Maxine Carr girlfriend of child killer Ian Huntley allowed to keep her baby!!!

Maxine Carr and her former boyfriend Ian Huntley

Maxine Carr, the girlfriend of Ian Huntley who provided the child killer with false alibis after the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, has had a baby and get this, is allowed to keep the baby!!!  OK, for people still in shock, I will say it again... that fucking horrible bastard is getting to keep her baby!!!

Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman RIP

Maxine Carr was given a new identity after serving 21 months in prison for assisting Huntley with his gruesome crime, by trying to cover for Huntley during the trial.

Even Carr's newborn child will not be allowed to know it's Mother's true identity, so this poor child is unknowingly being brought up by an evil bastard, and the British Government have given Maxine Carr their blessings and are allowing her to be a Mother to a child!!!  Fucking hell!

It is believed that Carr has had extensive plastic surgery to look like a completely different person so that people don't recognise her as the girlfriend of Ian Huntley who killed poor Holly and Jessica who were just 10 at the time.

Huntley was arrested 13 days after the girls went missing, when their bodies were found near an RAF base near their hometown of Soham in Cambridgeshire.

In December 2003, Ian Huntley was found guilty of killing the girls, after he eventually admitted the murders, and was sentenced to at least 40 years in prison.  It is doubtful that he will ever see the light of day again, but knowing the joke that is the British justice system, they could end up letting him out early.

Maxine Carr was sentenced to 3 and a half years in prison in 2003 for perverting the course of justice, for assisting Huntley to cover up the murders.  And surprise, sur-fucking-prise, she was released just one year later in 2004, and given a secret identity by the British Government, free plastic surgery, and probably a job and a house too.

Carr reportedly married her boyfriend in 2008, and has now had a baby with him.

If that fucking bastard is allowed to keep her child, then what about all the innocent Mothers who have had children taken away from them, simply for being too "immature" or because they have mild learning difficulties or other similar non reasons?

Click here to see the story of Annabelle Lee Morris, an innocent 19 year old girl, who had her baby stolen by the British Government, and ended up killing herself due to the depression of losing her little baby.

So let me get this straight, the British Government will take children away from innocent Mothers like Annabelle Lee Morris above, but will allow monsters like Maxine Carr to keep her child?  Fucking hell.  What a fucked up country.  What a fucked up world.

Check the Daily Mail's version of the story by clicking here...

Is this the beginning of a great period of civil unrest as protests go worldwide?

Daily Mail: Day of 'Global Revolution' comes to London as thousands of demonstrators take over the City >  Protesters inspired by the growing 'Occupy Wall Street' movement in the U.S have today taken over the City of London.  Thousands have descended on the area known as the Square Mile - under the banner 'Occupy the Stock Exchange' - for a 'peaceful protest' against the global financial system.

They had planned to take Paternoster Square, where the Stock Exchange is located, but police cordoned off the area prior to the protest.  A notice was put up stating the square is private property and access would be restricted. Police sources said a High Court injunction had been taken out to prevent members of the public from accessing the square.

The event kicked off at midday outside St Paul's Cathedral and initial reports on Twitter talked of an 'amiable' atmosphere.  Activists carried banners with slogans such as 'We are the 99%' and 'Bankers got a bailout, we got sold out'.  Among them was Lorena Fuentes, 27, a charity worker originally from Vancouver, Canada. She said: 'I'm here today because I can't see why you wouldn't be and I feel that this is one of the few moments in history where it's not a protest, it's an actual movement that's taken root.

'We're trying to challenge this myth that there are not enough resources to go around.'

The protest was contained within the vicinity of St Paul's Cathedral, and some demonstrators started to put up tents - hopeful that they will be able to remain in the area for the future.

At around 2pm, police reportedly 'kettled' protesters outside St Paul's Cathedral, where the demonstrators were forced to move because of the closure of Paternoster Square. 

Scotland Yard said two arrests were made for assaults on police officers.

After protesters returned to St Paul's Churchyard, the square in front of the cathedral, police prevented more people trying to join the protest by cutting off access points.

Several hundred protesters congregated behind the police lines and heckled officers for not allowing anyone through.

Police at the scene denied that a "kettling" technique had been put in place to close protesters in and said they were free to leave the square.

A bride, who was scheduled to get married in the Cathedral this afternoon, was ushered in by staff through a side entrance as the crowd swelled. 

