Reid shifts minister in wake of Home Office immigration disarray

Reid shifts minister in wake of Home Office immigration disarray
Liam Byrne has replaced Tony McNulty as minister for immigration, asylum and citizenship following the foreign prisoners fiasco. McNulty will now focus on the police.
Source:- The Guardian, Tuesday 23 May 2006, page 11

Heroin addicts could inject themselves at supervised centres
Police chiefs have backed proposals which could see heroin addicts injecting themselves in officially sanctioned centres. Members of an independent working group, tasked by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, will send their recommendations to the Home Office, which will consider its findings.
Source:- The Guardian, Tuesday 23 May 2006, page 6

Gay foster parents abused young boys
Wakefield Council was condemned yesterday for failing to prevent a paedophile homosexual couple from abusing young boys  even after being alerted by one of the victim’s parents. Foster parents Ian Wathey and Craig Faunch face long terms in jail after being convicted of molesting and filming eight-year-old twins and two boys aged 14
Source:- Daily Telegraph, Tuesday 23 May 2006, page 6

Job applicants subjected to ‘illegal’ record checks
Thousands of people have been subjected to illegal background checks when they applied for jobs that did not require vetting, according to a report on the Criminal Records Bureau by crime reduction charity Nacro.
Source:- The Times, Tuesday 23 May 2006, page 17

Government accused of draconian treatment of asylum seekers
The government was accused of using “destitution as a tool of coercion” against asylum seekers in a report from the Church of England.  It finds that decades of economic growth, and billions invested in inner cities, have done nothing to redress glaring inequalities – or have made them worse.
Source:- The Guardian, Tuesday 23 May 2006, page 8

Judge damns treatment of tortured refugees
A High Court judge delivered a damning indictment of the way that Britain deals with overseas torture yesterday. A man and a woman were denied immediate medical attention at the Oakington detention centre in Cambridge, despite rues which meant they should have been seen within 24 hours.
Source:- The Independent, Tuesday 23 May 2006, page 4

Inquiry rejects high-security schools
The head of a government inquiry into pupil behaviour has rejected demands for airport-style security to be set up in schools in the wake of the murder of 15-year-old schoolboy Kiyan Prince.
Source:- The Independent, Tuesday 23 May 2006, page 6 

NHS told to abandon alternative medicine
A group of Britain’s leading doctors has urged every NHS trust to stop paying for alternative medicine and to use the money for conventional treatments.
Source:- The Times, Tuesday 23 May 2006, page 1

Prisoner rights ‘are gag on victims’
Human rights laws are preventing victims from influencing whether prisoners should be released from jail by allowing the inmates to see what has been said about them, it emerged last night. John Reid, the home secretary, floated proposals in a speech to the parole board for England and Wales yesterday to ensure “that victims or their representatives get a greater say about the release of offenders back into the community.”
Source:- Daily Telegraph, Tuesday 23 May 2006, page 2

Tories promise to make happiness a priority
David Cameron told a conference: “It’s time we focused not just on GDP but on GWP – General Wellbeing.” He said Britain should move “beyond a belief in the Protestant work ethic alone.”
Source:- The Guardian, Tuesday 23 May 2006, page 12

Headteacher urges schools to stop pupils listening to gangsta rap
A headteacher in charge of the government’s taskforce on school discipline urged parents and schools to ban children from listening to “offensive and horrible” sexist and racist rap music lyrics.
Source:- The Guardian, Tuesday 23 May 2006, page 15

Scottish news

Sexually abusive children who slip through the net
More than two thirds of children involved in abusive sexual behaviour are not formally monitored and only 8 per cent have been placed on the sex offenders’ register, according to a report into the issue.
It also reveals that children as young as five are the perpetrators of sexually harmful behaviour.
The study, conducted by the Scottish executive funded criminal justice social work development centre at Edinburgh University, raises serious concerns about the level of supervision and programmes available to youngsters who may pose a risk.
Source:- The Herald, Tuesday 23 May 2006
 
City’s sex industry worth £6.6 million a year and growing
Men in Glasgow spend an estimated £6.6 million a year on prostitution, visiting saunas, private flats and escorts. Peers and MPs were told that despite the best efforts of the police, council and voluntary organisations, the sex industry in the city is expanding with lap-dancing clubs and other services opening up.
Giving evidence to Westminster’s joint committee on human rights, Ann Hamilton, of the corporate violence against women section at Glasgow Council, said an analysis of the industry suggested 264,000 visits to prostitutes at a cost of £6.6 million a year “on saunas, flats, escorts . . . and other take-away sex services”, an average spend of £25.
Source:-  The Herald, Tuesday 23 May
 
Health boards face lawsuits over lack of alternatives to Carstairs
The head of Scotland’s Mental Welfare Commission has warned health boards that they face legal action at the Court of Session from 20 mentally ill patients who he says are “entrapped” in Carstairs.
Patients were recently given the right to be moved to a medium-security unit when their condition improves. But a lack of available accommodation has left patients with nowhere to go.
Dr Donald Lyons, director of the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland, said around 20 patients are waiting to be moved from the state hospital in Lanarkshire, including four who have been waiting for two years or more.
Source:- The Scotsman, Tuesday 23 May
 
Jamieson seeks to overhaul ‘simplistic’ targets on reoffenders
Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, has admitted the Scottish executive’s target of a two per cent reduction in reoffending by 2008 is too simplistic.
Ministers made a pledge in 2004 to cut the number of offenders convicted within two years of their last sentence – currently, about 60 per cent of offenders sent to jail are re-convicted within two years of their release.
The National Advisory Body on Offender Management, set up by the executive and chaired by Ms Jamieson, said yesterday that the measure should be replaced and more sophisticated targets set.
Source:- The Scotsman, Tuesday 23 May 2006
 
Deep in debt
Debt problems are forcing more and more Scottish people towards bankruptcy, with up to 138,000 now considering it.
And one in five is struggling with debts, not including mortgages, of more than £10,000.
Of that group, 20 per cent see themselves heading towards bankruptcy, known as sequestration in Scotland.
Source:- The Record, Tuesday 23 May 2006

Welsh news

‘I’ll kill my baby’, man told police
A man threatened to kill himself and his baby while armed police surrounded his ex-girlfriend’s flat, Cardiff crown court heard yesterday.
Jonathan Passmore told the police that he had boiling oil and would pout it over himself and the baby if they came in.
But when police did enter after two to three hours they found the baby to be safe and well.
Passmore was jailed for 18 months.
Source:- South Wales Echo, Tuesday 23 May 2006