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saturday jan 102004 servingthe community of whitchurchstouffville 36 pagess1 including gst 19 scrapbooks help preserve precious family memories opinion 6 crime 9 sports 18 classified 22 rapist lawyer cites poor jail conditions by jeff mitchell staff vriter three prisoners were rou tinely crammed into cells designed for two at the jail in which convicted rapist michael farouk spent almost two years of pretrial custody a court has heard that time commonly referred to as dead time and the conditions at the metro west detention centre are key points of debate as lawyers argue over how much time mr farouk will spend in jail he was convicted in november of sexual assault kid napping and robbery a jury heard mr farouk abducted a woman on a toronto street drove her to a school parking lot in markham and sex ually assaulted her v he left her naked in the park ing lot and drove off to his markham home court heard the crown is seeking an eightyear prison sentence defence lawyer christopher hicks has indicated he will seek enhanced credit for the timemr farouk spent in the remand cen tre during which inmates endured hardships caused by an eight- week public servants strike and the sars scare courts typically give a two- fofone credit for pretrial time see prosecutor page 17 fire hits vandorf plant staff photobill roberts fife crews inspect asmoking blaze friday morning at several industrial units on woodbine avenue north of bloomington road there were no injuries see page 4 for details regions homeless ignored clitic says politicians pay lip service but cutbacks hurt program bylisaqueen staffwriter arieh cohen wonders if someone will have to freeze to death before york region starts taking homelessness seriously mr cohen cochairpersonof the mosaic interfaiths out of the cold program says politicians are ignoring the growing number of homeless people weve been telling them more than once do you want to wait till somebody dies and then you have to face it in the press before you deal with this he said adding funding problems have scaled back out of the cold which houses people in places of worship it is getting no better its getting worse the numbers are increasing he said admit ting he doesnt have a clear count of home less people while mr cohen says politicians pay lip service to the homeless issue they would rather send the regions street people to toronto than provide services here what is really happening is they are sweeping them away to toronto and then saying they are toronto people we wont help them he said its very unethical if i can use a mild word i the problem is they are trying to say everything is fine and dandy in york region which was their attitude five years ago but regional chairperson bill fisch said see region page 7 27 heritage ro markham 8030 beochcomber honda 8220 kennedy rd markham 9054 7 7 24 51 wwwmarkhamhondacom genuine v honda oil and filter change monthur parts and service open till midnight includes premium qualuy5w20 or 5w30 genuine honda motor oil genuine honda oil filter and a new drain plug gasket quick lube service no appointment necessary available for mom honda models laves not included rroincial environmental icev if anv excluded town and count ry roahylid 6400888