Unborn babies targeted in crackdown on criminality

Unborn babies targeted in crackdown on criminality
Unborn babies judged to be at most risk of social exclusion and turning to criminality are to be targeted in a controversial new scheme to be promoted by Downing Street today.
Source:- The Guardian, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 1

Rights battle lost
A mother has lost her fight for compensation under the Human Rights Act after her children were put wrongly on the “at risk” register. The Court of Appeal said the need for police and social services to act to fight child abuse overrode Stephanie Lawrence and her children’s right to “respect” for their home life.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 2

Unions vow to fight closures of factories for disabled workers
Trade unions representing almost 5,000 disabled workers in factories run by the government agency Remploy will be told today that a “substantial” number of the sites will close under a modernisation plan ordered by ministers.
Source:- The Guardian, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 6

NHS patients denied dignity, says watchdog
Scores of NHS hospitals across England are failing to protect the dignity of patients and meet basic standards of cleanliness and care, the government’s health watchdog warned today in its annual check of conditions on the wards.
Source:- The Guardian, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 6

Sell empty buildings for £1, says Kelly
Redundant shops, pubs, schools and police stations should be sold to community groups for as little as £1, Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, said yesterday.
Source:- Financial Times, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 3

Huge backlog over NHS hearing aids
Urgent action is needed to clear a backlog of about half a million people who have been waiting – some for more than two years – for hearing aids, an MPs’ report said yesterday. A House of Commons health committee called for extra NHS capacity and said not enough priority had been given to the supply of the new digital hearing aids.
Source:- Daily Telegraph, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 8

Labour lines up on family policy
Gordon Brown will today set out the battle lines with David Cameron over family policy in a co-ordinated move with Tony Blair. The chancellor will spend today meeting parents and children to repeat his view that extending child benefit and tax credits is the best way to help Britain’s families.
Source:- Daily Telegraph, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 4

‘No mercury link with autism’
A link between exposure to mercury in vaccines before birth and autism is ruled out in a study published today.
Source:- Daily Telegraph, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 2

Head of Joseph Rowntree Foundation interviewed
Identifying social ills is essential to combat them, says the new chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 5

Help for councils to mind their language
A fresh attempt to make local government a jargon-free zone has been welcomed by the Plain English Campaign as an encouraging step towards ridding council documents of the kind of complicated and technical language that baffles the public.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 2

Wealthy priest ‘gave thousands to paedophile to help him groom girl’
An Irish priest lavished thousands of pounds on a predatory paedophile to allow him to groom an 11-year-old girl for sex, Liverpool crown court was told yesterday.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 24

Mother ‘urged not to report’ abuse by head altar boy
A serial sex attacker at a Roman Catholic church was freed to strike again after his abuse of an altar boy was “hushed up” by a priest.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 24

Pensioner stole £1.8m benefits
A 65-year-old woman has been found guilty of masterminding a £1.8 million benefits fraud from a secret “office” hidden behind a clothes rail in her home in west London.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 16 May 2007, page 27

Scottish news
 
More children held at Dungavel
More children are being held in Scotland’s only asylum detention centre, a new report has revealed.
Inspectors found 122 young people had been held at the Dungavel House unit in Lanarkshire in the first 11 months of last year, up from 94 in the whole of 2005.
They also discovered children were, on average, spending longer in the facility, with at least two detained for more than a month, although this was much lower than three years ago.
Source: The Herald, Wednesday 16 May 2007

Fall in breastfeeding by new mums as national post vacant for 18 months
The Scottish executive’s commitment to promoting breastfeeding has been called into question after it was revealed that the post of national breastfeeding adviser had been empty for 18 months.
The failure to fill the post was singled out by campaigners as one of the probable causes of a Scotland-wide drop in the number of new mothers opting to breastfeed their infants.
Health officials had hoped to persuade 50 per cent of all mothers in Scotland to breastfeed by 2005, but the latest statistics show that, last year, only 44.2 per cent had – a drop of nearly one percentage point on the previous year.
Source: The Scotsman, Wednesday 16 May 2007