By Clare Jerrom and Reg McKay.
Youth prison is England’s most violent
A young offenders institution, which has set a record for assaults, has become the most violent jail in England and Wales, according to a survey.
Castington Young Offenders’ Institution in Northumbria had 222 recorded assaults in 2000-2001 for an average prison population of 239. The survey by the Prison Reform Trust found the prison had a 92.9 per cent assault rate.
A Prison Service spokesperson said people were only held there for a short time, making it difficult to solve problems with the offenders, and many of the assaults were likely to be minor.
Staff were trying to discover the cause of the rise.
Source:- The Times Thursday 2 August page 2
Few find any merit in youth curfew
A political row broke out yesterday about whether curfew schemes for children under 16 will prove any more effective than they did for those under 10.
No local authority applied the powers designed to keep children off the streets at night when the government first launched the scheme in September 1998.
The extended scheme, which came into effect yesterday, enables police the power to apply for a curfew order as well as the local authority.
Home office minister Beverley Hughes said she thought the scheme would prove useful as police and local authorities could take a child in breach of a curfew home to a safe place.
But opposition politicians and penal reformers were more sceptical.
Chris Stanley, of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, said the powers were popular with no-one and difficult to enforce.
"They will apply to any child living in the area, not just those who are causing trouble. Enforcement could prove to be a nightmare, with tension and conflict between young people and the police increasing, not diminishing, as a result," he said.
Source:- The Guardian Thursday 2 August page 11
Imprisonment tale was invention of runaway boy
The boy who claimed to have been kept as a prisoner in a north London flat for eight years, was in fact a runaway with a fertile imagination, it emerged yesterday.
The boy was not kidnapped or physically abused. He comes from the north of England, where he has a family. It is thought he ran away from home four months ago.
Police issued a picture of the boy yesterday, who was found wandering in a distressed state and crying near Tower Bridge in east London in March.
The youth is believed to be 13 and told social workers, his foster family and police he had been kept a prisoner since he was five-years-old.
Social services and police refused to elaborate on how the boy came to be in care in London for four months, or whether his parents had been in contact
His identity will remain confidential.
Source:- The Guardian Thursday 2 August page 6
Landlords who neglect houses may lose benefit
Landlords who shirk their duty to maintain properties face losing tenants’ housing benefit, under proposals from Stephen Byers.
The environment secretary will argue the abolition of unfit housing must be central to the government’s drive against child poverty. He will announce figures that show 2.4 million children live in substandard properties.
Byers, who is determined to make housing a second term issue for Labour, will promise to take 300,000 children out of substandard property by 2004.
Source:- The Guardian Thursday 2 August page 5
Scottish newspapers
Childminder charged with murder
A registered childminder, Tina McLeod, appeared at Edinburgh sheriff court yesterday, and was formally charged with the murder of a one-year-old child in her care.
The baby, Alexander Graham, died at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, on Friday night having been admitted earlier in the day suffering from serious injuries to his head and neck.
McLeod made no plea or declaration and was released on bail with various conditions including that she is not allowed unsupervised access to any child under the age of 10 years.
Source:- The Scotsman Thursday 2 August page 6
Juror claims child witnesses were abused by the system
A juror in the abandoned trial of six men accused of child abuse last night took the unprecedented step of speaking out to demand legal reform on the treatment of child witnesses.
Christopher Garner waived his right to anonymity to condemn the treatment of the children by the system. He said: "I feel these children have undergone ritual abuse from the very system that should put these matters straight. It has shown how the current legal system is criminally behind the times.
"It is the legal system that should be on trial," he said. The trial was abandoned after an eight-year-old boy was found medically unfit to continue giving evidence regarding the alleged sex abuse of him and his 11-year-old sister.
Source:- The Scotsman Thursday 2 August page 1
