Donal MacIntyre

AN illegal immigrant and his gang of "sex slavers" were jailed for up to nine years each today after selling a terrified mother to a pimp on Interpol's "most wanted" list.

The woman,who risked her life and shattered her foot in a desperate 20ft leap to freedom,was lured from Lithuania to Britain with promises of well-paid work.

But what followed was a "despicable " nightmare of betrayal, fear and sexual abuse as her new "owner" abused her himself before renting her out to others.

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Another of TV's hidden cameras had him bang to rights last week: a con man ripping off customers and bringing a great industry into disrepute. Unhappily, though, this particular camera was pointed at some dodgy Del Boy peddling phoney Prada in backstreet Manchester. We never wandered within miles of Bolton's Reebok stadium. Neither did this routine 'big sting' (from Donal MacIntyre on Channel Five) make the BBC morning news.

You might reasonably wonder why not, though. At least MacIntyre's concealed lens caught some incontrovertible action. In Panorama's hour of bungs and bluster nothing much happened: though a succession of low-lifes talked the talk, none of them went on to walk the walk. Hang on, here's an actual manager coming to collect £50,000! Sorry – he's not turning up after all.

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A STAR-STUDDED event marked this year's Irish Post Awards as the cream of Irish talent descended upon London's Piccadilly.

The event was attended by celebrities such as Comedy Award winner Ardal O'Hanlon, famous from his days as Father Dougal McGuire on the television show Father Ted, and The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan, who scooped the Outstanding Irish Music Personality Award.

The sporting field was also well represented as Kilkenny GAA legend DJ Carey picked up his Hall of Fame Award and European Cup champions the Munster rugby team scooped the award for the Best Sporting Achievement of 2006.

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An impressive list of guest speakers is lined up for Coventry Conversations, the hugely successful series of free talks in which media movers and shakers come to Coventry University to share their secrets.

From 5 October, however, the Conversations will be split between two locations as part of a media-sharing experience with the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery.

The talks, which are open to the general public, will take place in the Ellen Terry building every other week on Thursday lunchtimes and alternate with the Herbert across the road for an early evening session.

It is hoped that the evening talks will attract new and wider audiences who may find lunchtime sessions difficult to get to.

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