Poor turned off Sure Start by middle-class mothers

Poor turned off Sure Start by middle-class mothers
Ministers are to take action to prevent middle-class parents from hijacking its £3 billion Sure Start programme, designed to help the most deprived families. The Times has learnt that next month managers at the 1,000 Sure Start schemes will be instructed to monitor the class and ethnic origin of visitors to the centres and take action if users fail to reflect the neighbourhood’s social mix.
Source:- The Times, Friday 6 October 2006, page 11

Campaigners urge Brussels to extend laws against age bias
Age campaign groups across Europe have proposed a draft European Union directive banning age discrimination in the provision of goods and services, such as health and social care.
The move would go further than proposals that came into force this week barring age discrimination in employment in the UK.
Source:- The Financial Times, Friday 6 0ctober 2006, page 3

No hope of divorce without mediation
Divorcing couples with children must seek out a counsellor for family mediation before their case can be processed, constitutional affairs minister Harriet Harman said.
Source:- Daily Telegraph, Friday 6 October 2006, page 8

Prison chiefs meet Reid over overcrowding
Home secretary John Reid is opposing suggestions from officials that low-risk prisoners should be released to deal with the prison overcrowding crisis.
With the secure estate set to reach full capacity in days, Reid was due to meet prison and immigration chiefs to discuss the use of police cells and immigration detention centres to deal with the crisis.
Source:- The Guardian, Friday 6 October 2006, page 7

Mother and two infants found hanged
A young mother and her two infant sons have been found hanged in their home in Birmingham by her husband. Police are not looking for anyone in connection with the deaths.
Source:- The Guardian, Friday 6 October 2006, page 7

Scottish news

Child protection system working, says McConnell
The first minister Jack McConnell has argued the sharp rise in the numbers of children referred to child protection registers last year is because social workers see the system as working better, and are more willing to use it.
His comments follow a report, published last week, showing that the number of children being referred as at risk of sexual abuse rose by one-third last year.
More than 300 youngsters were put on Scotland’s national child protection register because of sex abuse or the risk of it, with claims that the spiralling numbers are putting services under severe strain.
Source:- The Herald, Friday 6 October 2006

24 sex offenders have disappeared without trace
24 sex offenders have vanished from the system in Scotland, new figures show.
Police said as many as half of those who have gone missing may have fled the country.
The new figures were disclosed after questions were asked at Holyrood about the number of convicted sex offenders the authorities had lost track of.
It followed the arrest this week of Peter Tobin in connection with the murder of a Polish student. Tobin is on the sex offenders register after being convicted of raping a teenage girl, but had disappeared and was working at the church under a different name where the student’s body was found.
Source:- The Herald, Friday 6 October 2006

Welsh news

Sharp cuts to council services may follow women’s pay ruling
Council services across Wales could be cut due to a series of legal rulings on  equal pay.
Steve Thomas, director of the Welsh Local Government Association, said that it was impossible for councils to estimate the costs that such rulings could bring about.
The concerns come after an equal pay award affecting more than 1, 500 female health workers in Cumbria. It has been estimated that female workers across the UK could be entitled to as much as £3bn in similar cases.
Source:- Western Mail, Thursday 6 October 2006

Baby ‘so brutally beaten he looked like Elephant man’
A toddler was  beaten so badly by his mother’s boyfriend that he looked like the Elephant Man, a jury heard yesterday.
Andrew Lloyd was also said to have swung the 13-month-old by his ankles while he screamed.
Aaron Gilbert was found to have fifty separate injuries when he died.
Source:- Western Mail, Friday 6 October 2006