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A mother-of-four who killed her children and then herself early on Tuesday morning said she wanted to be cremated with them, in a harrowing text message sent to a friend hours earlier. Sheriff’s deputies in Brevard County, Florida said 33-year-old Tanya Thomas shot her four children, who ranged in age from 12 to 17. They [...]

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A Carlisle takeaway boss has been convicted of attempting to recruit four girls aged between 12 and 16 into prostitution. Azad Miah, 44, was also found guilty at Carlisle Crown Court of running a brothel from his business and paying for the sexual services of teenagers. The owner of the former Spice of India restaurant [...]

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You might not have realised it, but men are being oppressed. In many walks of life, they are routinely discriminated against in ways women are not. So unrecognised is this phenomenon that the mere mention of it will appear laughable to some. That, at least, is the premise of a book by a South African philosophy [...]

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The UK Border Agency (UKBA) is detaining children in “degrading and disgraceful” conditions at Heathrow airport, an official report claims today. Children are held “almost every day and sometimes overnight” in premises that are “wholly unsuitable for the detention of children”, the Independent Monitoring Board for Heathrow said. The board said little had changed since [...]

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A school has become entangled in a legal row after confiscating pupils’ phones and refusing to hand them back for weeks. City of London Academy Islington has brought in a new hardline policy of hanging on to mobiles, refusing even to return them to parents, until the end of term. But a lawyer says the [...]

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Pupils at Nick Clegg’s old school sang Hey Jude during prayers and staged a water fight in a Facebook-organised end-of-term rebellion. Students at the £23,000-a-year Westminster School refused to sing Deus Misereatur during Latin prayers and instead gave a rousing rendition of the Beatles classic. Up to 80 were said to have staged the water [...]

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Proposals for a default block on internet pornography have been criticised as impractical and potentially counterproductive by technology experts and civil liberties campaigners, setting them at loggerheads with groups such as the NSPCC ahead of a potentially stormy government consultation. David Cameron announced last week that the government would consult on methods to improve online [...]

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They look to Cheryl Cole, Katy Perry, Jessie J and Adele for their role models. But few girls can identify any successful businesswomen and most failed to name a single sportswoman. According to a report by Girlguiding UK, the Disney starlets Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez were role models for children aged seven to 11, [...]

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Young people in Wales are to be targeted in a major new drive costing more than £850,000 to encourage them to stop smoking. Children as young as 11 will be the focus of the three-year campaign by the anti-smoking charity Ash Wales. The Young People’s Quit Smoking Service, which Ash says is the first in [...]

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Children as young as 12 are to be sent into the Australian outback alone to hunt animals with bows and arrows in what have been dubbed the real life Hunger Games, The youngsters will be encouraged to head off into the forests of New South Wales to hunt for feral animals such as pigs and [...]

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A teenage gang member who raped a girl of 11 in a McDonald’s toilet will serve only six months behind bars after an astonishing ruling by a judge yesterday. The 16-year-old was one of several thugs who preyed on the ‘vulnerable and lonely’ victim over a number of months. They subjected the girl to a [...]

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A teenager who organised the gang rape of  a vulnerable 11-year-old girl was unmasked by a judge today and sentenced to  five years’ detention. Ibraheem Giwa, 15, was 13 when he and fellow gang members took turns to sexually assault the child on three occasions including once in a McDonald’s lavatory. He was convicted of [...]

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Online gaming among tween girls is on the rise, as more are turning to the web to take quizzes and participate in social role-playing challenges, a new study suggests. A new report by tween gaming platform GirlsgoGames.com found that about 50% of tween girls between the ages of 8 and 12 are turning to the [...]

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Now and again on Britain’s Got Talent, a young star comes along who blows more experienced acts out of the water. And that was certainly the case on tonight’s show, as 11-year-old Molly Rainford took to the stage and stole the hearts of  both the panel and the audience. Her pitch-perfect rendition of Jennifer Hudson’s [...]

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Every 20 minutes or so, 300 girls jump up and down, pull at their hair, sob and let out hysterical, traffic-stopping screams. ‘Is it him? Is it Justin? Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! I love you so much!’ And then — yet another false alarm — they sit down again and get [...]

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Having children brings an increased sense of meaning into people’s lives, according to the Prime Minister’s national happiness survey. The latest measure of the country’s well-being yesterday revealed that having children does not necessarily make people happier or more satisfied with their lot. But it does make them feel they have more of a reason for [...]

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Parents are helping their children to set up under-age profiles on social networking site Facebook, Children’s Minister Tim Loughton has said. This meant that children were getting involved in social media at too young an age, he suggested. He added that parents had a responsibility to monitor youngsters’ online activity. The comments came in a debate on [...]

