By Amy Taylor, Nicola Barry and Alex Dobson.
Tory asylum plans to keep out terrorists
New Tory plans would see every asylum seeker entering this country being vetted on security grounds.
The proposals would enable asylum seekers suspected of committing terrorist offences to be deported or turned away. The Conservatives intend to launch their suggested reforms next week.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph Saturday 25 January page 2
Trial date set for Huntley and Carr
Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr's trial is set to begin on 6 October at the Old Bailey. The couple are being charged in connection with the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
The date is 14 months after the girls disappeared.
Source:- The Guardian Saturday 25 January page 6
Staff at public school in child porn inquiry
Police working in the Operation Ore investigation into child pornography have questioned two teachers at Millfield, the Somerset public school. They have since been suspended.
Source:- The Guardian Saturday 25 January page 8
Child risk staff 'must band together'
Lord Laming's public inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie, expected to be published on Tuesday, will recommend that police, social workers and health staff need to work together more in powerful local squads in order to combat child abuse.
The inquiry will call for organisational changes in child protection services to end divisions, and form multi-agency teams working from the same office.
Source:- The Guardian Saturday 25 January page 10
Race abuse pair freed early
A government scheme designed to ease prison overcrowding has allowed the early release of two of the key suspects in the Stephen Lawrence murder case.
Neil Acourt and David Norris were sentenced to 18 months in prison at Woolwich crown court last July for racially abusing Detective Constable Gareth Reid. The scheme has allowed them to be released on home detention curfew, under which they are electronically tagged and curfewed to remain at their homes, after serving six months of their sentence.
Source:- The Times Saturday 25 January page 4
Public volunteers to visit home of children at risk
The charity Community Service Volunteers (CSV) is launching a new scheme where members of the public will carry out daily visits at the homes of children at risk of abuse and neglect.
The scheme will start in April and aims to prevent child deaths due to social workers not having enough time to carry out regular checks. Those on the scheme will be vetted and receive six days training.
Source:- The Times Saturday 25 January page 15
No wonder these lawyers are smiling. They've just branched out into fighting for asylum seekers. And they're getting £6 million of your money to do it.
Over £1million in legal aid fees from asylum cases is set to go to 21 law firms at the taxpayers' expense.
Source:- Daily Mail Saturday 25 January page 5
Fury over schools net porn link
Easynet, a company providing internet access for thousands of British schoolchildren, is also involved in trading in images of child abuse involving incest and bestiality.
They also make money from child porn that is advertised on 'newsgroups', electronic noticeboards where subscribers can download images of child abuse.
Easynet launched the ‘Broadband for Schools’ initiative last October, a scheme backed by e-commerce minister Stephen Timms. Under the scheme each school pays over £1,000 a year for access and almost £300 for installation.
Source:- The Observer Sunday 26 January page 2
How tagging turns kids away from crime
The hardcore teens who now stay out of jail - and out of trouble
Source:- The Observer Sunday 26 January page 8
How private trade in babies spawned a tragedy
The short and terrible death of Victoria Climbie shocked Britain, but a new report into her killing will reveal the chain of errors that will lead to her plight being ignored.
Source:- The Observer Sunday 26 January page 10
Dignitas 'helps physically health to die'
A Zurich prosecutor is looking at several cases where Dignitas, the Swiss organisation who helped Briton Reginald Crew to take his life last week, have assisted the suicide of people who are physically well but depressed or suffer mental health problems.
Andreas Brunner is focusing on the suicide of a 47-year-old Dutch woman in 2001, who was suffering mental health problems, and several Swiss nationals with a similar condition.
Source:- The Sunday Telegraph 26 January page 5
City bosses named on child porn list
At least 20 senior executives in pharmaceuticals, stockbroking, manufacturing and retailing are named on a list put together as part of an international police inquiry into internet child pornography.
The group is part of the 7, 272 strong list that was passed to British police last summer.
Source:- The Sunday Times 26 January page 1
Net closes on child porn suspects
A list of those paying to see images of child porn over the internet mostly contains ordinary names at ordinary addresses and is nearly all men.
They live at average homes and probably appear to lead normal lives.
Source:- The Sunday Times 26 January page 5
GP: I helped eight patients commit suicide
A doctor has admitted using overdoses of sleeping pills or fatal morphine injections to help eight terminally ill patients to kill themselves.
The practice does not appear to be uncommon with six colleagues also discussing with him their roles in similar assisted suicides.
