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Fancy dress for dogs, fairly traded horse–themed clothes, the best petting zoos and a whacky hamster wheel set inside a plastic car…

IS IT A BIRD… Being part of the pack, as all family dogs should know, sometimes involves getting put in fancy dress. When I was little our dog would wear a sheepskin waistcoat as the sheep to my brother’s shepherd, while the cat wore a bonnet and slept in the doll’s pram. On seeing my boys try to dress up our wriggling lurcher as a superhero again the other day, I decided to get her something of her own, as I am running out of dishcloths. Superdog costume, £12.99, from Angels Fancy Dress (fancydress.com).
BRIGHT BRUSH–UP The retail world has moved on since I was a pony–mad little girl. Where once there were regulation jodhpurs and scratchy but sensible jackets, now bright pink jodhpurs and candy–coloured grooming kits line the shelves of country stores, like catnip to pony–loving pre–teens. Cottage Craft grooming bag, £12.95 (mad4ponies.com).

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A judge yesterday praised parents for turning in their 14-year-old son to the police after a supermarket was looted.

Judge Khalid Qureshi congratulated the parents after they marched their son to a police station when they recognised him in a newspaper.

At a special hearing in Manchester Youth Court yesterday, he said: ‘What you did was absolutely the right thing to do. All parents should take their responsibilities as seriously.’

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The parents of a British boy who drowned while on holiday in America said they had been left “devastated” by his death.

Mckinley Day, 14, of Farndon, Cheshire, died canoeing in the Beaver river, Croghan, upstate New York during an outing with friends and relatives on Friday afternoon.

Following the tragedy, his parents Lesley and Adam posted a message to the youngster’s friends on his Facebook page.

The message said: “To all Mckinley’s friends.

“We are devastated to tell you our son sadly past away while on holiday in USA.

“We will always love and miss you.

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A judge overseeing a string of riot cases has expressed incredulity that the parents of young offenders are not accompanying them to court.

District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe was astonished when she was told the parents of a 14-year-old girl charged with four counts of burglary during the riots were too busy to be there.

The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is accused of going on a looting spree in Wood Green, north London.

She has been charged with stealing clothes from H&M, CDs from HMV and perfume from boots and did not enter a plea in court yesterday.

Ms Roscoe asked where her parents were to take her home, saying: ‘Where is your mother? You are 14.’

But the defence barrister said they both worked and could not be there.

The judge replied: ‘Well that is all well and good, but their daughter is in the dock.’

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They may be the kings of the jungle, but these lion cubs are pussy cats when it comes to their surrogate mother.

Thanks to Beth the crossed mastiff’s mutt-erly instincts she has raised a pride of 12 mighty lions.

Not afraid of a bit of rough and tumble with these mini-kings of the jungle, Beth the lion-nanny happily frolics, nurses and acts as a surrogate mother to newly born cubs for the last two years at a South African lion breeding sanctuary.

And her love and care has been a roaring success.

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An aspiring ballerina was among a group of girls caught on CCTV standing outside an electrical store deciding what to steal.

Seeing her face published in newspapers and on television, the 17-year-old, who is too young to be named, gave herself up to police claiming she was an innocent bystander.
However, she admitted burglary after the film footage showed her removing two televisions from the Richer Sounds shop in Croydon, south London. Goods valued at £190,000 were looted from the hi-fi and home cinema store, which also suffered £15,000 in damage.

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If you struggle with sums or can’t finish a crossword, who should you curse – your teachers or your parents?

Well according to the latest evidence, you really should blame both.

Researchers have found that up to half of our intelligence (or lack of it) is inherited.

They examined the blood of more than 3,500 people from England and Scotland for half a million genetic markers – tiny changes in their DNA. Analysis of these results and those of intelligence tests completed by the study’s participants revealed that 40 per cent of the differences in ‘crystallised-type intelligence’, the ability to acquire knowledge and skills over the years, were in the genes.

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Organised gangs went on a looting and rioting rampage through the centre of Manchester, with children to act as spotters to warn of approaching police.

Despite riot police positioned across the city, up to 1,000 youths, many on mountain bikes and the majority with their faces masked, caused the kind of mayhem seen in London earlier in the week.
On Tuesday night, the youths smashed shop windows, looted and set fire to shops and hurled missiles at police.
Many of the gangs appeared to be looting without any intervention from officers.
But in a new development, youths including young girls, appeared to embark on organised and efficient attacks rather than random looting and vandalism.