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A real-life Rapunzel girl who cut her hair for the first time has given her family the fairytale home they always dreamed of. Natasha Moraes de Andrade, 12, wept as her 1.6m mane was sheared for the first time ever. But now she says it has given her a new life. Natasha, who lives in a [...]

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A prosecutor told a court that the sight of a 12-year-old boy in the dock for his second knife offence in two months was ‘enough to make you want to cry’. The youngster, dressed in a suit, shirt and tie, was appearing before Gloucester youth court where he admitted possessing a knife in a public place. [...]

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A minister says parents are putting young children at risk by helping them to set up profiles on Facebook. Tim Loughton accused parents of ‘aiding and abetting’ youngsters to use the site – despite the fact the age limit is meant to be 13. Experts fear that under-age  children who sign up for such sites are [...]

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Tim Loughton, the Children’s Minister, accused mothers and fathers of “aiding and abetting” pre-teens to open accounts on the social networking site. The revelation came as a Labour MP Ann Coffey urged the Government and mobile phone companies to do more to combat “sexting”, where teenagers send sexual pictures of themselves to each other using [...]

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The problem is so serious that over a quarter of youngsters claim they cannot concentrate in school and even fall asleep in class at least once a week. Traditionally younger children went through the ritual of having a bedtime story before going to sleep. Now they are much more likely to nod off to the sound of [...]

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Ministers are ready to reject tough proposals to protect children from online pornography, claiming strict curbs would breach web users’ civil liberties. Campaigning MPs and child protection charities want a default block on access to pornographic websites for everyone, with adults having to apply specifically to view them. They demanded the ‘opt-in’ measure last week [...]

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The development is likely to be a disappointment to campaigners who had hoped the Government would ban access to porn sites altogether. They had wanted a new system where all sites would be blocked, and adults would have asked to ‘opt in’ to access them. However Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt will instead announce later this year plans [...]

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Young Londoners are being offered the chance to experience live opera free. Opera Holland Park is making 300 tickets available for nine- to 18-year-olds, for performances in the temporary pavilion erected each summer in the park in Kensington. The offer was made as research for the company’s summer season sponsor, Investec Wealth and Investment, suggested [...]

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By 2017 two hospitals will be offering the treatment, which is better than standard therapies at killing cancerous tumours without damaging heath tissue. Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, last night announced that University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and The Christie Hospital in Manchester had been chosen to house the centres. The Department of Health has [...]

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The countdown to a 17th birthday in the family brings with it a high-octane witch’s brew of emotions. Jubilant daily reminders from your teenage child are met with rising anxiety on the parental side.   Of course I want to celebrate the milestones in my daughter’s life. This year, that means attaching L-plates, buying The [...]

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If, 30 years ago, you had said that Sir David Hare, scourge of the establishment and intellectual leftie given to cracking scornful jokes, would one day open a new public school play in the West End on a double-bill with a dusty old classic, The Browning Version, by Terence Rattigan – and, what is more, [...]

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A coroner warned yesterday that the “gross failure” of mental health services to help an autistic boy, who was bullied and committed suicide, could be a national problem affecting others with similar behavioural needs. Bradford coroner Paul Marks said the death of Gareth Oates, from Stowmarket, Suffolk, could probably have been averted if it had not [...]

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Major internet firms were yesterday accused of being ‘complicit’ in exposing children to hardcore pornography and violence online by continuing to refuse to give parents the choice of blocking material that no child should see, but that is too easily available on every device now in the home. Their defiance comes despite an independent inquiry into [...]

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While most girls her age obsess over Justin Bieber, teenager Kathryn Dimara is more riveted with cars. The 14-year-old from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, has spent the last two years rebuilding a Pontiac Fiero from scrap. Kathryn used her her pocket money from babysitting to buy the vehicle, which she hopes to complete in time for her 16th [...]

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Children should be taught to stand up when their parents or teacher walks into the room, David Cameron said yesterday. In a speech on handing more power to schools, the Prime Minister called for a return to ‘real discipline’. He said: ‘Give headteachers and their staff the freedom to teach and run their schools; give parents [...]

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A ‘despicable’ father was jailed for three years today for stealing £16,500 raised for his dying son – and not leaving enough to pay for his funeral. Julian Emms, 46, plundered a charity fund for his son Michael who was Britain’s youngest victim of motor neurone disease. Friends and family carried out sponsored events to raise [...]

