Monday 6 September 2004

By Shirley Kumar, Clare Jerrom and Alex
Dobson

Child savings fund plan finds favour

The Financial Services Authority has received broad support for its
proposal to sell child trust funds.

Under government plans, families of every child born on or after 1
September 2002 will receive a one-off voucher for £250 to
invest in a tax free CTF. Families on low incomes will get
£500.

Source:- The Financial Times Saturday 4 September 2004
page 3

Prisoner suicides rise to record level in overcrowded
jails

The Prison Reform Trust is calling for reappraisal of penal policy
after a record number of prisoners committed suicide last
month.

Around 14 men died in prison from self inflicted injuries, the
highest number in 20 years.

The total number for 2004 now stands at 70.

Source:- The Independent Saturday 4 September 2004 page
16

Boy starts life term for ‘game’ killing

Warren Leblanc, 17, began a life sentence for killing his
14-year-old friend Stefan Pakeerah with a knife and hammer in a
park in Leicester.

Police dismissed the killing was influenced by the video game
Manhunt and judges were told the game was not part of the case
against Leblanc.

Source:- The Independent Saturday 4 September 2004 page
19

At last, an early warning system for baby’s
blues

A new video by the NSPCC has unlocked the secret to baby’s
body language.

The video called the Social Baby shows parents how to recognise
early signs of distress by learning to interpret the signals babies
give from birth.

Source:- The Independent Saturday 4 September 2004 page
21

Patient is held over murder of banker

Psychiatric patient John Barrett has been charged with the murder
of Denis Finnegan, who was ambushed while cycling through Richmond
Park on Thursday.

Barrett is believed to have a history of violence and mental
illness.

Source:- The Times Saturday 4 September 2004 page 10

£40,000 policy on ‘murdered wife’

Maurice Pearson who has been accused of battering his wife to death
after she had discovered he had lost their life savings on the
stock market had a £40,000 life insurance policy on her, a
court heard.

Pearson allegedly hit his wife Irena on the head with a blunt
instrument at least 15 times, Bournemouth Crown Court heard.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Saturday 4 September 2004
page 13

Tories want only immigrants with £25,000
salaries

The Conservatives are proposing to only allow foreign elite of
highly educated workers with an income of at least £25,000 to
settle in the country.

The proposals to be unveiled tomorrow would prevent thousands of
low paid migrants from living in Britain.

The government and pro-immigration lobby are expected to criticise
the report, the result of an independent inquiry chaired by Timothy
Kirkhope, the former Tory immigration minister.

Source:- The Sunday Times  Sunday 5 September 2004 page
4

Clarke aims for 10-hour opening for schools

Education secretary Charles Clarke is to extend a scheme which
allows primary schools to stay open for a 10-hour day to fit in
with working parents.

Funding has already been released to cover the cost of around 250
schools opening from 8am to 6pm. Money for a further 1,000 will be
announced on Wednesday.

Source:- The Sunday Times Sunday 5 September 2004 page
7

Naipaul lashes out at ‘multi-culti’
Britain

Nobel prize-winning author Sir Vidia Naipaul has launched an attack
on multiculturalism in British society.

He said immigrants must assimilate into their host country. Naipaul
called multiculturalism absurd suggesting if a man picks himself up
and comes to another country he should meet it half way.

Source:- The Sunday Times Sunday 5 September 2004 page
7

Down’s adults are denied medication

Adults living with Down’s Syndrome are being denied
medication to fight dementia as they get older, according to the
Down Syndrome Association (DSA).

Around 40 per cent of people with Down’s Syndrome develop
Alzheimer’s disease if they live into their fifties but their
symptoms are often dismissed as part of their learning
disability.

Source:- The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 5 September 2004 page
12

‘Lives at risk’ as GP night cover is
scrapped

Lincolnshire South West Teaching Primary Care Trust has
withdrawn its GP service for patients between 11pm and 8am.

The move will leave 200,000 people without access to GP cover over
night.

Source:- The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 5 September 2004 page
13

Special report: Mental Health Scandal

Mental health charity Mind has unveiled a series of abuse
on hospital psychiatric wards.

The charity said patients were being physically assaulted, verbally
abused and sexually harassed.

Source:- The Independent on Sunday Sunday 5 September 2004
page 10-11

65pc rise in calls by self-harm children

Children as young as five are deliberately hurting themselves,
according to the interim report from the National Inquiry into
Self-Harm.

The report due to be published tomorrow shows quotes a 65 per cent
increase in calls relating to self harm to ChildLine.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 5 September 2004 page 9

Call to vet experts in cot death cases

A report by the Royal College of Pathologists, due to be published
tomorrow, is expected to call for a complete overhaul of the court
‘expert witness’ system.

The move is in response to controversy surrounding the cases of
Sally Clarke, Trupti Patel and Angela Canning who were accused and
then cleared of charges of murdering their children.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 5 September 2004 page
15

Huntley faces new police quiz over sex attack on
11-year-old

Soham murderer Ian Huntley is to be questioned in prison over an
alleged attack on an 11-year-old girl seven years ago.

The girl, now 18, alleges that Huntley attacked her near her home
at Humberston near Grimsby.

