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Bread-winning wives who earn more than their stay-at-home husbands are crippled by guilt about ‘abandoning’ their children, research reveals today. About 1.4million families in Britain rely on a high-earning woman whose husband or boyfriend is raising their children full-time, or works part-time. In this dramatic reversal of the traditional family set-up, four in ten mothers [...]

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A mum and her newborn baby died from the same easily treatable infection because of blunders by busy midwives. Lisa Kerr, aged 33, died when an infection led to septic shock four days after the birth of son Jeremiah, who was born 15 weeks premature. Tragically, just a few days later little Jeremiah died from [...]

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Both professionals and the public feel powerless to help in suspected cases of child neglect, campaigners have warned. More than half of social workers and a third of police officers felt powerless to intervene while less than two-thirds of the public who had concerns had told someone else, surveys showed. Action for Children called for [...]

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Teachers are having sleepless nights about whether to report suspected victims of child neglect, a report for a charity says. The Action for Children report adds that many police officers and social workers say they feel powerless to intervene in suspected cases. It claims neglected children are being trapped in the safety net designed to [...]

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The figures are thought to be the first forecasts on the extent of the Government’s decision to cut child benefit for well-off families. They suggest that 680,000 families will lose out when child benefit is cut from families with one or more higher-rate taxpayers from April next year. The figures include 180,000 families with only [...]

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An army of 20,000 volunteers will be needed for a new initiative to help children play safely outdoors, say campaigners. They will be asked to help build new playgrounds, staff existing ones, run play schemes and street parties. The government has given £2m to help local groups boost outdoor play in their communities. Campaign group [...]

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Six children in Britain will be given jabs to delay the puberty on the NHS because they are convinced they were born the wrong sex. The injections – to be administered monthly – will postpone the physical changes of adolescence giving them more time to make decisions about their identity. It will also make any [...]

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The father who allegedly locked his daughter, 12, in a dog cage and threatened to electrify it says he was it was just a joke that got out of control. James Tapke, 41, appeared in court in Cincinnati, Ohio, last week to face charges of child endangering. ‘This was a joke that got out of [...]

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A six-year-old girl could be scarred for life after part of her ear was bitten off in a vicious dog attack. The child is in hospital after also suffering injuries to her neck and shoulder when she was mauled by a Staffordshire bull terrier in a park in Chingford, Essex. Her father had to punch [...]

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His fairy wings, pink tutu and ballet pumps suggest this little boy has raided the dressing up box. But if five-year-old Sasha wanted to wear this every day, his parents would have no problem at all. In fact, as they are bringing him up to be ‘gender neutral’, they would see it simply as their [...]

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Jasmine Smith is just nine years old but she has already moved schools three times because her family has been forced to live in insecure rented accommodation. The Smith family, parents Paul and Joanna, and their daughters Jasmine and Enya, spent four years living in short-term rented accommodation. Each time a tenancy ended and the [...]

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My newish boyfriend is always smartly dressed and has a penchant for suit-wearing even at weekends. My parents dress casually and I know they find his style a bit ‘flash’ and judge him for it – to their mind it’s verging on a moral failing. Do I talk to him or to them? VICKI It’s [...]

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A six-year-old girl could be scarred for life after part of her ear was bitten off in a vicious dog attack. The child is in hospital after also suffering injuries to her neck and shoulder when she was mauled by a ‘pit-bull-type dog’ in a park in Chingford, Essex. Police said the unprovoked incident happened [...]

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I can still hear my sister’s voice, shaking with suppressed emotion, as she told me that our 82-year-old father had died of the pneumonia he’d contracted a few days earlier. Mixed emotions crowded into my thoughts as I listened to her tear-filled voice down the phone: shock, of course, even though his death was half [...]

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I had always assumed that following the birth of our third child and my subsequent session with a man with a scalpel and some sterile scissors, that our family was “complete”. It turns out I was wrong. Apparently, there was still an almighty void that simply had to be filled. Apparently, what we really, really [...]

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It’s still difficult to make sense of what happened that day in March four years ago. I remember it had been a long week. Bryce, my son, was nine months old and had been poorly with a cold, crying in the night. I thought, just get up, get through the day, and then it’s the weekend. [...]

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A generation of young workers face retiring in poverty because of the collapse of private pension schemes, a report warns today. The figures highlight the grim future for employees in their 20s and show how they will be worse off than their parents and retirement will begin later. The data, from pension experts Barnett Waddingham, [...]