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A coroner warned yesterday that the “gross failure” of mental health services to help an autistic boy, who was bullied and committed suicide, could be a national problem affecting others with similar behavioural needs. Bradford coroner Paul Marks said the death of Gareth Oates, from Stowmarket, Suffolk, could probably have been averted if it had not [...]

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A coroner warned yesterday that the “gross failure” of mental health services to help an autistic boy, who was bullied and committed suicide, could be a national problem affecting others with similar behavioural needs. Bradford coroner Paul Marks said the death of Gareth Oates, from Stowmarket, Suffolk, could probably have been averted if it had not [...]

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A teenage girl who has twice been on the brink of death has overcome her troubled past to become one of Britain’s Olympic hopes. Monique Newton, 19, battled brain cancer when she was a child, then went on to survive an attempted overdose at the age of 15. Now the London-born athlete has triumphed over [...]

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It is a country that can seem inured to violence from sheer familiarity. But this was a crime so shocking that even South Africa has begun to search its soul. A disabled 17-year-old girl, said to have the mental capacity of a five-year-old, was allegedly gang-raped by seven men and boys in an assault that [...]

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The rap video featuring teachers at Jennings Senior High School in Missouri was posted to YouTube and shows staff from the Maths, English and Biology departments rapping advice for exam success.   In the video the teachers don shades, baseball caps and hoodies and rap, “mitosis and miosis ain’t the same thing homie, one makin’ [...]

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Karl Markovics is the Austrian actor known best for his leading role in 2007 Oscar winner The Counterfeiters, in which he played a Jewish forger, imprisoned in a Nazi camp and forced to take part in a scheme to flood Allied economies with fake banknotes. Now Markovics has made his debut as a writer and [...]

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Major internet companies were yesterday accused of being ‘complicit’ in exposing children to extreme violence and hardcore pornography online. Broadband providers reiterated their refusal to give parents the choice of blocking pornography coming into the home on every household device. Their defiance comes despite an independent inquiry into online protection by MPs warning that a [...]

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Readers of a sensitive disposition may wish to look away now. Please, click back to the homepage; forget you ever came here; retreat while your mind is still as pure and unsullied as a recently-laundered doily. This article contains explicit, harrowing details of the violence depicted in The Hunger Games, and they cannot be unread. [...]

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When teenager Lena Walker took to the streets busking to raise money for charity, it wasn’t just her music that attracted attention. Scores of people also complimented her on her good-looks and encouraged her to enter the Miss England competition, which is being held in her home city of Leicester this year. The beauty competition [...]

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A crime-fighting schoolboy was hailed a hero after thwarting a would-be thief in the middle of a £1,000 raid. Brave Dominic Stickley managed to grab the cash from the hands of the raider who had snatched the money from the till at a branch of B&Q. The 16-year-old, who dreams of becoming a policeman when [...]

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The quality of teenagers’ work experience is strongly linked to future careers but must rely on more than just their parents’ connections, a heads and employers report says. It calls for the potential of work experience to be better used to broaden pupils’ horizons. Head teachers’ leader Brian Lightman says he has seen young people [...]

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A Sri Lankan woman has been arrested on suspicion of casting a spell on a 13-year-old girl on a shopping trip in Saudi Arabia. She may face the death penalty as the Middle Eastern country is known to behead convicted sorcerers.Police spokesman Mesfir al-Juayed confirmed yesterday that details of the woman’s arrest published in local media [...]

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Three-quarters of variations in British schools’ performance is explained by differences in socio-economic background of its students. Photograph: Rex Features Nick Clegg is reported to be planning to set targets for schools to narrow the performance gap between disadvantaged children and other pupils as a way of promoting social mobility. He is right to identify [...]

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Louis Theroux explains why he’s as proud of his new series – on the demented elderly and autistic young – as anything he’s ever done. Over the past 15 years, I’ve carved out a niche for myself as a maker of documentaries about people whose choices in life seem odd, offbeat or at the very [...]

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A generation of girls is now being sexually corrupted by the web Insecure and desperate for male attention, Becky was just 15 when she began meeting strangers for sex via the internet. Sadly, her story is becoming all too common… Low self-esteem: When she was a teenager, Becky became addicted to having sex with strangers [...]

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It is a unique example of co-operation between the state and private sector of schooling. Normally, co-operation means the independent schools open up their plush sports facilities to pupils from the neighbouring state school or share a teacher with them. In this case, though, the two private school headmasters concerned have rolled up their sleeves [...]

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The number of teenagers signing up to become scout leaders has exceeded 10,000 for the first time, a census from the Scout Association shows. Young leaders, aged 14 to 18, now total 10,394, up from 9,030 in 2011. The association says youngsters may see scout leadership as a way of boosting their skills in tough [...]

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