Thursday 2 October 2003

By Amy Taylor, Clare Jerrom and Alex Dobson

Straw and Brown join forces to oppose Blunkett’s
proposals

Jack Straw and Gordon Brown have united in a bid to
prevent David Blunkett from introducing national identity
cards.

The foreign secretary is thought to be the most opposed cabinet
member to the home secretary’s plans for ID cards and has
written a cabinet paper setting out his objections.

Blunkett wants legislation on ID cards policy to take place this
autumn. He sees the initiative as a way to tackle illegal
immigration.

Source:- The Financial Times Thursday October 2 page
5

Free care for lone parents

Free child care for up to 12 hours a day is going to be
offered to unemployed lone parents to help them return to
employment, under a new scheme due to be announced by Andrew Smith
at the Labour Party conference.

The work and pensions secretary will announce that the £4m
pilot scheme will take place in Bradford and the London Boroughs of
Haringey and Lewisham.

Childcare facilities being available from 7am to 7pm at clusters of
schools in each area from April  next year.

Source:- The Guardian Thursday October 2 page 6

Asylum error to cost UK millions

Two asylum seekers who were prosecuted and jailed for
travelling on forged passports have been awarded £130,600 from
the Home Office because the prosecution overlooked a UN provision
that states that asylum seekers must not be penalised for entering
a country illegally.

Up to 5,000 asylum seekers have been wrongly convicted and jailed
under the oversight and it is expected to cost the Home Office
millions of pounds in compensation.

The couple, known only as Mr and Mrs B, fled Kosovo in autumn 1998
and attempted to get to Canada. However, they were arrested in
February 1999 en route in London.

Source:- The Guardian Thursday 2 October  page 15

Catholic school agrees £140,000 sex abuse payout

A former pupil at a top church school who was sexually
abused by a housemaster is set to receive more than £140,000
in compensation and legal costs from the Roman Catholic
Church.  

Daniel Stokes agreed to a deal with the trustees of St Edmund’s
College in Hertfordshire at the beginning of a planned civil
hearing.

Stokes was nine-years-old when he was assaulted by Richard Poole in
1989. Later that year Poole admitted to indecently assaulting three
nine-year-old boys and inciting one to perform a gross indecency
with him. He was jailed for six months.

Source:- The Times Thursday 2 October  page 4

Priests think church hid child abuse

The majority of Roman Catholic priests believe that their
Church has covered up allegations of child sexual abuse, according
to new research.

A survey of 468 priests, conducted for the BBC’s ‘Kenyon
Confronts’ programme found that two in every three said they
have had personal contact with other priests who have been
implicated in an allegation of this kind of abuse.

Most priests thought that Church had not behaved well in handling
cases but that its attitude towards child abuse had improved in the
past 10 years.

Source:- The Times Thursday 2 October  page 4

Climbie fund plans Ivory Coast school

Victoria Climbie’s parents have announced that a school is
going to be built in her native Ivory Coast to commemorate their
daughter.

The eight-year-old was murdered by her great aunt and boyfriend
after she was brought to London to go to school because of the poor
education available in her homeland.

Francis and Berthe Climbie yesterday started an appeal to raise
£250,000 for the school and its running costs.

Source:- The Times Thursday 2 October  page 5

Scottish news

Salaries and staff cut at Kirk homes

The Church of Scotland is planning to axe 100 jobs and cut
the salaries of staff in its care homes for older people by up to
£3,000, according to a leaked document.

The proposals include eradicating the post of team leader, of which
there are three in each of the Kirk’s 30 homes. While the
salaries of senior managers will remain intact at up to
£25,000, the wages of day care staff will be cut by
£542.

Night staff will lose around one third of their income by the
withdrawal of special working allowances.

Staff branded the proposals “disgusting and
unchristian”, and plan to petition the Commission of the
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Source:- The Scotsman Thursday 2 October page 1

Cabbies called in to beat crime

Police are recruiting taxi drivers to become “eyes
and ears” on the ground in an anti-crime initiative.

Aberdeen’s Farecops scheme was officially launched yesterday
as part of the wider Safer Scotland campaign.

Source:- The Scotsman Thursday 2 October page 6

Tagging on the menu as ministers declare war on hardcore
hooligans

Ministers defended their plans to tackle young offenders
yesterday including the proposals to electronically tag
under-16s.

Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, said the Scottish executive
plans to press ahead with tagging, outlined in the Antisocial
Behaviour Bill to be published this autumn.

The bill is expected to be some of the most controversial
legislation of the session. Proposals include parenting orders and
fixed penalty notices for some low level types of antisocial
behaviour.

Source:- The Scotsman Thursday 2 October page 8

Special courts for domestic abuse

Scotland’s first dedicated court to tackle domestic
violence issues is to be set up to tackle apparent failings in the
justice system for the victims and perpetrators of violence in the
home.

Ministers will launch the pilot scheme, based at Glasgow Sheriff
Court, next spring.

