His only means of communication is by a foot-operated computer and speech synthesiser. But Mr Leech's high intelligence remains in tact, his QC John Grace told Mr Justice Buckley in London.The judge, ruling on liability, found that a breach of duty by Gloucestershire Health Authority was to blame for Mr Leech's plight. Contracts also affect their work because people can't commit themselves to long-term plans like developing courses."The Dearing report into higher education, published last year, also warned that increasing use of short-term contracts could hit the quality of courses and research.. Then they would have been bursting to talk to you about the breakthroughs they were making. Now they tell you how many weeks they have left on their contracts."It's harder and harder to keep really good research teams in UK research universities. There's a much clearer understanding in the States that research takes a long time." He blamed short-term research funding and vice-chancellors' fear of budget cuts.Amanda Hart, of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, which represents staff in the new universities, said: "A lot of people are on one-year contracts and every year they have the uncertainty about whether their job is going to be renewed They find they can't get mortgages and they can't get loans. The vast majority of staff on short-term contracts are researchers, where temporary appointments account for 95 per cent of staff.

But the latest available figures show nearly one in five mainstream lecturers were temporary and six per cent of professors.Universities argue temporary appointments give them flexibility to deal with uncertain funding arrangements.But David Triesman, general secretary of the Association of University Teachers, said: "If you talk to researchers today it's quite different to five or ten years ago. SOME of Britain's brightest research brains may be forced abroad or out of universities altogether because they cannot get a permanent job, lecturers said yesterday. Nor did he know exactly what procedures were followed when Peter Hemming, a convicted paedophile, was allowed a home visit to the father of Child A, the young girl at the centre of the paedophile allegations within the hospital's personality disorder unit.Referring to the vetting of visitors, Mr Backhouse said: "With hindsight I think we would have looked at it differently. Union leaders condemned vice-chancellors for putting four out of ten academics, including more than 450 university professors, on to temporary contracts. They warned academics were being forced to "dumb down", sacrificing valuable long-term pure research for easy studies which could fit into a three- , six- or twelve-month contract.A joint union survey found nearly 54,000 out of universities' 126,000 teaching and research staff were only offered short-term jobs. At the time we were trying to put some structure into chaos."People were coming in who shouldn't have and people were being turned away who were perfectly safe."Mr Backhouse told the inquiry he was kept in the dark about the concerns of nurses on the personality disorder unit, and was unaware that one of his principal social workers had been commissioned to work on an investigation into the admittance of Child A on to the unit's Lawrence Ward.. Richard Backhouse, head of social work practices since February 1994, said the formulation of such a policy was "not high on people's agenda".Mr Backhouse said he did not know why the recommendations of a Home Office and Department of Health leaflet published in 1991 giving guidelines for working with children had not been adopted at Ashworth. Some patients at Ashworth - in Maghull, Merseyside - were also being detained illegally. A spokesman for the council said the case was "potentially very dangerous" and a spokesman for the hospital said it was "serious" but that the situation had been remedied and all nurses were now registered.Yesterday, a spokesman for the hospital said that patient care was not jeopardised by the lapse, and that it involved a handful of nurses out of the 900 employed, However, one ward manager has since been demoted as a result of the discovery.The spokesman said systems for detecting such failings were now in place and the public should be reassured that the problem had been addressed several months ago.

As many as 16 nurses at the troubled Ashworth Special Hospital - at present the subject of a public inquiry - had failed to re-register with their regulating body, the UK Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting. We think they should be looked at on a case- by-case basis," he said.. NURSES at a high-security hospital where some of Britain's most dangerous patients are housed have been working illegally, it was revealed yesterday. There are 64 such platforms in UK waters.Michael Meacher, the environment minister, confirmed the Government's position yesterday: "I think everyone accepts the heaviest structures, or those that are fractured, or are in the deepest water, cannot be safely brought back to land, but in all other cases they will be."Although Britain's stance is supported by Norway, the other major North Sea oil operator, it is opposed by the 15 other member states of OSPAR, who want a blanket ban on dumping.James May, Director-General of the UK Offshore Operators Association (UKOOA), the body that represents Britain's North Sea oil companies said yesterday: "The question is, what is the best environmental option? To take out something like Esso Odin you would use huge amounts of energy - enough energy to power Aberdeen for a month - and there is a huge amount of potential environmental damage."Some platforms may have alternative uses.