Watercooler Stories

Man hides spy cam in teacher's bedroom

CHEONGJU, South Korea, July 8 (UPI) -- A South Korean man says he secretly installed a spy camera in a female teacher's bedroom "out of curiosity," police say.

The man, identified only as Oh, told police he put the camera in the closet of the teacher's Cheongju home "out of curiosity about a woman's private life," The Korea Times reported Wednesday.

The newspaper said the man was a salaried worker at a cosmetics company who admitted to stealing a key to the woman's house as she was visiting the company to test its new product.

Police say the teacher discovered the camera as she was cleaning up her room. The Times said Oh was nabbed after police examined the sales records of nearby camera equipment stores.

British nurse suspended for double duty

LONDON, July 8 (UPI) -- British medical authorities have suspended a nurse who simultaneously worked full-time jobs at hospitals in London and Wales.

The conduct and competence committee of the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard Athene Baiete-Coker, 32, worked for nearly 12 months at two National Health Service hospitals, the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London, the Daily Mail reported Wednesday.

The hospitals are about 150 miles apart.

Baiete-Coker said she was living in Cardiff and working at the hospital in the city when she accepted the London job to be closer to her fiance. However, she said she decided to keep the Cardiff job after her mother, who lives in the city, fell ill with a brain tumor.

"In my culture, the eldest automatically becomes the main provider or sole provider," said Baiete-Coker, whose family moved from Sierra Leone to Cardiff when she was 14. "Because my mum was a single parent it was always left to me."

The nurse pleaded guilty in May 2008 at Cardiff Magistrates Court to five charges including false accounting, obtaining money by deception and falsifying documents. She was sentenced to four months imprisonment.

Jillian Alderwick, chair of the Nursing and Midwifery Council panel, said the council found Baiete-Coker's fitness to practice was impaired and suspended her for 12 months.

Police forces at odds over wardrobe

OTTAWA, July 8 (UPI) -- A Canadian police force in Ontario has turned a cold shoulder on fellow officers in a job dispute across the river in Quebec over their choice of clothing.

For more than two years, police officers, in Gatineau, Quebec, have been locked in a labor dispute. Unable to strike, they took to refusing to wear their traditional uniforms and substituted cargo pants and baseball caps for standard issue, the Ottawa Sun reported.

That doesn't sit well across the Ottawa River in the nation's capital, where Ottawa Police Chief Vern White traditionally deputized Gatineau officers to work in his jurisdiction.

Tuesday, White said he wouldn't deputize any more Gatineau officers wearing the protest pants and hats.

"My worry is people won't realize it's a police officer -- they'll think it's a gang member," White said. "You'll have a guy standing there with street pants and a street hat and a dark jacket with a gun in his hand and you won't know he's a police officer."

His decision doesn't affect Gatineau officers pursuing a suspect into Ottawa or plainclothes officers, the Sun said.

British millionaire finishes 65-foot folly

DORCHESTER, England, July 8 (UPI) -- An English millionaire said construction is complete on the 65-foot-tall folly on his 1,700-acre Rushmore Estate.

William Gronow-Davis said he spent tens of thousands of dollars constructing the Indian Mogul-style structure, which serves no practical purpose, The Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday.

Gronow-Davis said the folly "finishes off" his garden and adds to the vista from the drawing room of his mansion, which is located a mile away from the structure.

Telecom provider O2 had originally struck a deal to incorporate five mobile phone masts on the structure's design, but Gronow-Davis said he decided to go ahead with the project even after O2 dropped out.

However, the folly features five copper domes on its top that can later be used to install telecom equipment.

"The telephone company was going to pay for it but that all fell through," Gronow-Davis said. "By that time I decided I wanted the folly and so I paid for it. I would say that 99 percent of the feedback I have had has been positive. Natural England has said it enhances the landscape."