Expert witnesses lose immunity from censure in Meadow case

Expert witnesses lose immunity from censure in Meadow case
Doctors who give incorrect or negligent evidence will no longer be immune from disciplinary action by their professional body after a landmark court ruling yesterday.
Judges upheld an appeal brought by the General Medical Council following the organisation’s decision to discipline professor Roy Meadow in relation to the discredited evidence he provided in the Sally Clark case.
Source:- The Independent, Friday 27 October 2006, page 7

Johnson drops plan for faith school quotas legislation
The government has abandoned its plan to force faith schools to accept more pupils from non-religious backgrounds after strong protests from Catholics.
Ministers had planned to make new faith school accept up to a quarter of pupils from other faiths.
Source:- The Independent, Friday 27 October 2006, page 12

PFI hospitals will cost an extra £45bn for 30 years
The taxpayer will be paying out billions of pounds for up to 30 years to pay for NHS hospitals built for a fraction of the cost under the private finance initiative.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph, Friday 27 October 2006, page 6
 
Tories brand Kelly plan for local government reform a damp squib
Tories said the local government white paper had failed to live up to promises to deliver devolution to English councils to match the freedom given to Scotland and Wales.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph, Friday 27 October 2006, page 16

Scottish news

Hotel told to pay £3, 000 over disabled access
In the first case of its kind, wheelchair user Isaac Curran has been awarded £3,000 in compensation from a Scottish hotel which failed to provide adequate disabled access.
Curran who suffers from a degenerative spine condition showed the hotel had not made “reasonable changes” to accommodate disabled customers after encountering a series of problems during a visit.
He was offered a £50 voucher by its owner but now the hotel has been ordered to pay £3,000, plus £2,000 in legal expenses, and has also applied for planning permission to improve disabled access.
Source: The Herald, Friday 27 October 2006

1, 000 failed asylum families face being deported
More than 1,000 asylum seeker families in Scotland are facing forced deportation, potentially involving dawn raids, the Home Office has said.
The figure emerged during a visit to Scotland by Liam Byrne, the UK Immigration Minister, who was announcing the creation of two teams in Glasgow to speed up asylum applications.
He said there were 4,500 adults and children in 1,500 asylum seeker families in Scotland, two-thirds of whom had exhausted the appeals process, meaning they were now living in the UK illegally and could be deported.
Source: The Scotsman, Friday 27 October 2006

Call for expansion of domestic abuse courts
Campaigners working with victims of domestic abuse last night urged the Scottish Executive to open courts specialising in prosecuting such cases throughout the country.
They spoke out after it was revealed that Scotland’s only domestic abuse court had convicted more than 1,000 men and women since it was established two years ago.
Although the vast majority of the 1,248 cases heard at the Glasgow court involved crimes against women, the alleged victims in 45 cases were men.
Source: The Scotsman, Friday 27 October 2006

Welsh news

Jury considers fate of baby salt-death mother
A jury has retired to decide its verdict in the case of a young Welsh mother accused of murdering her baby by poisoning him with salt.
Marianne Williams, 24, who lives in Wiltshire but is originally from Wales, denies the charge of murder.
Source:- Western Mail, Friday 27 October 2006