Monday 25 July

£27m scheme to give free books to all
under-fives

Every child up to the age of four is to get a free bag of books,
under a £27m government scheme designed to promote reading.
Education secretary Ruth Kelly will announce the initiative during
a speech tomorrow in London to the Institute for Public Policy
Research.

Source: The Guardian, Monday 25 July 2005, page 9
 
ChildLine faces loss of overnight helplines

The charity ChildLine warned last night that it may be forced to
close down its overnight helplines to avert a cash crisis.

Source: The Guardian, Monday 25 July 2005, page 12
 
Equal pay claim may cost Prison Service up to
£50m

The Prison Service is facing a £50m bill to settle a
six-year-dispute over equal pay for thousands of administrative
workers in jails in England and Wales.

Source: The Times, Monday 25 July 2005, page 25

Raise pension age to 67, says Blair’s favourite
thinktank

The state pension age will have to rise to 67, according to a
report by the Institute for Public Policy Research, which says most
working people fail to realise they will live longer than their
parents.

 Source: The Daily Telegraph Monday 25 July 2005 page
1
 
Cut public sector pensions, urges Osborne

Public sector pensions should be slashed to pay for tax cuts and
public servants should be forced to work until they are 65, shadow
chancellor George Osborne said yesterday.

Source: The Daily Telegraph, Monday 25 July 2005, page
10

Sunday 24 July

Just look up to find happiness

Pessimists’ brains work better when they are staring
downwards and optimists’ minds function more quickly,
according to a report that suggests new ways of diagnosing and
treating depression.

Source: The Sunday Times, Sunday 24 July 2005, page
4
 
Adult care ban on 700 staff

More than 700 care staff have been banned from working with
vulnerable people following accusations of neglect, assault and
sexual abuse. Since last July, more than 2,100 carers have been
referred to the Protection of Vulnerable Adults register by
employers worried about their staff. After investigation 714 were
either permanently barred from working or barred pending an
appeal.

Source: The Observer, Sunday 24 July 2005, page 9

Welsh digest

Fury as man who used child porn escapes justice

The NSPCC has rounded on the courts for letting a man who had
thousands of indecent images of children escape to China.

Michael Murray, a former Vietnam war reporter, went on the run
after magistrates gave him bail and let him keep his passport.

Murray had already gone to the Far East once during the court
process and had vanished on the day of sentencing.

The NSPCC’s special investigations chief Colin Turner
said: “It is essential that these people are brought to
justice. We need to send a clear message that child abuse destroys
lives.”

Source:-Wales on Sunday 24 July 2005

 Missing teen found safe

A woman has been charged with the abduction of a 13-year-old
looked-after child, who was later found safe and well. Philipa
Williams, 41, of Pontycymer, near Bridgend, was bailed by
magistrates in Pontypridd yesterday.

The girl had been visiting relatives in South Wales and had been
due to return to a children’s home on the English border when she
went missing.

On Tuesday her 57-year-old grandmother appealed for her to get
in touch as police asked for information, and she was later found
in Slough.

Source:- Wales on Sunday 24 July 2005

 Pensioner blasts DVLA

A disabled pensioner who missed a deadline to claim free road
tax because she was fighting for her life is battling the Driver
and Vehicle Licensing Agency after they refused her claim.

By law a person must apply for a disability disc before they are
65. But a month before her 65th birthday Angela Jackson had open
heart surgery, which left her paralysed from the waist down.

After seven months’ recuperation she returned her and
applied for the disc but was told by that she should have applied
earlier.

Source:- Wales on Sunday 24 July 2005

Saturday 23rd July

1,000 playing fields sold to developers

The scandal of disappearing playing fields was laid bare yesterday
as figures showed they are being concreted over in rising numbers.
Nearly 1,000 applications to build on school and community playing
fields were approved last year – up 19 per cent on
2003.

Source: The Daily Mail, Saturday 23 July 2005, page
14
 
Ministers earmark £8m for 58 new traveller camps

Fifty-eight traveller camps are to be built as part of an £8m
government project. The scheme will also see the refurbishment of
44 disused sites and the renovation of others.

Source: The Daily Mail, Saturday 23 July 2005, page
51
 
‘Let seven-year-olds choose between their
parents’

Children as young as seven should be allowed to decide which parent
they want to live with in cases of divorce or separation, Anthony
Douglas, the head of the Children and Family Court Advisory and
Support Service, has said.

Source: The Times, Saturday 23 July 2005, page 19

Appeal court judges back Meadow

The court of appeal has come to the defence of Professor Sir Roy
Meadow, the paediatrician struck off for giving misleading
statistical evidence in the Sally Clark case, insisting that he
“had, and still has, enormous expertise” in child abuse
cases.

Source: The Guardian, Saturday 23 July 2005, page 10

Welsh digest

Autistic pupil abandoned on school trip

A severely autistic student was left alone for two hours on a
busy beach because teachers left without him on a school trip.

Teachers realised Geraint Folwer, 13, was missing after
returning from a trip to Barry Island. He was found 15 minutes
later on the beach, after the coastguard was alerted.

Education and school chiefs have launched an investigation into
Wednesday’s incident during the trip from Trinity Fields special
school at Ystrad Mynach, near Caerphilly.

Source:- Western Mail Saturday 23 July 2005