case continues.. Nicola Horlick, the City pension fund manager, yesterday remained committed to her fight to win back her pounds 1m-a-year job but her attempts seemed deadlocked as her former employer, Morgan Grenfell Asset Management, was equally strong in its resolve not to reinstate her. Mrs Horlick grabbed the headlines last week for her acrimonious departure from MGAM, where she had worked for five years and earned a reputation as one of the City’s top fund managers. She was also known as Superwoman for her ability to combine her hectic family life, she has five children and an investment banking husband, and her demanding job.
John Farr, her lawyer, said yesterday she wanted to reach an amicable settlement with her former employer as soon as possible.”Her first choice would definitely be to get her job back,” said Mr Farr.

But if this was not possible then compensation, expected to run to millions of pounds, is the alternative. If this fails she is likely to take legal action against MGAM for “constructive dismissal”.”If there is not a quick amicable solution, she has been constructively dismissed and we would be going to court. If there is going to be an amicable solution, it should be fairly quick – one would hope by the end of the week – otherwise we’re probably into the legal proceedings route.”MGAM said it not been contacted by Mrs Horlick and had no reason to communicate with her because she was no longer an employee. “The ball’s in her court,” a spokesman said.The row broke out last Tuesday when Robert Smith, the chief executive of MGAM, suspended Mrs Horlick when he suspected she had been talking to a rival firm about moving there with her MGAM team. He had promoted her to his deputy the previous Friday.She denied that she was planning any such move.Stars out of control, page 14. As suspended ’superwoman’ Nicola Horlick took her fight against Morgan Grenfell Asset Management on to the streets of London at the weekend, no one was wincing more than Anthony Cardew, the City public relations man who has been advising her on her strategy – or at least thought he was. Fellow spin doctors in the Square Mile have been astounded by the pension manager’s publicity-seeking antics.