Monday 22 August 2005

By Maria Ahmed, Mithran Samuel, Derren Hayes and Amy
Taylor

The child stealers

Social workers were accused last night of tearing children away
from loving families to meet ‘performance targets’ for
adoption.

Experts said there was clear evidence of social services targeting
parents they branded ‘not clever enough’ to raise young
children.

Source:- The Daily Mail Saturday 20 August 2005 pages
1, 6, 16-17

33 per cent of carers and nurseries failing
children

More than 30,000 childminders and nurseries told to improve
standards by Ofsted.

Source:- The Daily Mail Saturday 20 August 2005 page
6

How drunken yobbery has soared under Blair

The number of under-18s prosecuted for being drunk and
disorderly has soared by 25 per cent under Tony Blair, it emerged
yesterday.
Police are now charging almost 30,000 a year with being out of
control on alcohol, according to government statistics.

Source:- The Daily Mail Saturday 20 August 2005 page
13

Staff anger at young offender’s party

One officer at Hindley young offender institution near Wigan has
complained that governor Jayne Blake had “bent over backwards
for offenders” in providing activities for young
offenders.

The insider said he was “sickened” by the scheme which
including plays by a visiting theatre company this summer.

Source:- The Daily Mail Saturday 20 August 2005 page
40

1,400 raids

A 17-year-old boy, Britain’s most prolific burglar, was
jailed for eight years after admitting 1,400 break-ins to fund his
crack and heroin habit.

Source:- The Daily Mail Saturday 20 August 2005 page
45

12-year-old boy ‘raped boy aged
8’

A 12-year-old boy was remanded into secure accommodation
yesterday after appearing in court to face charges of rape and
repeated sexual assault of another boy, aged eight. The boy
appeared at a hearing accompanied by his father in the youth court
at Wigan, Greater Manchester.

Source:- The Guardian Saturday 20 August 2005 page
2

Gun boasts on gang website lead police to teenage
criminals

Two teenagers who bragged about their crimes on a gangster
website are facing jail after admitting a string of robberies and
weapons offences. The website of a notorious south London gang, the
Man Dem Crew, shows menacing photographs of boys barely out of
primary school posing with what appears to be a pump action
shotgun.

Source:- The Guardian Saturday 20 August 2005 page
13

Children ‘made more aggressive by video
games’

‘Shoot-‘em’up’ video games increase
aggressive behaviour in children and adolescents in the short and
the long-term, according to an analysis of 20 years of
research.

Source:- The Times Saturday 20 August 2005 page 5

Policeman ‘kills son in play
fight’

A policeman is being treated in a psychiatric unit after being
arrested for killing his 11-year-old son with a kitchen
knife.

Ian Johnson, 39, is believed to have delivered the fatal blow while
trying to teach his son martial arts.

Source:- The Times Saturday 20 August 2005 page 9

Be a good dad – take baby for a pint

Guide for new fathers by Jack O’Sullivan aims to explode
the ‘mums only matter’ culture with unconventional
advice

Source:- The Times Saturday 20 August 2005 page 27

Rape remand

A senior officer at Wakefield prison has been charged with
raping four women. John Hall, 34, was refused bail by Leeds
Magistrate’s Court to appear before Leeds Crown Court.

Source:- The Times Saturday 20 August 2005 page
31

Thousands of Britons to sue over painkiller

More than 2,000 people are reportedly preparing to sue
pharmaceutical company Merck over painkilling drug Vioxx, after a
US court awarded £141 million to a widow whose husband had
taken it.

The drug, used by arthritis sufferers, was taken off the market
last year after studies showed it doubled the risk of heart attacks
and strokes if taken for more than 18 months.

Robert Ernst’s widow Carol was awarded damages by a court
in Texas, which heard that Merck had played down safety fears for
over a decade.

Source:- Mail on Sunday Sunday 21 August 2005 page
11

Editor faces race-hate charge over attack on housing for
refugees

A newspaper editor has been charged with inciting racial hatred
for an editorial which linked asylum accommodation centres to
increases in violent crime.

Alan Buchan was arrested following the piece in the North East
Weekly in Abderdeenshire, Scotland, prompted by suggestions a
centre would be built at Buchan near Peterhead, which he linked to
“murder, rape, robbery, assault, break-ins and numerous other
crimes”.

Source:- Mail on Sunday Sunday 21 August 2005 page
18

Tory donor urges leadership candidates to make married
couples better off

A leading Tory donor has urged the party’s leadership
candidates to make it financially advantageous to get married,
saying “unmarried mothers get protected too much”.

Stuart Wheeler, who is hosting a series of dinner parties with
the main contenders, cited statistics on the superior outcomes of
children born to married parents. However, leading contender David
Willetts has claimed that the “Tory war on lone parents is
over”.

Source:- The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 21 August 2005
page 2

Oxford to turn away child prodigies

Oxford University is considering whether to stop taking child
students in response to new child protection standards in the
Children Act 2004.

Oxford, currently the only university which accepts
undergraduates under 17, said there were “heavy costs”
in implementing the duties in the legislation.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 21 August page 6

Top-selling drug linked to increased suicide
risk

One of Britain’s most widely prescribed antidepressants
has been linked to a seven-fold increase in suicide attempts. An
analysis of trials for Seroxat involving more than 1,500 patients
found seven suicides attempts among those taking the drug and only
one among those taking a placebo.

