Wednesday 15 January 2003

By Amy Taylor, Nicola Barry and Alex
Dobson.

Brother held after new year murders

The brother of Charlene Ellis, one of the two girls shot dead
outside a new year party in Birmingham,has been arrested in
connection with her murder.

Marcus Ellis was detained and then released on police bail
yesterday pending further inquires into the shooting.

Ellis, accompanied by a solicitor, is believed to have handed
himself in voluntarily on Monday afternoon.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 15 January page 5

Closure of learning disabilities hospitals
delayed

Plans to close all long-stay hospitals for people with learning
difficulties by next April have been delayed due to problems
finding suitable alternative homes for residents.

A report published by the government’s learning disabilities
taskforce yesterday warns that at least 500 residents are likely to
remain in long-stay institutions when the deadline for their
closure is up.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 15 January page 9

Racism is not institutional but personal, says
Blunkett

David Blunkett warned yesterday that focusing on institutional
racism to tackle prejudice risked allowing managers to avoid
dealing with discrimination.

He said the phrase missed the point, in a speech announcing the
publication of figures showing that the Metropolitan police alone
accounted for most of the increase in ethnic minorities joining the
police last year.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 15 January page 10

Brown to seek new takers for tax credits

Gordon Brown is set to spend £9 million on an advertising
campaign to increase the low take-up of the tax credits programme
at this April’s relaunch.

He has also halved the size of the application form to 12 pages
in a tacit admission that his tax credit system, which replaced
social security benefits for low-income families, is too
complex.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 15 January page 10

Thousands more child porn users to be exposed by
FBI

Thousands more paedophiles in Britain and around the world are
to be uncovered as a result of a new internet investigation by the
FBI.

The FBI are also undertaking another investigation into a series
of websites, understood to be based in Russia, which are still
operating.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 15 January page 13

Card firms help to close 300 websites

Credit card investigators have helped to expose 500 child sex
websites on the internet that are charging paedophiles to look at
them.

Visa has launched a computer program checking one million web
pages a day for child pornographers offering credit card facilities
and has taken action to close down several hundred in the past
year.

Source:- The Times Wednesday 15 January page 13

Asylum seekers haunt the streets of Calais
again

Up to 40 ayslum seekers are arriving in Calais everyday despite
the closure of the Sangatte refugee camp.

The Red Cross has admitted that despite trying to persuade
would-be immigrants to leave the port, those who are removed from
the town by the police are quickly replaced by new arrivals.

The organisation’s decision to give out humanitarian aid again
has alarmed some people in Calais who fear it could create a
repetition of problems the port faced before the camp was built at
Sangatte.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Wednesday 15 January page
8

Deputy prison governor suspended in child porn
investigation

A deputy prison governor has been suspended from work after
being arrested as a part of the same police inquiry into a US child
pornography website as rock star Pete Townshend.

Police confirmed yesterday that Terry McLaren, who works at
Bullingdon jail in Oxfordshire, had been arrested at his home near
Banbury last week by officers working as a part of Operation
Ore.

Source:- The Guardian Wednesday 15 January page 7

Guardian Society

Home cares

As social and economic problems tear apart the once-strong
communities built around coal pits, one shining asset from mining’s
proud days is still around to offer support.

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 15 January page
2

Division of faith

Christmas appeal charity questioned

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 15 January page
4

Worldwide hit on the web

Internet company honours 13-year-old boy’s dyslexia site.

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 15 January page
4

Call to define NHS care

Prioritise specific entitlement over reform, says thinktank

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 15 January page
4

Pilot fright

The government wants people to shape their own local health
services, but getting the public interested is proving
difficult

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 15 January page
11

A hard case to prove

Research Ivor Gaber on the ‘gateway’ effect of soft drugs

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 15 January page
11

Target practice

…and on the danger of anti-racism adverts backfiring

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 15 January page
12

Straight talking

Learning disability taskforce’s clear warning to government

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 15 January page
159

Safe and sound

Pat Evans on the multi-agency solution that is helping to
protect the public from releasing dangerous offenders

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 15 January page
160

London Assembly official held over child
porn

A senior civil servant working at the London Assembly is the
most recent suspect to be arrested in a police investigation into
child pornography on the internet.

Yusef Azad was questioned last month at a south west London
police station in connection with Scotland Yard’s inquiry into
evidence passed to them by US law enforcement agencies.

Source:- The Independent Wednesday 15 January page
5

Police ‘miss targets’ for recruitment of
minorities

David Blunkett has accused five police forces of allowing the
number of ethnic minority officers to fall over the past year,
despite targets to increase black and Asian recruitment levels.

The home secretary said the force with most problems at
attracting recruits from these groups was the West Midlands that is
struggling to contain levels of gun and drug-related crime in
sections of its Afro-Caribbean population.

Source:- The Independent Wednesday 15 January page
7

There’s a witch-hunt against paedophiles, said
Townshend

Pete Townshend has spoken of a ‘witch-hunt’ against suspected
paedophiles.

