Teachers given power to restrain unruly children

By Maria Ahmed, Mithran Samuel, Derren Hayes and Amy Taylor

Teachers given power to restrain unruly children
School staff will be able to use “reasonable force” to restrain children and punish them for poor behaviour on their way to or from school under powers that come into force today.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph Monday 2 April 2007 page 8

200,000 ‘lost’ asylum seekers may be allowed indefinite stay
The government has admitted that more than 200,000 failed asylum seekers may stay in Britain indefinitely because they will never be traced.
Despite flatly refusing to concede an amnesty, it has conceded that half of the 450,000 long-term “legacy” cases may never be cleared.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph Monday 2 April 2007 page 10

Police send four officers, to tackle boy, 11, who called his schoolmate ‘gay’
Four police officers in Cheshire were sent to the home of a boy in who apparently called one of his schoolfriends ‘gay.’
Source:- The Daily Mail, Monday 2 April 2007, page 7
 
Self-harm surge puts 100 children a week in casualty
Nearly 100 schoolchildren are being hospitalised every week as a result of self-harm due to mental health problems, official figures have revealed.
Source:- The Daily Mail, Monday 2 April 2007, page 18

Paediatricians accuse General Medical Council of putting children at risk
More than 50 UK paediatricians today launch an unprecedented attack on the General Medical Council, accusing their regulatory body of deterring doctors from speaking out, and arguing that the stance could increase the risk of child abuse, in an article in the American journal Paediatrics.
Source:- The Guardian, Monday 2 April 2007, page 4

Scottish news

Domestic abuse court ‘for every town’
A leading charity has urged the next Scottish parliament to invest millions of pounds to set up courts to deal solely with domestic abuse cases in every town with a sheriff court in Scotland.
Scottish Women’s Aid wants the Executive to give the go-ahead for the scheme, which was piloted in Glasgow, to be rolled out across the country after next month’s Holyrood elections.
The project saw a sharp rise in guilty pleas in domestic violence cases, with an 8% increase among the 1,403 cases which went through the new system compared with the normal court process.
Source:- The Sunday Herald, 1 April

Single mums barred from sex abuse check
Single mothers in Scotland have been barred from checking with police whether a new partner is a registered sex offender, even though women in England will be given the right.
Evidence is growing that some paedophiles use single mothers to gain access to children, and leading sex abuse experts believe women in new relationships should have the right to examine the sex offenders’ register.
In England, the Home Office is committed to allowing single mothers limited access to the register, but a similar move has been ruled out north of the Border.
Source:- The Scotland on Sunday, 1 April

Drugs are a bigger threat than terrorism, says expert
Children living in a home where parents use drugs are seven times more likely to develop a habit than the national average.
In Scotland it is thought 50,000 children are growing up in homes where there are drugs. Perhaps 100,000 more know an aunt, a brother or another close relative who is addicted.
Professor Neil McKeganey of Glasgow University, Scotland’s foremost authority on how narcotics are invading everyday life, said over the past 40 years Scotland had been blighted by heroin.
Source:- The Herald, Monday 2 April

Welsh news

Free prescriptions from today
Prescriptions will be free of charge to all of Wales’ residents from today.
The charges for prescriptions go up 20p in England and Scotland to £6.85 on the same day as the Welsh Assembly Policy comes into force.
Source:- Wales on Sunday, 1 April 2007

Rhodri praises ‘most successful week’
First minister Rhodri Morgan has said this week had been one of the most successful in the Welsh Assembly Government’s history.
Morgan said that the achievements included new figures showing that the proportion of children living in relative poverty in Wales had fallen below that of Great Britain for the first time.
Source:- South Wales Echo, Saturday, 31st March 2007