In Today's Papers

By Mithran Samuel and Amy Taylor

Youths using websites to set up mass brawls
 
Police are monitoring social networking sites such as Beno and My Space after claims they are being used to set up fights.

Kent police believe young people have been using the internet to set up flights to be watched by up to 100 spectators in a public park.

At least six fights have taken place in the county.
 
Source:- The Times Saturday 30 June page 17
 
Paedophile is snared by cops’ ad
 
Police caught a paedophile by advertising for one in a “sting” operation, a court heard. Officers arrested the host of a website showing children being raped and abused. Gordon McIntosh has now been jailed indefinitely.

 
Source:- The Daily Mirror Saturday 30 June page 24
 
Jail for father who killed baby
 
A father has been jailed for 15 months for the manslaughter of his 11-week-old son.

Richard Skinner had shaken the baby in a fit of rage because of “piercing crying” when he had problems at work and mounting debt.
 
Source:- The Times Saturday 30 June page 31

Emotion lessons help children to race ahead
 
Pupils whose emotional needs are recognised by teachers are better behaved and do better academically, research by Ofsted has found.
 
A pilot, now due to be rolled out nationally, found the best results came when emotional development was incorporated into other subjects.
 
Source:- The Observer Sunday 1 July 2007 page 9

 
Elderly hit by soaring cost of home help
 
Older people are being hit by higher home care charges and more limited eligibility for such services, a Counsel and Care report this week will say.
 
Source:- The Observer Sunday 1 July 2007 page 15
 
Newborns taken into care rise three-fold in a decade
 
The number of children under one taken into care and then adopted has risen three-fold in a decade, figures show.
 
Government adoption targets for councils have been blamed for the hike, though in many cases, parents involved have got substance misuse problems.
 
The news follows a case last week in which Mark and Nicky Webster, a couple from Norfolk, were allowed to keep their fourth child after their first three were taken into care and then adopted.
 
Norfolk Council conceded that a fracture incurred by one of their adopted children, which was key to all three being taken into care, may have bene caused by vitamin deficiency rather than abuse.
 
Source:- The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 1 July 2007 page 1
 
Doctors ordered to alert police if they suspect patient faces forced marriage
 
Doctors' leaders have questioned new guidance urging them to alert the police if they suspect one of their patients may be forced into marriage, because it goes beyond their healthcare responsibilities.
 
Source:- Sunday Telegraph Sunday 1 July 2007 page 14
 
Hewitt cautions Brown against NHS policy change

Former health secretary Patricia Hewitt has called on Gordon Brown to tackle vested interests in the medical professions and promote better joint working between the NHS and social services, in a letter to mark her departure.

But she said the Department of Health needed to avoid new initiatives to allow existing reforms to bed in.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 2 July 2007 page 15

Prisoner hanged

An inmate has been found hanged in her cell at Holloway Prison. Marie Cox, 34, was awaiting sentencing for trespassing with intent.

Source:- The Times Monday 2 July 2007 page 23

Will you be our mum and dad?

The British Association for Adoption and Fostering has launched a new website to find families for the 4,000 UK children who need adoption each year.

Source:- The Sun Monday 2 July 2007 page 24-25

The baby bounty

Councils have been offered financial incentives of £36m to meet targets to increase adoptions, it has emerged.

The incentives are related to the target, announced in 2000, to increase adoptions of children by 50%.

However, critics have warned that the target has given councils a perverse incentive to take young babies – who are deemed the easiest to adopt – into care.

Source:- The Daily Mail Monday 2 July 2007 page 7

Welsh news

Poverty trap snares Welsh children

Attempts to end poverty in Wales have come to a halt over the last two years according to research out today.

Poverty blights the lives of 640, 000 people in Wales, including 180, 000 children, and there is no signal that things are improving according to the think tank the New Policy Institute.

The rate of child poverty in Wales has fallen from 36 per cent in the late 1990s but has not gone down from 28 per cent since 2004/5.

Source:- Western Mail, Monday, 2 July 2007

Man on child kidnap charge

A 53-year-old man appeared at Wrexham Magistrates Court yesterday charged with attempted child abduction.

Robert Edwards Bill, of Franklyn, St Asaph, was charged after an incident when a man is alleged to have stopped a car, opened the rear passenger door and approached a five-year-old girl in Holywell on Thursday.

Source:- Wales on Sunday, 1 July 2007