Foster mother inflicted 20 years of sadistic abuse on three children

Foster mother inflicted 20 years of sadistic abuse on three children
A Gloucestershire foster carer was found guilty of 26 charges of abuse and child cruelty towards three children in her care over a 20-year period yesterday.
Eunice Spry, who will be sentenced next month, beat the children with stick, forced them to eat vomit and their own faeces and ordered one to stay in a wheelchari for four years even though she could walk, so she could claim benefits for her.
In a statement, Gloucstershire Safeguarding Children Board admitted that few professionals provided a consistent presence for the children, though many saw them, and information was not shared.
Source:- The Guardian, Wednesday 21 March 2007, page 5

Council unions in strike warning
Unions representing 1.3m local authority workers warned thy could not rule out industrial action after rejecting a 2 per cent pay offer from employers, which they described as “insulting and demeaning”.
Source:- The Financial Times, Wednesday 21 March 2007, page 5

Brown’s final budget: £1bn extra for child poverty
Chancellor Gordon Brown is to announce in his Budget today that the government will spend an extra £1bn to help further progress against its child poverty targets.
Most of the money will come in tax credits, targeted at those on low incomes, with the rest involving increases in child benefit.
The budget will also set spending plans for education from 2008-11 that are designed to help hit the government’s target of increasing per-pupil funding to the level of private schools.
Source:- The Guardian, Wednesday 21 March 2007, page 1

Drug user gets life for killing friends
A jury yesterday rejected an 18-year-old killer’s plea that he did not murder two friends on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to the early stages of schizophrenia.
However, the case of Thomas Palmer, who was convicted of murdering Steven Bayliss and Nuttawut Nadault, has raised issues around the impact on mental health of smoking cannabis, which Palmer started smoking daily from the age of 15.
Source:- The Guardian, Wednesday 21 March 2007, page 13

Paedophile hysteria is putting men off teaching, says Boris Johnson
Conservative higher education spokeperson Boris Johnson has said an obsessive fear of peadophiles are putting bright young men off teaching in primary schools due to fear of accusations.
Johnson, in a speech to independent school headteachers, cited an example of where he was asked to move seats away from his children on an airline as an example of hysteria over paedophilia, adding: “I think we need to keep a sense of perspective over all this.”
Source:- The Guardian, Wednesday 21 March 2007, page 12

Sex-sale Tory gets jail let-off
A Conservative councillor who pimped his girlfriend, who has learning difficulties, to 19 men to help pay off his mortgage arrears was given a 12-month suspended sentence yesterday.
Alan Burkitt, from West Bromwich, who will be disabarred from council service, was also told to stay away from his ex-partners, though could have received seven years in jail.
Source:- Daily Mirror, Wednesday 21 March 2007, page 26

Peer seeks to block gay rights rules
A Conservative peer will tonight lead an eleventh-hour attempt to defeat proposals that the Roman Catholic Church says could lead to the closure of its adoption agencies.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 21 March 2007, page 24

Scottish news

Executive wants integrated asylum families to stay
Scottish ministers are to urge the Home Office to consider allowing the children of failed asylum seekers to remain in the country.
In a shift in the Scottish executive’s stance on asylum, ministers will ask officials at the Home Office to consider that many children have become “well integrated” into their local schools and communities since arriving in Scotland.
He wants this to be taken into account as part of an imminent review into more than 1000 so-called “legacy cases” in Scotland which will examine whether some of those within the backlog of failed asylum seekers and their families awaiting removal can remain, despite their applications being rejected.
Source:- The Herald, Wednesday 21 March 2007
 
Guilty – nurse who stuffed a can in elderly man’s mouth
A nurse has been found guilty of assaulting dementia sufferers at a care home.
Jeffrey Ednalan carried out a number of abuses on elderly residents at Colinton care home in Edinburgh during the five months he spent working there. He denied all the charges at Edinburgh sheriff court
The assaults included stuffing a deodorant can in the mouth of a 95-year-old man to stop him shouting, leaving seven people in incontinence pads all day to “save time” and grabbing a 76-year-old woman by the shoulders and shaking her.
Source:- The Scotsman, Wednesday 21 March 2007

Children left in danger amid lack of safe homes
Warrents to take children at risk out of their family homes are being regularly ignored in the Lothians because of a shortage of children’s home beds.
Around half the “place of safety” warrants issued by the children’s panel are understood to be useless because nowhere safe can be found for the child concerned.
Members of the children’s panel say that around four children every week were left in their homes against their orders.
Source:- The Scotsman, Wednesday 21 March 2007

Drug cost slammed
Two thirds of Scots want free prescriptions for the long-term sick, a Scottish executive survey has found.
And many felt it was “immoral” to expect those with chronic or terminal conditions to pay.
The executive’s study also found that one in 10 of those who had visited a GP in the last year had a prescription they did not hand in. The most common reasons were it was cheaper to buy the drug over the counter or it cost too much.
Source:- The Daily Record, Wednesday 21 March 2007

Welsh news

No social care stories today.