Thursday 15 May 2003

By Amy Taylor, Clare Jerrom and Alex
Dobson.

Fixed fines for yobs go nation wide
Fixed penalty notices for drunkenness and yobbish
behaviour which have been shown to be ignored by nearly half of
those they are given to, are to be introduced nationwide.
Evidence from pilot schemes shows that more than four out of 10
notices are ignored.
Source:- The Times Thursday 15 May page 2
Head jailed over internet paedophile ring
The headteacher of a boy’s school in Merseyside was jailed
for more than five years yesterday for making and distributing
paedophilic images and indecently assaulting a 14-year-old
girl.
Robert Pearson carried out the acts while a member of an
international paedophile ring named ‘Holiday Party
Time’.
It used ‘unbreakable’, 130-letter passwords and complex encryption
to prevent the discovery of images of torture, and bestiality
featuring young children and babies.
Source:- The Times Thursday 15 May page 5
Milburn earmarks first 29 flagship foundation
hospitals
The government announced the first 29 candidates to become
foundation hospitals yesterday.
Those chosen will get freedom from Whitehall and be able to run
themselves however they wish – as long as it is to the benefit of
the patients.
Only trusts with three stars were allowed to apply for foundation
status.
Source:- The Independent Thursday 15 May page 4
Teen sex is linked to missing fathers
Girls who grow up without a father undergo personality changes at
an early age that make them more readily interact with men and
subsequently become pregnant, according to new research.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph Thursday 15 May page 12
Scottish newspapers
Education package focuses on children in care
Children without a supportive family are in most need of
good examination results when they leave school yet two thirds of
children raised in foster care or residential homes emerge after 11
years of education without a qualification to their name.
The Scottish executive has teamed up with children’s welfare
groups and the University of Strathclyde to launch a package of
‘focused education materials’ with input from children
who have experienced of being in care.
Education minister Cathy Jamieson has ordered all authorities to
ensure all children in care receive a full time education and have
a care and education plan.
Local authorities have been given £10 million to buy books,
computers and toys for the 11,200 looked after children in
Scotland, and set targets for their educational achievement to
ensure they have as much success as those children bought up by
natural or adoptive parents.
Schools were also ordered to appoint a teacher to champion the
rights of children in care.
Source:- The Scotsman  Thursday 15 May page 2
Bullied schoolgirl kept from class by threats
A bullied schoolgirl who won an interdict against a group
of girls, was forced to stay at home yesterday just one day back
into the classroom.
Jenny Souter returned to Blairgowerie High School on Tuesday for
the first time since winning the court order against four girls she
alleged subjected her to an eight-month ordeal.
An order was withdrawn from one of the girls at Perth sheriff
court, but the order remains in place for the other three aged
between 12 and 15. The two older girls face custody if they
continue the bullying.
A few hours after returning to school, Souter was warned that a
relative of one of the girls named in the interdict planned to come
to school to seek revenge.
Source:- The Herald Thursday 15 May
Doing it for the kids
Film actor Ewen McGregor and pop star Sharleen Spiteri dug
the first turf at the site of Scotland’s new £10 million
children’s hospice yesterday.
Charity organisers and parents of terminally ill children have
worked for three years to get the second children’s hospice
at the Loch Lomondside site built.
McGregor, a regular visitor to Rachel House, Scotland’s only
children’s hospice near Kinross, said he was delighted the
building of the new centre named Robin House will go ahead in
Balloch, Dunbartonshire.
Source:- Daily Record Thursday 15 May page 10-11
Spurned Rena ‘not mentally ill’
The spurned wife who shot and killed her love rival was not
suffering from a mental illness, a court heard yesterday.
Rena Salmon blasted her husband’s lover twice with a shotgun
in her beauty salon in west London.
Defence medical experts said the ex-army sharpshooter was suffering
from an abnormality of the mind when she gunned down Lorna Stewart
originally of Rutherglen near Glasgow.
But consultant psychiatrist Phillip Joseph dismissed the claim at
the Old Bailey yesterday and said there was no psychiatric
condition which substantially impacted on her responsibility.
Source:- Daily Record Thursday 15 May page 10
Teen rapist locked up
A teenage double rapist tried to commit suicide after his crime was
exposed.
James Hercus, aged 19, who last year took an overdose was
imprisoned for three and a half years yesterday at the high court
in Edinburgh.
Hercus was found guilty of raping two sisters then aged 14 and 15
in Dumfrieshire at an earlier hearing.
He denies the attacks and claims the girls made it up.
Source:- Daily Record  Thursday 15 May page 13
Welsh newspapers
Dad cleared of burning charge
A father who couldn’t cope when he was left alone to
look after his children has been cleared of deliberately harming
one of them.
The 26-year-old had admitted to police that he sometimes teased his
two-year-old child by saying that he would burn him with a
cigarette lighter if he urinated on the carpet.
He had been charged with actual bodily harm after a mark on the
child’s leg was thought to be a burn, but was
acquitted.
He is now in custody awaiting sentencing on a charge of child
neglect. He had been caring for his children while his wife was in
hospital, and has admitted that he does have a drink problem.
Source:- South Wales Echo Wednesday 14 May page 12
Exam-stress teens consider suicide
Stress over examinations is causing almost one in 10
teenagers to consider suicide, according to a new study.
The report from Coventry University found that eight per cent of
young people had thought about suicide and over half of the A-level
students interviewed found exams very stressful.
Children’s commissioner for Wales Peter Clarke said he found
the figures alarming, and that better resources should be available
for counselling such troubled teenagers.
Source:- Western Mail Thursday 15 may page 1
Assembly appoints ‘breast-feeding
tsar’
The Welsh assembly health minister Jane Hutt has appointed a
breastfeeding tsar for Wales.
Sue Sky, who is a breastfeeding counsellor, will take on the new
appointment that is aimed at boosting support networks for
mothers.
Source:- Western Mail Thursday 15 May page 5