Friday 30 January 2004

By Amy Taylor, Clare Jerrom and Alex
Dobson.

Knifeman walks free after racist attack
A judge has allowed a racist man who almost killed an asylum seeker
in an attack with a knife, to walk free from court.
Police who brought Brett Charlton, 26, to court were outraged by
the decision at Chichester crown court.
Charlton attacked an asylum seeker last June as he waited for a
train in Worthing, West Sussex.
Charlton received a 10-month jail sentence for racially aggravated
grievous bodily harm. He had already spent five months in a remand
prison and in effect served half his jail term.
Source:- The Times Friday 30 January page 7
Divorced women are the poorest pensioners
Older divorced women are the poorest group in society, according to
new figures from the Office for National Statistics.
A typical divorced woman aged 65 or over received an income of
£92 a week before tax. This is just over half of the median
income of £171 received by married men of the same age. It is
almost two thirds of the £125 median income of separated or
divorced men.
Source:- The Times Friday 30 January page 19
Scottish newspapers
Vacancies rise as authorities create more social work
posts
Vacancies for qualified social workers in Scotland increased by 10
per cent last year, according to the latest statistics.
Angus Skinner, Scotland’s chief social work inspector, said
the rise in vacancies was as a result of increasing number of posts
being created rather than staff leaving the profession.
But unions warned that the figures were evidence that fresh blood
needed to be attracted into social work.
Source:- The Herald Friday 30 January
Arrests as cannabis café opens
Three people were arrested for drug offences at Scotland’s
first cannabis café last night.
As cannabis was re-classified from a Class B to a Class C drug, two
men and a woman were arrested at the Purple Haze Café in Leith
in Edinburgh for possession of the drug.
One of the people arrested is thought to be the owner of the
café.
Source:- The Scotsman Friday 30 January
Centre aims to cut number of women in jail
A rehabilitation centre for women has opened in Glasgow in a bid to
stem the increasing number of female offenders sent to prison for
petty crime.
Offenders will be offered residential accommodation at the 218 Time
Out Centre and will be referred to the unit by sheriffs, police,
social workers or fiscals as an alternative to a jail
sentence.
Source:- The Scotsman Friday 30 January
Private sector invited to build and run new
jail
The government has called on the private sector to build and run
one of the two new prisons in Scotland.
The other planned prison could be left to the public sector, if it
could compete with bids from private firms, Hugh Henry, the deputy
justice minister said during a debate on the provision of two
700-bed jails for Scotland.
Source:- The Scotsman Friday 30 January
Social work department hit by further
criticism
Edinburgh’s crisis-hit social work department has suffered
further criticism in a damning new report.
Government inspectors have levelled a series of criticisms at the
council, just months after it was rocked by the inquiry into the
death of Caleb Ness.
Concerns in the Scottish executive’s annual report on social
work services include the length of time the authority takes to
deal with child protection cases, the lack of provision of
education for young people in care and the use of unqualified
social workers.
Source:- The Scotsman Friday 30 January
Man jailed for two years over huge child porn
collection
A man caught with the largest collection of child pornography in
Scotland was jailed for two years yesterday.
Stephen Perrie had more than 403,000 indecent images and nearly
16,000 video clips on his computer.
Perrie, who was caught in Operation Ore, admitted making indecent
photographs or pseudo-photographs between May 1999 and December
2002, and was placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10
years at Arbroath sheriff court.
He was sentenced to a further one-year supervision on his release
from prison.
Source:- The Scotsman Friday 30 January
Crackdown drives dealers off estate
Drug dealers are being driven from the streets of a capital estate,
police claimed this week.
The number of charges brought against suspected drug dealers in
Craigmillar has fallen 31 per cent year on year, according to new
statistics. Small scale possession arrests have been reduced by
more than 20 per cent.
The Scottish executive will look at how the success against drugs
in Craigmillar could be rolled out nationwide.
Source:- Evening News Thursday 29 January
Dementia charity calls on helpline
volunteers
Alzheimer Scotland is calling for volunteers to help run the
charity’s dementia helpline.
The charity is holding a training course in Edinburgh for people
who want to give up their time to help run the freephone 24-hour
helpline.
Source:- Evening News Thursday 29 January
Welsh newspapers
Our kids will be prisoners
Local residents are angry at plans to move sex offenders
into an open jail in Gwent.
At a packed public meeting to discuss the plan, residents expressed
fears that children would be put at risk if sex offenders from
Prescoed prison came in contact with the public.
John May operations manager for the Prison Service said that sex
offenders needed the opportunity to slowly reintegrate into the
community.
The proposals will now go to home secretary David Blunkett.
Source:- South Wales Argus Friday 29 January page 1
Row over care homes funding
A care home owner from Newport said that the council’s offer
to pay more to private homes for the care of older people, is not
enough.
The council is expected to offer care home owners fees that are
likely to be above inflation, but Alan Darlow who owns three homes
in Newport, said that relatives of older people should ‘top
up’ care home fees to help end the ‘bed-blocking’
crisis.
Source:- South Wales Argus Friday 29 January page 14
Child porn research claim
A geography lecturer, who downloaded child pornography from the
internet, claimed he was involved in researching the subject.
Dr Thomasz Delph-Janiurek, a lecturer at the University of Wales,
Lampeter, at the time of the alleged offences said that he had a
legitimate reason for viewing 778 images of children.
Swansea crown court was told that the chair of the Geography Unit
at the university was not aware of any research projects by the
lecturer that related to child pornography.
Source:- Western Mail Friday 30 January page 3