Wednesday 9 October 2002

By Clare Jerrom, Nicola Barry and Alex
Dobson.

Youngsters take money and run from New Deal

The government’s New Deal scheme to get young people into
work has cost up to £6,000 per person, yet nearly a third of
those who have taken part cannot be traced, according to a report
from a House of Commons committee published today.

The government has met its target of getting 250,000 people aged
under 25 into work under its £3 billion New Deal scheme,
according to the Public Accounts Committee. But it highlights that
many of these people would have got jobs anyway because of the
buoyant economy.

The report raises concerns that 30 per cent of those who leave
the programme disappear without trace, and it calls for urgent
research to find out what is happening to them.

Committee chairperson Edward Leigh said the programme had
resulted in a fall in the overall level of long-term youth
employment, but had failed to have an impact on ethnic minority
groups.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 9 October page 2

Age discrimination ‘costing £31bn a
year’

Age discrimination is no longer a minority issue, with the
latest census revealing that over 60s outnumber under16s for the
first time. But the issue has yet to acquire the same prominence in
public thinking as discrimination on grounds of gender or race.

More than a third of the 9.3 million people aged 50 to 64 are
not in work, representing around 3.7 million without jobs. At any
one time more than one million people aged 50 or over are seeking
employment.

This discrimination is costing the country £31 billion in
lost productivity according to the Employers Forum. Similar
research for career consultancy Penna Sanders and Sidney found that
many employers were considered “over-the-hill” at 42.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 9 October page 2

Reporter wins libel battle with police

A BBC reporter was paid more than £300,000yesterday by Kent
police in what is thought to have been the first successful libel
action against the police in Britain.

Donal MacIntyre accepted an apology, £15,000 in damages and
legal costs of more than £300,000 after a two-year battle over
his report into the treatment of residents in a care home for
people with learning difficulties.

MacIntyre used hidden cameras and posed as a care worker to
reveal the physical abuse that staff were inflicting on residents
at the Brompton Care Home in Gillingham, Kent.

The broadcast of the programme in November 1999 prompted Medway
social services to remove the home’s licence.

The documentary also resulted in two staff members being
cautioned for five offences of criminal assault, but Kent police
later called the programme “misleading”.

The police now accepted that it gave a “fair and accurate
impression” of life at Brompton Care Home.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 9 October page 6

Danielle, 15, ‘was murdered by her spurned
uncle’

A 15-year-old girl was murdered by her uncle after she rejected
his sexual advances, a court was told yesterday.

Danielle Jones, whose body still has not been found, was killed
by Stuart Campbell, who had an unhealthy interest for young girls
and had developed an “irresistible sexual attraction” for his
niece, Chelmsford crown court was told.

Campbell called his niece “Princess” in text messages to her,
and he had a history of posing as a photographer to take pictures
of young girls, it was alleged.

When police searched Cambell’s home after Danielle
vanished, they found pictures of girls in varying stages of
undress.

Danielle left her house in Tilbury, Essex in June last year at
8am to catch a bus to school, and she has not been seen since.

Campbell denied murdering and kidnapping his niece.

The trial continues.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 9 October page 7

Huntley is judged fit to stand trial for Soham
deaths

A psychiatrist has found Ian Huntley free from any form of
mental disorder, which means he has been declared fit to stand
trial for the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

The 28-year-old was taken from Peterborough crown court to a
prison cell yesterday after a two-month assessment in Rampton
secure hospital, Nottinghamshire.

Last night he was on 24-hour suicide watch in the health care
centre at the top security Woodhill jail near Milton Keynes, where
he is classed as a high-risk category A inmate because his escape
would cause major public concern.

A judge will be told about the progress of the investigation
into Huntley and his girlfriend Maxine Carr, both charged in
connection with perverting the course of justice, at a hearing in
Norwich crown court on November 15.

Huntley is accused of murdering the two 10-year-old girls from
Soham, Cambridgeshire.

Outside the court, 120 police officers formed a cordon to keep
at bay around 20 protesters.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 9 October page 9

‘War on lone parents over’

The Conservative party’s “war” on single mothers is over,
the party claimed yesterday in a frank admission of its past
hostility to lone parents.

David Willetts told the party conference that it was time for a
wholly different approach, which recognised that families came “in
all shapes and sizes”.

There was overwhelming evidence that it was better, if possible,
for children to be raised by two parents in a stable marriage. But
many lone parents were doing the responsible thing in caring for
their children after being abandoned, Willetts said.

“The real Tory battle is to support and strengthen the
nation’s families,” he added.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 9 October page 11

Brown puts block on new young offenders’
unit

Government proposals to build five more secure training centres
for teenage offenders are to be scrapped as a result of a
continuing budget battle between the home secretary and the
Chancellor.