An assembly of speakers then took place.

Wikileaks' Julian Assange, who turned up at the protest wearing a mask, was asked to take it off by police. Human rights lawyer Jen Robinson, who came to his aid, tweeted: '#assange not under arrest. Says we can't wear masks and be anonymous but swiss banks accounts can be #occupylsx.'

He broke through the police kettle enclosing St Paul's Cathedral at 2.30pm. He then fought his way through protesters, turned half-way up the steps and addressed those gathered below.

The Guardian's Mark Townsend said: 'Assange began by lamenting the police tactics, noting hundreds more remained stranded outside the kettle. 

'Then he began attacking a greedy and corrupt system that had united individuals from Cairo to London. People are being ordered to Guantanamo Bay to obey the rule of law, and money is being laundered through the Caymen Islands and London to obey the rule of law.

'This movement is not about the destruction of law, but the construction of law. With that he stopped, the crowd hollering as a list of other occupations throughout the world was read out.'

Political campaigner Peter Tatchell also spoke to the crowds and proposed a one-off 20 per cent emergency tax on the net wealth of the richest 10 per cent of the UK population.

He also wants the introduction of a 'Tobin Tax' on financial transactions. 

He said: 'The richest 10 per cent of the UK population have a combined personal wealth of £4 million, million. A one-off 20 per cent tax on those people would raise £800 billion.

'Those people can afford it, they'd feel no pain, they're so fabulously wealthy. With that sum of money you could pay off the entire government deficit. No need for any public spending cuts.'

At the same time, he said a Tobin Tax would 'reduce speculation and be good for the economy, and raise at least £100 billion a year. Within two years this would enable us to clear the entire Government deficit.'

'Rich people who are not prepared to pay their way are traitors to this country, they're putting their own personal selfishness before the interests of the public,' he added.

The Occupy London Stock Exchange collective, which is supported by UK Uncut, said a Facebook page on the protest had attracted more than 13,000 followers, with more than 5,000 confirmed attendees.

Laura Taylor, a supporter of the so-called OccupyLSX, said: 'Why are we paying for a crisis the banks caused? More than a million people have lost their jobs and tens of thousands of homes have been repossessed, while small businesses are struggling to survive.

'Yet bankers continue to make billions in profit and pay themselves enormous bonuses, even after we bailed them out with £850 billion.'

Another supporter, Kai Wargalla, said: 'This is a people-powered movement protesting against the increasing social and economic injustice in the UK. 

'We want to stand with the 99% - the overwhelming majority who value people over profit.

'We want to make our voices heard against greed, corruption and for a democratic, just society. We stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, protesters in Spain, Greece and the Middle East who started this movement.

'They have inspired people all over the world to step forward and make their voices heard.'

UK Uncut supporter Peter Hodgson added: 'The success of the square occupations across Spain in calling for democracy and an end to austerity, alongside the rapid growth of the Wall Street occupation, has shown that this is what is needed in London and the UK. 

'The Government is ignoring its electorate as they impose these austerity measures.'

OccupyLSX previously issued a statement which said: 'The words corporate greed ring through the speeches and banners of protests across the globe.

'After huge bailouts and in the face of unemployment, privatisation and austerity, we still see profits for the rich on the increase. But we are the 99%, and on October 15 our voice unites across gender and race, across borders and continents, as we call for equality and justice for all.

'In London, we will occupy the Stock Exchange. Reclaiming space in the face of the financial system and using it to voice ideas for how we can work towards a better future.

'A future free from austerity, growing inequality, unemployment, tax injustice and a political elite who ignores its citizens, and work towards concrete demands to be met.'

Occupy LSX was behind a protest that saw Westminster Bridge closed on Monday.

According to its website occupations are also being planned in other areas of the country, including Worcester, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Bristol.

The London protests have been inspired by the U.S.'s Occupy Wall Street and Spain's Indignant movement.

Thousands have also taken to the streets in Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Rome, and Sydney.

The organisers, relying heavily on Facebook and Twitter, say demonstrations will also be held in 951 cities across 82 countries in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

The 'indignant' protests first took hold in Spain, which has a jobless rate of 20.89 per cent rising to 46.1 per cent for 16-24 year olds.

Activists lived in a ramshackle camp in Madrid's Puerta del Sol for a month. The movement then spread to the U.S. and Europe.

