Wednesday 5 March 2003

By Amy Taylor, Nicola Barry and Alex
Dobson.

Passport checks to be restored

The government is looking into reintroducing passport controls
on people leaving the country in an attempt to count how many
failed asylum seekers leave Britain voluntarily. Labour only
abolished the controls five years ago.

Beverly Hughes, the immigration minister, yesterday told the
House of Commons home affairs select committee that the government
were assessing if they would be able to conduct checks on people
from outside the European economic area.

Source:- The Times Wednesday5 March page 1

Schools could get cash ‘bribe’ to take asylum
children

The government is considering offering cash incentives to
schools which take in more children of asylum seekers it became
clear yesterday.

Junior education minister Stephen Twigg said the government was
looking at ways to spread asylum seeker children throughout a range
of schools. At present a few take in large numbers, and offering
cash bonuses could be one way to do this, he said.

A recent Ofsted report warned that the large numbers of asylum
seeker children were threatening the education of other
children.

Source:- Daily Mail Wednesday 5 March page 15

Greedy refugee loses £12,000 bid

The high court has blocked an Angolan asylum seeker’s attempt to
claim more benefit on top of the five years’ worth he has
already received despite not being entitled to them.

Valentino Mambakasa requested up to £12,000 in damages to
compensate him for delays in bringing his mother and three children
to the UK.

Despite being refused asylum in October 1996, Mambakassa had
been claiming income support until July 2001, one month before he
finally won asylum after an appeal.

Source:- Daily Mail Wednesday 5 March page 15

Head forced to keep pupils after attack on
parent

A headteacher said he is powerless to remove children of two
traveller families from school after a physical attack by their
parents on another mother and governor in the playground.

The attack occurred after an argument between two traveller
mothers and a Somalian mother. The pair are alleged to have hurled
racist abuse at the woman and then to have pushed her over. They
then went on to attack the governor.

Despite the attack, the headmaster is bound to keeping the
women’s children at the school in Ealing, west London, after the
local education authority refused to move the children and told him
he could not exclude them.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Wednesday 5 March page
8

Guardian Society

Lessons in living

Almost 20 years after a community centre brought hope – and
disappointment – to a huge estate in Brent, its streetwise founders
have graduated as experts on social exclusion.

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 5 March page 3

Cost cutters

RNID to head off market losses

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 5 March page 4

Study into missing links

Research reveals why people run away from home

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 5 March page 4

Face value

Alison Benjamin on a scheme where young people and police
confront each other, with the aim of improving relations

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 5 March page 6

Miles apart

With council tax in the south east to rise by 25 per cent, there
are complaints that the south gives all the cash and the north gets
all the funding. But it’s not that simple.

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 5 March page 10

Stonewalled

A national park allows barn conversions for holiday homes – but
not for affordable housing

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 5 March page 12

Blurred vision

Care agencies fear that changes to the Misuse of Drugs Act could
land them in trouble with the law

Source:- Guardian Society Wednesday 5 March page
112

Scottish newspapers

Experts back baby fall theory at childminder
trial

A freak fall could have killed a baby allegedly murdered by his
childminder, a medical expert has told a court.

Tina Mcleod, of Edinburgh, denies murdering one-year-old
Alexander Graham while looking after him at her home.

Yesterday, Dr Waney Squier, a consultant neuropathologist from
Oxford’s Radcliffe Infirmary, who is a specialist in
children’s brain disorders, cast doubt on assumptions made by
doctors about “shaken baby syndrome”.

Source:- The Herald  Wednesday 5 March page 10

Former head sentenced to four years in jail for child
sex offences

A former headmaster, unmasked as a paedophile, was jailed for
four years yesterday after admitting four charges from 1 August
1983 until 12 January last year.

William Gordon committed sexual offences against boys for almost
19 years. He also accessed child porn on his home computer. Social
work reports claimed he would continue to be “a moderate risk to
children”.

Source:- The Herald Wednesday 5 March page 4

Why I shot dead my police officer husband

Kim Galbraith, the woman who changed Scots law after claiming
years of abuse made her shoot dead her policeman husband, last
night broke her silence for the first time.

Released from prison last month, after serving four years, the
34-year-old mother of one, says she is not an evil killer, but a
woman who suffered years of abuse at the hands of her husband and
could not take any more.

Source:- Daily Mail Wednesday 5 March pages 1, 8, 9 and
10

Welsh newspapers

3m people need a daily tipple

More than 150,000 Welsh people are addicted to alcohol,
according to a new report from the charity Alcohol Concern.

The report found that more than three million people across the
UK are dependent on alcohol to get them through each day.

The research findings were discussed at a conference at the
University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
(UMIST), yesterday.

Source:- South Wales Argus Tuesday 4 March page 5

Pleas for help from parents attacked by their
children

Almost one in three calls to a helpline last year were from
parents concerned about their children’s aggressive
behaviour.

The charity Parentline Plus looked at the problem in a new
report and said that mothers often take the brunt of violent
behaviour.

The report ‘There is a war going on! – Aggression
and violence in children’ found that aggressive behaviour in
children was the result of several complex factors.

The charity said that parents should not feel alone when dealing
with their children, as help is available.

Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 5 March page 8