Monday 13 January 2003

By Amy Taylor, Nicola Barry and Alex
Dobson.

Advisers ‘told Blunkett to lock up all
refugees’

David Blunkett attempted to head off a row on Friday night
following the disclosure of internal home office advice
recommending the detention of all asylum-seekers.

The proposal, reported in the The Times to have been
contained in a memo, was made just days after the September 11
attacks.

Last night home office sources branded the advice “absurd”, and
said it would never have been implemented because it would have
meant locking up 100,000 asylum-seekers.

Source:- The Independent Saturday 11 January page 7

The asylum arrests

Ten terrorists suspects currently being held by British police
are asylum seekers living on benefits, it was revealed on Friday
night.

Nine of the 10 are Algerians and all were arrested by
anti-terrorist officers in swoops at homes in England and
Scotland.

At least one other asylum seeker – a North African said to have
been trained in Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan –
is being looked for across Europe after disappearing from his home
in Britain.

Source:- Daily Mail Saturday 11 January page 39

Boss of nursing home jailed for £900,000
theft

A nursing home manager who cheated an older couple suffering
from dementia out of almost £900,000 has been sentenced to two
and a half years in prison.

Elizabeth Ayrey was able to twist Edward Marke, a fomer legal
adviser to the Beatles, “around her little finger”, Hove crown
court was told this week.

The deception took place soon after Ayrey began working at The
Gables, a 56-bed nursing home in Crawley, west Sussex, when she
opened two bank accounts in the name of Smith and one in her own
name.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Saturday 11 January page
16

Policing strategy ‘failing children’

Barnardo’s has criticised the government for failing to put
child protection at the centre of its new policing strategy and
instead devoting just a single paragraph to the issue.

The children’s charity also questioned whether the progress made
on reducing child poverty would weather an economic downturn.

Source:- The Times Saturday 11 January page 5

‘I’m not a paedophile’: Pete Townshend of The Who denies
child porn allegations

Pete Townshend of TheWho denied he was a paedophile in the face
of allegations yesterday that he is under police investigation for
downloading child pornography from the internet.

Although admitting that he had “paid to enter an internet site
advertising child pornography”, he insisted he had only looked at
the website for research for his autobiography because he feared he
may have been sexually abused as a child.

Source:- The Independent on Sunday 12 January page
1

Children ‘being treated in wards full of drug
addicts’

Children with severe mental health problems are being treated as
inpatients alongside drug addicts and alcoholics in adult
units.

Patients aged 14 are being sent to mental health wards following
the closure of a pioneering psychiatric unit specialising in
treating youngsters.

Woodside in Epsom, Surrey, was one of only 80 units of its kind
helping young people recover from mental health problems such as
self-harm, depression and eating disorders, but Surrey Oaklands
Trust has decided the 12-bed unit is too expensive.

Instead, it has put at least six teenagers in adult wards, a
move branded “totally unacceptable” by mental health
campaigners.

Source:- The Independent on Sunday 12 January page
2

City pupils to learn how to resist gun
culture

Thousands of inner-city schoolchildren across the country are to
receive antigun lessons and be taught about the problems of gang
culture as the government tries to contain the spiralling problem
of armed crime amongst young people.

As home secretary David Blunkett admitted that people were
becoming more scared of crime, government officials announced that
lessons will be introduced as part of the attempted crack down on
gun culture after the death of two teenage girls in a shoot-out in
Birmingham on New Year’s Day.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 12 January page 2

Listen to us, Mr Blunkett

Everyone talks about reasons behind the rise of gun culture
among young black males. Akosua Annobil-Dodoo, who writes for New
Nation, says the debate ignores the real causes of anger among the
people she grew up with.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 12 January page 13

The path from gang rule to self-respect

The trigger for new life: how role play is helping street
teens

Inside a graffiti-free church hall in south London around 15
black youngsters sit on plastic chairs. The boys – attending the
‘From Boyhood to Manhood’ gang intervention project – listen as
their teacher warns them about repeating past mistakes.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 12 January page 13

Doctors fail to spot manic depression

Thousand of people suffering from manic depression are having to
wait at least a year before they are diagnosed with the condition
because many doctors do not recognise the symptoms.

A survey of British psychiatrists to be published on Monday
shows that the illness is still shrouded in mystery, even though it
is thought to effect one in every 100 people. Once it has been
identified, the condition can be treated with medication and most
patients go on to lead normal lives with little need for hospital
services.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 12 January page 14

Burger Boy brother ‘flees to Jamaica’

Police looking for the brother of two of the teenage girls
gunned down in a gang shoot-out at a New Year party, fear he has
fled to Jamaica on a false passport.