Parents of seven told: Your children are too fat, so you will never see them again

Daily Mail: Four obese children are on the brink of being permanently removed from their family by social workers after their parents failed to bring their weight under control.  In the first case of its kind, their mother and father now face what they call the ‘unbearable’ likelihood of never seeing them again.  Their three daughters, aged 11, seven and one, and five-year-old son, will either be ‘fostered without contact’ or adopted.

Either way, the family’s only hope of being reunited will be if the children attempt to track down their parents when they become adults.  The couple, who have been married for nearly 20 years and are not being named to protect their children’s identities, were given a ‘draconian’ ultimatum three years ago – as reported at the time by The Mail on Sunday.

Warned that the children must slim or be placed in care, the family spent two years living in a council-funded ‘Big Brother’ house in which they were constantly supervised and the food they ate monitored.

But despite subjecting them to intense scrutiny, social workers did not impose rules on what food the children should eat, and there was apparently little or no improvement.

News of the decision to remove them was broken to the couple, from Dundee, on Tuesday. Critics called it a disgraceful breach of human rights and a chilling example of the power of the State to meddle in family life.

In an emotional interview, the 42-year-old mother said: ‘We might not be the perfect parents, but we love our children with all our hearts. To face a future where we will never see them again is unbearable.

‘They picked on us because of our size to start with and they just haven’t let go, despite the fact we’ve done everything to lose weight and meet their demands. We’re going to fight this to the bitter end. It feels like even prisoners have more human rights than we do.’

The couple have not committed any crime and are not accused of deliberate cruelty or abuse. Their solicitor, Joe Myles, said there was ‘nothing sinister lurking in the background’ and accused social workers of failing to act in the family’s best interests.

‘Dundee social services department appear to have locked horns with this couple and won’t let go,’ he said, adding that the monitoring project caused more problems than it solved. ‘The parents were constantly being accused of bad parenting and made to live under a microscope.

We have tried very hard to do everything that was asked of us. My wife has cooked healthy foods like home-made spaghetti bolognese and mince and potatoes; but nothing we’ve done has ever been enough.

The couple have three older children who are all distraught and angry at the ruling.

Speaking through tears, their 15-year-old daughter said: ‘The social workers should hang their heads in shame. A person’s weight is their own business and only we can do anything about it, not them. My parents are good people and they love us all. The four little ones don’t know what is about to happen to them.’

Social workers became aware of the family in early 2008 after one of the sons accused his father of hitting him on the forehead. In truth, he had fallen and hit his head on a radiator – a fact he later admitted. However, the allegation opened the door to the obesity investigation.

While the couple admit experiencing what their lawyer calls ‘low grade’ parenting problems, which would have merited support, they were aghast when the issue of weight was seized on as a major concern.

A council report at the time said: ‘With the exception of [one of the names], the children are all overweight. Advice has been given regarding diet but there has been no improvement. Appointments with the dietician have been missed.’

Investigation: The family have been subject to an obesity probe -at meal times social workers took notes and children met with dieticians (picture posed by model)

At that point their then 12-year-old son weighed 16 stone; his 11-year-old sister weighed 12 stone; and his three-year-old sister weighed four stone. It is not known how much the four younger children weigh now.

The couple were ordered to send their children to dance and football lessons and were given a three-month deadline to bring down their weight. When that failed, the children were placed in foster homes but were allowed to visit their parents.

After the couple objected to this arrangement, the council agreed to move them into a two-bedroom flat in a supported unit run by the Dundee Families Project. They insisted on the couple living with only three of their children at a time.

At meal times, a social worker stood in the room taking notes. Doctors raised concerns that the children put on weight whenever they spent time with their parents, a claim they vehemently denied.

The couple and their children also had to adhere to a strict 11pm curfew. This involved ‘clocking’ in and out by filling in a sheet held by an employee who lived on site.

Although the children’s weight was the major concern, other allegations were included in a report. It showed that social workers were worried when the youngest child was found crawling unsupervised. The parents point out they were never far away and the flat had no stairs.

They also found her ‘attempting to put dangerous objects’ in her mouth. The family say this is natural in toddlers and she was never successful.

To have a social worker stand and watch you eat is intolerable. I want other families to know what can happen once social workers become involved. We will fight them to the end to get our beloved children back.

Social workers were further worried when she crawled through the contents of an upturned ashtray – an ‘unfortunate one-off incident’, claim the parents. All the concerns were dismissed by the family’s legal team as ‘low grade’ problems.