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An 11-year-old boy has died after being found in a garden pond, police said.

The child, not yet identified, was discovered in the water at an address in Polesworth, north Warwickshire, at about 18:30 BST on Friday.

A Warwickshire Police spokeswoman said officers had been called to the scene in Ridding Gardens by West Midlands Ambulance Service.

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New research challenges government claims over making work pay for families in Britain’s ‘squeezed middle’

Women are being priced out of the job market because of deep government cuts in state funding for childcare, according to research published on Sunday.

The study by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) thinktank challenges the claims made by ministers that their flagship welfare reforms will “make work pay” and encourage people off benefits and into work. Instead, the IPPR analysis highlights figures suggesting that the increased cost of childcare is persuading many mothers to stay at home to look after their children themselves. The research focuses on low- to middle-income families in the “squeezed middle”, who are already suffering from declining real wages as pay is either frozen or increased at a lower rate than inflation.

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Today’s children might appear mollycoddled compared with previous generations – but such pampering is more hard-nosed than it appears, says Alain de Botton.

Anyone who has observed a certain kind of liberal, concerned, modern parent at close quarters, and doesn’t have children of his or her own, is likely to come away from the experience appalled.

The care and attention paid to every detail of the child’s life is terrifying. Simply deciding what one might have for dinner can take hours of careful negotiation.

Every question a child raises is accorded infinite care – how long would it take to fall through the earth, from one end to the other? Does Daddy know that the okapi is a relative of the giraffe even though it looks much more like a horse or zebra? Where does wind come from? Who were the most powerful people in Victorian England? What is inside an atom?

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A gap year student brutally beaten by a gang while travelling in Australia is now being forced to pay £650 for the two-minute ambulance drive to hospital.

Angus Paskin Orr, 19, was kicked unconscious when he and a friend were attacked by eight men in the eastern city of Cairns on the night of the Royal Wedding.

He was picked up by an ambulance and taken the 200 yards to Cairns Base hospital, where he was given x-rays and a CT scan.

But because he is not a permanent resident of Queensland – and despite the fact he was the victim of a horrific unprovoked crime – he’s been presented with a bill.

It is because, even though the UK and the rest of Australia have a reciprocal medical agreement, it does not cover the cost of treatment or transporation provided by the ambulance service in Queensland.

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Medics saved the life of a girl today after a hole she was digging on a beach collapsed on her.

East of England Ambulance Service said a 7ft hole that the 15-year-old girl was digging on the beach at Caister, near Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, caved in.

It is understood the teen stopped breathing but medics managed to save her life by clearing her airways.

A spokeswoman for the Ambulance Service said: “We were called at 3.04pm and a rapid response crew arrived on the scene five minutes later backed up by an ambulance.

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While many experts say there is no link between mobile phone use and cancer in adults there is still widespread uncertainty about the risks children face.

Research into health and mobile phones has been beset with difficulties. Mobiles have been in use for a relatively short time and yet cancers can take decades to develop.
However most scientists seem to agree about one thing – that if mobiles are hazardous, children may be more vulnerable than the rest of us to their possible ill-effects.
“If the penetration of the electromagnetic waves goes for four centimetres into the brain, four centimetres into the adult brain is just the temporal lobe,” says Dr Annie Sasco of the Institute of Public Health, Epidemiology and Development in Bordeaux.

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Mother of 15-year-old bludgeoned to death talks of the calculating and sinister charmer who was obsessed with death

Most of the time he averted his gaze, but there was one fleeting moment in court when Sonia Oatley met the eye of her daughter Rebecca Aylward’s killer.

‘It felt like I was looking into the eyes of the devil,’ she says.

Is Josh Davies evil? Many who followed his five-week trial at Swansea Crown Court, which ended last week with Davies’s conviction for murder, believe he must be. For the circumstances surrounding 15-year-old Rebecca’s death are truly macabre.

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Will parents welcome advice from a thinktank on how to bring up their children?

Do you read to your child for 15 minutes every day? Or spend 20 minutes talking to them – with the television off?

Thinktank CentreForum has today published a checklist of five tasks – including designated reading and chatting sessions – which it says should be taught to all parents.

