Monday 19 September 2005

By Maria Ahmed, Simeon Brody, Derren Hayes and Amy
Taylor

A royal commission to investigate how the London bombings
happened and a media unit to rebut negative stories about Muslims
and counter propaganda from Islamist extremists should be set up,
according to a government task force appointed to tackle
extremism.

Source:- The Guardian Saturday 17 September 2005 page
1

Council tax revaluation is called off

The government has decided to postpone a review of the property
values of all homes in England.

There were fears the revaluation of 22 million homes by 2007 would
lead to increased tax bills as a result of the rise in property
prices.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Saturday 17 September 2005
page 1

Sex abuse teacher jailed

A teacher was jailed for six months and banned from working with
children after she admitted engaging in sexual activity with a
16-year-old special needs student.

Beverley Miles, 48, a special needs teacher and mother of two, had
sex with the “naïve” boy and inappropriately
touched him at school, Bournemouth Crown Court heard.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Saturday 17 September 2005
page 6

Hunt for children snatched by mother and
“paedophile”

Police were searching last night for two children who taken to
France after being abducted by their mother and her suspected
paedophile boyfriend.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Saturday 17 September 2005
page 7

Boy dies in cell

A boy of 17 has died after he was found hanged in his cell at
Hindley Young Offender Institution in Wigan.

Sam Elphick had been sentenced at Manchester Crown Court in July to
22 months for robbery with affray. The prisons ombudsman is to
investigate.

Source:- The Times Saturday 17 September 2005 page
22

“Be good son, and do well at school”

Report on asylum seeker who killed himself so his child could stay
in Britain.

Source:- The Independent Saturday 17 September 2005 page
1

Inquiry urged over increase in detention centre
deaths

The high number of deaths among asylum-seekers held in British
detention centres has prompted human rights and refugee groups to
demand an urgent public inquiry.

Source:- The Independent Saturday 17 September 2005 page
2

Backdown on new drink laws

Ministers will next week announce a significant concession over
24-hour drinking, with the guidelines issued to local authorities
and the police on granting licences to be reviewed within three
months.

Source:- Financial Times Saturday 17 September 2005 page
1

Treasury draws up plans to give funds in dormant bank
accounts to charity

Hundreds of millions of pounds in high street banks that have lain
dormant for 10 years or more could be passed to charity under plans
being drawn up by the Treasury.

Source:- Financial Times Saturday 17 September 2005 page
1

Poverty group to contest tax credit clawback

Child Poverty Action Group is to take legal action to stop the
government automatically clawing back tax credits that have been
paid to low-income families.

Source:- Financial Times Saturday 17 September 2005 page
2

Homes will not ruin countryside, says minister

Communities minister David Milliband has dismissed as myths claims
that 500,000 new homes in the South by 2016 would ruin the
countryside and create soulless commuter dormitories.

Source:- Financial Times Saturday 17 September 2005 page
4

Cheaper summer holidays to combat truancy

Ministers are to promote cut-price summer holidays to parents in
an effort to stop them taking children away during term time.

Source:- The Sunday Times Sunday 18 September 2005 page
4

Wildest pupils prefer to learn the hard way

An experiment to test rival “progressive” and
“traditional” teaching methods on a group of disruptive
schoolchildren has shown that firm discipline may work best.

Source:- The Sunday Times Sunday 18 September 2005 page
4

Mental problems soar among children using
cannabis

The number of children treated mental disorders caused by
smoking cannabis has quadrupled since the government downgraded the
legal status of the drug, according to charity Addaction.

Source:- The Sunday Times Sunday 18 September 2005 page
7

Asylum officers stuck at desks

Immigration officers have been criticised for wasting public
money claiming overtime while spending excessive hours at their
desks, when they should be catching illegal entrants.

A report by Home Office officials and consultants has shown that
less than half an officer’s time is spent tracking down the
estimated 300,000 failed asylum seekers. The rest is spent on
paperwork and training.

Source:- The Sunday Times, Sunday 18 September 2005,
page 7

Scotland tops world league for violent
crime

Scotland is the most violent country in the developed world,
according to a United Nations report.