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Parents are now so over-protective towards their children that one youngster in five does not go outside to play. A third of youngsters have never climbed a tree, or built a den, and one in ten cannot even ride a bike, a study found. The figures were released by the Play England charity, who asked [...]

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An apparent murder case which remained unsolved for nearly 25 years has been closed after investigators concluded that a six-year-old boy was killed by a pack of dogs in a tragic accident. The resolution of the investigation into Nicholas Loris’ death has brought his mother’s decades-long nightmare to an end, as she was the only [...]

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Cuts in public funding for play facilities will create a generation of “latchkey kids” who risk drifting into crime, leading London musicians warned today. A group of artists including Basement Jaxx, Rebel MC, Stereo MCs and The Correspondents will perform a one-off benefit gig next weekend at the Brixton Jamm music venue to support The [...]

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Met detectives could face disciplinary action for failing to investigate a rape allegation that may have jailed a father before he murdered his two children. Retired security guard Jean Say was jailed for life last month after he admitted stabbing to death daughter Regina, eight, and 10-year-old son Rolls with a carving knife during an [...]

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The ex-wife of a Russian oligarch won a £12.5million divorce settlement yesterday as a judge condemned the foul means her husband used to hide his vast fortune. Boris Agrest, 51, an international financier, claimed to have ‘no assets whatsoever’ and to be earning the equivalent in roubles of £150 a month after fleeing the UK [...]

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Council bosses have abandoned their attempts to kick the family of a convicted rioter out of their council house. Maite de la Calva was told she would be evicted from the family’s £225,000 taxpayer-subsidised home after her son Daniel was jailed for joining in a raid on an electronics store. But the action has been [...]

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A third baby has died in the Belfast Royal hospital’s neonatal unit, it has been confirmed. The Belfast Trust, which runs hospitals in the city, said the third death may be linked to an outbreak of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterial infection which has already claimed the lives of two other babies in the same unit. [...]

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A mother has been charged with child cruelty after she took her ten-year-old son get a tattoo in memory of his dead brother. Chuntera Napier said her son, Gaquan Napier, wanted to honour his older brother who died after being hit by a car two years ago. She claims she did not know it was [...]

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A husband was left devastated after losing his wife on a family trip to Australia – only to have his son die 10 days later after flying out to be with him. Mother-of-four Judy Rix, 61, suffered a fatal stroke while she and her husband Nick, 47, were visiting their daughter Rebecca in Perth. The [...]

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Everyone wishes to give their kids the best start in life and there are many ways to save for them, from bank accounts to Government savings vehicles like the recently launched Junior ISA. You can put away as much money as you wish for your children but there are tax implications. Like all things financial [...]

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The children’s clothing retailer Pumpkin Patch has appointed Deloitte as administrators in the UK. The Reading-based company has 36 stores in the UK, employing about 400 staff. Deloitte said it had been necessary to close five stores, with 60 employees being made redundant, though the rest of its stores would continue to trade while options [...]

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Plans to stop child benefit next year for families with a higher-rate taxpayer could be “hugely complex”, a tax body has warned. The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) says the plan could become a tax on marriage. Claimants, typically mothers, receive £20.30 a week for a first child and £13.40 for each subsequent one. [...]

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A schoolboy drowned in a canal after he slipped and fell during a game of hide-and-seek with his friends. Shahidul Hasan, 15, lost his balance while climbing on a railing and fell into the Limehouse Cut in east London. The teenager told his friends and his younger brother that he was “all right” when he [...]

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A gruesome image found on a mobile phone showing an embalmer laughing as he holds a severed head aloft was last night at the centre of a police investigation. The sickening pictures, which features a man named as David Amor smirking at the camera as he poses with the head, were discovered by two young [...]

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An Indian teacher got the shock of his life when he checked his bank account online and found 490bn rupees ($9.8bn). Parijat Saha expected his balance to be $200 and could not believe his eyes – but a check at an ATM confirmed his billionaire status, on paper at least. The honest Mr Saha rang [...]

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A son took his dead mother on a 36-mile bus journey home after she died on the way back from a day out. The 88-year-old woman is believed to have passed away in her wheelchair on the way back to Preston from Lancaster. Police said her son, 52, then waited at Preston Bus Station with [...]

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Surely I can’t have been the only separated mother who felt great empathy for Elen Rivas after hearing about her Twitter row with Christine Bleakley over Christmas. Rivas, who was in India at the time, claimed that her former partner Frank Lampard and his new fiancee would not allow her to talk to her two [...]

