Gaddafi was blackmailed; Ashley Cole shoots fan

From political intrigue, to business scandal to scurrilous tales of the rich and famous, our trawl through the gutters of Britain's Sunday papers is posted before 12 noon every week.

ASHLEY COLE SHOOTS 21-YEAR-OLD FANChelsea player Ashley Cole brought a .22 calibre air rifle to training last Sunday and accidentally shot work experience boy Tom Cowan in the side from just five feet away, while larking around. Cowan was treated by team medics as club managers tried to keep the embarrassing story quiet, the News of the World reveals.

SAS RESCUE BRITONS FROM LIBYA IN DARING MISSIONThe SAS and the RAF together pulled off a daring rescue of scores of Britons, mostly oil workers, from Libya yesterday - but 300 are thought still to be trapped in the violence-riven country. British forces used two Hercules bombers for the evacuation, says the Sunday Telegraph, searching an area four times the size of the UK.

BRITAIN'S YOUNGEST GRANDPARENTS SPEAK OUTA soon-to-be grandmother and grandfather, both 29, have hit back at critics who accused them of failing the daughter they had at 14. Tia Davies, who is now 14 herself, is pregnant by a 15-year-old school chum. Her mother, Kelly John, told the News of the World: "I was always telling her: don't do what I did."

WHAT MORMONS HAVE IN COMMON WITH FRUIT FLIESA new study of 19th century Mormon families has revealed that polygamists suffered from a problem previously observed by biologists in fruit flies: the more female partners one male takes, the lower the number of births each female has. Cult founder Brigham Young had 55 wives – but 'only' 56 children, reports the Observer.

JOHN GALLIANO MAKES DEFAMATION CLAIMFashion designer John Galliano (above), who has been suspended from his job at Dior over allegations of racial abuse, has lodged a claim for defamation against his accusers, reports the Sunday Telegraph. He has told police he made no racist or anti-Semitic remarks. Geraldine Bloch says he called her: "Dirty Jewish face".

LOCKERBIE BOMBER 'BLACKMAILED' GADDAFIAbdelbaset al-Megrahi secured his own release from a Scottish jail by blackmailing Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan leader's former justice minister has claimed. Mustafa Abdel-Jalil told the Sunday Times Megrahi threatened to expose Gaddafi as having ordered the 1988 bombing unless he exerted his influence to have Megrahi freed.
'Gaddafi behind Lockerbie' - how very convenientPUBLIC WOULD VOTE FOR 'FASCISM LIGHT'A new poll by Populus shows that a huge number of Britons would vote for a far-right English nationalist party if it renounced violence and fascist imagery. The Observer reports that 48 per cent of the population would support an anti-Islamic extremism party making St George's cross flags mandatory on all public buildings.

PRINCE ANDREW AND THE 17-YEAR-OLD MASSEUSEThe Mail on Sunday has published a photograph of Prince Andrew with an arm around a 17-year-old masseuse in 2001. Virginia Roberts says she was flown across the world to meet the Prince by an American friend of his, billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein, who is a sex offender convicted of soliciting underage prostitutes.

OIL REVENUES 'MUST GO TO THE LIBYAN PEOPLE'In those developing countries that have the luck to produce oil, the revenue almost inevitably leads to massive inequality between the corrupt kleptocrats who govern and the majority of people who get - at best - only a small share of the spoils, writes Paul Wolfowitz, former deputy US defence secretary in the Sunday Times. Once Gaddafi is gone, a substantial proportion of Libya's oil revenues must in future go to the people - which will force the government to earn its living honestly.

RUGBY: ENGLAND SILENCE FRANCE 17-9England beat France 17-9 at Twickenham to make the prospect of a Grand Slam in the Six Nations - their first since 2003 - a reality. The single try came from Ben Foden early in the second half and it was enough to silence the French, reports the Mail on Sunday. French coach Marc Lievremnont, having led the sneers against England in the pre-match build-up last week, had to admit after the match: "England are the best team in the northern hemisphere". ·