In a letter, which was posted on his website in October, but has
since been withdrawn, the rock star said innocent people were being
wrongly arrested and convicted because of over zealous actions by
the police.

Source:- Daily Mail Wednesday 15 January page 2

Brown plans to give fathers time off for ante-natal
class

Fathers could soon get the right to take time off work to attend
antenatal classes.

The move is one of a group of possible measures announced by
Gordon Brown yesterday.

They also include a large extension to the amount of time
working parents can take off after the birth of their child.

Source:- Daily Mail Wednesday 15 January page 9

‘Proud’ Blunkett to let 200,000 foreign workers into
Britain

David Blunkett yesterday pledged to let 200,000 foreign workers
into the UK this year.

The home secretary said he was ‘proud’ to have set up a system
that admitted more foreign workers than anywhere else in the
world.

He said a record 200,000 work permits would be issued by the end
of the year – a rise on the 175,000 issued last year, and a massive
increase compared to the 30,000 of a decade ago.

Source:- Daily Mail Wednesday 15 January page 19

Scottish newspapers

Rise in children put in care homes

One of the executive’s pledges to reduce the number of
children in residential care by 10 per cent is slipping further
behind its target, according to the latest statistics.

Admissions to children’s care homes rose by 13 per cent
last year, according to figures for the year to March 2002.

Source:- The Herald Wednesday 15 January page 6

MSPs back Chhokars’ inquiry into son’s
killing

A Holyrood committee yesterday defied the executive by backing
the family of Surjit Singh Chhokar in their demand for a full
public inquiry into the murder of their son.

Kate MacLean, convenor of the equal opportunities committee,
ordered ministers to rethink their position and draw up terms for a
public inquiry.

Mr Chhokar, a waiter, was stabbed to death outside the home he
shared with his girlfriend in Lanarkshire in November 1998.

Source:- The Herald Wednesday 15 January page 6

Parents indulging their ‘tweens’ by
£10bn a year

The spending power of Britain’s teenagers has soared to
£1 billion a year according to a new report.

Family break-ups and guilt among parents who work long hours has
fuelled a handout culture in which youngsters are indulged.

Source:- The Scotsman Wednesday 15 January page 3

AIDS test to protect cops is urgent say
MSPs

MSPs yesterday called for compulsory AIDS tests for prisoners in
police custody “as a matter of urgency”.

The move comes after the Scottish Police Federation lobbied the
parlaiment, claiming officers were at “special and increasing risk”
when dealing with people with infectious diseases.

Source:- Daily Record Wednesday 15 January page 15

Tougher inspections for public services

Public services in Scotland are to be subject to greater
scrutiny, including new national standards and tougher
inspectorates, First Minister Jack McConnell announced
yesterday.

Unison, the biggest public sector union, has welcomed the
initiative, but warned that the government would need to provide
“fair pay and proper backing” to allow it to happen.

Source:- The Scotsman Wednesday 15 January page 9

Welsh newspapers

Council staff warn of children at risk

Staff at Cardiff council say that children are being put at risk
because of an overstretched and under funded social services
department.

In a major consultation exercise, ‘How Best to
Care’, carried out following a highly critical joint review,
service users and carers, voluntary and statutory organisations and
staff were invited to give their views on how services were being
run.

More than 200 delegates met yesterday at a special conference in
Cardiff to discuss the results of the consultation.

Source:- South Wales Echo Tuesday 14 January page
17

Goodway calls for radical social services
review

Cardiff’s Lord Mayor Russell Goodway told social services
staff yesterday that they had failed the city’s most
vulnerable people.

Speaking at a conference specially convened to discuss the way
forward following a highly critical joint review, Goodway said that
the service had been delivered for too long in the interests of the
provider rather than the service user.

He said that a radical review of the department would be needed
to change the culture in it.

Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 15 January page 3

Shocking baby shaking figures revealed

One in nine mothers living in poverty have shaken their baby,
according to research unveiled at a ground-breaking conference in
Cardiff.

The first-ever Sudden Baby Syndrome seminar held in the capital
brought together experts to investigate the hidden scale of this
type of child abuse.

Delegates at the conference, which was jointly organised, by the
NSPCC and the University of Wales College of Medicine called for
the creation of multi-agency strategies to combat the problem.

Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 15 January page 8

Assembly accused of forcing councils to bear costs of
means tests for elderly

The Welsh Assembly has been accused of forcing local authorities
to bear the cost of its plans to means test older people for the
services they provide.

Carmarthenshire council leader Meryl Gravell has taken the draft
proposals from the assembly’s Fairer Charging Policy, off the
council’s agenda because she said that it had been forced on
councils without the promise of extra funding.

Age Concern Cymru has warned that the policy could lead to
councils increasing charges for essential services to some of the
poorest and most vulnerable in society.

Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 15 January page 8