Monday 9 August 2004

By Shirley Kumar, Clare Jerrom and Alex
Dobson

Child abuse expert rebuked – but stays on the
register

Paediatrician David Southall who accused Stephen Clark of
smothering his two babies on the basis of a Channel 4 Dispatches
programme escaped being struck off the medical register.

Southall, who was banned from carrying out child protection work
for three years, could still be struck off as he faces another
General Medical Council hearing in January following complaints
from seven sets of parents who say he wrongly accused them of
abuse.

Source:- The Guardian, Saturday 7 August,  page 1

Couple accused of abuse suffered 17 years anguish

Six of the seven sets of parents who claim David Southall wrongly
accused them of child abuse have had their children taken away from
them.

Source:- The Guardian, Saturday 7 August, page 6

Paediatricians fear children will suffer

Paediatricians warned the verdict on David Southall would
discourage young doctors from working to protect children as well
as intensify attacks on their profession.

Source:- The Guardian, Saturday 7 August, page 6

Gunrunner hid behind youth job

Mark Smith who worked with juvenile offenders for Hammersmith and
Fulham council was jailed for eight years after using his position
to hide his gunrunning operation.

Smith of Luton, Bedfordshire was convicted of conspiracy to sell or
transfer prohibited weapons and of possessing them at the Old
Bailey.

Source:- The Telegraph, Saturday 7 August, page 2

Media ban on Sion Jenkins

Sion Jenkins the former deputy headteacher facing a retrial for the
murder of his foster daughter, Billie Jo has been banned from any
contact with the media.

Source:- The Telegraph, Saturday 7 August, page 7

Policeman is cleared of raping friend after 15
years

Policeman Brian Kelly suffered a miscarriage of justice when he was
sentenced to six years in prison for raping a female friend in
Largs, Scotland in 1989, judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in
Edinburgh ruled.

New evidence showed a risk of cross-contamination of DNA samples
used for genetic profiling.

Source:- The Times, Saturday 7 August, page 7

Ministers ask for teenagers’ idea of heaven

Teenagers will be asked what the Government can do to stop them
hanging around street corners in the evenings.

The Youth Green Paper, planned for the autumn, will consult
12-18-year-olds.

Source:- The Times, Saturday 7 August, page 11

BNP could lose top spot advantage on ballot
paper

The British National Party could lose its place at the top of the
European election ballot paper following claims it benefits from
thousands of extra votes just because of its name.

The Electoral Commission will recommend that the listed parties
should be decided by lot rather than alphabetically.

Source:- The Financial Times, Saturday/Sunday 7/8 August,
page 2

Still the world’s asylum capital

A survey of the G8 industrialised nations by the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development shows Britain as top of the
asylum capitals.

Britain received slightly more asylum applications than America,
and well above France and Germany.

Source:- The Daily Mail, Saturday 7 August, page 18

Child murder inquiry

A 24-year-old woman and 25-year-old man are being questioned over
the alleged murder of 18-month-old Jordan McGann of Shard End,
Birmingham.

She was admitted to Birmingham city hospital with serious head
injuries.

Source:- The Telegraph, Sunday 8 August, page 2

Pensioner attacked in memorial park

Police are appealing for help to catch a sex attacker who assaulted
an 85-year-old woman in the Peace Garden, Pinner Memorial Park,
north-west London.

Source:- The Telegraph, Sunday 8 August, page 2

Inter-racial tension in Britain ‘at worst level for
50 years’

A television documentary to be broadcast tomorrow is expected to
show racial tension between different ethnic groups at its worst
level for 50 years.

The programme, portraying racial tension in Walsall, will be
screened at 11pm on Channel Four tomorrow.

Source:- The Telegraph, Sunday 8 August, page 4

Put your autistic children into a primary school or
we’ll prosecute, families are told

East Sussex council has threatened parents who set-up a special
school for their autistic children with prosecution for failing to
send them to a mainstream primary school.

The council ruled the local primary school was adequate for the
children.

