Family members have claimed all of them were abducted by Muslims with the aim of converting them to Islam to marry them.

While all of the disappearances have been reported to the police, their families have accused officials of inaction.

According to World Watch Monitor, some have gone as far as alleging that members of the police force were involved in the disappearances.

Christine Lamie, 26, disappeared after being threatened on Facebook by someone she didn’t know.

Bahaa Girgis, the husband to the mother-of-two told World Watch Monitor about the messages.

“Christine received a threatening message on Facebook from someone she didn’t know, saying ‘I will not leave you, Christine, I will take you even on the last day of my life’.”

After reporting his wife missing he said when he went to the station four days later for an update.

“I was surprised when the officer there told me that my wife Christine had gone to a police station the day before, filed a report that she wasn’t kidnapped and that she converted to Islam by her full will,” Girgis told World Watch Monitor.

“I know my wife very well – she would not convert to Islam by her will. She likes Christianity and she is very religious.

“She was forced to convert to Islam after she was kidnapped,” he added.

“She was pressured and threatened to make her do so.”

Briskam Raafat…

Rev Dr Iain Greenshields said the Presbytery of Dunfermline “abhorred” the actions of someone who laid out strips of bacon on a door handle at Dunfermline Central Mosque and on the doorstep.

Dr Greenshields said: “Over the last few years we have worked alongside our Muslim neighbours to foster a spirit of co-operation and mutual respect.

“We believe much of this [the intolerance] is sparked by social media and belongs only to a small minority who themselves have no strong or personal religious convictions.”

Dunfermline Central Mosque called the incident a “deliberate symbol of hatred chosen as Muslims and Jews do not eat pork.”

It also attributed the act to “hatred driven via social media” but acknowledged that only a minority of people in the area would endorse such behaviour.

“Its a shame that a minority within society want to only promote hatred and fear, who refuse to engage and get to know us, but we do recognise it is just a minority of people with this hatred of others,” the mosque said in a Facebook post.

Dr Greenshields said the Church will write a letter to all schools in the area urging them to teach against social media hate campaigns during their assemblies.

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The bone of the first apostolic father of the church was found by an environmental waste clearance company during a routine waste haul in central London.

Enviro Waste said it found the bone in a red and gold, wax-sealed case, during a routine collection in central London last year, but workers didn’t realise what they had until it was appraised several days later.

James Rubin, owner of Enviro Waste said: “You can imagine our amazement when we realised our clearance teams had found bone belonging to a Pope – it’s not something you expect to see, even in our line of work. We often come across some weird and wonderful things on clearances, but we were definitely not expecting to find a bone fragment of an apostle.

“We know this is an important piece of history and are keen to find the most appropriate place for its final resting place, which is why we’re asking for help from members of the public.”

The company has asked for the public to vote on where the bone should now be stored.

Pope St Clement is considered to be the first apostolic father of the church, the third successor to St Peter and the fourth Pope.

He was known as St Clement of Rome and was Pope from 92 to 101 AD. He is believed to have died in 110 AD at the age of 75, making the bone nearly 2,000 years old.

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Pell appeared for an administrative first hearing in the Victoria state County Court where he will be tried after a magistrate on Tuesday decided he should face a jury but dismissed around half the charges the cleric had faced during a preliminary hearing in a lower court.

His lawyer Robert Richter said on Wednesday he had agreed with prosecutors to split the remaining charges into two trials.

The charges relating to Pell’s time as a priest in his hometown of Ballarat in the 1970s and those relating to his time as archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s were “of a completely different nature” and “separated by 20 years”, Mr Richter told Judge Sue Pullen.

Details of the charges and their number have not been made public.

Pell also wanted the first trial to start soon for several reasons, Mr Richter said.

“Number one, my client is 76 years old and number two, everyone has to get on with their lives,” Mr Richter said.

Mr Richter also noted that one of the witnesses was 80 years old.

Pell has taken leave from his Vatican job as Pope Francis’ finance minister and plans to return to it once he is acquitted.

Prosecutor Mark Gibson anticipated the prosecution would need three months to compile its case, but later described that estimate as “conservative”, meaning prosecutors could be ready sooner.

The judge said: “I do think three months is a little excessive.”

Prosecution and…

The Charity Commission said it had “serious” concerns about the financial information it had received from Croydon Tabernacle – a registered charity.

In a statement released on Tuesday, officials said: “The Commission examined the charity’s financial information and found cause for serious regulatory concern.

“This included substantial unexplained expenditure and potentially conflicted payments to people connected with the charity.

“As a result of its concerns, the Commission has frozen a bank account controlled by the charity.”

Premier has contacted the church – which is part of the Nigeria-founded Redeemed Christian Church of God movement – for a response.

The Charity Commission placed Croydon Tabernacle under statutory investigation, saying previous “engagement” with the church since November 2016 “did not resolve the regulatory concerns”.

Investigators shall examine where misconduct, poor administration, breaches of trust or non-compliance with charity law have taken place.

The Commission will publish a report detailing its findings in due course.

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A lower court ruled the decision of family-run Ashers not to bake the product iced with the slogan Support Gay Marriage in 2014 was discriminatory after a legal challenge supported by Northern Ireland’s Equality Commission.

The order was placed at its Belfast shop by gay rights activist Gareth Lee. Bakery owners Daniel and Amy McArthur have said the law risked “extinguishing” their consciences.

David Scoffield QC, for Ashers, said: “This is a case of forced or compelled speech, unlike other cases which have come before the court.”

He added: “Mr and Mrs McArthur have been penalised by the state in the form of the judgment at the County Court for failing through their family company to create and provide a product bearing an explicit slogan ‘Support Gay Marriage’ to which they have a genuine objection in conscience.”

The UK’s highest court, sitting in Belfast, heard the case on Tuesday.

Beforehand Mr McArthur, general manager of Ashers, said: “The Equality Commission has pushed for an interpretation of the law which extinguishes our conscience.

“They think that some people are more equal than others.”

Mr McArthur said he should enjoy a basic right to live by his beliefs.

“But some people want the law to make us support something with which we disagree.”

The case against Ashers was taken by Mr Lee with support from Northern Ireland’s
Equality Commission.

Controversy first…