Source:- The Times Monday 22 August 2005 page 1

Lose your children for being too poor

The Conservatives have attacked figures showing that 110
children were taken into care in 2003-4 because of low family
income, despite representing less than 0.002 per cent of cases.

Shadow family secretary Theresa May said no child should be
taken from their parents because of their low income.

However, Felicity Collier, chief executive of the BAAF Adoption
and Fostering, said no court would allow a child to be taken into
care simply on economic grounds.

Source:- Daily Mail Monday 22 August 2005 page 1,8

Police charge up to £2,700 for one night in the
cells

Police are charging the Home Office an average of £360 a
night to hold one immigration detainee in station cells, according
to a study published by the Home Office last month.

Source:- The Times Monday 22 August 2005 page 2

Jail inmate record

The number of convicted and remand prisoners has reached 77,008,
an all-time high as courts take an increasingly hard line. The
total figure, which was announced by the Prison Service, just 1,200
prisoners below the level at which officers consider it safe to
control the 139 jails in England and Wales.

Source:- The Times Monday 22 August 2005 page 5

Boy’s body is found in woods

Police looking for Rory Blackhall, 11, who has been missing for
three days, called off the search last night after a body matching
his description was found. It was discovered in woods near the M8
motorway, less than half a mile from where he was last seen being
dropped off at his school in Livingston, West Lothian.

Source:- The Times Monday 22 August 2005 page 5

Depressed jobless will be pushed into finding
work

Thousands of people off sick with depression are to be forced
back to work by the government – which claims they are
depressed because they have no jobs.

Source:- The  Daily Mirror Monday 22 August 2005 page
2

I was the stereotype, the easy target. Now I can help
kids avoid the same fate

Wilston Silcott hits back

Source:- The  Daily Mirror Monday 22 August 2005 page
6

Piano man sham

It was thought he was a musical genius who’d lost his
mind, tried to kill himself and retreated into a world of
silence…but he’s really a German who fooled docs and
can barely play a note. Medway NHS Trust would still not reveal the
hoaxer’s identity until it had completed its own
investigation.

Source:- The  Daily Mirror Monday 22 August 2005 page
8-9

The woman paedophile who stole my son’s
innocence

A mother whose 10-year-old son was sexually assaulted by a woman
of 23 yesterday hit out after the paedophile escaped a jail
sentenced. Tammy Fuller was given a three-year community
rehabilitation order and placed on the sex offenders’
register for five years after she was convicted of indecent
assault. The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, blasted
Judge David Rennie for allowing Fuller to go free.

Source:- The  Daily Mirror Monday 22 August 2005 page
11

Two found dead in prison cells

Louise Giles, 20, has been found hanged in her Durham prison
cell; she was serving life for stabbing a woman outside a Sheffield
nightclub in 2004. At Leeds prison, Jacob Rayner, 25, on remand
charged with racially aggravated assault, was also found hanged in
his single cell.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 22 August 2005 page 6

Hardline rhetoric blamed for rise in prison
suicides

Politicians have been warned by the prisons watchdog that their
hardline rhetoric on crime is leading to chronic overcrowding and
more prison suicides. Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons,
said demands for longer sentences had led to a prisons
“crisis” which was boosting the suicide rate.

Source:- The Independent Monday 22 August 2005 page 6
and page 25

Scottish news

Revealed: huge rise in Scots child drug dealers

The number of children caught selling and carrying drugs in
Scotland has increased significantly in the past three years.

New figures show the number of under-16s charged with the supply or
possession of drugs has gone up by 13 per cent since 2002.

Details obtained from seven out of eight of Scotland’s police
forces show that children as young as 10 have been caught with
cannabis, which can trigger mental health problems, and
13-year-olds have been found dealing in heroin.

Source:- The Herald Monday 22 August

Kids’ £29 a week on drugs booze and
fags

Scotland’s teenagers are spending millions of pounds a
year on cigarettes, alcohol and drugs.

A survey by Glasgow University found that one in 10 15-year-olds
spends £29 a week on all three. They spend £9.3million on
drink and £5million on cigarettes, while 20 per cent said they
spent an average of £11 on illegal drugs per week.

Source:- Daily Record Monday 22 August

Welsh news

Some places luckier than others with National Lottery
good causes

Projects in Cardiff have received much larger amounts of lottery
money than in other parts of Wales it has been revealed.

Statistics show that four times more money has been spent in
Cardiff than in some other areas.

Big projects such as the Millennium Stadium have contributed to the
issue.

Source:- Western Mail Saturday 20 August

Concern grows over missing teenager

A teenager who was last sighted in Maesteg has not been seen for
more than two weeks.

Matthew Patterson, 13, disappeared from Exeter on June 29 and was
last seen on August 2.

Source:- Western Mail Saturday 20 August

A reprieve for carer

An Australian carer who was refused an extended work visa by the
Home Office has been granted a reprieve.

Correy Webb, 27, has been helping Niki and Graham Harding at their
home in Llandaff North, Cardiff. Graham has cancer of the
spine.

Webb has now applied for leave to remain which would mean he would
be allowed to stay for another six months but not to work.

Source:- South Wales Echo Saturday 20 August

Extra childcare funding

An extra £685, 000 is to be put into childcare by Neath Port
Talbot Council over the next three years.

The money will be used to provide 500 new childcare places. A
mobile team will also be created that will provide childcare in
communities where little is available.

Source:- Western Mail Monday 22 August