In Today's Papers

By Clare Jerrom, David Callaghan and Alex Dobson
Porn charges
A former London detective sergeant was charged yesterday with 15 counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possessing indecent images.
Sid Fillery, who is now a private investigator, was bailed until 5 August.
Source:- The Times Saturday 2 August page 6
Concern over missing girl, 13
Police fear a 13-year-old girl, who has been missing from her home in Parbold, Lancashire, may have been forced to work as a prostitute in Manchester.

A reported sighting suggested the possibility that Liliana Brooks was being held against her will.
Source:- The Guardian Saturday 2 August page 7
Payout for blood clot man mistaken for drunk
A man who was left severely disabled after police officers failed to realise he was suffering from a blood clot on his brain, and assumed he was drunk, has been paid £310,000 by police in Yorkshire in an out of court settlement.
David Powell was arrested in July 1998 after officers were told that a man was lying at the bottom of some steps near his home. They smelt drink on his breath, ignored a wound to his head and arrested him. He was taken to a police cell in Leeds and 90 minutes later he was found after he collapsed.
He was then taken to Leeds infirmary where the blood clot was quickly diagnosed, but by then it was too late to treat much of the damage to his brain. Powell now has very little mobility, is blind in one eye and has difficulty communicating.
Source:- The Guardian Saturday 2 August page 9
Barrister rejects ‘lost childhood’ claims of Damilola trial witness
Radio 4 is at the centre of controversy after giving a platform to the young witness whose flawed evidence was responsible for the collapse of the Damilola Taylor trial.
The station said it had not paid the girl, who was seen on a police videotape at the trial singing “I’m in the money”, as she contemplated spending a £50,000 reward for identifying the killers of the 10-year-old from Peckham, south London.
Radio 4 said the programme would show how the girl “has lost both her childhood and her future” from her involvement in the case.
Source:- The Independent Saturday 2 August page 6
The man who helped illegal immigrants fiddle their driving tests
A translator was in prison last night after he helped hundreds of asylum seekers cheat their way through their driving test.
Michael Babayan provided the candidates with answers through a hidden mobile phone earpiece during the test’s theory section.
The Iranian, who made up to £250,000 from the scam, admitted three counts of obtaining property by deception and six counts of attempting the crime, and was given a two-year prison sentence.
Source:- Daily Mail Saturday 2 August page 31
Labour's public job bill hits £19 billion
Labour will have created more than 600,000 extra public sector jobs by the
end of its second term, an analysis of government figures reveal.
The figures based on statistics released by the Office for National
Statistics will fuel concern about the expansion of the public sector, after
there were four times as many new jobs created by the state last year than
the private sector.
Shadow chancellor Michael Howard yesterday accused Labour of overspending,
and said even though Labour have imposed 60 tax rises since 1997 and made
hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs, hospital waiting lists are over
a million, school truancy is up and violent crime has risen.
Source:- The Sunday Times 3 August page 1
Torso in Thames link to 11 murders
Eleven children have been murdered by a demonic African cult linked to the
death of a boy whose torso was found in the Thames in 2001, a key witness
has claimed.
Detectives investigating the murder of "Adam" believe he was killed in a
ritual ceremony by a west African cult in Britain. Police now believe he was
brought to Britain from west Africa, and murdered by members of a Nigerian
black magic cult.
The latest leads have come from a Nigerian asylum seeker Joyce Osagiede. She
told officials she was seeking refuge from her husband who had killed 11
children including one of her daughters.
Source:- The Sunday Times Sunday 3 August page 1
'Daddy' Brown to launch baby bonds
Government sources have confirmed that father-to-be Gordon Brown is to introduce a number of child friendly laws including a new post of children's commissioner and
"baby bonds".
The children's commissioner will work closely with the new children's
minister Margaret Hodge, who was appointed in the latest government
re-shuffle.