Gordon Brown has also refused to meet David Blunkett’s
demands for new money to cope with overcrowding triggered by the
soaring prison population. Brown has demanded that Blunkett comes
up with an alternative strategy before he commits more Treasury
funds to building even more prison places.

Negotiations are still going on between the two over the 2002
public spending round which was supposed to have been settled in
July.

To date, Blunkett has failed to secure an adequate budget for
the rapidly expanding prison and probation services.

The prison population has hit a record 72,000 with 250 prisoners
being held in police cells each night.

Source:- The Guardian Wednesday 9 October page 1

Fund to teach children about safety launched at service
for Milly Dowler

A new charity was launched at a thanksgiving service for Milly
Dowler yesterday to teach children about personal safety.

Milly’s Fund would be a lasting memorial to the murdered
schoolgirl, friends and relatives were told at Guilford
cathedral.

The Bishop of Dorking, the Right Reverend Ian Brackley, said he
was encouraged by the decision of Milly’s mother, Sally, to
set up the charity.

“Responsible and sensible education in this sphere is vital for
distinguishing situations of risk from normal social intercourse
between adults and youngsters,” he said.

Source:- The Guardian Wednesday 9 October page 3

Guardian Society

Home victory

Residents thwart council tax claim

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 9 October page
4

Champion of change

Homelessness charity brings in penal reformer as new chief

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 9 October page
4

A healing sentence

Women’s jail to benefit from therapeutic community
centre

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 9 October page
4

Real to reel

Cultural initiatives in a depressed part of Liverpool are taking
the dreams of local youths and turning them into careers

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 9 October page
6

Safe haven

How the metropolitan police is revolutionising the way it
investigates allegations of rape and treats the victim

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 9 October page
10

Planned escape from chaos

Josephine Kwahali, leading the overhaul of children’s
services

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 9 October page
11

Staying on

For people suffering mental health problems a new project offers
them a way to hold on to their job

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 9 October page
120-119

Growing up gracefully

Children with learning disabilities need help becoming
adults

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 9 October page
119

Scottish newspapers

The big brothers and sisters act

Irvine Laidlaw, one of Scotland’s wealthiest businessmen,
is to donate £60,000 to a mentoring project which matches
children from lone parent families with adults.

Adult volunteers are screened by Disclosure Scotland before
being matched with a child aged between 6 and 15 of the same
sex.

Source:- The Herald October 9 page 10

Abuse victims accuse Vatican

Victims of sexual abuse by priests are taking their complaints
to the United Nations today, claiming the Vatican has violated the
UN treaty protecting children, and demanding something be done
about it.

Source:- The Herald October 9 page 13

Scots urged to end stigma of mental illness

Scots were yesterday urged to help end the stigma attached to
mental health, as new figures revealed that one in four of the
population has suffered from mental health problems.

Health minister Malcolm Chisholm challenged people to help
change attitudes at the launch of the new ‘See Me’
campaign, which is intended to counter the prejudice surrounding
psychiatric conditions.

Source:- The Herald October 9 page 4

Welsh newspapers

Lord Mayor hits out at funding claim

Lord Mayor of Cardiff council, Russell Goodway, has dismissed
suggestions that problems in social services in the capital are due
to lack of funding from the Welsh Assembly.

Jacqui Gasson, Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet member, claimed
that Goodway had demanded more money at a recent crisis meeting
with assembly minister for social services, Jane Hutt.

The meeting was held in the wake of a damming joint review into
social services in Cardiff. Gasson said that many of the review’s
findings were not about issues of finance.

Goodway denied that he had said that improvements in social
services would be conditional on additional funding.

Source:- South Wales Echo Tuesday 8 October page 9

Refugees on the road to becoming doctors

Sixteen refugees have taken their first step on the road to
becoming NHS doctors.

The group who come from countries with troubled backgrounds like
Iraq are already medically qualified in their own countries and
include surgeons, psychiatrists, a neurosurgeon and a cancer
specialist.

They have now begun a college course in English that will help
them into work by next autumn.

Leona Evans of the Cardiff-based charity, Displaced People in
Action (DPIA), said that within a year it was possible that the
whole group could be working for the health service in Wales.

Source:- South Wales Echo Tuesday 8 October page 12

Ill man can smoke cannabis, says bench

Welsh magistrates have made legal history by acquitting a man
who smoked cannabis for medical reasons.

It is the first time that anyone has been allowed to plead
necessity as a reason for using cannabis. Defendant Brad Stephens
from Carmarthenshire said that he would kill himself if he was not
allowed to use the drug.

Stephens suffers from cervical spondylosis, and is prescribed
morphine to combat the pain, but he told the court that he could
not manage without cannabis.

A home office spokesperson said that possession remained an
arrestable offence, although the government was looking at new
guidelines for the police.

The crown prosecution service has warned that it is considering
an appeal.

Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 9 October page 1