Monday 3 October 2005

By Mithran Samuel, Clare Jerrom, Derren Hayes and Amy
Taylor

Ministers to review alcohol research group

Ministers are to respond to concerns they have been
“captured” by the licensing industry by overhauling a
government sponsored group that researches the impact of binge
drinking.

The Portman Group is to be removed by the Department for Culture,
Media and Sport from the government sponsored Alcohol Education and
Research Council following an argument about the influence that
drinks producers have over studies ion alcohol misuse.

Source:- Financial Times  Saturday 1 October page 2

Public sector outpaces private on jobs

Public sector employment increased by 95,000 in the 12 months to
June 2005, growing at a faster rate than private sector employment,
according to official statistics.

Source:- Financial Times  Saturday 1 October page 2

Teenage bullies likely to face jail

Three teenagers face a prison sentence after being convicted of the
manslaughter of Aimee Wellock who collapsed and died after being
attacked.

Claire Carey and her two teenage friends attacked the 15-year-old
following an afternoon drinking session.

All three were found guilty of manslaughter at Leeds Crown
Court.

Source:- The Times  Saturday 1 October page 6

Killer committed

An Old Bailey judged has expressed concern that health workers
failed to supervise Rodney Anyanwu, a schizophrenic who stabbed an
82-year-old woman to death in her home in north London.

He was committed to a maximum security hospital indefinitely.

Source:- The Times Saturday 1 October page 6

Catford murder

A man has been convicted of murdering 15-year-old Rochelle Holness
whose dismembered remains were dumped on a housing estate.

John Joseph McGrady will appear at Belmarsh Magistrates’
Court.

Source:- The Times  Saturday 1 October page 6

Average council tax tops £1,000

Council tax has increased by 121 per cent since it was introduced
12 years ago.

The date from the Halifax shows that the average bill in England
rose to more than £1,000 for the first time this year.

Source:- The Times  Saturday 1 October page 16

19 ‘sex slaves’ rescued in raid on massage
parlour

Police have rescued 19 foreign women who were allegedly locked up
and forced into sex slavery at a massage parlour.

Fifty officers stormed the premises of Cuddles in Birmingham on
Thursday night and arrested a woman and two men, believed to have
managed the parlour.

Source:- The Times  Saturday 1 October page 27

Girl lured to London was sold to a brothel

A Lithuanian school girl was taken to a brothel in the north of
England and sold to an Albanian gang for prostitution, Southwark
crown court was told yesterday.

The girl is one of 12 allegedly controlled by the Demarku gang at
brothels in Hounslow, west London.

The trial continues.

Source:- The Times  Saturday 1 October page 27

Race watchdog may take action over prison deaths

Britain’s race watchdog threatened to use its legal powers
against the Prison Service yesterday over the failure of
commitments on race discrimination to be put into action in
prisons.

The Commission for Racial Equality told the public inquiry into
Zahid Mubarek’s death that the Prison Service’s
attempts to improve its record had “not yet led to
significant changes in establishments”.

Source:- The Guardian  Saturday 1 October page 10

Baby smothered by drunk mother

A social worker killed her baby after collapsing on top of her, a
court was told yesterday.

Theresa Sherlock slumped onto her five-week-old daughter on a sofa.
When her boyfriend came home, he tried to revive the baby but she
died in hospital the next day.

Sherlock, who admitted manslaughter at an earlier hearing, was
given a three year community rehabilitation order.

Source:- Daily Telegraph  Saturday 1 October page 8

Plan to turn 170 failing schools into academies

A list of 170 schools are to be given top priority for becoming
academies, the new chief adviser to ministers has said.

Sir Cyril Taylor said the list was made up of secondary schools
that have failed Ofsted inspections and identified as having
serious weaknesses.

Source:- The Independent  Saturday 1 October page 4

Five weeks’ training for police recruits to make them
more PC

Police officers could face five weeks of race and equality training
before they can join the police force, according to Scotland
Yard’s plans.

Source:- Daily Mail  Saturday 1 October page 33

Suicide chatrooms ‘must be shut down’

Demands for suicide chatrooms to be shut down grew yesterday after
two strangers who had made contact via the Internet killed
themselves together.

Maria Williams and Christopher Aston died weeks after getting in
touch by computer.

Source:- Daily Mail  Saturday 1 October age 33

Schools lottery to foil ‘rich’
parents

The forthcoming schools white paper will seek to stop
middle-class children monopolising leading state schools by
proposing lotteries to decide places.

The policy document, due out next month, will also propose
“banding”, in which schools take a set proportion of
pupils from each level of ability to ensure a mixed intake.