It is understood the father crumbled under the strain of being so closely monitored in January this year and moved into a council flat elsewhere in the city.

In the next few months, the mother breached the lunch and dinner meal observations, by her own admission, on ‘several’ occasions while taking the children to see their father.

She personally never broke the 11pm curfew but once allowed her seven-year-old daughter to remain at her father’s flat after she fell asleep. She did not want to disturb her and argued the child had ‘two parents, not one’ and was in ‘good hands’.

These breaches led staff to declare the trial a failure and the mother was asked to leave the unit in April this year. She moved in to her husband’s flat but the children were then handed over to foster parents.

Her solicitor said he planned to use independent experts to prove that the children want to live with their parents and have been damaged by the social workers’ intervention. He added: ‘We may ultimately look towards human rights laws.’

The father, aged 56, said: ‘We have tried very hard to do everything that was asked of us. My wife has cooked healthy foods like home-made spaghetti bolognese and mince and potatoes; we’ve cut out snacks and only ever allowed the kids sweets on a Saturday. But nothing we’ve done has ever been enough.

‘The pressure of living in the family unit would have broken anyone. We were being treated like children and cut off from the outside world. To have a social worker stand and watch you eat is intolerable. I want other families to know what can happen once social workers become involved. We will fight them to the end to get our beloved children back.’

It is estimated 26 million British adults will be obese by 2030, with obesity levels running at an all-time high among children. Official statistics show those who are overweight spend 50 per cent more time in hospital, placing extra strain on the NHS.

Tam Fry, honorary chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, said: ‘This is a disgrace. These parents have clearly attempted to comply. They have, if you like, played Dundee City Council’s game and yet they are still losing their children.’

Dundee City Council said: ‘The council always acts in the best interests of children, with their welfare and safety in mind.’

North Miami Beach police kill mentally disabled man carrying toy gun

CBS NEWS: MIAMI - North Miami Beach Police are piecing together an officer-involved shooting and killing of a mentally disabled man. The man was originally thought to be carrying a gun but it was later determined to be a toy rifle.

Officials told CBS station WFOR that the incident began Wednesday afternoon when officers responded to several calls about a man seen walking around with a rifle. Witnesses told the station that at one point the man aimed the rifle at a neighborhood dog.

According to police reports, when officers arrived there was some sort of confrontation which caused one officer to open fire on the man. However, a subsequent investigation revealed that the "rifle" was a toy. The injured man was then taken to a local hospital where he later died. Family members say the man police killed was 56-year-old Ernest Vassell.

"They murdered him in cold blood for a toy gun!" cried Vassell's older sister Claire Harding. "That's no reason for you to kill somebody!"

Vassell's sisters say they have never seen him with a toy gun and believe he must have found it somewhere. They say he was mentally disabled after a brain injury as a child and that he has never been violent.

"They could tell him to drop the gun. They say they told him to drop it and he raised his hand," Harding told WFOR. "He probably raised his hand to hand them the gun because he is afraid of police."

The family is now demanding answers and changes to the North Miami Beach Police Department.

"They should train these police officers better," said Harding. "This is ridiculous, they just go around killing people for nothing."

Police maintain the toy gun appeared to be a real rifle. One officer is on administrative leave while police and the state attorney's office investigate this incident.

Increase in misconduct of those working in NI social care

BBC: An increasing number of people working in social care in NI have been found guilty of misconduct.

The latest case involves a Ballymena care assistant who physically and verbally abused elderly residents.

From April 2010 to March 2011 there were 95 complaints against social workers and social care workers - a figure that has almost tripled in the past two years.

There are more than 14,000 workers registered in NI.

As a result of those complaints, 14 people have been brought before the Northern Ireland Social Care Council's misconduct committee.

The charges include physically abusing vulnerable adults and leaving them unclothed and unsupervised.

The council's chief executive Brendan Johnston said people should be encouraged and not intimidated about giving evidence.'Concerns'

"We would always want to ensure that where people have a complaint or there is an issue of serious concern that it is referred to us," he said.

"From time to time you uncover something that has happened that really causes you some concerns.

"It's really important that people come forward with concerns that they have about any member of staff who doesn't live up to the high standards.

"I mean members of the public, I mean employers and I mean fellow employees."
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Nobody chooses to put their parents into a nursing home and it is a reluctant decision”Daughter of nursing home patient

Mr Johnston said he believed the recent introduction of compulsory registration to include childcare workers and social care wokers in adult homes was keeping a tighter control on a system that can be open to abuse.

