Monday 2 June 2003

By Amy Taylor, Clare Jerrom and Alex Dobson.
Iraqi refugees to be sent home
Asylum seekers who fled Iraqi due to Saddam Hussein’s regime are to
returned home the home secretary announced last night.
David Blunkett made it clear that if people did not return
voluntarily they would be removed by force.
Source:- The Times Saturday 31 May page 3
Derision greets BBC plan to turn asylum into a
game
The BBC has been criticised for plans to create a reality
television style programme in which the public vote on whether
individual asylum seekers should be allowed to remain in the
country.
The planned programme would be part of a BBC “asylum day” similar
to the recent NHS day ran by the corporation.
The BBC said it was still in the early stages of planning and that
no formats had been finalised.
Source:- The Guardian Saturday 31 May page 1
Kurdish poet finds his voice
The Iranian Kurdish refugee, who stitched up his eyes,
ears and lips in protest of the way asylum seers are treated in
this country, has ended his hunger strike.
Abas Amini said that although he had abandoned the hunger strike he
had done so only because he recognised that there were other ways
to fight for his cause.
Source:- The Guardian Saturday 31 May page 9
Church schools resist admitting pupils in care
New government guidelines calling for children in care to
be put at the top of admission lists for church schools have split
governors and parents.
While some believe the measures will cause standards at some of the
best state schools to be lowered, others say that children in care
should be allocated places before others due to the principles of
Christian fairness.
The guidelines come into force next year and call on all
state-funded schools to give priority to children in care. Church
schools will remain in control of their admissions process, but are
being requested by the church itself to follow the
guidelines.
Source:- The Sunday Times 1 June page 7
ICA director accuses Blair over mental health bill
The head of one of Britain’s leading art institutions has
criticised the government’s draft mental health bill for
undermining the rights of those with mental health problems.
Philip Dodd, the director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts,
made the comments while launching Britain’s first national film
festival on mental health – ‘Reel madness’.
Source:- The Independent on Sunday 1 June page 8
Joy for British couples as Romania lifts its ban on sending
orphans abroad
Romania is to lift its two-year ban on international adoptions
allowing hundreds of British couples to adopt children from the
country.
The ban was set up in October 2001 due to beliefs that Romanian
adoptions had become a corrupt industry in which profit was put
before children’s welfare.
Source:- The Sunday Telegraph 1 June page 11
Churches will get right to sack gays
Religious organisations will soon be able to exclude gay and
lesbian people from employment under new legislation.
The government has agreed to include the clause in the British
version of a European employment directive after a lobbying
campaign by the Church of England.
The new law will make it legal for religious organisations to sack
or refuse to employ anyone on the grounds of sexual
orientation.
Source:- The Sunday Times 1 June page 11
Camp Desperate
Asylum seekers have set up their own make-shift camp to replace the
closed Sangatte refugee centre while waiting to try to get into
Britain.
The camp consists of around 150 immigrants in a disused railway
siding near the centre of Calais.
Source:- The Daily Mail Monday 2 June page 17
Tories urge entitlement cards to cut NHS
abuse
All patients should be given “entitlement cards” to stop so-called
“health tourists” being treated at the expense of the taxpayer, the
Conservatives said yesterday.
Liam Fox, the shadow health secretary, said the cards would stop
illegal immigrants from taking advantage of the NHS.
He went on to call for all immigrants to be screened for illnesses
such as HIV and tuberculosis.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph Monday 2 June page 7
Scottish newspapers
BBC staff accused of ‘using’ children
The BBC has been accused of urging children to ‘act up’
for the cameras for a forthcoming documentary on youth crime and
fire setting. Young people involved in the Edinburgh Youth Social
Inclusion Project have allegedly been offered drinks and sweets to
talk about setting fire to things even if they have never been
involved in the activity. Parents have also complained that
teenagers have been asked to start fires for the benefit of the
‘Frontline Scotland’ programme.
Source:- The Scotsman Saturday 31 May
Sex offender walks away from two week sentence for £75
theft
Sex offender John Cronin walked free from court yesterday after he
was sentenced to two weeks imprisonment for stealing £75 from
a pensioner he befriended at a religious retreat. Cronin of East
Lothian walked free from Warley magistrates court, West Midlands,
because he had already spent seven days in custody following his
arrest on 22 May.
Source:- The Scotsman Saturday 31 May
Police devote squad to Cronin
Sex attacker John Cronin will be monitored by a special
squad of detectives set up to track his movements. Four officers
from Lothian and Borders police will track the 31-year-old from
East Lothian who was freed from an English court on Friday.
Source:- The Scotsman on Sunday 1 June
Alcohol responsible for 500 breast cancers a
year
A national survey has revealed that one in four Scot women are
binge drinking and increasing their risk of contracting breast
cancer as a result. Women’s drinking was still rising rapidly
according to chief medical officer Dr Mac Armstrong’s annual
report, ‘Health in Scotland in 2000’ and said it could
be responsible for as many as 500 cases of breast cancer each year.