Under the plans for "baby bonds", a new born child will have between £250
and £500, depending on the parents' income, to be credited into a child's
trust fund to kick-start what the government hopes will be years of saving.
Source:- The Sunday Times 3 August page 2
Woman gets aid in fight to beg
A beggar has been granted legal aid to bring a high court case under the
human rights act to assert her right to beg where she wants to.
Margaret Edlin is fighting an injunction imposed by Nottingham council as
part of a crackdown on persistent and aggressive beggars.
The 25-year old’s lawyers are arguing that the ban is an infringement of the
right to freedom of movement under article 13 of the act, and are seeking "a
reasonable variation" in the ban's terms at a high court hearing later this
month.
Source:- The Sunday Times 3 August page 8
Clarke to extend plan for selective state schools
The government is set to announce a radical plan to turn all state
secondary schools into selective specialist schools.
The proposal is likely to set sparks flying with Labour MPs who see specialist
secondary schools, which are able to select a proportion of their intake
according to ability, as socially divisive. They compare them with foundation
hospitals, which they fear will lead to a two-tier health service.
Source:- The Sunday Times 3 August page 26
Blunkett calls for sex trials restraint
The home secretary said yesterday that safeguards to protect the identity of people accused of sex crimes should be strengthened after TV presenter John Leslie walked free from court last week. The case has triggered a chorus of calls, including from the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, for ministers to consider giving male defendants in sex trials the same right to anonymity as female victims.
Source:- The Observer Sunday 3 August page 3
Leave us to grieve alone, say families of Holly and Jessica
The parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman are to spend the first anniversary of their daughter’s murder away from their Soham homes, a spokesperson has confirmed.
Police have made an unprecedented appeal to the media and public to stay away from Soham this weekend, after appeals from the community to be left in peace to mourn the two girls.
Journalists were also urged not to run stories that could prejudice the forthcoming trial of school caretaker Ian Huntley and classroom assistant Maxine Carr.
Huntley denies murdering the girls, but admits conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Carr denies helping an offender and perverting the course of justice.
They are due to stand trial at the Old Bailey in October.
Source:- The Observer Sunday 3 August page 4
Top Tory in call for more open prisons
Moving prisoners to more relaxed open prisons would ease the pressure of overcrowding on the prison system in England and Wales, Oliver Letwin has urged.
The proposition by the shadow home secretary for a more liberal regime risks criticism from the right-wingers in the party and Letwin being labelled ‘soft on crime’.
Letwin says with the prison population due to rise in the home office’s forecasts to between 86,700 and 100,700 by 2006, and with only 78,000 places due to be provided by then, more ‘imaginative’ action is needed.
Source:- The Observer Sunday 3 August page 7
Immigrants face disease checks
Immigrants would be forced to undergo screening for infectious diseases, and be prevented from entering Britain if they were considered a burden on the National Health Service under Conservative plans.
Shadow health secretary Liam Fox is expected to argue for new powers to ensure migrants at risk of spreading infection or of becoming a long term financial burden on the NHS can be excluded from Britain.
The Tories also threaten to tear up their legal obligations to asylum seekers, who cannot now be rejected on the grounds they are ill.
Source:- The Observer Sunday 3 August page 9
Damilola murder suspects could face fresh trial
The Metropolitan police are hoping to bring fresh prosecutions against suspects for the murder of Damilola Taylor using new evidence from the 14-year-old witness whose testimony was struck out at their trial last year.
Officers believe that a recent interview given by the girl will enable them to rebuild a case against the alleged killers of the 10-year-old boy, who bled to death after being stabbed in the leg with a broken bottle in November 2000.
Source:- The Sunday Telegraph 3 August page 6
Scrap the English test for foreign doctors, says GMC
A compulsory language test taken by foreign doctors wanting to work in Britain is to be scrapped, raising fears that it will lead to an increase in medical accidents.