He highlighted that "the vast majority of social care workers are very dedicated and committed".

"They deliver a service that's very highly valued and it's really important that you can depend on what you are going to get if you are in care," he said.

The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA), the Patient Client Council, individual trusts and the health board all provide ways for people to complain about the care of a loved one.'Disjointed'

Joan Harbinson, the older people's advocate, described the complaints procedure as "cumbersome" and said it only deters people from making complaints about the care a family member was receiving.

"I think at the moment it is very disjointed because we have a number of different organisations who receive, if you like, different sorts of complaints," she said.

"I think that if you could operate a system where there was someone that could receive the complaint independent of the homes, that might actually be very helpful."

Lily Kerr of the Northern Ireland Social Care Council, which monitors and regulates the conduct of home care workers, said: "I believe the council has a very robust system for dealing with complaints.

"But I am concerned about hearing reports that people (making complaints) are passed from one place to another."

'Fear of retribution'

One woman, who did not want to be identified, has both her parents in nursing care. Her mother is seriously ill and needs round the clock attention.

While she appreciates caring for the elderly is difficult, she said families should be allowed to voice their opinions and make complaints without fear of retribution.

"Nobody chooses to put their parents into a nursing home and it is a reluctant decision," she said.

"You make a choice, which is the best choice you can make at the time, and I have just so many concerns about different aspects of their care and the system is so hard to work.

"The system is complicated - very, very complicated - and I have tried everybody under the sun and everybody passes you on to somebody else and they mean well but they pass you on and it is just a nightmare."

Birmingham City Council to advertise for new head of child social services

Birmingham Post:  One of the toughest jobs in local government is about to be advertised – head of Birmingham children’s social services and the city’s schools.

Council leaders are ready to look for a permanent replacement to Eleanor Brazil, who was appointed almost a year ago by the Government to raise standards at the troubled department.

Ms Brazil, reportedly paid more than £800 a day on a consultancy basis, works with the Improvement Board set up to run social care in Birmingham after the protection of children at risk of abuse was found by Ofsted to be failing for the third time in a decade.

The council hopes to have a replacement for Ms Brazil as strategic director for children, young people and families in place by Christmas.

As well as running children’s social care the successful candidate will also take overall responsibility for Birmingham’s council-run schools, where exam standards have been criticised.

Almost half of 16-year-olds leave school in Birmingham without five good GCSEs including English and maths.

Matt Bennett, the councillor appointed to oversee children’s social services, said he expected some of the public sector’s highest flyers to apply for the job.

Coun Bennett (Con Stockland Green) does not believe applicants will be put off by Birmingham’s record of failure in the past.

He said: “I would expect the huge challenge to attract someone of the right calibre who will see this as the crowning glory of their career. It is a tremendous task, when you consider that we are the largest local authority in Europe and there are more children in Birmingham than the entire population of many borough councils.”

Ms Brazil, who was credited with transforming Haringey social services following the Baby Peter child death scandal, took up her post as Acting Strategic Director for Children, Young People and Families in October 2010.

An extensive senior management reshuffle in the troubled department has taken place during her period in charge, culminating in the departure of the Head of Children’s Social Care Colin Tucker who left by mutual agreement after being suspended from his post.

The council is yet to confirm a salary for the position, but the new Strategic Director is expected to be paid about £145,000 a year.

It has emerged that Coun Bennett stepped in to prevent a key social services improvement target from being watered down to make it easier to meet.

A written report to next week’s cabinet states that an attempt to reduce the number of children being seen by social workers is too ambitious. The department intended to reduce significantly the number of re-referrals – children repeatedly reported to social services during the course of a year but whose circumstances are not deemed serious enough to require direct intervention by social workers.

As many as a third of the 30,000 cases dealt with by social services each year are re-referrals.

Social care managers wanted to reduce the re-referral rate to 25 per cent, but a 30 per cent figure is described as “more realistic” in the cabinet report.

However, Coun Bennett made it clear that he will not accept the 30 per cent recommendation and wants to stick to 25 per cent.

He said: “There’s been a bit of a mix-up somehow and the wrong recommendation has ended up in the cabinet paper.

“It is better to stick with the target, although obviously we are some way off meeting the 25 per cent figure.”

