Wednesday 15 October 2003

By Natasha
Salari, Lauren Revans,Clare Jerrom and Alex Dobson

HIV man is
found guilty of deliberately infecting lovers

A man who
knowingly infected two women with HIV has been convicted of
inflicting grievous bodily harm.

Mohammed Dica
persuaded two women to have unprotected sex with him without
telling them that he had HIV. Doctors say the victims may have no
more than 10 years to live.

Source:- The
Independent
Wednesday 15 October page 7

Besieged
estate may use private security guards

Residents of a
Merseyside estate are considering hiring security guards to deter
teenagers responsible for a series of break-ins, abuse and
vandalism.

Householders on
the Church Farm estate in Halewood, Liverpool, say that they have
lost confidence in the police and have little faith in the
government’s new anti-social behaviour initiative.

Source:- The
Times
Wednesday 15 October page 10

Killer
wants to force battered wife to bring their son to jail. Guess who
gets legal aid?

A murderer with
convictions for domestic violence has been granted legal aid to try
and force his ex-wife to bring their young son to visit him in
prison.

James McNamara,
who was sentenced to life imprisonment in May for killing a fellow
resident at a homeless hostel, will be seeking a High Court order
in December to make his five year-old son visit him in Wormwood
Scrubs, west London. He beat his wife on an almost daily basis
during their four-year marriage.

Source:- The
Daily Telegraph
Wednesday 15 October page 1

We’ve failed mothers who stay at home, says
Hewitt

Mothers who stay
at home to bring up their children have been undervalued by the
government, the trade and industry secretary admitted
yesterday.

Patricia Hewitt
said that it had been a mistake for Labour ministers to create the
perception that they believed that all women should get jobs.
Policies, such as tax credits for working mothers, had left those
who raise their own children feeling worthless.

Source:- The
Daily Telegraph
Wednesday 15 October page 1

School
governor on course to win seat for BNP

A school governor
in West Yorkshire is expected to win a seat for the British
National Party when he fights a by-election tomorrow.

If Heath
Clegg tops the polls in Calderdale, Halifax, he will be the first
school governor to be elected to the party.

Source:- The
Daily Telegraph
Wednesday 15 October page 10

Couples
must save £180,000 for pension or nothing at all

Couples who save
but fail to put aside more than £180,000 before they retire
are wasting their time because of new means-tested benefits which
came into effect this month.

Professional
mathematicians at Mercer Human Resources have made the calculation
based on how much money a couple aged 65 and 62 would need to save
in order to equal the income they would receive as of right from
the basic state pension, the pension credit, housing benefit and
council tax benefit.

Source:- The
Daily Telegraph
Wednesday 15 October page 12

100 law
firms milking legal aid in asylum seeker cases

A hundred law
firms in London are over-claiming on behalf of asylum seekers, the
government admitted to the Daily Mail last night.

Constitutional
affairs minister, David Lammy, told a committee of MPs that a
“flood” of solicitors have cashed in on the huge
increase of asylum claims to the UK. A total of 100 out of 372
companies in London who specialise in asylum applications are
classed by the Legal Services Commission as “poor
quality”.

Source:- The
Daily Mail
Wednesday 15 October page 29

Tackle
lawless streets or face sack, councils and police told

Home secretary
David Blunkett warned housing officials and police officers
yesterday that they faced the sack if they failed to tackle
nuisance neighbours and other antisocial behaviour.

Speaking at the
launch of the government’s new antisocial behaviour action
plan, Blunkett said it was not appropriate for new antisocial
behaviour powers to be used in some parts of the country but not in
others.

The action plan
includes £22m of “pump-priming” money and 11
“trailblazing” schemes in selected cities focusing on
specific problems.

Source:- The
Guardian
Wednesday 15 October page 4

Tsar’ to tackle bed-blocking in
hospitals

Health secretary
John Reid will announce plans to appoint a national director of
local government and social care to lead the Department of
Health’s war on delayed discharge in his first address to
local authority chiefs.

Reid will tell the
National Social Services conference in Brighton today that the
appointment of a social care “tsar” is a signal of his
determination to strengthen relationships between his department
and local government.

Fines will be
introduced for local authorities who fail to arrange care packages
for people ready for discharge from hospital from January.

Source:- The
Guardian
Wednesday 15 October page 8

Child
poverty target in sight

The government is
on target to meet short-term goals on reducing child poverty, but
will struggle to meet longer term goals, according to a new report
from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The report, based
on research by Britain’s leading poverty analysts, predicts
that the number of children living in poor households will have
fallen by about one million between 1997 and next April, but that
halving child poverty by 2010 and eradicating it within a
generation would require a more vigorous policy of wealth
redistribution.

Source:- The
Guardian
Wednesday 15 October page 8

School
cash crisis has cost 20,000 jobs – survey

The education
funding crisis has resulted in the loss of more than 20,000 jobs,
according to a survey commissioned by the National Union of
Teachers.

