How the killing of a boy by carjackers sent organ donations soaring in Italy

Nicholas Green pictured in Switzerland days before he was fatally shot. PHOTO | REG GREEN

What you need to know:

  • On the night of September 29, 1994, Nicholas Green, aged seven, was shot during a family holiday in southern Italy.
  • Andrea, the recipient of Nicholas’s heart died earlier this year, accounting for Mr Green’s observation that his son’s heart had stayed beating for another 23 years.
  • Found guilty of the boy’s death after a retrial, Michele Ianello was sentenced to life imprisonment and Francesco Mesiano to 20 years.

The headline on the BBC story said: My son died in 1994 but his heart only stopped beating this year.

On the night of September 29, 1994, Nicholas Green, aged seven, was shot during a family holiday in southern Italy.

He was the victim of a hijack attempt by two men who mistook the family car for that of a rich, local jeweller.

Nicholas died in hospital but before he did so, his parents, Reginald, a former London journalist, and Margaret Green, decided to donate his organs to sick Italians and they were distributed as follows: Andrea Mongiardo, heart; Francesco Mondello, cornea; Tino Motta, kidney; Anna Maria Di Ceglie, kidney; Maria Pia Pedala, liver; Dominica Galleta, cornea; Silvia Ciampi, pancreas.

ORGAN DONATION

Andrea, the recipient of Nicholas’s heart died earlier this year, accounting for Mr Green’s observation that his son’s heart had stayed beating for another 23 years.

The crime so shocked the people of Italy that organ donation rates tripled, a result dubbed the “Nicholas effect”. Italy did not have a culture of organ donation before then but moved from bottom of Europe’s donation rates almost to the top.

In Italy, there are more than 120 places named in Nicholas’s honour, including squares and streets, parks and gardens and schools.

Found guilty of the boy’s death after a retrial, Michele Ianello was sentenced to life imprisonment and Francesco Mesiano to 20 years.

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Now a less inspirational story involving children… in two years up to March 2017, a total of 2,579 weapons were seized from schools in England and Wales, including Samurai swords, axes and air guns.

FIVE WEAPONS

This represented a 20 per cent increase on previous figures and police said nearly one in five weapons was a blade of some sort.

More unusual seizures were a police baton, a rolling pin and a can of beer. One boy aged just five was found with a knife.

Chief Constable Alf Hitchcock described the increase as “worrying” and said the police were working closely with schools to communicate the dangers arising from carrying a knife.

Violence in schools has been a concern since a teacher, Ann Maguire, was stabbed to death at Corpus Christi Catholic College, Leeds, in 2014 by a pupil, aged 15.

TEACHER STABBED

A year later, a back teacher, Vincent Uzomah, was stabbed and seriously injured by a racist boy at Dixons Kings Academy in Bradford.

Geoff Barton of the Association of School and College Leaders said some schools conduct searches and use metal detectors – all a long way from the most terrifying weapon in my school days, the catapult.

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At last, officialdom is challenging two major irritations in the lives of most housewives — the “Best before…” dates that are slapped on just about everything you buy in the supermarket, and shop rules that prevent the sale of what everyone calls “wonky vegetables,” in other words, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes and the like which are not perfectly shaped and without blemish.

FOOD WASTED

A committee of MPs has just reported that 7.3 million tonnes of food were wasted in UK households in 2015.

Committee chairman Neil Parish said: “One-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally and in the United Kingdom more than £10 billion worth of food is thrown away by households every year.

“It is a scandal that people are going hungry and resorting to food banks when so much produce is being wasted.”

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Published in 2003, Dan Brown’s thriller, The Da Vinci Code, got mixed reviews, to use the polite term. But it was a tremendous hit worldwide, with more than 80 million copies sold.

And that has become a problem for charity shops, who report being overwhelmed by second-hand copies of the book.

An Oxfam shop in Swansea says it gets on average one copy per day.

VINYL RECORDS

It stacked a pile of the books in its front window with a polite notice saying it would rather have vinyl records to please its culture-loving customers.

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A middle-aged lady is looking sadly at herself in the bedroom mirror and thinking how beautiful she used to be.

“My skins is wrinkled,” she said, “my breasts are flat, my belly is bulging. There is nothing good about me any more.”

“That’s not true,” said her husband sympathetically, “your eyesight is perfect.”

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Help desk: Double click on “My Computer.” Lady: I can’t see your computer. Help desk: No, I mean click on “My Computer” on your computer.

Lady: How the hell can I click on your computer from my computer? Help desk: There is an icon labelled “My Computer” on your computer... double click on it. Lady: What the hell is your computer doing on my computer?

And so it goes…