Source:- The Telegraph, Sunday 8 August, page 10

Fury at ban on HIV help for refugees

Specialists on a key health committee have refused to help draw up
plans that would lead to thousands of refugees being refused
life-saving treatment for HIV on the National Health Service.

Officials are preparing a fresh set of guidelines for GPs which
would stipulate that people whose asylum cases have been rejected
or who have not yet submitted an application to the Home Office
must not be given routine care.

Source:- The Observer, Sunday 8 August, page 1

Stay calm everyone, there’s Prozac in the drinking
water

The anti-depression drug Prozac can be found in Britain’s
drinking water because it is being taken in such large
quantities.

The discovery raises fresh fears GPs are over prescribing the
drug.

Source:- The Observer, Sunday 8 August, page 1

’Real life’ prison documentary to tell
Louise’s tragic story

A fly on the wall documentary series about life in Bullwood Hall
women’s prison will be shown as the final part of the Real
Bad Girls on ITV on Thursday at 10pm.

The documentary will show Louise Davis who suffered mental health
problems but died after being moved from Bullwood Hall in Essex to
New Hall near Wakefield.

Source:- The Observer, Sunday 8 August, page 7

Children at risk of big-stake gambling

Children are being exposed to hardcore high stakes gambling through
family amusement arcades, warn ministers.

The exposure is due to new internet-based games allowing players to
stake up to £500 that slipped through a loophole in the
law.

Source:- The Observer, Sunday 8 August, page 11

No 10 to organise parenting lessons

Fears that parents are doing a worse job of rearing children than
previous generations have prompted the Government to make
state-sponsored parenting classes available to all.

The initiative is to be outlined in a consultation paper by
Children’s minister Margaret Hodge next month.

Source:- The Sunday Times, Sunday 8 August, page 7

Dumped dads left holding the baby

The number of women abandoning their husbands and children to start
new lives has risen to an all time high, show government
figures.

The trend revealed by the Office for National Statistics shows
326,000 father only families in 2001 compared to hardly any in
1971.

Source:- The Sunday Times, Sunday 8 August, page 13

My hospital sex terror at the hands of male nurse

A teenager has told how she was subjected to a sex assault by a
male nurse at Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow, Essex.

The hospital denied it had failed in its duty of care.

Source:- The Mail on Sunday, Sunday 8 August, page
47

Howard blames fathers

Conservative leader Michael Howard has blamed fathers for not
having enough involvement with their sons.

Howard said there had been a dramatic decline in personal
responsibility whilst setting out the party’s policy on
crime.

Source:- The Times, Monday 9 August, page 2

Mother is cleared of murdering her babies

A mother accused of murdering her babies on the basis of evidence
from discredited paediatrician Sir Roy Meadow has been
cleared.

Julie Ferris, was convicted four years ago of smothering her
children.

Source:- The Times, Monday 8 August, page 5

Toxic waste blamed for children’s
deformities

Families have discovered a report which suggests councils hoped to
‘bury’ evidence of how a clean up operation to remove
toxic waste was bungled.

The waste allegedly in the dump in Corby, Northamptonshire, has
been blamed for deformities in children.

Source:- The Times, Monday 9 August, page 10

Channel 4 to screen ‘hijacked’ by
BNP

A television documentary showing Asian men grooming white girls for
sex is due to be shown later this month.

The Channel 4 Edge of the City documentary, focusing on the work of
social workers in Bradford, West Yorkshire, was pulled in May
because of police fears it would incite racial tension.

Source:- The Guardian, Monday 9 August, page 4

Five suicide attempts a day at Holloway

Five women a day are committing suicide in Holloway prison.

Campaigners fear this year will see the greatest number of female
jail deaths since records began.

Source:- The Guardian, Monday 9 August, page 5

Scottish newspapers

City chiefs failed to report on child risks

Social work chiefs have been criticised for failing to produce an
annual progress report on child protection issues.

Chair of the children and young persons scrutiny panel Tom Ponton
is calling on council bosses for a yearly progress report in
response to the Edinburgh inquiry into child abuse in the
Capital.

The Edinburgh inquiry, which followed a scandal involving the abuse
of youngsters at city children’s homes during the 1970s and
1980s, made 135 recommendations – one of which was an annual
report into the progress of the other recommendations.