Coun Bennett added that reducing the re-referral rate was “absolutely key” to turning around children’s services.

Later this month 16 new Integrated Family Support teams consisting of social workers, teachers, GPs and the police will begin work, targeting youngsters at the early stage of vulnerability and offering support in an attempt to stop them coming to the attention of social services at a later date.

The aim is to reach children who are “left to fester” because their problems are not serious enough to warrant direct intervention, Coun Bennett said. The number of re-referrals was unacceptable and imposed additional costs on the council, he added.

Next week’s cabinet report highlights “too many inappropriate referrals” being received by social services and adds that cases are not always investigated quickly enough.

Birmingham social services is also failing to meet a target to visit youngsters with a child protection plan in their homes.

All children should be seen regularly by a qualified social worker, but only 66 per cent are according to the latest data.

However, the figure is a sharp improvement on the beginning of the year when only 24 per cent of visits were carried out.

The authors of the cabinet report dispute the figure, blaming poor record keeping for giving a false picture. There was a failure to capture data rather than a lack of visits, the report claims.

Doug Griffiths says government not alone in blame for death of baby Elizabeth

Calgary Herald: Despite the criticism levelled against the province’s social services agency following a damning report into the tragic death of a 14-month-old, one Progressive Conservative leadership hopeful said people are too ready to lay all the blame at the feet of government.

Doug Griffiths made the comments Sunday at a candidates forum held in northeast Calgary, suggesting how his parents would intervene if one of their grandchildren was being abused.

“I know that if I was in the situation like that, my parents would have come in and kicked my door down before the government ever showed up and fixed the situation,” he told a crowd about 60.

“The government bears some responsibility; I don’t know if someone should be punished.

“But I think we need to remember exactly who bears the ultimate responsibility — that’s the parents and the family.”

The state of social services has been on the minds of many this last week after the release of a review that outlines a series of failures leading up to the May 2010 death of Elizabeth Velasquez.

The little girl was not taken from her home, despite suffering four broken limbs at different times and concerns about her well-being voiced by her grandparents and others.

“I don’t mean that they share the blame, but there are a whole lot of other people that might have known more personal circumstances than a government employee who came into check,” Griffiths said of the grandparents.

Sunday’s forum was hosted by the Calgary Leadership Forum and also featured PC candidate Alison Redford, along with MLA Iris Evans, who represented candidate Gary Mar.

Mar couldn’t make the forum because of previously arranged meetings in Edmonton.

A second forum will be held in September featuring the three other leadership candidates.

In an interview, Redford said the province’s Department of Child and Youth Services is underfunded and has become “dysfunctional,” despite good social workers.

She also disagrees with Griffiths’ assessment.

“This is not how you develop a system that really anticipates and takes care and protects children,” Redford said. “This is not a debate about whether families should be responsible for the welfare of their children.

“Of course families should be responsible for the welfare of their children. What we’re talking about is in circumstances where that isn’t the case, government has a responsibility.”

The review panel into Velasquez’s death made 11 recommendations after finding several breakdowns in the system and between agencies.

Child and Youth Services Minister Yvonne Fritz said last week the system could have done better to protect the child, but she also refused to point fingers and lay blame on agency staff.

1 000 cases of child abuse monthly

IOL News By ESTHER LEWIS
Nearly a thousand cases of abused, abandoned and neglected children are being reported to Cape Town Child Welfare every month from some of the city’s poorest areas.

And the caseload has meant that, in some cases, a single social worker has to deal with up to 200 cases at a time. The national average is 60 cases per social worker.

Cape Town Child Welfare has more than 5 000 cases being handled by its 48 social workers.

The organisation’s chief executive, Niresh Ramklass, said more than 200 new cases were reported each week.

In Hanover Park, three social workers were responsible for 609 cases. In Hout Bay, six social workers were dealing with 657 cases between them.

Seven social workers were responsible for 814 cases in Athlone, while four people were handling 566 cases in Dunoon.

Manenberg has five social workers whose caseload is 599. In Philippi East there are 850 cases divided between eight people. In Khayelitsha the load is 633 between eight people. In the Lotus River/Ottery area, there are seven social workers for 692 cases.

“They are under pressure. They are not coping,” said Ramklass. “Hanover Park is in crisis. It needs a lot of government attention and proper investment.”

Cape Town Child Welfare was facing backlogs because of the high volumes of cases coupled with a shortage of staff, he said.

