Monday 27 January 2003

By Amy Taylor, Nicola Barry and Alex
Dobson.

Tory asylum plans to keep out terrorists

New Tory plans would see every asylum seeker entering this
country being vetted on security grounds.

The proposals would enable asylum seekers suspected of
committing terrorist offences to be deported or turned away. The
Conservatives intend to launch their suggested reforms next
week.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Saturday 25 January page
2

Trial date set for Huntley and Carr

Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr’s trial is set to begin on 6 October
at the Old Bailey. The couple are being charged in connection with
the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

The date is 14 months after the girls disappeared.

Source:- The Guardian Saturday 25 January page 6

Staff at public school in child porn
inquiry

Police working in the Operation Ore investigation into child
pornography have questioned two teachers at Millfield, the Somerset
public school. They have since been suspended.

Source:- The Guardian Saturday 25 January page 8

Child risk staff ‘must band together’

Lord Laming’s public inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie,
expected to be published on Tuesday, will recommend that police,
social workers and health staff need to work together more in
powerful local squads in order to combat child abuse.

The inquiry will call for organisational changes in child
protection services to end divisions, and form multi-agency teams
working from the same office.

Source:- The Guardian Saturday 25 January page 10

Race abuse pair freed early

A government scheme designed to ease prison overcrowding has
allowed the early release of two of the key suspects in the Stephen
Lawrence murder case.

Neil Acourt and David Norris were sentenced to 18 months in
prison at Woolwich crown court last July for racially abusing
Detective Constable Gareth Reid. The scheme has allowed them to be
released on home detention curfew, under which they are
electronically tagged and curfewed to remain at their homes, after
serving six months of their sentence.

Source:- The Times Saturday 25 January page 4

Public volunteers to visit home of children at
risk

The charity Community Service Volunteers (CSV) is launching a
new scheme where members of the public will carry out daily visits
at the homes of children at risk of abuse and neglect.

The scheme will start in April and aims to prevent child deaths
due to social workers not having enough time to carry out regular
checks. Those on the scheme will be vetted and receive six days
training.

Source:- The Times Saturday 25 January page 15

No wonder these lawyers are smiling. They’ve just branched out
into fighting for asylum seekers. And they’re getting £6
million of your money to do it.

Over £1million in legal aid fees from asylum cases is set
to go to 21 law firms at the taxpayers’ expense.

Source:- Daily Mail Saturday 25 January page 5

Fury over schools net porn link

Easynet, a company providing internet access for thousands of
British schoolchildren, is also involved in trading in images of
child abuse involving incest and bestiality.

They also make money from child porn that is advertised on
‘newsgroups’, electronic noticeboards where subscribers can
download images of child abuse.

Easynet launched the ‘Broadband for Schools’
initiative last October, a scheme backed by e-commerce minister
Stephen Timms. Under the scheme each school pays over £1,000 a
year for access and almost £300 for installation.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 26 January page 2

How tagging turns kids away from crime

The hardcore teens who now stay out of jail – and out of
trouble

Source:- The Observer Sunday 26 January page 8

How private trade in babies spawned a
tragedy

The short and terrible death of Victoria Climbie shocked
Britain, but a new report into her killing will reveal the chain of
errors that will lead to her plight being ignored.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 26 January page 10

Dignitas ‘helps physically health to die’

A Zurich prosecutor is looking at several cases where Dignitas,
the Swiss organisation who helped Briton Reginald Crew to take his
life last week, have assisted the suicide of people who are
physically well but depressed or suffer mental health problems.

Andreas Brunner is focusing on the suicide of a 47-year-old
Dutch woman in 2001, who was suffering mental health problems, and
several Swiss nationals with a similar condition.

Source:- The Sunday Telegraph 26 January page 5

City bosses named on child porn list

At least 20 senior executives in pharmaceuticals, stockbroking,
manufacturing and retailing are named on a list put together as
part of an international police inquiry into internet child
pornography.

The group is part of the 7, 272 strong list that was passed to
British police last summer.

Source:- The Sunday Times 26 January page 1

Net closes on child porn suspects

A list of those paying to see images of child porn over the
internet mostly contains ordinary names at ordinary addresses and
is nearly all men.

They live at average homes and probably appear to lead normal
lives.

Source:- The Sunday Times 26 January page 5

GP: I helped eight patients commit suicide

A doctor has admitted using overdoses of sleeping pills or fatal
morphine injections to help eight terminally ill patients to kill
themselves.

The practice does not appear to be uncommon with six colleagues
also discussing with him their roles in similar assisted
suicides.

