By Clare Jerrom, Reg McKay and Alex Dobson.
Couple charged over girls' murders
A school caretaker from Soham, Cambridgeshire, was charged last night with the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
Detectives investigating the murder of the two 10-year-old girls charged Ian Huntley hours after he was compulsorily committed to a high security mental hospital and sectioned under the 1983 Mental Health Act.
His detention raised the possibility that he may never stand trial if declared unfit to face a court.
Later, his partner Maxine Carr, who worked as a classroom assistant at the girl’s class in St Andrew’s primary school, was charged with perverting the course of justice. Carr will appear at Peterborough magistrates’ court this morning.
A psychiatrist's assessment has found Huntley unfit to appear in court today.
A Cambridgeshire police spokesperson said his case will be listed "when he is deemed fit to attend".
Source:- The Times Wednesday 21 August page 1
Afghans get £2,500 to go home
The government is to offer Afghan asylum seekers cash payments of up to £2,500 to return home under a pilot scheme announced yesterday.
Up to 17,000 will be eligible for the cash and a free flight back to Kabul under a scheme similar to the one offered to Kosovans who fled during the Balkans conflict.
The package came as the government announced that £1 million is to be given to organisations to help refugees integrate into Britain.
Presswise Trust is one of the organisations to benefit from the funding. It will receive £80,000 to promote positive media coverage of refugee issues, and to run a website confronting myths about refugees.
Source:- The Times Wednesday 21 August page 1
‘Passports’ call for child-care workers
The government was urged to introduce a passport style identification for all adults who work with children last night, amid claims from a large UK recruitment agency that the current vetting system is "cumbersome and inefficient".
The plea to home secretary David Blunkett came from Timeplan, the agency which allowed Amy Gehring to continue working in schools despite police warnings that she posed a serious threat to children.
Gehring was cleared of having sex with her teenage pupils by a jury, which was unaware she had earlier been branded a risk to pupils.
Procedures for vetting school staff are under fresh scrutiny after the abduction of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Cambridgeshire local education authority has stressed that Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr had undergone police checks and supplied character references before taking up employment at two local schools.
Source:- The Guardian Wednesday 21 August page 4
Failing councils face sanctions
Failing councils highlighted by a new government inspection regime face losing services to outside contractors, drawn from business, charities and other parts of the public sector, under plans to crackdown on under-performing councils.
Ministers unveiled a three-stage procedure yesterday to improve services delivered by the worst authorities. It will be applied when a new assessment of English councils is introduced later this year with publication of the first league tables.
Initially the country’s 150 largest councils will be graded in categories ranging from "excellent" to "weak". Despite criticism from the Local Government Association that the categories are too crude and arbitrary, they are due to be published on December 12.
Although well performing councils have been promised greater freedom and flexibilities, John Prescott’s local government department concentrated yesterday on the tough action needed to turn round some authorities.
Source:- The Guardian Wednesday 21 August page 6
Activist jailed for threats
An animal activist who sent death threats to managers at Huntingdon Life Sciences Group was jailed yesterday for four-and-a-half years at Southwark crown court.
Robert Moaby, of King’s Cross, London admitted two counts of threatening to kill and 17 of possessing indecent pictures of children.
Source:- The Guardian Wednesday 21 August page 6
Incident at youth jail fuels crowding fears
A prison officer was injured at a young offenders’ institution near Bristol after 22 inmates refused to return to their cells on Monday night.
Superficial damage was caused at the only privatised young offenders’ institution at Ashfield, before staff intervened five hours later at 1.30am.
The disturbance followed "concerted indiscipline" at adult prison service jails in Liverpool and Dorchester over the weekend.
Prison numbers remain at a record of more than 71,500. There has been fears that overcrowding could cause far worse incidents than seen so far this summer.
In a report yesterday, the Howard League for Penal Reform identified problems of violence and staffing at Ashfield run by Premier Prisons. In the past year three-quarters of staff and prisoners have been assaulted.
Source:- The Guardian Wednesday 21 August page 7
Guardian Society
The right track
Crisis is refocusing its work away from rough sleepers to help ease homeless people back into society
Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 21 August page 8
Serious fun
Juvenile crime has fallen by 56 per cent in a deprived area of north Wales. Sarah Wellard finds it’s down to adventurous play
Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 21 August page 60-59
A risky business
First respite centre for suicidal people is to open in London
Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 21 August page 59
Scottish newspapers
Cover-up claim in health trust report
Argyll and Clyde Acute Hospitals Trust has been accused over covering up a devastating review report about its management.
John McFall MP and Jackie Baillie MSP have demanded to know why a 60-page review has not been published publicly. The report is scathing regarding the two top managers at the trust while a four-page summary issued to the public appears sanitised and bland compared to the original. The original review had been carried out after representations by McFall and Baillie.
Source:- The Herald Wednesday 21 August page 1
GHA fined £100
Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) has been fined £100 for misleading tenants over its name by excluding the word "limited" from adverts during the ballot that resulted in the transfer of Glasgow council housing to the agency.
Anti-transfer campaigners had brought the charges claiming GHA had deliberately misled tenants. The GHA described the fine as "a nominal penalty".
Source:- The Herald Wednesday 21 August page 10
Sex offender jailed after travelling illegally to England
Stewart Galbraith, described as a predatory paedophile, was jailed at the high court in Edinburgh for nine months for breaching the terms of his sex offender registration.
Lord Kingarth sentenced Galbraith for a breach of his sentence after hearing that he had travelled from Scotland to Manchester without informing the police as his supervision order requires. Galbraith was described as a life-long predatory sex offender whose last conviction was in 1999 in Inverness.
Source:- The Herald Wednesday 21 August page 12
Welsh newspapers
'All Dad wanted was to die in comfort'
Ex-miner Sam Wilson died before he could receive compensation
for the industrial disease he suffered after years of working as a
pitman.
His daughter June Blackall said that her 78-year-old father was
cheated of the compensation he deserved, and added that all he had
wanted to do was to die in comfort.
She will now pursue the claim which she had taken up on her
father's behalf, although she has been told that it will now go to
the back of the queue.
Union and legal representatives of former miners say that there are
not enough trained claims handlers to deal with the number of
claims.
Wilson died from cardio-respiratory failure caused by
pneumoconiosis; he had worked at Lady Windsor colliery in south
Wales for 46 years.
Don Touhig, Wales Office Minister and Islwyn MP, said that sadly
there were days when a miner would die before he received
compensation due, and that the government wants every claim
processed as quickly as possible.
Source:- South Wales Echo Tuesday 20 August pages 1 and 2 and comment page 8
Careers services 'fail to reach socially excluded'
Careers services in Wales have been criticised for failing to
reach socially excluded youngsters.
A report from Estyn, the education and training inspectorate for
Wales, found that the £32 million careers service that is
funded by the Welsh Assembly, had strong management, but in certain
areas failed to provide satisfactory personal career plans for
young people.
More than a third of plans produced by Careers Wales North East
were found to have "important shortcomings".
In a wider survey of the companies providing careers advice across
Wales, strategies for promoting social inclusion were described as
"weak".
Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 21 August page 8