Ramklass said the number of abused, abandoned and neglected children reported in and around Cape Town had increased over the years.

One of the factors contributing to the increase was the scourge of substance abuse gripping the city, he said.

In some cases, drug-addicted parents left their children with grandparents, who were unable to cope and approached Cape Town Child Welfare for help.

The new Children’s Act, said Ramklass, demanded a more intensive approach to social work.

“It’s not easy being children in this city. The government must invest more money and resources into child protection,” he said.

Child advocacy group Molo Songololo agreed that substance abuse contributed to the increase of child abuse and neglect.

“It is the main factor in cases we work with. It causes dysfunction in families and parental neglect,” said Molo Songololo spokesman Patric Solomons.

He added that it was not only the children of diagnosed addicts who suffered, but also those of functional alcoholics and drug users.

Solomons said there was very little support for the children of these people until something bad happened to them.

As part of the organisation’s strategy, Molo Songololo officials had increased home visits, he said.

Solomons found that when parents or guardians knew that officials were visiting regularly, they decreased their intake of substances, cleaned up their houses and started taking better care of their children.

“We need to increase monitoring children in their homes, because that is where the crimes against them take place.”

Social Development MEC Albert Fritz urged neighbours to report any suspected incidents of abuse or neglect to their local social development offices.

He was planning to send a memo to all offices to pay special attention to the complaints of neighbours and relatives.

Fritz said social workers were compelled to do site visits when complaints were received.

He would request that feedback be sent to his office.

Judge Wall, the secrecy rules, and another stinging attack

Christopher Booker, Telegraph: The most senior judge in the Family Division, Lord Justice Wall, takes an unprecedented step.

Some of my readers may have been puzzled last week to see such lurid headlines as “Racehorse trainer lied that her ex was a child molester”, over stories about Vicky Haigh, who has featured several times in this column. They were prompted by an unprecedented broadside launched by Lord Justice Wall, head of the Family Courts division, against Miss Haigh – who, as I have reported here, escaped to Ireland in April to pre-empt her newborn baby being seized by Nottinghamshire social workers. However, the case in which Lord Justice Wall broke all legal precedent by identifying Miss Haigh in such damning terms was not the one I have reported here. It centres instead on her daughter by a previous partner, which has long been the subject of a highly contentious case involving Doncaster social workers.

The reason for Wall deciding to break all the normal rules of secrecy surrounding child care cases was that for months, details of this case had been advertised on the internet by a private investigator, Liz Watson. Last Monday, at Doncaster’s behest, Wall decided to bring matters to a head. He ruled that the parties to the case could for once be named and that papers relating to it, including two earlier court judgments, should in due course be published. He then sentenced Miss Watson to nine months in prison for breach of secrecy rules.

Relying on the findings of the two lower courts, Wall stated that Miss Haigh had coached her daughter into making lengthy statements to the police and social workers that she had been abused by her father. There is obviously much about this case that still cannot be reported, but at least Wall’s ruling will give the public a chance to decide whether the assessment of the evidence by the earlier judges seemed persuasive.They will also be able to judge whether Wall was right to state that there was not “a scintllla of evidence” to support the arguments which the lower courts rejected.

Wall has something of a track record in making such unqualified statements. In 2008, in another case, he was complained about to the judicial ombudsman by John Hemming MP, after he had witheringly dismissed Hemming’s arguments that a crucial document in the case was forged. “I find it not only unacceptable but shocking,” Wall ruled, “that a man in Mr Hemming’s position should feel able to make so serious an allegation without any evidence to support it. In my judgment it is irresponsible and an abuse of his position.”

Mr Hemming presented the ombudsman with several pages of transcript showing how he had produced lengthy evidence for his claim, set out in meticulous detail. Rather than stating that he had not had “any evidence”, it would have been more accurate for Wall simply to state that, having considered it, he had not found the evidence convincing.

I too recently felt the lash of Wall’s tongue, when he rushed to endorse the criticisms of me by a family judge for the “inaccuracy” of my reporting on another unhappy family case. Wall was so eager to defend the system over which he presides that he seemed unaware of the fact that the judge who criticised me had been forced to come back the following day to correct three errors in the two points he had made about me.

When judges have such power to make their own rules about what can and cannot be reported, it places a special responsibility on them to be rather more measured in their language than they sometimes allow themselves to be.