Source:- The Sunday Times, Sunday 18 September 2005,
page 7

Inside the mind of a stalker

Last week a girl was shot and killed by her former lover.
It’s an extreme case but each year more than 5,000 people are
charged with harassment.

Source:- The Sunday Times, Sunday 18 September 2005,
page 13

‘Low IQ’ pair can appeal over
adoption

A couple who had their children taken away by social services
because the mother was said to be ‘too backward’ to
care for them have won the right to appeal against their
adoption.

Essex Council social workers removed the children – a
14-month-old boy and his sister who is nearly four – late
last year, and last month a judge ruled both could be freed for
adoption.

Source:- The Mail on Sunday Sunday 18 September 2005 page 34

Alarm as prescriptions of Ritalin to children reach a
record high

Doctors are condemned as “irresponsible” as figures
show a 180-fold increase in use of stimulant on under-16s.

Source:- The Sunday Telegraph, Sunday 18 September
2005, page 4

Pupils’ ‘behaviour charter’
launched

Teachers will attempt to combat the rising tide of classroom
disorder by launching a charter of behaviour tomorrow. The 20-page
document – Learning to Behave – has been drawn up by
the National Union of Teachers.

Source:- The Sunday Telegraph, Sunday 18 September
2005, page 4

School taxi fares for pupils cost councils £40,000
a day

Local councils are spending up to £40,000 a day on taxis to
take children to and from school.

The sums paid out by some authorities in rural areas account for
almost three per cent of their total education budget and have been
condemned as an “astounding” waste of money.

Source:- The Sunday Telegraph, Sunday 18 September
2005, page 6

Top football clubs hit by child abuse
allegations

A report compiled by the government-backed Independent Football
Commission after an 18-month investigation discloses that 250
suspected child abuse cases are being probed by the Football
Association and that two more allegations are being investigated at
Premiership clubs.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 18 September 2005 page 1
and pages 8-9

Fear for child safety in bid to end care
checks

Children left in daycare while their parents work will be put at
risk under government plans to scrap official checks on carers,
children’s organisations are warning.

Source:- The Observer, Sunday 18 September 2005, page
4

Housing policy under fire

The government is failing to provide social housing for
vulnerable homeless people stuck in hostels, claims a report by the
Salvation Army.

Source:- The Observer, Sunday 18 September 2005, page
6

Has the shine comes off the £30m
model?

Kate Moss’s sponsors are less than happy with tabloid
pictures of her apparently snorting cocaine – but she is
still loved her legions of teenage fans.

Source:- The Observer, Sunday 18 September 2005, page
15

Sedated, abused and confined in bleak wards: a
woman’s life inside Broadmoor

In a new book, Janet Cresswell, who spent 25 years in the top
security unit, reveals her dark world.

Source:- The Independent on Sunday 18 September 2005,
page 8

Snapping at yobs

Talking cameras are to be used to deter yobs from vandalising
trains and railway equipment across the east of England.

Source:- The Times, Monday 19 September 2005, page
13

Racism blamed as black pupils struggle

Black children are being condemned to failure early in their
school careers because of racist attitudes among teachers,
according to Professor David Gillborn, of the London University
Institute of Education.

Source:- The Times, Monday 19 September 2005, page
18

Adults need help to report child abuse, says
NSPCC

Most adults find it hard to report suspected child abuse,
according to research by the NSPCC.

Source:- The Times, Monday 19 September 2005, page
28

Clarke plans prisons shakeup

Charles Clarke is planning a network of community prisons in
which prisoners serve time closer to their family in an effort to
reduce reoffending.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 19 September 2005 page
1

Hidden stress of the nursery age

Toddlers starting nursery experience high levels of stress in
the first weeks after separating from their mothers, according to a
study.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 19 September 2005 page
3

Tagged teenager in murder case was left
unsupervised

A catalogue of errors was made by probation staff and an
electronic tagging firm in their supervision of a teenager
convicted of murdering a Nottingham jeweller.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 19 September 2005 page
7

Amnesty urged for illegal immigrants

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten will urge the
government to offer an amnesty to all illegal immigrants before
tightening procedures to enter Britain.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 19 September 2005 page
11

Sally Clark to sue pathologist over baby death
post-mortem

Sally Clark and her husband are seeking large damages in a
lawsuit against Home Office pathologist Alan Williams who performed
the autopsies on the two baby sons she was convicted of
murdering.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 19 September 2005 page
12

Britain “is sleepwalking into New Orleans-style
segregation”

Harriet Harman warned yesterday that some of Britain’s
black and poor communities were sinking into the same underclass
exposed in the US by Hurricane Katrina.

