Thursday 3 March 2005

By Maria Ahmed, Derren Hayes and Amy Taylor

Abuse of detainees puts asylum policy in the spotlight

A BBC film showing asylum seekers being assaulted, racially abused
and sexually humiliated by guards has prompted demands for a public
debate into how government policy is fuelling human rights abuses
and miscarriages of justice.

The film, broadcast last night, has generated adverse publicity for
Global Solutions, one of the government’s largest
contractors, which run Oakington detention centre near Cambridge
and the in-country escorting contract featured in the undercover
documentary.

Source:- The Financial Times Thursday 3 March 2005 page
5

‘Give killers the vote’

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy was accused of ‘crazy
political correctness’ last night after arguing that
prisoners should be given the right to vote. Kennedy said:
“We believe that citizens are citizens, full
stop.”

Source:- The Daily Mail Thursday 3 March 2005 page 4

MMR ‘is cleared over causing rise in
autism’

The MMR vaccine is not responsible for rapid, widespread increases
in autism, experts said yesterday.

But they said they still cannot rule out that it may trigger the
problem in a small minority of children. Research on 30,000
children in Yokohama, Japan, showed that autism continued to rise
after the triple MMR vaccine was replaced with single jabs.

Source:- The Daily Mail Thursday 3 March 2005 page 5

Euro judges take pity on the paedophile who found it
stressful waiting to face trial…and award him
£6,000

A convicted paedophile has been awarded nearly £6,000 by the
European Court of Human Rights because his trial was delayed for
too long. Former barrister Rupert Massey was jailed for six years
for sexually abusing three schoolboys.

Source:- The Daily Mail Thursday 3 March 2005 page
29

Boss traps a salesman downloading child porn

Theresa Portman, a company director in Cornwall was forced to pay
for a CCTV camera to catch Tim Bozman, one of her workers,
downloading child pornography from an office computer after police
failed to act.

Source:- The Daily Mail Thursday 3 March 2005 page 5

Mother denies plot to kill terminally ill son

The mother of the terminally ill 10-year-old boy suffocated by his
father with a pillow after she left him alone in the house denied
yesterday that she knew her husband intended to kill him. Giving
evidence at the trial of Andrew Wragg for the murder of their
son

Jacob, Mary Wragg said: “I didn’t expect to return to
find Jacob dead.”

Source:- The Guardian Thursday 3 March 2005 page 4

£52,000 – the cost of bringing up baby

Pregnancy & Birth magazine has said the average cost of
bringing up a baby to the age of five is £52,000, based on the
average parent spending in Mothercare.

Source:- The Guardian Thursday 3 March 2005 page 5

Prisoner freed in armed raid

A prisoner escaped yesterday after his guards were held at gunpoint
while they were taking him from hospital to prison in a taxi in
Salford, Greater Manchester.

Source:- The Guardian Thursday 3 March 2005 page 7

Abused prisoner was driven to suicide

A prisoner in a maximum security jail was driven to kill himself
because the staff did nothing to stop other inmates from verbally
abusing him, an inquest jury found yesterday. Paul Day from
Basildon, Essex, was found hanged in his cell in the segregation
unit of Frankland prison, Durham, in October 2002.

Source:- The Guardian Thursday 3 March 2005 page 11

Internet porn swamps police

Police are spending so much time dealing with internet child
pornography that child abuse inquiries are falling by the wayside,
a report by the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Thursday 3 March 2005 page
5

Gene linked to dyslexia in children

A gene likely to be one cause of dyslexia in children has been
discovered, providing insights into the biochemistry of reading and
writing, a team at Cardiff University have found.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Thursday 3 March 2005 page
11

Rethink over Gypsies’ camp

A family of Irish travellers secured a High Court victory yesterday
against a decision by John Prescott that they must leave a private
campsite that they unlawfully set up in the metropolitan greenbelt
in Kent.

Robert Simmons, the head of the extended family, won orders
requiring planning authorities to reconsider his case.

Source: – The Times Thursday 3 March 2005 page 2

Cramped prison ship will close

Britain’s only prison ship is to close nine years after she
opened as an emergency measure to deal with overcrowded jails in
England and Wales. The Prison Service will start running down Her
Majesty’s Prison Weare this year as new jail accommodation
becomes available.

Source:- The Times Thursday 3 March 2005 page 26

Scottish news

Schools failing to control bad behaviour

Many of Scotland’s secondary schools are failing to do enough
to cope with bad behaviour in the classroom, inspectors have
said.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education found there was
“significant scope for improvement … in the management of
behaviour” in just over half of Scotland’s high
schools.

The report found the majority of disruptive behaviour involved
talking and using mobile phones during class.

Source:- The Scotsman Thursday 3 March.

Welsh news

Sex offenders’ open prison to go ahead

Prisons minister Paul Goggins told campaigners that he would not
halt a scheme that involves moving sex offenders from a closed
prison to an open one yesterday.

Forty sex offenders are due to eventually be moved from Usk closed
prison to Prescoed open jail.

An offender escaped in the scheme’s first week of
running.

Source:- Western Mail Thursday 3 March

Young mums challenge prejudice

Young mothers in Wales experience prejudice due to people holding
stereotypical views, a women’s charity claimed
yesterday.

YWCA is seeking to end people thinking that a young mother will be
a lone parent dependent on state benefits.

Source:- Western Mail Thursday 3 March