Tuesday 17 December 2002

By Amy Taylor, Nicola Barry and Alex
Dobson.

Stroke victim lost for 24 hours in a
cupboard

A stroke victim was trapped in a cupboard for 24 hours in a
newly opened £99 million hospital before being found by a
sniffer dog.

Catherine Sutherland, aged 64, was taken to the Great Western
Hospital, Swindon, on Friday. She was seen by a nurse, but an hour
later she disappeared.

Her family is considering legal action against the hospital,
which only opened last week.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Tuesday 17 December page
2

Property chief accused of sex attacks on
girls

A rich business man indecently assaulted two teenage school
friends, an Old Bailey jury heard yesterday.

The prosecution said that Baron Bloom was sexually attracted to
under-age girls, one was 14 and the other 15, and took advantage of
situations engineered by him to indecently assault the two while
knowing they were under-age.

Bloom denies two charges of indecently assaulting on girl and
two charges of indecently assaulting her friend.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Tuesday 17 December page
5

Outrage at ban on school play photos

Parents were angry yesterday at a local authority’s decision to
ban photography and video recording at school nativity plays and
concerts.

The rule has been introduced at 156 nursery primary and
secondary schools in Edinburgh to prevent pictures of children
getting into paedophiles’ hands.

The new guidance from Edinburgh council comes after reports that
paedophiles have been found in possession of images taken during
school plays.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Tuesday 17 December page
9

Cardinal rejects calls to quit over sex abuse
priests

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic
Church in England and Wales, admitted further mistakes in his
handling of clerical child abuse in his former diocese yesterday,
but still refused to resign.

He was responding to accusations that he allowed a priest,
investigated for allegations of abusing a nine-year-old girl to
return briefly to his parish, despite warnings that he was a
potential risk to children.

It has also come out that the priest, Fr Christopher
Maxwell-Stewart, had been flouting an agreement not to conduct
regular parish masses. He was also allowed to live in a church
house opposite a primary school.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Tuesday 17 December page
10

Asylum seekers staying at £95-a-night
hotels

Hundreds of asylum seekers from the Sangatte camp are being put
up in British hotels at a cost of £95 a night.

They will stay in the hotels for up to three months before being
dispersed around London, Manchester and North Yorkshire.

Britain is taking about 1,200 Iraq Kurds and Afghans from the
camp.

Source:- Daily Mail Tuesday 17 December page 19

Named, shamed and banned from town – aged
11

An 11-year-old schoolboy has been banned from the town centre he
has terrorised since he was eight-years-old.

Robert McDermott, from Harpurhey Manchester, is one of the
youngest children to be named and shamed in court and be subject to
an anti-social behaviour order.

Source:- Daily Mail Tuesday 17 December page 28

Catholic priest goes to ground as scandal
breaks

The Roman Catholic priest at the centre of the latest paedophile
scandal is in hiding in Britain after going missing on his way back
from a monastery in Italy.

Father Christopher Maxwell-Stewart was sent to the continent by
the Catholic Church two weeks ago to avoid media attention as
stories about child abuse priests began to surface.

Although he was never been convicted of abuse, in 1996 he was
charged with molesting three children and the claims have refused
to go away. The church now faces questions as to why it still let
him back into his parish in Leatherhead, Surrey, for at least four
months despite reports that he was risk to children.

Source:- The Times Tuesday 17 December page 6

Child abuse jail terms increased

Three men who raped or sexually abused children and one who
raped a mother when her child was listening, have had their
sentences increased at the court of appeal yesterday.

The sentences were raised after a plea by the attorney general,
Lord Goldsmith QC, who told the court some judges were passing
‘unduly lenient’ sentences on men who raped or sexually abused
children because they did not pay enough regard to the lasting harm
done to victims.

Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 17 December page 7

Health service failing homeless

The government has been accused of failing to ensure that
homeless people receive adequate health care after a report
published by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister found services
for rough sleepers are badly co-ordinated and ineffective.

The study, carried out by the government’s homeless directorate
is the second in a week to identify far-reaching problems with
health provision for the homeless.

Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 17 December page 9

Scottish newspapers

25% of ethnic minority Scots have tried
drugs

A new report showing that nearly a quarter of ethnic minority
Scots have tried illegal substances exploding the myth that drug
misuse is a problem only among their white counterparts.

Bashir Maan, a Glasgow city councillor, said the survey,
released yesterday by Greater Glasgow NHS Board, showed the Muslim
community in Glasgow had failed its young people.

Source:- The Herald Tuesday 17 December page 9

Missing: the young who vanish from jobs
system

One in seven of all Scottish school-leavers vanishes from the
system – without a job, a place in education or training or a
formal place on the unemployment register, new figures showed
yesterday.

Some 35,000 teenagers disappeared from the system this year. The
young people are known as the NEET group – not in employment,
education or training.

Source: The Herald December 17 page 1

Ban on nativity photos attacked

Education chiefs in Edinburgh conceded yesterday they did not
know of a single case in the UK where paedophiles had been found
with pictures of nativity plays, as the row over banning
photography in schools escalated.

Source:- The Scotsman Tuesday 17 December page 1

Two more councils bar filming of nativity
plays

A ban on parents filming their children at nativity plays has
spread to two other Scottish local authorities.

Education chiefs in Falkirk and East Lothian have introduced
similar restrictions to those applied at 156 council-run schools in
Edinburgh.

Source:- The Scotsman Tuesday 17 December page 2

Welsh newspapers

Shop the pusher’ plea

The mother of a teenage heroin addict from south Wales has
appealed to the public to inform on drug pushers.

An inquest found that Carol Owens-Gronow’s daughter Kylie,
aged 18, died of pneumonia through natural causes, but that a
non-fatal dose of heroin may have aggravated her breathing
problems.

She is now urging anyone who has information about drug dealers
to tell the police.

Meanwhile, the Welsh assembly minister for health and social
services, Jane Hutt, has admitted that treatment services for drug
addicts in Wales are patchy. There are just 47 detoxification beds
available and waiting times of up to 15 months for treatment.

Source:- South Wales Echo Monday 16 December page
13

Community that fought back

A community blighted by crime and anti-social behaviour is
slowly winning the war to reclaim its streets.

Yesterday residents of Gibbonsdown in Barry were able to show
home office minister for crime reduction and policing, John Denham,
the results of co-operation between themselves and the police that
are aimed at tackling crime

The community is now hoping to benefit from £690,000 under
the Welsh assembly’s ‘communities first’
programme for initiatives against drugs and for CCTV
installation.

Source:- Western Mail Tuesday 17 December page 6