News round up: Jersey inquiry – police focus on care home cellar

By Mithran Samuel on February 26, 2008 in Adults, Children, Looked after children

Scientists: Prozac does not work

Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.

The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time.

Close sink schools to encourage social diversity, admissions adjudicator urges

Secondary schools that have been abandoned by middle class families should be closed to guard against social segregation, according to the admissions watchdog.
School catchment areas should also be redrawn to force a more socially mixed education system, Philip Hunter, the chief schools adjudicator told the Guardian.

Manchester offered deal to soften supercasino blow

The government is to offer multimillion pound regeneration packages to Manchester and Blackpool today to make up for the decision not to grant a supercasino licence to either city.

Ministers will soften the impact of Gordon Brown’s “big moral decision” with a series of measures, including a £10m boost for Manchester’s Sports City, the one-time planned site for the casino.

Police focus on care home cellar

The search for more bodies at a former children’s home in Jersey is focused on a bricked-up cellar where police fear they may make further grim discoveries.

Sniffer dogs trained to detect human remains have indicated that something may lie hidden in the large basement which stretches under an internal courtyard at Haut de la Garenne.

Jersey care inquiry uncovers a shocking truth

The biggest police investigation into child abuse within Jersey’s care system started nearly two years ago.

Officers looking into alleged instances of paedophilia realised that several people in the frame were “persons of responsibility”. Some had worked at the children’s home, Haut de la Garenne, in the east of Jersey.

Jersey chief minister confronts abuse crisis

When Stuart Syvret was ousted from his position as Jersey’s health minister last year after exposing alleged child abuse in the island’s children’s homes, Frank Walker, the chief minister, accused him of damaging Jersey’s reputation by speaking to the media.

But after Mr Syvret’s claims of widespread child abuse on the island may prove gruesomely accurate, Mr Walker finds himself presiding over Jersey’s biggest crisis since the Second World War.

Councils need £1bn to care for the elderly

Councils face a £1 billion shortfall within three years as a result of the rising cost of caring for an ageing population, a leading charity warns today.

Age Concern will tell ministers that care services are likely to go from “bad to worse” unless central government funds a significant cash injection.

All new homes to be ‘pensioner-friendly’ with downstairs bathrooms and wide stairs

Every new home must be designed to suit older people under plans unveiled by ministers yesterday.

By 2011 developments will have to conform to 16 specifications for an ageing population, such as stairs wide enough for stairlifts.

Campaign groups broadly welcomed the changes, though they questioned why private sector developers would not have to conform until 2013.