By Clare Jerrom and Reg McKay.
Disabled rights may be extended to 40,000
Tens of thousands of people – including those newly diagnosed with HIV or cancer – may be eligible to receive benefits and new rights if the official definition of disability be extended.
Having received pressure from disability groups, ministers are considering broadening the term, which already covers around 8.5 million people.
Only when those people with cancer or HIV are advanced substantially enough to affect their every day activities are they included in the category.
Disability minister Maria Eagle said in an interview with ePolitix website that government, and disability groups have held "major discussions" on the issue which would mean legislation would change.
The department for work and pensions estimates that an additional 40,000 people would enter the category if it were broadened as campaigners want it to be. These people would then access benefits such as disability allowance and gain rights to have services made accessible.
Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 18 December page 5
Judge criticises law on paedophiles
A judge who sentenced Roy Whiting for offences against a young girl in 1995 criticised the law governing the management of paedophiles in society.
Retired John Gower also defended the way he sentenced Whiting: "I have no doubt that the sentence which I passed was just and proper. I’ve no regrets."
He dismissed criticism that he had been too lenient in sentencing Whiting to four years for kidnapping and assaulting a nine-year old girl.
Gower described the 1997 act, which requires sex offenders to register with the police as a "kneejerk reaction", and suggested that it did not go far enough.
However, he rejected the idea that details of paedophiles should be made available to the general public.
Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 18 December page 6
Police seize paedophile
One of the paedophiles named by the News of the World newspaper this week was arrested yesterday.
Scotland Yard said officers detained Tuan Quang Ho at an address in south London over a breach of obligation to sign the sex offenders register after he vanished from his address in south east London in May.
Ho was convicted in 1997 of two counts of indecent assault against a girl aged 14 and sentenced to 14 months in a young offenders’ institution.
Source:- Daily Telegraph Tuesday 18 December page 2
Jail chief criticises the ‘blame culture’
The former chief inspector of prisons Sir David Ramsbotham continues his attack on the government today for its handling of Britain’s jails.
He says the ministers responsible for the Prison Service are more concerned with bureaucracy, budget cutting and the blame culture than trying to prevent criminals offending again.
Ramsbotham, who retired five months ago, says he is "deeply concerned" that the government has "no strategic plan for the conduct of imprisonment".
He claims he was frequently horrified by the things he saw during inspections and the failure of the Prison Service to improve conditions for prisoners.
Ramsbotham believes that a "root and branch review" of the prison system is needed. "Imprisonment is still largely conducted on Victorian principles of deterrence rather than in accordance with modern attitudes about rehabilitation," he adds.
Source:- Daily Telegraph Tuesday 18 December page 5
Father wins right to adopt his daughter
A father has been given the right to adopt his own daughter after discovering that he was the parent.
Five law lords ruled yesterday that the father, who cannot be identified, is entitled to adopt the girl as the sole parent. Her mother will no longer be seen as the parent in the eyes of the law.
The parents of the girl, referred to as A, had a relationship between August 1997 and April 1998, and A was born in October 1998. The father was unaware of the pregnancy until social services contacted him.
He took the battle to become the sole adoptive parent of his daughter to the House of Lords after the Official Solicitor successfully contested a high court ruling that gave him the right to adopt. The court of appeal backed the official solicitor, but yesterday the law lords overturned that ruling.
They said the mother’s attitude to the child and her consent to the adoption meant that in this case the order was in the child’s best interests.
Source:- The Times Tuesday 18 December page 6
Pay hike gamble for NHS
Doctors and nurses received pay rises up to two and a half times the rate of inflation last night in a desperate bid by the government to retain staff in public services.
Inflation is running at 1.8 per cent, but the government gave family doctors a rise of 4.6 per cent and hospital doctors and nurses 3.6 per cent.
Health secretary Alan Milburn said: "These pay awards are well ahead of inflation and are richly deserved. These increases in pay are needed to get more staff working in the NHS and to keep them working in the NHS."
Nurses did not welcome the rise saying they were still running well behind teachers and police.
Source:- The Times Tuesday 18 December page 1
Scottish newspapers
Domestic abuse increases
The number of domestic abuse cases reported to the police in Scotland increased by 3 per cent to a total of 36,000 last year. Of all cases 92 per cent of victims were women while 93 per cent of abusers were male.
Source:- The Herald Tuesday 18 December page 4