The General Medical Council is proposing that the test, which must be passed by all doctors coming to Britain from outside the European Union, should no longer be a requirement for registration. It has been advised by solicitors that using the test could leave it vulnerable to allegations of racial discrimination from overseas doctors.
However, last week doctors condemned the move warning that it could place patients’ lives at risk.
Source:- The Sunday Telegraph 3 August page 6

CCTV in class ‘will monitor bad behaviour’
Closed circuit television cameras are to be installed in every classroom at a school for the first time in Britain in a bid to make it easier to monitor and control bad behaviour by pupils.
CCTV will operate throughout the new school King’s Academy in Middlesbrough, when it opens in September, but critics have voiced concerns over the introduction of a “spy in the class”, while others see it as a waste of money. Teachers fear the cameras could be used to monitor the way they conduct lessons.
Source:- The Sunday Telegraph 3 August page 8
Rural residents face £20m bill for street ‘wardens’
Rural council taxpayers are being forced to pay the £20 million annual bill for one of the government’s flagship policing schemes that was announced two years ago.
The government has decided to axe funding for the ‘Street Warden Initiative’ launched by Tony Blair in 2001 as a way of reducing vandalism and petty crime.
However, in a letter to a scheme manager for the villages of Wiveliscombe and Milverton in Somerset, Mike Fuller, from the office for the deputy prime minister, said last week that no more money was available, and from March next year local people would have to find their own funding.
Source:- The Sunday Telegraph 3 August page 10
These children lived here for years. Now they’re being frogmarched out of Britain
Despite a huge campaign for them to stay in Britain, Yurdugal Ay and her four children will be thrown out on Tuesday
Source:- Independent on Sunday 3 August page 4
Jail ‘thinking’ courses show you can’t teach an old lag new tricks
Home Office research has found that teaching prisoners how to think and giving them social skills has failed to stop them returning to a life of crime.
The Prison Service invested £200 million in the courses which aim to reduce reconviction rates, but prisoners who attended the courses were just as likely to re-offend as inmates who did not attend.
Source:- The Times Monday 4 August page 1
Baby in shed
A 22 –year-old dental nurse is to be charged before Margate magistrates with child neglect and concealing a birth after a baby’s body was found in a garden shed.
A 34-year old man arrested with Michelle Rose South from Broadstairs was released without charge.
Police said a post-mortem examination was inconclusive.
Source:- The Times Monday 4 August page 4
Auction plan for work permits
Thousands of British work permits would be auctioned to overseas bidders under plans being drawn up by a former minister to end illegal immigration.
Former transport secretary Stephen Byers believes that market forces have a big role to play in building a more structured approach to immigration and driving people-traffickers out of business.
Source:- The Times Monday 4 August page 4
Girl in Damilola cases insists she told the truth
The schoolgirl who told a court she witnessed the murder of Damilola Taylor, is standing by her story and insists she told the truth.
In an interview with the BBC, due to be broadcast this week, the girl claims her life has been ruined by the case.
The girl, now 15, who was dismissed by Mr Justice Hooper as “unreliable” during the trial and acquittal of four teenagers, who were alleged to have stabbed Damilola, claims she now lives at a secret address, does not go to school and drinks cider to forget her plight.
Source:- The Times Monday 4 August page 5
NSPCC’s media chief cleared by inquiry
The NSPCC media relations chief, who was suspended after he gave a character witness statement at the trial of a neighbour acquitted of indecent assault on three children, is to be reinstated in his post.
The children’s charity said Gerry Tissier would be returning to work “without implication of fault” after an investigation into a complaint about the evidence he gave.
Tissier said he would pursue “legal redress” over “false media accounts” of his evidence given in a personal capacity as a character witness for Henry Bran, a classroom assistant cleared at Southwark crown court last month of sexual assaults on three school children.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph Monday 4 August page 8
Nanny who killed baby awaits deportation
The British nanny jailed in the United States for killing a baby was awaiting deportation to the UK yesterday.