Marcus Ellis, is a ‘second lieutenant’ in one of the gangs
believed to be involved in the shooting of his twin sisters
Charlene and Sophie, aged 18, and cousins Latisha Shakespear and
Cheryl Shaw, both 17.

Source:- The Mail on Sunday 12 January page 35

Police to question Townshend over child
porn

Scotland Yard detectives are expected to question the rock star
Pete Townshend after he admitted paying to enter a child porn
website.

Last night, the model Jerry Hall backed Townshend saying that he
had advised her how to protect her children from mistakenly gaining
access to such websites.

His brother Paul said that Townshend would be exonerated in a
few days as his personal assistant had proof that the star only
entered the website for research.

Source:- The Times Monday 13 January page 3

Immigration boom

Legal immigration into Britain is five times the level of a
decade ago, Office for National Statistics data released yesterday
showed.

Nearly 200,000 people entered the UK from Eastern Europe and the
Third World in 2001, compared with fewer than 40,000 in 1992.

The data does not include illegal immigrants not claiming
asylum.

Source:- Daily Mail Monday 13 January page 24

Two MPs linked to internet pornography
investigation

Two MPs are facing investigation over paying to enter the same
child pornography site as the rock star Peter Townshend, according
to police sources.

The names of the MPs and those of other well known figures are
said to be on the list of around 6,000 British men who are
suspected of having subscribed to an American pay-as-you-view
pornography site about two years ago.

Source:- The Independent Monday 13 January page 2

Fairer deal for working fathers urged

A third of all childcare in the UK is carried out by fathers,
according to a report to be published by the Equal Opportunities
Commission.

The findings have prompted Julie Mellor, chairperson of the EOC,
to call for a new debate on the role of fatherhood.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 13 January page 1

Labour’s public service test

Can they deliver on …the street scene?

As part of our long-term investigation into whether the
government is delivering public service improvements on the ground
in Enfield, north London, this month we look at the state of the
streets and anti-social behaviour, and find painfully slow
progress.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 13 January page 10

Scottish newspapers

Girl’s death prompts new law call

Education chiefs have demanded that the government tightens a
loophole which allowed a five-year-old girl to
‘disappear’ for three months before being found
dead.

The body of Danielle Reid was recovered from a canal in
Inverness 13 weeks after she had left the city’s Crown
Primary School for a new school. Three people have been charged in
connection with the case.

Ministers are being urged to review the system for tracking
children who move schools.

Source:- Scotland on Sunday 12 January page 2

Fiscal service overburdened

Scotland’s prosecution service is still failing victims of
crime despite a programme of modernisation, a parliamentary
committee will claim this week.

A report by the Scottish parliament’s Justice 2 committee
will highlight continued problems in the Crown Office and
Procurator Fiscal Service, including lack of frontline staff,
under-funding and low morale.

Source:- The Scotsman Monday 13 January page 2

Rise in STDs among teenagers

Children as young as 14 are being treated for sexually
transmitted diseases.

Worried doctors in Scotland say the growing problem of
youngsters developing STDs proves that sex education messages are
failing to get through.

Source:- The Scotsman Monday 13 January page 4

Welsh newspapers

Wheelchair vigilante leaves a mark

Police are looking for a wheelchair-using vigilante, who has
been damaging the cars of motorists using parking bays meant for
the disabled.

The direct action campaign in Swansea has targeted cars parked
in disabled parking bays, and those parked illegally on the
pavement that cause difficulties for disabled pedestrians.

Motorists have returned to their cars to find wipers snapped off
and angry notes on windscreens.

A spokesperson for the Disabled Drivers Club said that while no
one would advocate such action, greater monitoring of misuse of
disabled parking spaces was needed.

Source:- Western Mail Monday 13 January page 1

Locals maintain opposition to secure unit

Residents from Abergele in north Wales are objecting to plans to
build a secure unit for people with severe and enduring mental
health problems in the area. Hundreds of local residents met with
representatives of Ashbourne Healthcare Limited to voice their
protests over the plans that could involve taking patients from
high security hospitals like Ashworth and Rampton.

The plans would involve a 40-bed unit and Conwy council is to
vote on the proposal next month.

Source:- Western Mail Monday 13 January page 7