Teenager killed by police in mass demonstrations in Chile

World Socialist: Hundreds of thousands of Chilean workers and students took part this week in strikes and demonstrations against social inequality and the privatization of education.

The government of right-wing billionaire Sebastián Piñera responded to the two-day general strike, which ended on Thursday, with repression and violence, including mass arrests and the killing of at least one youth.

The 14-year old boy, Manuel Gutiérrez Reinoso, died early Friday from a bullet wound in the chest. Witnesses said he had been shot by police. Dozens of others have been hurt and as many as 1,400 detained or arrested. Police in full riot gear have used tear gas and water cannons against blockades set up by youth. Another youth, 18-year-old Mario Parraguez Pinto, was shot in the eye and is in critical condition at a Santiago hospital.

The killing of Gutiérrez Reinsoso followed a demonstration of some 600,000 in the capital of Santiago and protests in other cities throughout the country. Protesters are demanding free public education, increased taxes on the corporations and the wealthy, and better pensions and health care for workers. The demonstrations were followed in the evening on both days of the strike by clashes between youth and police.

There is overwhelming popular backing for the demonstrators, with one poll putting support for the students at 72 to 81 percent. In contrast, an opinion poll this month pegged Piñera's approval rating at only 26 percent.

The strike was called by the Workers’ United Center of Chile (Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Chile, CUT) and the Chilean Student Confederation (Confederación de Estudiantes de Chile, CONFECH). The two-day strike was the first of its kind since the end of dictator Augusto Pinochet's rule in 1990. The principal aim of the CUT, which is aligned with the Socialist Party, is to prevent growing popular anger from escaping the framework of bourgeois politics in Chile.

The privatization of public education was initiated toward the end of Pinochet’s rule and accompanied by a drastic cut in state funding. Today, only 40 percent of the 3.5 million secondary students attend public schools, which are grossly underfunded. Fifty percent attend partially-subsidized schools, in which the family is required to pay a significant proportion of the costs. Ten percent attend private schools, where they receive the best education.

College and university students pay up to $1,000 a month in tuition and regularly graduate with up to $40,000 in private debt. Tuition in Chile far exceeds most countries, except for the United States, the principal backer of the Pinochet dictatorship and the ideological source of many of its policies.

Three-quarters of the financing costs for higher education is paid out by students and their families. The state spends only 4 percent of its GDP on education and has one of the most unequal education systems in all of South America.

Student demonstrations began on May 13, and the government has responded with increased repression as the demonstrations have grown. On June 30, demonstrations throughout the country involved at least 120,000. On August 4, 874 high school students were arrested after a rally was attacked by paramilitary police forces. Five days later, a demonstration of tens of thousands in Santiago was met with water cannons, tear gas and mass arrests.

In July, Piñera announced a proposal that combined a few token gestures with an expansion of the role of private profit in the university system. In opposition to student demands for free public education provided by the state, he replied, that education is a “consumer good” that must be paid for, and that “nothing in life is free.”

Piñera also reshuffled his cabinet, including dropping his education secretary, Joaquín Lavín, a University of Chicago trained economist and open defender of Pinochet. Lavín is a member of the Independent Democrat Union (UDI), the party of Pinochet supporters established at the end of his dictatorship. The UDI is, along with Piñera's National Renewal, the leading party in the ruling coalition.

While the privatization of education was initiated by Pinochet, the so-called opposition parties have continued these policies for the past two decades.

From 1990 to 2010, Chile was ruled by the Concert of Parties for Democracy (Concertación), which includes the Socialist Party, the Christian Democratic Party, the Party for Democracy and the Social Democratic Radical Party. Michelle Bachelet, a Socialist Party member, was president of Chile from 2006 to 2010.

In 2009, the Concertación was joined in an electoral bloc by the Juntos Podemos Más, which includes the Communist Party of Chile.

All of these “left” and “center-left” parties bear responsibility for the present state of inequality in Chile. Throughout her period as president, Bachelet supported the privatization of education and health care.

As noted, the CUT union federation is associated with the Socialist Party, and its president, Amador Martinez, is an SP member. As for the student federation, its leading spokesperson, Camila Vallejo, the president of the Federation of Students at the University of Chile (FECH), is a member of the Communist Party youth organization.

Through the unions and the student federations, these parties are now attempting to maintain control of a growing movement of opposition among Chilean workers and youth and prevent it from taking an independent organizational and political path.