Source:- The Sunday Times 26 January page 7

Labour is warned of asylum backlash

Middle England votes could be lost at the general election
because people are fed up with what they see as the government’s
soft touch on asylum seekers, the cabinet has been warned.

The message came in a briefing paper circulated at a political
meeting of cabinet ministers last Friday.

Source:- The Sunday Times 26 January page 8

Airport health checks on every asylum
seeker

Concerns that asylum seekers arrive in this country with HIV, TB
and Hepatitis B has caused the government to launch plans to carry
out compulsory new health checks on all asylum seekers arriving in
Britain.

Source:- Daily Mail Sunday 26 January page 11

Asylum fears force human rights rethink

Tony Blair, yesterday described the current asylum situation as
unacceptable, and committed the government to exploring measures
that would breach the European Convention on Human Rights.

Source:- The Times Monday 27 January page 1

Refugees flee Calais police for ‘softer touch’
Caen

Police picked up 41 illegal immigrants in Ouistreham, near Caen,
on Wednesday as they tried to avoid police sweeps in Calais by
moving to other Channel ports in order to get to Britain.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Monday 27 January page
10

Scottish newspapers

Quarriers admits up to 100,000 people could have
siblings they never knew

Quarriers Children’s Home, Bridge of Weir, says, until the
early 1980s, it was standard practice for any child taken into care
in Scotland not to be told that they had siblings. The theory was
that the family the child had been removed from was deemed so
damaging to them that it was better to sever all ties.

Quarriers says this could mean there are up to 100,000 children
who went through the system from the 1900s to the early 1980s were
never told that they had siblings.

Source:- The Sunday Herald 26 January pages 1 and 4

Family to sue to find Academy suicide truth

A family is threatening to sue Edinburgh Academy, whose pupils,
they claim, drove their daughter to suicide by exchanging copies of
an indecent picture of her.

Amel Guedroudj, aged 16, hanged herself six weeks after she was
photographed partially clothed at a drunken party attended by
senior boys from the £12,000 a year school.

Source:- The Sunday Times 26 January page 12

Outrage as magazine claims gay men are seeking out HIV
infection

A quarter of new HIV infections among gay men in the United
States are deliberately contracted by men seeking to become
infected, a phenomenon known as “bug-chasing” according to an
article in ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine, which is causing
outrage across the Atlantic.

Dr Bob Cabaj, director of behavioural health services for San
Francisco, said in an interview that up to a quarter of newly
infected gay men had sought out the virus on purpose. He later
denied the figure, but admitted the practice is more prevalent than
many would admit.

Source:- The Scotsman Monday 27 January page 13

Sickest city could be world’s health
tutor

Glasgow should export its expertise in combating poverty and
ill-health across the world.

Sir John Arbuthnott, new chairperson of Greater Glasgow Health
Board, wants Scotland’s sickest city to become a global
centre for health improvement.

Source:- The Herald Monday 27 January page 4

Danger: children on move

Frequent moves can affect children adversely, causing anxiety
and sleepless nights, as they struggle to put down new roots.

As the Victoria Climbie report may show on Tuesday, children can
slip through the safety net of the services designed to protect
them.

Source:- The Herald Monday 27 January page 12

Welsh newspapers

Wales is failing to protect the weak

Social services across Wales are failing to meet the needs of
vulnerable adults and children, according to a new report.

The annual report from the Social Services Inspectorate for
Wales says that there has been a failure to learn the lessons from
previous inspections and joint reviews, and it highlights a number
of problem areas.

These include departments working in isolation and failure to
share good practice, poor political leadership, and a lack of
qualified social workers.

Source:- Western Mail Monday 27 January page 1

Cover-up claim over suicides at hospitals

Health officials have been accused of a cover-up after it
emerged that criticisms of two mental hospitals where six patients
had died in less than a year, had been removed from a published
version of a report.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists was asked to write a report
on five suicides that occurred between April 1999 and February 2000
at the Whitchurch Hospital, Cardiff, and Sully Hospital in the Vale
of Glamorgan.

The report was published in July 2000, but now following a
direction from the Health Service Ombudsman, an earlier version of
the report has been released to a group called the Vale Mental
Health Campaign.

A comparison between the two shows that at least a dozen
critical sections have been removed before the final document was
published.

Source:- Western Mail Monday 27 January page 2

Research finds racism rife in Valleys

Racial harassment is suffered by more than half the members of
ethnic minorities living in parts of Wales.

The report ‘Racism in the Valleys – Perception or
Reality’ contains a disturbing picture of the level of racial
harassment suffered by people living and working in south Wales
communities.

The Valleys Race Equality Council carried out the survey, and
200 people from a variety of ethnic minorities were
interviewed.

Source:- Western Mail Monday 27 January page 3