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A grieving mother has told how internet scammers set up a Facebook site asking for donations to help fund a heart transplant – for her dead daughter. Julie Chambers, 37, was left distraught after discovering a Jamaican fraudster had set up a group in the name of her young daughter, Zoe, who died when she [...]

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A six-year-old girl was left home alone in a freezing flat for five days with nothing to eat but Monster Munch, yoghurt and drinking water a court has heard. The girl’s mother, Natalie Terry, 28, was jailed today following the child cruelty case that heard the girl eventually knocked on the door of a neighbour’s [...]

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A schoolgirl was found hanged after rowing with her mum over a pair of trainers, an inquest heard yesterday. Maenga Morupisi, aged 14, had argued about a list of items she wanted to be bought, including the trainers, clothes and a laptop. The teenager pretended to take an overdose two days after the row and [...]

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Coronation Street has sparked controversy after an episode showed a child being smacked. Hundreds of parents have complained about the scene in which schoolgirl Faye (played by Ellie-Louise Leach) is hit on the legs by her mother’s boyfriend. Following the show, which attracted 9.5million viewers, furious fans contacted Ofcom and ITV to complain about the [...]

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It is using its investigative powers to look at emergency care at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, as a way of looking at the care patients receive throughout their whole stay. Last summer the CQC published a highly critical report of the trust’s maternity service at Furness General Hospital in Cumbria, threatening [...]

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The toddler whose brave fight against an excruciating skin disorder prompted a worldwide crusade to battle the illness has died. Tripp Roth, from Ponchatoula, Louisiana, outlived all medical predictions during his battle with junctional epidermolysis bullosa, which caused his skin to blister at the slightest touch. The two-year-old boy died in his mother’s arms on [...]

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A boy of ten trapped up to his waist in thick mud was rescued after his quick-thinking dad used a tip he learnt from Bear Grylls. Schoolboy Harry Brooks plunged waist-deep into the quagmire in freezing conditions after running in to help his younger brother find a lost shoe. Harry had been walking with his [...]

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A pipe bomb which was found close to a school in west Belfast has been made safe by army bomb experts. St Teresa’s Primary School was closed and a number of homes were evacuated after the device was found early on Tuesday morning. It was discovered on the Glen Road while emergency services dealt with [...]

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A fairground worker today told of the moment he saw a dying two-year-old boy lying “motionless” after being hit by a rollercoaster. Erjon Hyseni suffered a fatal head injury after being struck by the Go-Gator ride at a funfair on Ducketts Common in Wood Green in May 2009. Matthew Cocks, a ride operator at the [...]

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Border staff turned back lone, “vulnerable” children who failed to claim asylum when they arrived at UK ports, under a secret “Gentleman’s Agreement” with France, it has emerged. England’s children’s commissioner Maggie Atkinson revealed that under the 1995 deal, lone children arriving without travel papers were deported. The UK Border Agency ended the removals last [...]

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A girl of 11 drowned after being trapped upside down in a capsized catamaran on a sunshine watersports holiday, an inquest heard. Private schoolgirl Laura Morgan was sailing in the 15-foot vessel with teenage twins Molly and Sophie McCullough, who were also on holiday at the Greek resort. Today Molly told how Laura was left [...]

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Microsoft’s youngest professional has died, aged 16. Condolences have poured in from around the world after the passing of promising young computer genius Arfa Karim Randhawa, from Faisalabad, Pakistan. The teenager died on Saturday night after complications resulting from an epileptic stroke. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who offered to pay for Karim’s treatment, told the [...]

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A “gentleman’s agreement” that allowed vulnerable children who entered the UK alone to be sent back to France has been ended after investigations by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC). The Landing in Dover report found the agreement allowed unaccompanied children to be sent back to France within 24 hours if they did not [...]

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Temidayo Ogunneye went to retrieve his BlackBerry smartphone but fled when his attackers pulled out weapons, the Old Bailey was told. As he ran, he tripped and was attacked, suffering a single fatal knife wound to his heart. Darius Kwakye, 18, a 17-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy, neither of whom can be named, are [...]

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Do some horses detect the problems faced by disabled children? Tom Chivers reports. The horses and ponies of the RDA are carefully selected and rigorously trained to work with disabled children of all ages No horse-rider needs much convincing that there is something uniquely sensitive and intelligent about their mount. To the rest of us, [...]

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A 15-year-old girl has died during a school trampoline lesson in Stowmarket. Lily Webster, a year 11 pupil at Stowmarket High School, was taking part in the PE lesson at Mid Suffolk Leisure Centre when she collapsed. The ambulance service was called at 14:30 GMT on Monday, but she was pronounced dead at the scene. [...]

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