Manjit Basuta, sentenced to 25 years imprisonment in 1999 for shaking a child to death in San Diego, was paroled on Thursday.
The former nurse from Slough had her term cut to eight years after she admitted involuntary manslaughter, and has been released on parole.
Her family has always maintained her innocence.
Source:- The Independent Monday 4 August page 6
Youngsters who sleep around risk infertility explosion
Young people who have unprotected sex risk infertility from the sexually transmitted disease chlamidyia.
New statistics show that one in 10 young women aged under 25, who is sexually active, has the disease, and the figure for under-16s is even higher at one in seven.
At the start of Sexual Health Week experts are warning that the government is not doing enough to control the problem.
Six out of 10 young people aged 16-24 only use a condom some of the time, and a quarter admit to having two or three partners per year.
Anne Weyman, chief executive of the Family Planning Association, said “Opportunistic screening for women under 25 is a must.” She said the government has been making a false economy by not investing in these services.
Source:- Daily Mail Monday 4 August page 6
The fat epidemic
The number of people admitted to hospital for obesity has risen by 41 per cent in the last five years, government figures show.
Prescriptions to help treat the problem have shot up by more than 300 per cent in four years, and the total cost of the treatment and drugs is estimated to be £500 million.
Liberal Democrat Paul Burstow wants the government to promote a more healthy lifestyle to address the problem .
“Lack of exercise combined with a diet of fast food is leading adults and children being unable to enjoy a decent quality of life,” he said.
Source:- Daily Mail Monday 4 August page 15
Scottish newspapers
Fears as asylum kids are moved
A Kurdish family of asylum seekers, who have been held in detention at
Dungavel centre in Scotland, were moved yesterday in preparation for
deportation, it was claimed.
Aamer Anwar, the lawyer representing the Ay family confirmed they were
being transferred to Oakington reception centre near Cambridge.
The lawyers, who lodged a fresh application yesterday on behalf of the
family's four children, whose treatment he describes as "barbaric", said he
had been unable to contact the family since they were moved.
The children's mother Yurdugal lost her final appeal yesterday.
Source:- Daily Record Saturday 2 August
Ay family will refuse to be deported
The Ay family of Kurdish asylum seekers are to refuse to board a specially chartered plane in a final attempt to avoid deportation to a country where they face an unknown and possibly dangerous future.
The gesture means the Ay family’s final experience of Britain, where they have been detained for over a year, will involve being manhandled on to an aircraft and forcibly removed to Germany.
The family had previous asylum claims rejected five times in Germany, and they are likely to be sent back to Turkey.
Source:- The Herald Monday 4 August
Carers to benefit from £3.7m lottery grant
More than £3.7 million is to be distributed by the New Opportunities Fund to be spent on improving palliative care for people affected by progressive degenerative illnesses such as motor neurone disease and Huntington’s disease.
The Scottish Huntington’s Association, which supports patients and their families, will receive £231,700 to fund training for carers. Three other organisations – The Scottish Motor Neurone Disease Association, The Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care and the Pain Association of Scotland will also receive individual grants.
The rest will be distributed through NHS boards.
Source:- The Herald Monday 4 August
Welsh newspapers
Call for action on silent killer infection
A national screening programme for the most common sexually transmitted infection must be set up Wales, according to the Welsh family planning group.
Sexual health experts said that the principality can no longer afford to do nothing about the spread of chlamydia. The latest figures show that the number of reported cases of the infection have more than doubled in four years.
According to new data from FPA Cymru, only one in 10 couples in Wales use a condom despite the increasing risk of infection. The organisation, formerly the Family Planning Association, said that opportunistic screening for women under 25 is now a must.
Source:- Western Mail Monday 4 August page 8
Women in Health review
Women who get their services from the Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust are being asked to contribute to a review of the quality of healthcare. Clinical director Janet Evans said the prime aim of the project is to improve services. The review will look at all areas that impact on the future delivery of services.
Source:- Western Mail Monday 4 August page 3