News round up: Tiffany Hurst – toddler left to die alone and unloved

Tiffany Hurst: the toddler left to die alone and unloved

In a case of neglect that resulted in the death of Tiffany Hirst, 3, a court was told yesterday how passers-by used to see the gaunt face of the toddler staring through the window of her mother’s squalid flat.

Tiffany was found by paramedics in a filthy bed in a beetle-infested room at the Scarbrough Arms in Addy Street, Upperthorpe. The pub was run by her mother, Sabrina Hirst, 22, and stepfather, Robert Hirst, 54.

Read more on this story in The Times

Popular schools may be allowed extra places

Reforms to the school admission code announced yesterday would prevent schools from using backdoor selection by alluding in their admissions code to any requirement of a practical commitment to the school that could involve parents having to give up their time – for example by supporting parish activities – or money in exchange for a school place.

Schools will, however, be allowed to ask parents to complete a form promising to accept the school’s “ethos” and they will be able to refuse to offer places to parents who do not sign.

Read more on this story in The Times

Compulsory lessons urged on forced marriage and honour violence

Lessons about “honour”-based violence and forced marriage should be an explicit statutory requirement in British schools and become a compulsory part of the sex and relationships curriculum, MPs said today.

A report from the all-party home affairs select committee said education on these issues seemed to be “at best variable, and at worst nonexistent”, with some schools apparently resistant to discussing them, owing to fear of offending parents and communities.
Read more on this story in The Guardian

£200 vouchers reward for drug users who break habit for good

More than 1,000 problem drug users are to be offered £200-worth of vouchers which can be used to pay gas and electricity bills and buy bus passes if they complete treatment and stay off drugs for good.

No cash will change hands as part of the innovative trial, which will involve drug users taking a urine test two or three times a week over 12 weeks to prove that they are clean.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Land of no return

All across the country, communities are organising themselves to stop their friends and neighbours from being deported. From lobbying the Home Office to foiling dawn raids, the resistance will stop at nothing to keep failed asylum seekers safe in Britain