Murder plot social worker’s cases reviewed

Murder plot social worker’s cases reviewed

A council is reviewing cases handled by a children’s social worker it employed despite her having a conviction for conspiring to murder her ex-husband.

Lynda Barnes, from Nailsea, North Somerset, was employed by Bath and North East Somerset Council in 2005 despite the fact that she had been sacked by its predecessor, Avon County Council, 10 years earlier following her conviction.

Read more on this story in The Independent

Starving Khyra mum ‘excuses’

A mother accused of starving her daughter to death told relatives not to visit because the house was untidy from decorating, a court heard yesterday.
Angela Gordon’s mum said the defendant used a variety of excuses to stop her seeing Khyra Ishaq, seven, in the months before she died last year.
Read more on this story in The Sun

Three more arrested in nursery worker case

A woman and two men were arrested today as part of the investigation into alleged child abuse and child pornography focusing on the Devon nursery employee Vanessa George.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Children worst affected by hospital drug errors, warns report

Children are mistakenly being given doses of powerful drugs in hospital that are 10 times higher than they should receive, according to a report published on Thursday by the National Patient Safety Agency.

At least 60,000 children suffer from medical errors every year, the NPSA says in its first review of patient safety among under-18s. It states that this is certainly an underestimate because it relies on voluntary reporting by NHS staff
Read more on this story in The Guardian

Bleak job prospects for school leavers as unemployment soars

Job prospects for tens of thousands of students about to leave school and university appeared even bleaker yesterday after youth unemployment surged to its highest for 15 years.

One third of pupils aged 16 and 17 who have already left school were out of work in the three months to April, official figures showed, and one in six of those aged 18 to 24 was unemployed, the most since July 1994.

Read more on this story in The Times

Prisons harbour ‘culture of sexual harassment’

Half of prison service staff personally experience sexually explicit language and sexual jokes and stories every week while at work, according to an internal survey of workers.

Female staff are more likely to experience unwanted persistent attention, bullying related to gender and inappropriate or unwanted touching.

Read more on this story in The Times

Catholic mother killed newborn baby from ‘shame’ after giving birth alone

Elizabeth Tevenan, 30, who later died from severe blood loss, gave birth in November 2008 in the downstairs lavatory of the home she shared with her parents in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Miss Tevenan, who was an only child with a strict Catholic upbringing, is believed to have been unaware of the pregnancy until she gave birth.

Read more on this story in The Daily Telegraph