He wouldn’t say boo to a goose, he was such a quiet fellow and seemed so reserved. It’s a terrible tragedy.”Christine Reeve, who used to do the same Avon round as the injured mother, said she had delivered goods to the Stuchbery family. “He was one of my customers, his wife bought deodorants and things for him,” she added.Another neighbour said: “This is a friendly little community, we send each other Christmas cards and we are all shocked.”Sue Mansfield, a part-time care assistant, said she would start a petition in the village if the woman was charged by police following the incident.. Staff at Sotheby’s, the world’s oldest and most famous auctioneers, were suspended yesterday following allegations that works of art were smuggled into Britain. An undercover documentary, to be shown tonight on Channel 4’s Dispatches programme will include footage which allegedly shows a Sotheby’s employee offering to smuggle to Britain a work by the 18th- century Italian painter Giuseppe Nogari, worth pounds 9,500, and acknowledging that it was illegal for the portrait to leave Italy.

The film also shows another employee overseeing the arrival of the painting at the company’s salesrooms in New Bond Street, central London.
The footage was taken by an undercover camerawoman who hid a fish-eye camera in a crystal brooch she wore while posing as an Australian keen to sell paintings she had inherited. She left the painting with Sotheby’s and two months later it arrived in London. It was later sold at auction for pounds 7,000.The programme is the result of an investigation by the arts journalist Peter Watson, whose book, Sotheby’s: The Inside Story, being serialised in the Times, accuses the auctioneers of arranging the illegal export of Old Masters from Italy to England, involvement in the export of antiquities from India to England, and falsifying documents to hide the origin of works of art.In a statement yesterday, Sotheby’s confirmed that the staff concerned had been suspended but would not say how many had been suspended, nor who they were or what positions they hold.”Dispatches appears to have attempted on several occasions to have deliberately enticed Sotheby’s employees into breaching our strict procedures,” the statement said.”We deplore Dispatches’ methods. Nevertheless, rules may have been broken and the staff concerned have been suspended pending a fuller investigation.”Such behaviour, if proven, does not represent the company’s practices, not will it be condoned by the company’s management.”In recent years Sotheby’s, which was founded in 1744 and has offices in London, New York, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Amsterdam and Geneva, has reviewed its trading practices, resulting in what the company describes as “clearly defined rules and standards of behaviour for its 1,600 employees around the world who annually inspect one million objects”.In 1983 the company was bought by the American developer Alfred Taubman, who owns 63 per cent of it.In 1995 its turnover was $1.48bn (pounds 925m).. A former resident of a North Wales children’s home told a hearing yesterday that he had been forced to have oral sex with a care worker and that his life in care had led him to attempt suicide many times. The man, now 35, told the North Wales Child Abuse Tribunal there were pyjama parties in the flat of the then deputy head of the now closed Bryn Estyn home, Peter Howarth, when boys were banned from wearing underpants.

Mr Howarth would drink wine or spirits while five or six boys on the so-called “flat list” had treats and watched television at night. On each occasion, one of the boys would be asked to stay behind.
The witness said: “I was asked to stay behind on three or four occasions The first time, he sat me down and then I sat on his lap On another occasion, he made me have oral sex … He asked me if I was going home that weekend and he said he could stop me if I didn’t do what he told me to do.”Describing other events, he said: “On one occasion I had an asthma attack and he got a bowl and a kettle for me to breathe the steam. He started rubbing himself against me and tried to have sex with me. I started crying and told him I didn’t like what he was doing.”Asked what effect Bryn Estyn had had on his life, he said: “Devastating I couldn’t trust anybody. I ended up in mental institutions and tried to commit suicide on many occasions. I have had counselling for years and I’m still receiving it.”A second man, who also testified yesterday said two of his brothers had been subjected to serious sexual assault.