Source:- The Independent on Sunday Sunday 2 October
2005 page 5

Campaigners fear creation of a British suicide
cult

Campaigners have called for a ban on websites that promote
suicide after two people allegedly killed themselves following a
pact forged on the web.

An inquest heard last week that Maria Williams, from Deptford,
south London, died from carbon monoxide poisoning alongside
Christopher Aston, from Liverpool, after meeting him through a
suicide website.

Charity Parents for the Prevention of Young Suicide called for
regulations to be placed on such sites. The Home Office said it
would establish a voluntary code of conduct.

Source:- The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 2 October 2005
page 10

Governors who allow junk food in schools to face
prosecution

Education secretary Ruth Kelly has said that governors of
schools that continue to serve junk food after a forthcoming ban
will be open to prosecution.

Source:- The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 2 October 2005
page 13

You can stay but we’re sending your 18-year-old
daughter back to South Africa

An 18-year-old woman is due to be separated from her family in
England and deported to South Africa after the Home Office
overturned a ruling to give her a British passport.

Candice Chesher said she was terrified of going back to South
Africa, leaving her mother, who has an Irish passport, and her
British-born stepfather and brother.

The Home Office overturned an appeal to allow Chesher to stay
with her family in North Yorkshire earlier this year on an
“error in law”.

Source:- The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 2 October 2005
page 14

Official: babies do best with mother

A seven-year study of UK childcare has found that children
looked after by their mothers did significantly better in
developmental tests than those cared for in nurseries or by
childminders or relatives.

However, the study of 1,200 children, led by Penelope Leach,
attributed much of the difference to poor quality childcare outside
the home and poor planning by families.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 2 October 2005 page 1,
4

Men face lessons on truth of sex trade

The government has suggested that men who use prostitutes
receive lessons on the experience of women involved in the sex
trade, many of whom are trafficked from abroad.

Home Office minister Paul Goggins outlined the plan ahead of a
conference in Lithuania designed to develop an EU anti-trafficking
plan.

The news follows last week’s raid on a brothel in
Birmingham, which found 19 women whom from overseas whom police
said had been held against their will.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 2 October 2005 page 10

Five-year-olds to be given careers advice

A cross-party group of MPs is to call for primary school
children to receive careers advice to give them realistic but high
aspirations.

The associate parliamentary skills group and national skills
forum wants children to question their dreams of becoming popstars
to give early consideration to higher education and professional
careers.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 2 October 2005 page 12

First the abuse, now the anger

The Observer and Glamour magazine have received over 5,000
responses to its campaign to highlight the problem of rape in
Britain.

Source:- The Observer Sunday 2 October 2005 page 13

UK in the dock on human rights after judges accuse
ministers of ducking responsibility

The UK has failed to comply with 15 judgements made by the
European Court of Human Rights, according to a report.

The paper by the legal committee of the Council of Europe, which
is responsible for the European Convention on Human Rights,
included cases relating to violations of mental health
patients’ rights and the unlawful corporal punishment of
children.

Source:- The Independent Monday 3 Oc tober 2005 page
6

Nigerians are new drug ‘mules’

The number of Nigerian women held on drugs charges in British
prisons has risen sixfold in the past three years.

Prisoner support charity Hibiscus said drugs were being smuggled
via Nigeria after a clampdown on the trade in Jamaica.

Source:- The Independent Monday 3 Oc tober 2005 page
14

Treasury plans review of long-term increases in health
service spending

The Treasury is to revisit the 2002 report by Derek Wanless into
health spending amid fears that big increases in NHS funding will
threaten the government’s priorities on children’s
services.

The review will form part of next year’s comprehensive
spending review.

Wanless said annual health spending would have to rise by 7 per
cent up to 2008 and by between 4.4 and 5.6 per cent after that to
correct long-term underinvestment.

Source:- Financial Times Monday 3 October 2005 page
1

Charity urges curbs on strong lagers

Homelessness charity Thames Reach Bondway has launched a
campaign to cut the availability of super-strength lagers because
of their social and health effects.

Options the charity wants ministers to consider include a 6 per
cent ceiling on alcoholic content.

Source:- Financial Times Monday 3 October 2005 page
4

Dunblane file confirms blunders, says father

The level of official incompetence that left Thomas Hamilton free
to kill 16 children and their teacher at Dunblane primary school in
1996 has been revealed in secret documents released for the first
time today.

Mike North, whose daughter Sophie died in the attack, said that
that documents showed that the police and crown prosecutors did not
take proper action against Hamilton despite a series of incidents
that showed that he was a serious risk to children.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 3 October  page 7

EBay gives charities a shop window on every PC

A service that allows charities to sell second-hand goods on eBay
rather than selling them through high street shops is being
launched today.

