Shoplifters to avoid jail under new guidelines

By Maria Ahmed, Gordon Carson, Mithran Samuel, Sally Gillen and Derren Hayes

Shoplifters to avoid jail under new guidelines
Shoplifters could avoid jail no matter how many times they commit the offence, under proposals the Sentencing Advisory Panel.
Source:- The Times, Friday 25 August 2006, page 14
 
Get on first-name terms with prisoners, staff told
Prisoners should be addressed by their first name or called Mr or Mrs, given clean underwear regularly and daily fruit and vegetables, according to guidelines from Scotland’s Chief Inspector of Prisons.
Source:- The Times, Friday 25 August 2006, page 14

11 million visits to the doctor are missed
The number of missed GP appointments has risen by one million in a year, latest figures show, despite government targets for all patients to be able to see a doctor within 48 hours.
Doctors’ leaders said the financial consequences for the NHS of missed appointments were rising because of the shift of certain hospital procedures to surgeries.
Source:- Daily Telegraph Friday 25 August 2006 page 7

The EU UK
The UK’s population has broken 60 million for the first time because of a big rise in immigration.
Source: Daily Mirror, Friday 25th August, page 25

Travellers trash site
A council-run travellers’ site in Avonmouth closed yesterday after it was ruined by rogue residents for the second time.
Source: Daily Mirror, Friday 25th August, page 35

Whites’ anxiety over race
Many white Britons are uncomfortable with the way immigration is changing society, the government admitted yesterday.
Source: The Sun, Friday 25th August, page 2

Scottish news

Social work child booze cases treble in just two years
The number of children referred to social workers by police because they are abusing alcohol has more than trebled in just two years.
Experts believe the numbers of referrals are soaring because children are experimenting with drink at a younger age, and police are increasingly cracking down on teenagers drinking in public.
Last year in Edinburgh, 119 children were referred to social workers because of an alcohol-related incident which involved the police.
Source: The Scotsman, Friday 25 August

Did Orkney help child protection?
For me the story started sometime in 1990, when, as a wage-slave social worker in a meeting with my boss, his boss phoned.
“Ach, it was just Orkney Council,” he said, having hung up the phone. “They need our help with something.”
It was the first signal of what was to become the Orkney child abuse scandal. Few people anywhere will need reminding of everything that went wrong.
Source: The Record, Friday 25 August 

Welsh news

Paedophiles to be sentenced for jail escape

Two paedophiles who admitted escaping from an open prison while serving life sentences will be sentenced today.

John Elms, 34, and Martin Aspinall, 46, pleaded guilty to escaping from lawful custody when they appeared at Newport Crown Court yesterday.

They had absconded together from HMP Prescoed, near Usk, Monmouthshire, south Wales, on July 28.

The pair, who sparked a massive manhunt, were caught two days later a few miles away near the Rat Trap Hotel in Llangview, Monmouthshire.

The Recorder of Cardiff, Judge John Griffith-Williams QC, who will sentence the pair at Cardiff Crown Court this afternoon, said yesterday: “Those serving life sentences for this type of offence… when they escape, they cause considerable alarm to the public and it may be that that will be taken into consideration when sentence is passed.”

Source:- IC Wales  Friday 25 August