News round up: Khyra Ishaq was ‘tied like a dog’

Starved girl Khyra Ishaq was ‘tied like a dog’

Starved girl Khyra Ishaq and her brothers and sisters were found at home “tied up like dogs”, it has been claimed.

Khyra, seven, and her siblings were allegedly being punished for wanting to see their real dad.

It is claimed they were tied up after “escaping” to scavenge bread neighbours put out for birds.

A 999 source said last night: “They were tied up like people would tether a dog.”

Read more on this story in The Sun

Minister: I will close up to 270 schools

Ed Balls, the schools secretary, will reveal today that up to 270 schools will be closed in the next three years for underperformance and replaced with academies and a new generation of trust schools.
The move represents a further quickening of the pace of the city academy programme, a reform that Gordon Brown as chancellor did little to embrace.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Second life: Disability charity sets up advice line

A charity that helps the parents of disabled children contact each other and access services has set up an office in the virtual world of Second Life.

The charity, Contact a Family, is using government funding to create the digital office to support its work giving parents information and mutual support.
Read more on this story in The Guardian

Credit crunch leaves thousands facing negative equity

More than 23,200 homeowners who took out 100 per cent mortgages in the year to March 31 could slip into negative equity, figures suggest.
As house prices continue to fall, the figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders show there is likely to be a rise in the number of people who owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth
Read more on this story in The Guardian

Survey points to variations in health spending

The amount spent per head on health and social care is 17 per cent less in England than in Scotland, according to official figures published on Monday.

The findings highlighted the big differences in how long patients have to wait for non-emergency operations – a practice that has led to complaints that the health service is operating a “postcode lottery”.

Read more on this story in The Financial Times

‘Ideal foster parent’ was secret paedophile who gave ‘sex lessons’ to three girls in his care

A man seen as the ‘ideal’ foster parent by social services was a secret paedophile who sexually abused girls in his care for years.

Kenneth Morton, 58, fooled his wife and family, who had no idea he was sexually assaulting the three vulnerable children when left alone with them.

He was jailed for 12 years at Sheffield Crown Court yesterday after admitting the systematic abuse of two girls aged 11 and a 13-year-old at his home over a five-year period.

Read more on this story in The Daily Mail