Source:- The Independent Monday 19 September 2005 page
6

Gran starves to death

A 79-year-old woman starved to death because her council home
had no letterbox so her pension could not be delivered. None of her
10 children, 30 grandchildren, social services or pensions official
noticed Ivy Allen was dying at her home in Warrington.

Source:- The Mirror Monday 19 September 2005 page 1

Scottish news

Boss of worst council steps down

One of Scotland’s worst-performing local authorities parted
company with its chief executive yesterday as part of a management
shake-up designed to turn its fortunes around.

Robert Cleary agreed to leave his position as chief executive of
Inverclyde Council after negotiations were completed over a
financial settlement. There is speculation he’s been allowed
to leave with a pension of around £50,000 a year.

Source:- The Scotsman Saturday 17 September

Men slow to come forward to sit on Children’s
Panel

More than 542 people in the Lothians have volunteered to join
the Children’s Panel – but fewer than a quarter are men.

The latest figures from the recruitment hotline show that of the
volunteers from Edinburgh and West, East and Midlothian, only 126
were male. Deputy education minister Robert Brown has called for
more volunteers to fill the gaps in the panel, which helps address
the needs of vulnerable children.

Source:- The Scotsman Saturday 17 September

Asylum seekers gain support

Around 300 protesters staged a demonstration at the treatment of
refugees in Scotland outside immigration offices in Glasgow on
Saturday.

The Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees said asylum seekers were
undergoing “utterly traumatising” treatment by being removed from
their homes in the early hours of the morning to be taken to
England to be deported.

Source:- Scotland on Sunday 18 September

Police struggle to cope as hidden sex offender list tops
30,000

Scottish police don’t have enough resources to properly
monitor the ever growing number of sex offenders in the
country.

It follows a report by Fife Council into the circumstances behind
the death of Karen Dewar eight months ago at the hands of Colyn
Evans, a repeat sex offender, had been living alone and
unsupervised in the community.

Source:- Scotland on Sunday Sunday 18 September

Housing shortage causing crisis in homeless
hostels

Hostels in Scotland are being “bed-blocked” by
homeless clients who could move into community housing if only
provision were available.

A new report from the Salvation Army has shown that hundreds of
their badly needed residential places are being occupied by
residents who have been prevented from moving on because of the
lack of social housing and support services from health or social
workers.

Source:- Sunday Herald Sunday 18 September

Cops’ fury at violent Scotland

A leading police officer has refuted claims Scotland is the most
violent country in the developed world. Fife chief constable Peter
Wilson spoke out after a UN report said Scots were three times more
likely to be assaulted than people anywhere else on the planet.

Source:- The Record Monday 19 September

Welsh news

Care leavers are struggling

A children’s charity has called for action to address
underachievement by care leavers in education.

NCH Cymru said that only 42 per cent of 16-year-olds left care with
one GCSE or GNVQ or more.

Source:- Western Mail Monday 19 September

Adults’ fear is leaving abused youngsters at
risk

Children are left being abused in Wales due to adults being too
scared to report their concerns.

One in 14 Welsh adults suspect that a child they know is being
abused but three per cent of them do nothing.

The majority of this group cited fears for their own safety as the
main reason behind their lack of action.

Source:- Western Mail Monday 19 September

Refugee doctors now at work

A scheme to help refugee doctors to gain employment in the NHS in
Wales has been praised by the social justice minister Edwina
Hart.

The scheme helps refugee and asylum seeker doctors to pass the
language tests required to become an NHS doctor.

Source:- Western Mail  Monday 19
September