Source:- The Mail on Sunday Sunday 5 September 2004 page
18

I won back my surrogate twins …but 17 years later
they’re still haunted by my bid to sell them

A surrogate mother who won back her twins after selling them to
another couple has spoken out about how the ordeal has haunted the
family for 17-years.

The woman, who made legal history, told how her son went through
childhood fearing his mother would sell him whenever she scolded
him.

Source:- The Mail on Sunday Sunday 5 September 2004 page
43

Education spending can be cut by £5.7bn say
Tories

The Conservatives claim up to £5.7 billion could be saved from
the education budget.

The savings could come from a reduced role for local authorities.
Instead funding for 26,000 schools would be managed by the
Department for Education and Skills which will be reduced by 2,700
posts. Experts warned the slimmed down DfES was unworkable.

Source:- The Financial Times Monday 6 September 2004 page
2

Report slams ‘unjust’ jailing of women on
remand

Around six out of 10 women sent to jail while they await trial are
acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, the Prison Reform
Trust has revealed.

The Trust said the number of women in England and Wales remanded in
custody has more than trebled in the last 10 years.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 6 September 2004 page 6

Scottish newspapers

Driven to take morning-after pills

Scottish teenagers are routinely being given emergency
contraception by health workers despite a vow from first minister
Jack
McConnell that the morning-after pill will not be handed out in
schools.

There are numerous ways in which health workers bypass government
policy to provide teenagers with the morning-after pill without
parents being informed.

In the Scotland on Sunday investigation, one health worker openly
admitted she and colleagues personally ferried distraught
youngsters from schools to clinics where they received emergency
contraception.

Source:- Scotland on Sunday  Sunday 5 September

New law to target internet prowlers

The Scottish executive plans to introduce new legislation to curb
the activities of sexual predators who use the internet to
“groom” children.

It is understood that the new legislation will introduce a new
offence which will apply to sexual offenders who attempt to meet a
young person after “grooming” them on the internet. The
new offence will carry a penalty of up to 10 years
imprisonment.

Source:- Sunday Herald  Sunday 5 September

‘Having an imaginary friend and hearing voices is
good for children’

Parents should not be concerned if children admit to hearing voices
or chat to an imaginary friend, it emerged this week.

Because “hearing voices” can be an indicator of serious
mental health problems among adults, parents are often alarmed if
their children show signs of hearing people who aren’t
there.

Now research by psychologists is suggesting that susceptibility to
such hallucinatory experiences may be a normal feature of the
mental world of children and shows that these children are
imaginative, creative and sociable.

At a conference in Leeds yesterday Dr Charles Fernyhaugh from the
University of Durham said: “There is a lot of research now to
suggest that children with imaginary friends may be better socially
adapted. They are less shy than other children, have great
imaginative and creative powers and could be better at
understanding the minds of others.”

Source:- Sunday Herald  Sunday 5 September

Single parents’ teenagers likely to use drugs

Teenagers from single parent families are more likely to use drugs,
take up smoking and abuse alcohol, according to research by the
Social Inclusion and Diversity Research Unit at York St John
College.

The study investigating bullying questioned 1832 children aged
12-16 year olds and found adolescents from lone father families
were more likely than any other group to experiment with illegal
drugs. Thirty one per cent used illegal drugs compared with 16 per
cent of those from two-parent households. The mental health of
teenagers with lone fathers was also poor.

Almost a quarter of those from lone mother families used illegal
drugs and they were the most likely of all family groups to use
alcohol.

Source:- Sunday Herald  Sunday 5 September

Child detention ends at Dungavel

The Home Office has confirmed that there are currently no children
of asylum seekers being held at Dungavel detention centre in
Lanarkshire.

Campaigners who have opposed the incarceration of children at the
former prison welcomed the move.

But Linda Fabiani, SNP MSP for Central Scotland, said the Home
Office should declare that they would not lock children up in
Dungavel in future as until they did that, the policy would still
stand.

Source:- Sunday Herald  Sunday 5 September

McConnell in U-turn over ever-growing public sector

Jack McConnell admitted yesterday that the massive expansion of
Scotland’s public sector under Labour had gone too far,
signalling a U-turn in executive policy.

The First Minister conceded that the balance between the public and
private sectors had swung too far in favour of the state and needed
to be “redressed”.

Source:- The Scotsman  Monday 6 September

Welsh newspapers

Why did Laura kill herself?

The parents of a south Wales teenager found dead following a
suspected suicide pact are asking why their daughter may have been
driven to take her own life.

Laura Rhodes, 13 was found dead in her bed at her home in Neath and
with her, in a critical condition, was 14-year-old Rebecca Ling
whom she had got to know over the internet.

Rebecca, from Longbridge, Birmingham is now in hospital in
Swansea, where her condition is described as stable.

Source:- Western Mail Monday 6 September page 1

Confusion of bullied young ones who may seek way
out

Children could be taking overdoses in botched suicide attempts
to avoid a cycle of bullying, according to Liz Carnell, co-founder
and director of Bullying Online.

She claims that suicidal tendencies are a common consequence of
bullying and that some three children a day who contact the
organisation’s website are suicidal.

Source:- Western Mail Monday 6 September page 3