The aim is to increase women’s confidence in the justice
system, tailor more appropriate sentences for perpetrators and
ensure the safety of any children involved.

Source:- The Herald Thursday 2 October

Axe falls on 25 primary schools in £55m shake up

Twenty five schools and 11 pre-five schools are to be
closed by Glasgow Council, affecting 4,500 children.

The plans include the creation of 10 new pre-12 campuses, most of
which will be located in Glasgow’s peripheral housing
estates. All 10 will include new pre-five facilities and two will
include special educational needs schools to replace two SEN units
that are being closed elsewhere in the city.

The council will run 11 consultation exercises with interested
parties.

Source:- The Herald Thursday 2 October

Care homes told to be more open with public

Thousands of care homes and children centres have been
instructed to be more open with the public after an investigation
by ‘The Herald’.

Almost 17,000 care providers have been written to by the Scottish
Commission for the Regulation of Care, after it emerged that homes
for older people were not showing inspection reports to families
seeking a place.

Jacquie Roberts, chief executive of the commission, highlighted the
importance of making all finalised inspection reports available to
users and potential users of the services in the letter to the
16,906 establishments.

Source:- The Herald Thursday 2 October

Councils to prosecute parents of persistent truants

Education officials in Edinburgh announced yesterday that
parents who repeatedly fail to send their children to school will
be taken to court.

The council is to use legislation which allows it to bring
prosecutions after expressing disappointment at the lack of action
by the procurator fiscal’s office in taking forward
cases.

Parents who fail to heed warnings will face court orders and fines.
However they will not receive jail sentences.

Source:- The Herald Thursday 2 October

Luke Mitchell returns to school

The boyfriend of murdered school-girl Jodi Jones is to
return to education.

Luke Mitchell has not attended school since he rowed with the head
teacher at St David’s RC High School in Dalkeith, which he
attended with Jodi, over plans to isolate him from other pupils.
The 15-year-old was suspended for three days after he walked out
during discussions over the plan to keep him in school in solitary
confinement.

His solicitor, Nigel Beaumont, yesterday said it had been agreed
that Mitchell would attend Grenhall Education Centre in Midlothian
for several weeks for one-to-one tuition. It is then hoped he will
attend a new school in the Dalkeith area.

Source:- The Herald Thursday 2 October

Row as head raps parents

A headmaster has blamed councillors and parents for the
poor performance of children.

Ralph Barker, the rector of Alloa Academy, sent a memo to teachers
at the Clackmannanshire school saying pupils were suffering because
of parents who used or dealt drugs or sent their children out to
work.

Other children could not stay behind at school because they had to
look after younger siblings.

Barker said the council were not helping with measures which
demoralised teachers.

Clackmannanshire council leader, Margaret Paterson, and education
chief, Dave Jones, said they would be “raising the
matter” of the memo with Barker.

Source:- Daily Record  Thursday 2 October page 6

Neds are modern plague…and we’ve got cure

Communities minister Margaret Curran announced a crackdown
on neds yesterday.

Curran said antisocial behaviour was the “modern
plague” and outlined the Scottish executive’s plans to
tackle it ahead of an all-day debate on the issue.

Source:- Daily Record  Thursday 2 October page 6

Welsh news

‘Anti-social youths are as young as 10’

Children as young as 10 are acting antisocially and causing
problems on local housing estates, a public meeting in Bettws,
Newport heard yesterday.

A police representative at the meeting told residents that his team
of 30 officers who cover the areas of Bettws, Malpas, Bassaleg and
Rogerstone in the city are each dealing with 64 crimes at any one
time. This compares to a UK national average of 34 crimes per
officer.

Source:- South Wales Argus Wednesday 1 October page
4

£500 for that ‘tinnie’

Street drinkers in a designated area of Newport will face
tough restrictions and fines of up to £500.

The aim of the alcohol-control zone is to address local concerns
over street drunks, aggressive begging and anti-social behaviour.
The council has voted to give the police extra powers to confiscate
opened containers of alcohol in the designated area and fines will
increase from £50 to £500.

Source:- South Wales Argus Wednesday 1 October page
6

Carers charged with ill-treatment

Two care workers charged with ill-treating mentally
disabled patients appeared at Cardiff Crown Court yesterday.

John Bolderson and Jonathan Evans who worked at the Hensol Day
Centre both deny the allegations that include practising martial
arts on one of the patients and taunting others to provoke a
violent reaction.

Source:- South Wales Echo Wednesday 1 October page
13

Prescriptions: £1 off from next year

Families in Wales stand to save at least £60 a year
as the principality took a landmark step toward abolishing the tax
on illness.

Wiping £1 off the standard prescription charge is the first of
a series of phased reductions in the current £6 fee, which
will lead to everyone in Wales receiving free prescriptions by
2007.

The abolition of prescription was one of the key election pledges
of the Labour administration in the Welsh assembly.

Source:- Western Mail Thursday 2 October page 5

 

 

 

 

 

 

More from Community Care

Comments are closed.