Catholics ‘must do more to stop sex abuse’

Charity attacks ‘care lottery’ for elderly

Older people in some areas in Britain are 160 times more likely to get their long term care costs paid for by the NHS than in others.

Charity Age Concern, which obtained the information from the Department of Health, said that there could be no justification for the variations.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph, Saturday, July 14 2007, page 16

Teacher who ‘throttled’ five-year-old is struck off

A teacher who shut children in a cupboard and grabbed a five-year-old boy by the throat was struck off the teaching register yesterday.

Benjamin Warner, who was a teacher at Sandy Lane Infants School in Caldicot South Wales, also dragged a boy across the school hall by his jumper.

He was found guilty of 11 out of 12 charges of unacceptable professional conduct at a disciplinary hearing in Cardiff.

Source:- Daily Mail, Saturday, July 14 2007, page 53

Public health experts fallout from MMR hearing

Public confidence in the MMR vaccine is expected to fall even lower this week due to a General Medical Council hearing into alleged serious professional misconduct starting on Monday.

The hearing involves the practice of Andrew Wakefield and two other doctors. Wakefield is behind the widely reported theory that a link exists between the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccination and autism.

Source:- The Guardian, Saturday, July 14 2007, page 12

Catholics’ anti-abuse chief quits over report

The head of the Roman Catholic church’s child protection unit has quit on the eve of the publication of a report recommending large-scale change in the way the church deals with abuse claims.

Eileen Shearer, the director of the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults in England and Wales, has left the organisation to ‘pursue other interests in child protection,’ a statement says.

A church spokesperson denied her resignation had anything to do with the publication of the report.

Source:- The Observer, Sunday, July 15 2007, page 17

Don’t call them Bad Girls

The chief inspector of prisons has called for the term girls to stop being used to describe adult female prisoners at a prison in Surrey.

Anne Owers, who made the recommendation while inspecting HMP Send, said that the description was ‘condescending’.

Source:- The Mail on Sunday, July 15 2007, page 39

Stolen children

Social workers took these two children and three of their brothers and sisters from their mother. She says she did nothing to harm them. Here an MP argues this is just one of 100 cases where government targets to increase adoption levels and a corrupt and secretive family court system have destroyed innocent families.

Source:- The Mail on Sunday, July 15 2007, page 57

The Court of Appeal has recently upheld two judicial decisions to give fathers custody of their children after mothers had denied them contact in defiance of court orders.

The latest case involved a five-year-old girl who had lived with her mother since birth but who had been prevented from seeing her father, prompting a judge to award him custody.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 16 July 2007 page 10

Watchdogs criticise equality reform plans

The Disability Rights Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality have slammed government proposals to reform anti-discrimination law, saying they will weaken existing rights.

They have been particularly critical of plans to revise the duty on public bodies to promote equality in gender, disability and race, saying proposals will water these duties down by lessening the requirements on authorities.

Source:- The Guardian Monday 16 July 2007 page 11

‘No excuses’ for pensioner poverty

A million pensioners could be lifted out of poverty if the government stopped forcing older people to claim benefits, Help the Aged says today in a report.

The charity said the government already holds enough information to determine who should be eligible for means-tested benefits, yet many older people fail to claim for various reasons.

Source:- Daily Mirror Monday 16 July 2007 page 29

Hain to coax lone parents and over 50s back to work

The government will present proposals this week for lone parents to be forced to seek work when their youngest child reaches 12, not 16 as at present, as part of a wider welfare-to-work shake-up.

The green paper on welfare reform will take forward proposals outlined in a government-commissioned report by investment banker David Freud earlier this year.

Source:- The Independent Monday 16 July 2007 page 4

Amnesty for UK’s illegal immigrants gains ground

A think-tank with close links to the government has backed a campaign for 500,000 illegal immigrants in the UK to be given an amnesty.

The Institute for Public Policy Research said allowing illegal migrants already working to pay taxes would bring in £1bn in revenue.

Source:- The Independent Monday 16 July 2007 page 4

Nurses to vote on industrial action

Nurses will be balloted from today on whether to take industrial action over pay, unions have said.

Source:- The Times, Monday 16 July 2007, page 4
 
Catholics ‘must do more to stop sex abuse’

Five years after the introduction of sweeping reforms to try to stop sexual abuse, the Roman Catholic Church has been told that it needs to do more.

Source:- The Times, Monday 16 July 2007, page 23
 
 
Equality chief threatened to quit over ‘too white Cabinet’

The head of Britain’s equality watchdog has threatened to resign because of the lack of ethnic minority ministers in the Cabinet.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph, Monday 16 July 2007, page 2
 
More council homes

The government said yesterday that it wanted to build even more council homes as part of its ambitious housing plans.

Source:- The Times, Monday 16 July 2007, page 4

Scottish news

Sex offender gets eight years – and supervision for life

A convicted sex offender has become only the third dangerous criminal in Scotland to be sentenced to supervision for the rest of his life.

John Mackay was jailed for at least eight years after he stabbed and attempted to rape a woman on a remote Highland road. He was ordered to be placed on a Lifelong Restriction Order.

Mackay was put on the sex offenders register in 1999 for five years and was given two years’ probation for offences, including shameless indecency.

Source:- The Scotsman, Saturday 14 July

Author calls for checks to beat child trafficking

One of Scotland’s leading crime writers has called on the government to improve checks on UK airports and ferry ports to prevent child trafficking.

Lin Anderson’s latest novel, Dark Flight, is based loosely on the investigation into the death of an African boy, christened “Adam” by detectives, whose torso was found in the River Thames in 2001 after what is believed to be a ritualistic killing.

The author said more work needs to done to improve identity checks on children entering and leaving the country.

Source:- Sunday Herald, 15 July

Complaints against care homes increase

The number of abuse complaints upheld against old people’s care homes in Scotland rose by two-thirds last year.

Care Commission figures show that there were 80 complaints upheld by the watchdog in 2006, more than there were in 2004 and 2005 when there were a total of 63 upheld.

There were 56 upheld abuse complaints by the commission last year and a further 24 complaints about the use of restraint were upheld. There were said to be a further 237 upheld complaints about communication.

Source:- The Herald, Monday 16 July

Welsh news

Adults are in danger, from own families

Vulnerable adults are more likely to be abused by their families than anyone else according to new study by Rhondda Cynon Taf council.

The study has revealed that the council’s adult protection officers had to investigate 530 cases of adult abuse in 2006-7, 180 more the year before.

It states that victims are most likely to be abused by children in their own homes.

Source:- South Wales Echo, Saturday, July 14 2007

Binge drinking the norm

New Welsh Assembly government statistics show the scale of binge drinking in Wales.

The statistics show that 932, 841 people, out of the 2.3 million over-18 population, drink over the recommended alcohol intake on an evening out.

Source:- Wales on Sunday, July 15 2007

Baby killer told he must service full jail sentence

A man who murdered his partner’s baby son has been told he will be made to serve his 24-year sentence in full.

Andrew Lloyd had appealed against his jail term after he was found guilty of battering 13-month-old Aaron Gilbert to death.

Source:- Wales on Sunday, July 15 2007

People with disabilities less likely to become college students

People with disabilities are only half as likely to have a degree compared to people without a disability, according to new figures.

Official statistics show Wales educates slightly more people with disabilities than any other part of the UK but there are still large disparities.

Source:- Western Mail, Monday, July 16 2007

Man charged with boy’s abduction

A 40-year-old man is set to appear at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court today charged with the abducting a 10-year-old boy.

The man was arrested in the capital on Friday.

Source:- Western Mail, Monday, July 16 2007