Death offering

Students may find themselves unable to refuse the offer of a new course on Italian-organised crime at the University of Kent.

Italian lecturer Tom Behan has prepared a new course for 1997 on the Camorra, the Neapolitan crime organisation which rivals the Mafia.

But students may not be the only ones forced to show respect, for Dr Behan, who has recently published a book Camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia, relates the not necessarily apocryphal tale of a student who went to see his tutor about an exam the following day. The borderline student only had to name his father and grand- father to secure the top grade.