However, five years later, no such document has been
produced.

Ponton claims that had all the recommendations of the Inquiry been
implemented fully, some of the problems highlighted in the
O’Brien report into the death of Caleb Ness could have been
avoided.

Source:- Evening News  Saturday 7 August

Asylum legal aid bill hits £1m

Scotland’s legal aid bill for immigration appeals has tripled
in one year to almost £1m.

Scottish lawyers claimed legal aid worth £967,000 last year,
compared to just £304,000 the previous year.

But despite a tripling in the cost of appeals, the number of cases
heard rose by just a third from 1,854 to 2,431. A government
spokesperson admitted that some lawyers were “abusing the
system”.

Source:- Scotland on Sunday  Sunday 8 August

McConnell didn’t back care plan, claims
Galbraith

Jack McConnell was opposed to plans to introduce free personal care
for older people when the plan was first mooted, a senior Labour
figure has claimed.

Sam Galbraith, who was environment minister in 2001 when the first
minister Henry McLeish tabled the policy, claims that not one
Labour colleague backed him up during Cabinet discussions.

Galbraith, a long-time critic of the move, said McConnell, who was
education minister at the time, was among those ho failed to
support the first minister.

Source:- Scotland on Sunday  Sunday 8 August

Social work breeds ‘dependency
culture’

Scotland’s social workers may be leading disadvantaged
clients to rely on the state for help rather than stand on their
own two feet, according to the chair of the Scottish
executive’s review of the profession.

William Roe, chair of the 21st century Social Work Group, said the
issue of a dependency culture was just one of those the group would
look at.

Speaking ahead of the group’s first meeting, Roe also
proposed using new technologies such as broadband to create virtual
communities to help counter the “fragmentation and
atomisation” of modern society.

Source:- Sunday Herald  Sunday 8 August

Fury as abuse victims denied official inquiry by
Executive

The Scottish executive has been accused of betrayal by more than
100 victims of institutionalised abuse in Scottish children’s
homes as a result of its refusal to set up a public inquiry into
the ill-treatment they suffered while in care.

Abuse victims petitioned the executive asking for the legacy of
abuse by priests, nuns and charity staff over recent decades to be
tackled by setting up a public inquiry.

However minister for education and young people Peter Peacock has
refused to set up any inquiry claiming that he doesn’t
believe it would “meet the needs of survivors or be in the
public interest”.

Survivors of historic abuse at places such as Quarriers and the
Catholic Church’s Nazareth House are outraged at the
government’s response.

Source:- Sunday Herald  Sunday 8 August

Free heroin on the NHS for addicts in
despair

The Scottish executive is considering controversial plans to give
drug addicts heroin on the NHS.

Senior health officials have been examining a number of radical
approaches to tackling Scotland’s drugs crisis including the
so-called
“Swiss model” of prescribing the drug in small doses to
addicts suffering acute withdrawal.

Source:- The Scotsman  Monday 9 August

Warning over ‘alcohol through eye’
craze

Doctors yesterday warned of the dangers associated with a new craze
of taking alcohol through an eye socket.

Pubs and clubs are selling drinks to be taken through the eye
because revellers believe they get them drunk quicker and stay in
their system longer.

But experts have warned that the method can leave the eye painful
and bloodshot and overuse of the technique could lead to
blindness.

Source:- The Scotsman  Monday 9 August

Meals to deliver more choice

Older people could soon receive a new meals service to help
improve their quality of life.

Swansea council is proposing a new meals service to help combat the
decline in the number of people using meals on wheels. The scheme
that aims to offers healthy meals and more choice has the backing
of Age Concern.

Source Western Mail Monday 9 August page 2

Elderly men injured in suspicious fire

Two men were seriously injured in a fire that swept
through a sheltered housing complex in Cardiff yesterday.

The men aged 82 and 65 lived in separate flats within the complex
and are now being treated in a hospital in Swansea. South Wales
police believe that the fire was started deliberately and are
carrying out a fingertip search of the property.

Source Western Mail Monday 9 August page 5