He called for the problem to be addressed urgently to raise
awareness of the issue.
Source:- Sunday Herald 1 June
Half of all dementia patients not told by
GPs
Only half of older people are told they have dementia when doctors
first make a diagnosis, according to a report by Alzheimer’s
Scotland – ‘Action on Dementia’. Many doctors
still believe that providing a diagnosis will do more harm than
good, the report due out on Friday suggests, yet it can cause
additional stress and anguish  because patients do not understand
what is wrong.
Source:- Sunday Herald 1 June
Scotland needs its own policy on immigration
Scotland needs an immigration policy in direct contrast to
Whitehall’s drive to discourage immigration, and send asylum
seekers back to their home countries, according to an expert in
demographic change at Stirling University, Professor Robert
Wright.
Wright, who is hosting a conference this week, has warned that the
Scottish birth rate is so low it can barely fall any further. If
the population drops as births fail to replace deaths, standards of
living will fall, immigration is the solution the professor
suggests.
Source:- Sunday Herald 1 June
Executive’s crime policy in the dock in first sitting of
youth court

Scotland’s first dedicated youth court is to sit for the first
time today. The youth court will be seen as a test of first
minister Jack McConnell’s pledge to rid Scotland’s streets of
teenage tearaways. Critics of the plan, which will include young
offenders aged 15 being electronically tagged, believe the Scottish
executive’s plan is misguided after official figures revealed
little change in offending over the past 10 years.
Source:- The Scotsman Monday 2 June
QC calls for legalisation of all drugs
All drugs should be legalised, according to a leading criminal law
lawyer yesterday. Donald Findlay QC said the only way to “break the
link” between users and dealers is legalising narcotics such as
cannabis, cocaine and heroin.
Source:- The Scotsman  Monday 2 June
Big poll majority backs Borstal-style schools for unruly
children
Over half of Scottish people would segregate unruly children in a
Borstal-style school after indiscipline in classrooms is revealed
as a major test for education authorities. Nearly 80 per cent of
adults think indiscipline in schools is either very serious or
serious, and more than half want disruptive pupils educated in
separate schools in the survey carried out for The Herald by
‘NFO System Three’.
Source:- The Herald Monday 2 June
Poor eyesight linked to pupils problems
One in five schoolchildren could be experiencing difficulties at
school because of eyesight problems that their parents know nothing
about. The Royal National Institute for the Blind Scotland is
urging the Scottish executive to introduce automatic eye sight
tests in all schools for pupils aged four-five, seven and 11.
Source:- The Herald Monday 2 June
Suicide tsar to save kids
The Scottish executive has appointed a suicide tsar in a
bid to tackle Scotland’s spiralling suicide rate. Gregor Henderson
will head a new Mental Health Division after it emerged that more
than 600 Scots take their lives each year, with suicide rates more
than three times higher among young men and women.
Source:-  Daily Record Monday 2 June
Parents are being ‘battered by their own
kids’
Thousands of parents are being attacked by their own children,
according to a charity yesterday. Counsellors operating a
confidential helpline say increasing numbers of children are
terrorising their parents, yet  Sue Torrance of Parentline Scotland
says many are too ashamed to seek help.
Source:- Daily Record  Monday 2 June
Welsh newspapers
Isolated elderly are invited to step out
Isolated older people are being offered discount travel and range
of activities to promote ‘active ageing’.
A joint initiative called ‘Stepping Out’, from the
charity Help the Aged and British Gas is aimed at drawing people
out of their loneliness by offering reduced admission to houses,
gardens, theatres and restaurants.
Research shows that around a million people feel trapped in their
own home, with poverty one of the main causes of isolation.
Source:- Western Mail Monday 2 June page 7
Fathers ‘being forced to break the law over
custody’
Fathers are being driven to extreme measures to keep up
relationships with their children following family breakdown,
according to a pressure group.
According to Matthew Mudge of the Cardiff branch of Families Need
Fathers, increasing numbers of men are alienated by the family
courts’ reluctance to grant them custody or reasonable access
to their children.
His comments follow the recent case of four-year-old Esti Clayton
whose alleged abduction by her father sparked a Europe-wide police
hunt. She was eventually found in Portugal and returned to her
mother who lives in Wales.
Source:- Western Mail Monday 2 June page 8
Don’t let your child go blind
Up to 125,000 Welsh children may be falling behind at
school because of sight problems, according to a new report from
the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB).
According to the research nearly a quarter of school-age children
have eye problems that have gone undetected. Although routine
screening does take place in Wales the RNIB is still concerned that
parents are not acting on medical advice that is being given and
are putting their children’s sight at risk.
Source:- Western Mail Monday 2 June page 1