Source:- The Sunday Times 26 January page 7
Labour is warned of asylum backlash
Middle England votes could be lost at the general election because people are fed up with what they see as the government's soft touch on asylum seekers, the cabinet has been warned.
The message came in a briefing paper circulated at a political meeting of cabinet ministers last Friday.
Source:- The Sunday Times 26 January page 8
Airport health checks on every asylum seeker
Concerns that asylum seekers arrive in this country with HIV, TB and Hepatitis B has caused the government to launch plans to carry out compulsory new health checks on all asylum seekers arriving in Britain.
Source:- Daily Mail Sunday 26 January page 11
Asylum fears force human rights rethink
Tony Blair, yesterday described the current asylum situation as unacceptable, and committed the government to exploring measures that would breach the European Convention on Human Rights.
Source:- The Times Monday 27 January page 1
Refugees flee Calais police for 'softer touch' Caen
Police picked up 41 illegal immigrants in Ouistreham, near Caen, on Wednesday as they tried to avoid police sweeps in Calais by moving to other Channel ports in order to get to Britain.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph Monday 27 January page 10
Scottish newspapers
Quarriers admits up to 100,000 people could have siblings they never knew
Quarriers Children’s Home, Bridge of Weir, says, until the early 1980s, it was standard practice for any child taken into care in Scotland not to be told that they had siblings. The theory was that the family the child had been removed from was deemed so damaging to them that it was better to sever all ties.
Quarriers says this could mean there are up to 100,000 children who went through the system from the 1900s to the early 1980s were never told that they had siblings.
Source:- The Sunday Herald 26 January pages 1 and 4
Family to sue to find Academy suicide truth
A family is threatening to sue Edinburgh Academy, whose pupils, they claim, drove their daughter to suicide by exchanging copies of an indecent picture of her.
Amel Guedroudj, aged 16, hanged herself six weeks after she was photographed partially clothed at a drunken party attended by senior boys from the £12,000 a year school.
Source:- The Sunday Times 26 January page 12
Outrage as magazine claims gay men are seeking out HIV infection
A quarter of new HIV infections among gay men in the United States are deliberately contracted by men seeking to become infected, a phenomenon known as "bug-chasing" according to an article in ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine, which is causing outrage across the Atlantic.
Dr Bob Cabaj, director of behavioural health services for San Francisco, said in an interview that up to a quarter of newly infected gay men had sought out the virus on purpose. He later denied the figure, but admitted the practice is more prevalent than many would admit.
Source:- The Scotsman Monday 27 January page 13
Sickest city could be world’s health tutor
Glasgow should export its expertise in combating poverty and ill-health across the world.
Sir John Arbuthnott, new chairperson of Greater Glasgow Health Board, wants Scotland’s sickest city to become a global centre for health improvement.
Source:- The Herald Monday 27 January page 4
Danger: children on move
Frequent moves can affect children adversely, causing anxiety and sleepless nights, as they struggle to put down new roots.
As the Victoria Climbie report may show on Tuesday, children can slip through the safety net of the services designed to protect them.
Source:- The Herald Monday 27 January page 12
Welsh newspapers
Wales is failing to protect the weak
Social services across Wales are failing to meet the needs of vulnerable adults and children, according to a new report.
The annual report from the Social Services Inspectorate for Wales says that there has been a failure to learn the lessons from previous inspections and joint reviews, and it highlights a number of problem areas.
These include departments working in isolation and failure to share good practice, poor political leadership, and a lack of qualified social workers.
Source:- Western Mail Monday 27 January page 1
Cover-up claim over suicides at hospitals
Health officials have been accused of a cover-up after it emerged that criticisms of two mental hospitals where six patients had died in less than a year, had been removed from a published version of a report.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists was asked to write a report on five suicides that occurred between April 1999 and February 2000 at the Whitchurch Hospital, Cardiff, and Sully Hospital in the Vale of Glamorgan.
The report was published in July 2000, but now following a direction from the Health Service Ombudsman, an earlier version of the report has been released to a group called the Vale Mental Health Campaign.
A comparison between the two shows that at least a dozen critical sections have been removed before the final document was published.
Source:- Western Mail Monday 27 January page 2
Research finds racism rife in Valleys
Racial harassment is suffered by more than half the members of ethnic minorities living in parts of Wales.
The report ‘Racism in the Valleys - Perception or Reality’ contains a disturbing picture of the level of racial harassment suffered by people living and working in south Wales communities.
The Valleys Race Equality Council carried out the survey, and 200 people from a variety of ethnic minorities were interviewed.
Source:- Western Mail Monday 27 January page 3
