Wednesday 21 August 2002

By Clare Jerrom, Reg McKay and Alex Dobson.

Couple charged over girls’ murders

A school caretaker from Soham, Cambridgeshire, was charged last
night with the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Detectives investigating the murder of the two 10-year-old girls
charged Ian Huntley hours after he was compulsorily committed to a
high security mental hospital and sectioned under the 1983 Mental
Health Act.

His detention raised the possibility that he may never stand
trial if declared unfit to face a court.

Later, his partner Maxine Carr, who worked as a classroom
assistant at the girl’s class in St Andrew’s primary
school, was charged with perverting the course of justice. Carr
will appear at Peterborough magistrates’ court this
morning.

A psychiatrist’s assessment has found Huntley unfit to appear in
court today.

A Cambridgeshire police spokesperson said his case will be
listed “when he is deemed fit to attend”.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 21 August page 1

Afghans get £2,500 to go home

The government is to offer Afghan asylum seekers cash payments
of up to £2,500 to return home under a pilot scheme announced
yesterday.

Up to 17,000 will be eligible for the cash and a free flight
back to Kabul under a scheme similar to the one offered to Kosovans
who fled during the Balkans conflict.

The package came as the government announced that £1
million is to be given to organisations to help refugees integrate
into Britain.

Presswise Trust is one of the organisations to benefit from the
funding. It will receive £80,000 to promote positive media
coverage of refugee issues, and to run a website confronting myths
about refugees.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 21 August page 1

‘Passports’ call for child-care
workers

The government was urged to introduce a passport style
identification for all adults who work with children last night,
amid claims from a large UK recruitment agency that the current
vetting system is “cumbersome and inefficient”.

The plea to home secretary David Blunkett came from Timeplan,
the agency which allowed Amy Gehring to continue working in schools
despite police warnings that she posed a serious threat to
children.

Gehring was cleared of having sex with her teenage pupils by a
jury, which was unaware she had earlier been branded a risk to
pupils.

Procedures for vetting school staff are under fresh scrutiny
after the abduction of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
Cambridgeshire local education authority has stressed that Ian
Huntley and Maxine Carr had undergone police checks and supplied
character references before taking up employment at two local
schools.

Source:- The Guardian Wednesday 21 August page 4

Failing councils face sanctions

Failing councils highlighted by a new government inspection
regime face losing services to outside contractors, drawn from
business, charities and other parts of the public sector, under
plans to crackdown on under-performing councils.

Ministers unveiled a three-stage procedure yesterday to improve
services delivered by the worst authorities. It will be applied
when a new assessment of English councils is introduced later this
year with publication of the first league tables.

Initially the country’s 150 largest councils will be
graded in categories ranging from “excellent” to “weak”. Despite
criticism from the Local Government Association that the categories
are too crude and arbitrary, they are due to be published on
December 12.

Although well performing councils have been promised greater
freedom and flexibilities, John Prescott’s local government
department concentrated yesterday on the tough action needed to
turn round some authorities.

Source:- The Guardian Wednesday 21 August page 6

Activist jailed for threats

An animal activist who sent death threats to managers at
Huntingdon Life Sciences Group was jailed yesterday for
four-and-a-half years at Southwark crown court.

Robert Moaby, of King’s Cross, London admitted two counts
of threatening to kill and 17 of possessing indecent pictures of
children.

Source:- The Guardian Wednesday 21 August page 6

Incident at youth jail fuels crowding fears

A prison officer was injured at a young offenders’
institution near Bristol after 22 inmates refused to return to
their cells on Monday night.

Superficial damage was caused at the only privatised young
offenders’ institution at Ashfield, before staff intervened
five hours later at 1.30am.

The disturbance followed “concerted indiscipline” at adult
prison service jails in Liverpool and Dorchester over the
weekend.

Prison numbers remain at a record of more than 71,500. There has
been fears that overcrowding could cause far worse incidents than
seen so far this summer.

In a report yesterday, the Howard League for Penal Reform
identified problems of violence and staffing at Ashfield run by
Premier Prisons. In the past year three-quarters of staff and
prisoners have been assaulted.

Source:- The Guardian Wednesday 21 August page 7

Guardian Society

The right track

Crisis is refocusing its work away from rough sleepers to help
ease homeless people back into society

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 21 August page
8

Serious fun

Juvenile crime has fallen by 56 per cent in a deprived area of
north Wales. Sarah Wellard finds it’s down to adventurous
play

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 21 August page
60-59

A risky business

First respite centre for suicidal people is to open in
London

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 21 August page
59

Scottish newspapers

Cover-up claim in health trust report

Argyll and Clyde Acute Hospitals Trust has been accused over
covering up a devastating review report about its management.

John McFall MP and Jackie Baillie MSP have demanded to know why
a 60-page review has not been published publicly. The report is
scathing regarding the two top managers at the trust while a
four-page summary issued to the public appears sanitised and bland
compared to the original. The original review had been carried out
after representations by McFall and Baillie.

Source:- The Herald Wednesday 21 August page 1

GHA fined £100

Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) has been fined £100 for
misleading tenants over its name by excluding the word “limited”
from adverts during the ballot that resulted in the transfer of
Glasgow council housing to the agency.

Anti-transfer campaigners had brought the charges claiming GHA
had deliberately misled tenants. The GHA described the fine as “a
nominal penalty”.

Source:- The Herald Wednesday 21 August page 10

Sex offender jailed after travelling illegally to
England

Stewart Galbraith, described as a predatory paedophile, was
jailed at the high court in Edinburgh for nine months for breaching
the terms of his sex offender registration.

Lord Kingarth sentenced Galbraith for a breach of his sentence
after hearing that he had travelled from Scotland to Manchester
without informing the police as his supervision order requires.
Galbraith was described as a life-long predatory sex offender whose
last conviction was in 1999 in Inverness.

Source:- The Herald Wednesday 21 August page 12

Welsh newspapers

‘All Dad wanted was to die in comfort’

Ex-miner Sam Wilson died before he could receive compensation
for the industrial disease he suffered after years of working as a
pitman.
His daughter June Blackall said that her 78-year-old father was
cheated of the compensation he deserved, and added that all he had
wanted to do was to die in comfort.

She will now pursue the claim which she had taken up on her
father’s behalf, although she has been told that it will now go to
the back of the queue.
Union and legal representatives of former miners say that there are
not enough trained claims handlers to deal with the number of
claims.
Wilson died from cardio-respiratory failure caused by
pneumoconiosis; he had worked at Lady Windsor colliery in south
Wales for 46 years.
Don Touhig, Wales Office Minister and Islwyn MP, said that sadly
there were days when a miner would die before he received
compensation due, and that the government wants every claim
processed as quickly as possible.

Source:- South Wales Echo Tuesday 20 August pages 1 and
2 and comment page 8

Careers services ‘fail to reach socially
excluded’

Careers services in Wales have been criticised for failing to
reach socially excluded youngsters.
A report from Estyn, the education and training inspectorate for
Wales, found that the £32 million careers service that is
funded by the Welsh Assembly, had strong management, but in certain
areas failed to provide satisfactory personal career plans for
young people.
More than a third of plans produced by Careers Wales North East
were found to have “important shortcomings”.
In a wider survey of the companies providing careers advice across
Wales, strategies for promoting social inclusion were described as
“weak”.

Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 21 August page 8