Nightmare: Avtar (same name as father) Kolar and Michelle Kirwan after their parents’ murders

After Anuj Bidve, another Indian murder

Much more has come to light about the 37-year-old Lithuanian, Rimvydas Liorancas, who hanged himself in his prison cell last Saturday rather than face a lifetime in prison for the horrific murder of Avtar Kolar, 62, and his wife, Carole, 58, at their home in Handsworth, Birmingham.

It’s now been disclosed that Liorancas was an exceptionally violent criminal who was on the run from Lithuania but found it surprisingly easy to wander in and out of Britain. A month before he bludgeoned the Kolars to death with a lump hammer, he had done some work on their patio as a jobbing builder.

It is not unusual these days for householders to find perfectly respectable East Europeans knocking on their doors, offering to do everything from cutting the hedge to redecorating the kitchen. But Britain’s open door policy for nationals of the European Union has meant that probably hundreds of criminals have also managed to sneak in.

Damian Green, the immigration minister, wants an annual cap on “immigrants coming from outside the European Union” — a form of code for Blacks and Asians. There is nothing he can do about EU migrants, millions of whom have come into the UK without the need to get visas.

Liorancas’s ex-wife, Ingrida, with whom he had two children, revealed he had been involved in crime since he left school.

He first strolled into the UK even after a warrant had been issued across Europe for his arrest. He lived in Britain for almost a year before he was found and sent back to Lithuania. But he slipped back into Britain last year despite having no passport and a string of convictions. The British authorities had no idea Liorancas was even in the country until they arrested him two weeks ago.

Nor is his case exceptional.

Another Lithuanian, child-rapist Victor Akulic was let into Britain, where he went on to rape a woman. And Kajus Scuka, a sexual predator from the Czech Republic who had murdered his wife, was able to travel to the UK where he carried out a knifepoint rape and three serious sex attacks.

Avtar Kolar and his wife had been married for 40 years and had four children, one of them a policeman who discovered his parents’ bodies on January 11. The irony is that under the new immigration policies, it is Kolar who would have been kept out.

 

ROYAL MISS: A RAF Typhoon in LibyaFlying colours: Geri Halliwell’s new linenew kat: Amy Jackson

Down under

The “experts” who pick what fighter aircraft India should have are a bit like the selectors who choose the Indian cricket team —they cannot always be relied upon to get it right. Most of us could not tell the French Dassault Rafale from a Eurofighter Typhoon but instinctively I feel the “French kiss” will end in tears.

Admittedly, what I know about fighter aircraft wouldn’t fill the back of the proverbial postage stamp, though I did go up in a Jaguar once. During my schooldays in England, I had a friend who was mad keen on aircraft and used to drag me along to the Farnborough Air Show.

One thing I do know is that flying is part of the culture of this country. This is no reflection on modern French technology but if I had to put my life on it, I would go with the RAF. No doubt, the Indian Air Force has gallant officers but has anyone kept tabs on how many aircraft it has lost? (See Rang De Basanti again.)

A few weeks ago I heard a radio programme about the dodgy world of arms dealing. The Brits, who recently introduced an anti-bribery law, were grumbling that the French fight dirty — in the past the latter supplied their best girls to prospective Arab buyers.

Maybe the Indian team has picked the right aircraft but something tells me we have blundered. This is too important and too expensive a decision to be left to “experts” — the case for and against should be explained to the hapless Indian following ball by ball from Down Under.

 

Flying colours:Geri Halliwell's new line

Flag waving

Flag waving is a sign of patriotism but can too much flag waving be a sign of a ruling elite that takes itself too seriously?

The former Spice Girl, Geri Halliwell, famously wore a red, white and blue mini-dress at the Brit Awards in 1997 as an enduring image of Cool Britannia. Now 39, she has just designed a range of dresses, bikinis and tops emblazoned with the flag image for the Next fashion chain.

“I originally made the first one out of a tea towel,” explained Geri. “I think this dress has definitely become iconic — and equally it celebrates Britain. I think it’s time we fly the flag with real pride.”

This dangerous experiment shouldn’t be attempted in India.

 

Big cats

Dramatic pictures of a leopard attacking a man in Guwahati appeared all over the British press.

Nothing like that has happened in Britain but since 1970 there have been persistent reports of big cats stalking the English countryside. A popular theory is that panthers released from private zoos in the 1970s have bred in the wild. The “beast of Bodmin” was a tag that stuck to sightings in Cornwall.

When two deer carcasses were discovered recently in Woodchester Park, thick woods in Gloucestershire, local experts claimed the puncture marks indicated the animals had been brought down by a “big cat”.

No fewer than 45 samples were taken from the carcasses but after hundreds of tests, Robin Allaby, associate professor at the School of Life Sciences, could only find the DNA of foxes.

It is not quite The Hound of the Baskervilles. The sceptical argue that if the big cats did exist, they would surely have been found by now. Others say there have been too many sightings for them to be merely figments of the imagination.

 

Mike calling

My wife picked up yet another nuisance call and passed the phone to me.

“I am Mike from Manchester,” the caller went. “Have you had an accident in the last three months?”

I knew whatever his name was, it was not Mike. It was obvious he hailed from south India.

“We all have to make a living but shouldn’t you be using your real name?” I suggested (I thought) reasonably.

“Mike from Manchester” finally conceded, “Mike is my ‘professional’ name — why are you asking all these questions?” and hung up on me.

My wife, impeccably mannered, ticked me off for speaking in such an off-hand manner to the nuisance caller.

 

New Kat:Amy Jackson

Tittle tattle

English actress Amy Jackson, 20, was not available to do a face- to-face interview but her PR girls arranged me to do a “phoner” down the line from Mumbai.

“It’s the city that never sleeps,” says Amy, who is from Liverpool but seems happily settled in India.

She was to have come home for Christmas and the New Year but she is busy promoting her films. There are two more in the pipeline so “I won’t be home until April/May”.

Perhaps it’s still a little too early to call her “the new Katrina Kaif” but Amy certainly seems to be headed that way.