Charities believe they will be able to sell things at higher prices
and more quickly through the site.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Monday 3 October page 9

Mummy is best

Children brought up by their mothers develop faster than those
looked after by childminders, a study by a childcare expert has
found.

Source:- The Sun  Monday 3 October page 14

Jail Jamie’s druggie killer, blasts mum

The outraged mother of James Bulger last night demanded a Home
Office inquiry into claims that one of her son’s killers has
become a heroin addict.

It is alleged that Robert Thompson has been prescribed the heroin
substitute methadone in a bid to wean him off the drug.

Source:- The Sun  Monday 3 October page 26

Time constraints

Nearly half of parents in full time employment complain they work
so hard that they fail to sped adequate time with their
children,
according to a survey by YouGov commissioned by Ikea.

Source:- The Times  Monday 3 October page 4

Academies facing £7m VAT trap

The government’s plans for academies in disadvantaged areas
are at risk of failing to fulfil one of its core aims because of a
“tax trap” that will cost individual schools millions
of pounds in VAT.

Source:- The Times  Monday 3 October page 16

Scottish news

Aberdeen set for U-turn over homes transfer

Aberdeen Council is set to transfer its housing stock to a
non-profit-making organisation.

The council is under severe pressure from the Scottish Executive to
transfer at least some of its housing stock to meet the costs of
modernising properties throughout the city. The plan was rejected
three years ago.

Source:- The Sunday Herald Sunday 2 October

Social work crisis leaves children at risk

Children deemed to be at “very high risk” of abuse from
their own families are being forced to stay at home and are waiting
up to almost a year for social work intervention, according to a
Sunday Herald investigation.

A chronic shortage of foster parents, residential homes and a
shortage of social workers are the reasons behind the situation it
says.

Examples include a case involving two children aged seven and four
who are on the child protection register and awaiting social work
intervention for nine months.

Source:- The Sunday Herald Sunday 2 October

Working mother’s dilemma: will leaving children
damage them?

Children whose mothers stay at home show more advanced development
than those in nursery group care, according to a report from
leading childcare experts.

The conclusions of the seven-year study have led parent groups and
education experts to join calls for better childcare
services.

Researchers found the social and emotional development of toddlers
attending nursery was “definitely less good” than that of children
cared for by a parent.

Source:- The Herald Monday 3 October

Offenders who default on fines spared jail

Thousands of offenders who fail to pay fines will be spared jail
under moves likely to be approved by ministers to tackle record
prison numbers.

Pilot schemes running in Glasgow and Ayr have resulted in more than
700 offenders who defaulted on their fines in the last five months
given community-based supervised attendance orders (SAOs) instead
of the usual few days behind bars. Sheriffs can currently either
send someone who does not pay to prison or make them subject to an
SAO, but in most cases a brief jail sentence is
preferred.

Source:- The Scotsman Monday 3 October

Welsh news

Detention for teen who attacked dad walking with kids

Two teenagers who attacked a dad out walking with his children who
did nothing to provoke them have been sent to prison.

The man was temporarily blinded in one eye after being punched by a
16-year-old. The attacker was given a two and a half year sentence
yesterday.

Michael Condon, 18, who also took part in the attack, has been sent
to a young offenders institution for 21 months but put on licence
for 10 years after his release.

Source:- South Wales Echo Saturday 1 October

‘Davies, you’re talking
!*!@’

The MP for Monmouthshire David Davis is to register himself as a
traveller.

Davis said that once he had registered himself he would be able to
say what he liked about the travelling community without anyone
calling him racist.

The National Assembly is currently investigating Davis after he
refused to apologise for outspoken comments about the travelling
community.

Source:- Wales on Sunday Sunday 2 October

Babes-in-attic gran warning

Babies-in-the-attic gran Ann Mahoney will have to move to outside
Wales her neighbours said last night.

The 63-year-old is due to be sentenced tomorrow after admitting
concealing the births of three children.

The remains of a baby were found in a property where she used to
live and two more skeletons were found at her current home.

Mahoney’s neighbour’s predicted that she would be
ostracised if she returned to her home town of Gurnos in Merthyr
Tydfil.

Source:- Wales on Sunday Sunday 2 October

Teen runaways found safe after texting ‘we’re
not coming home’ to parents

A teenage couple who texted their parents to say that they were not
coming home were found safe and well yesterday.

Scott Davies, 15, and his girlfriend Leah Davies, 16, disappeared
from their home village of Pontardawe, near Swansea, a week
ago.

The police had been hunting for the couple ever since.

Source:- Western Mail Monday 3 October