The research,
which showed the situation was far worse than previously expected,
showed that more than half of all primary care school and
two-thirds of secondary schools in England and Wales received less
from the government in 2003-4 than the previous year.

Nearly a quarter
of primary schools and a third of secondary schools cut staffing as
a result.

Source:- The
Guardian
Wednesday 15 October page 11

Society
Guardian

Double
bind

Homeless couples
are more likely to have drug problems and spend longer on the
streets than their single counterparts.

Source:-
Society Guardian Wednesday 15 October page 2

Standards
complaint

Quango set up to
police local councils is stuck in a quagmire of triviality

Source:-
Society Guardian Wednesday 15 October page 4

Bin the
bureaucracy

Care leavers in
call for suitcases and sleepovers

Source:-
Society Guardian Wednesday 15 October page 4

A business
decision

Voluntary sector
shows marked preference for captains of industry

Source:-
Society Guardian Wednesday 15 October page 4

High as a
kitemark

Denise Platt talks
about inspecting beyond box ticking, and her excitement – and
worries – about heading the new body that will monitor social
care

Source:-
Society Guardian Wednesday 15 October page 6

Face to
face with hope

A successful drugs
rehabilitation project that insists on treating everybody as
individuals

Source:-
Society Guardian Wednesday 15 October page 7

Safety in
numbers

A scheme in York
to put extra police on the streets has been branded a failure, but
in Brighton a similar project has been a success.

Source:-
Society Guardian Wednesday 15 October page 8

Stepping
into the breach

Think you could
breeze in and turn around a failing organisation? Then interim
management could be for you.

Source:-
Society Guardian Wednesday 15 October page 14

 

Scottish
newspapers

Council suspends social worker

A senior social worker at the centre of the Caleb Ness case was
suspended yesterday, and three others removed from their child
protection duties as Edinburgh council continued its investigation
into the role they played in failing to protect the child.

The announcement comes the day after Peter Hill, the locum social
worker who was the case co-ordinator in Caleb’s case, was
suspended.

Edinburgh council insisted last night that the moves were purely
precautionary until the internal inquiry was completed.

Caleb was 11-weeks-old when he was shaken to death by his father,
Alexander Ness.

Source:- The Herald Wednesday 15 October

Home educators failing children

Parents who choose to take their children out of school and teach
them at home are “kidding themselves”, a teaching union leader has
claimed.

Yesterday, Pat O’Donnell, a Scottish official at the NASUWT
teaching union claimed home educators are jeopardising their
children’s futures, and insisted the executive should adopt a
strong line on home education.

In a separate attack, the Scottish Parent Teacher Council has
accused ministers of putting children at risk of abuse and poor
teaching by agreeing to cut down checks on those who are not
enrolled at school.

Revised draft guidelines from the executive propose dropping a
number of controls for children outside the education system. The
executive is expected to announce definitive guidelines in the next
few weeks.

Source:- The Scotsman Wednesday 15 October

Seven bailed in island child abuse inquiry

A 75-year-old woman and six men were released on bail yesterday
after their second appearance in court in connection with a major
child abuse inquiry in the Western Isles.

The seven were arrested following dawn raids on houses in Lewis and
in England earlier this month.
The men are all charged with rape and lewd, indecent and libidinous
conduct involving three girls under the age of 16.

The woman has been charged with lewd, indecent and libidinous
conduct involving the same three girls.

Source:- The Scotsman Wednesday 15 October

Chinese mussel in on cockle market

A gang of Chinese immigrants face deportation after being
arrested by police for plundering sackfuls of cockles on a Lothian
beach.

The 30-strong group of Chinese men and women were found “winkling”
on the foreshores of Cramond at the weekend.

As a result of a swoop, 14 were arrested and nine, who were found
to be illegal immigrants, now face deportation.

Source:- The Scotsman Wednesday 15 October

Welsh newspapers

Exposed: Eastern European girls exported to Wales as
prostitutes

Girls from eastern Europe as young as 13 are being brought into
Wales by criminal gangs.

Detective superintendent Graham Davies said that prostitution in
south Wales was not a new phenomenon, but that over the last six
months there had been a big growth in the numbers of women and
young girls coming into Wales from eastern Europe to work as
prostitutes. He added that those criminal gangs that were involved
in human trafficking, regarded the women as another commodity to be
exploited.

Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 15 October page 1

Aggressive patients are venting their violence at GPs’
surgeries

A half-page feature looking at the problem of violence against
doctors.

The report focuses on a new study shows that one in three doctors
experienced violence in the past year, and asks GPs about their
experiences of aggressive patients. The story also examines
measures being taken to counteract the problem.

Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 15 October page 8

Labour defends draft budget

Labour has defended its proposed Welsh assembly budget settlement
for next year, despite criticisms that it will not do enough for
education and for areas of rural Wales.

Economic development, health and social justice have all done well
under the proposals, but there were complaints by opposition
parties and the Welsh Local Government Association about other
aspects of the budget.

Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 15 October page 9

More from Community Care

Comments are closed.