Modelled on the “five a day” healthy eating campaign, the checklist is aimed to boost child development. CentreForum says it could be promoted in advertisements on buses and in nurseries.

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The 19-year-old son of a Thames cruise boss was killed today when he fell from a ferry and under its propeller.

Ben Woollacott, of Kent, died in the horrific accident after falling from the Woolwich Ferry, while mooring ropes were being untied.

A London Coastguard spokesman said they were called at 6.10am in response to a man overboard radio alert.

Paramedics treated the crewman when he was pulled from the Thames, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Ben’s father was said to be distraught. A friend said: ‘It’s such a tragic loss.

‘They are a very well-respected family on the river.

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A 14-year-old girl has been flown to hospital by air ambulance with serious head injuries after a horse collapsed on her in Norfolk.

East of England Ambulance Service crews were called at 15:08 BST to reports that the girl was trapped under a horse on Blackwater Lane, Great Witchingham.

The girl was airlifted by the Magpas Helimedix team to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, in Cambridge.

The 999 caller said the horse had collapsed on top of the girl and died.

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Your article (Black to my roots, Family, 30 July) reflects what seems a recurring tale: parenting failures by white people who adopted black children.

Certainly some adopted black or mixed-heritage children have grown up with a sense of isolation, alienation and loneliness. But such dilemmas are not unique to children from our background. And what of people like me, and I hope many others, who have had a very positive experience of adoption? Massive credit should go to couples who took on what was termed in the 1950s “the problem of the coloured child” and the abuse that often went with this.

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Parents have been warned to keep babies off the Tube as temperatures soar in the capital.

The maximum tomorrow is expected to be 30C – with temperatures underground at least 8C higher.

Chris Almond of the Met Office said: “It’s going to be muggy, uncomfortable heat, with some heavy showers. Temperatures will remain hot until the end of the week.”

Medical experts today warned parents the temperatures could lead to heat exhaustion in babies and toddlers.

Professor Mitch Blair of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said: “Taking babies on the Tube in hot weather can lead to dehydration – irritability, drowsiness, dry mouth and eyes are all worrying signs.

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Police say no explosives found after heiress, 18, endured terrifying ten-hour battle to be freed

Balaclava-clad intruder ‘broke in and attached device to Madeleine Pulver’
No explosives had been found in the device
Police reveal the ‘bizarre attack’ was ‘an elaborate hoax’
Shaken parents waited outside house before reunion with daughter
Family is one of Sydney’s wealthiest with mansion in exclusive street
Bomb officers investigating other ‘items’ in house
Father one of Sydney’s most wealthy men, William Pulver, CEO of an internet share dealing company, called Nielsen Net Ratings
Family has recently moved back from New York. The ‘collar bomb’ that was strapped to an Australian schoolgirl’s neck contained no explosives and appeared to be part of an ‘elaborate hoax’, Australian police have revealed.

In a scene that could have been straight from a Hollywood thriller, bomb squad specialists spent ten nail-biting hours freeing 18-year-old Madeleine Pulver from the ‘bomb-like’ device.

She said it had been chained to her neck by a man who entered her home in Mosman, a wealthy Sydney suburb, yesterday afternoon.

But it has turned out that the device did not actually contain explosives.

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Somali mother’s desperate fight to save her family

They call it Bula Bakti, the Carcass Dump. Here, in 37-degree heat, we help to dig a grave for Osman, a seven-month-old boy, who died of starvation in his mother’s arms the previous night.

It is 12.45pm on Saturday, and before Osman’s body is committed to the earth, his mother brings us to her home — a hut made from tree branches tied together into a dome and covered with bits of plastic for a roof.

Osman’s body lies on the mud floor; his mother, Mumini Ibrahim, sitting beside it, with Osman’s twin sister Kadida nestled against her breast. The surviving twin stares out at me with beautiful brown, scared eyes.

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A 13-year-old boy has been taken to hospital after being stabbed during a fight in north London.

He was injured on City Road, Islington, at about 23:55 BST on Saturday while a brawl took place between four or five boys of a similar age, police said.

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A California TV reporter became part of the news after she was shot with a BB gun pellet during a live weather report.

KABC-TV’s Leanne Suter was reporting from Fontana at about 6 p.m. last night, when she and her cameraman were fired at by two subjects.

Ms Suter, who was struck in the hand, was taken to a nearby hospital, but was not seriously injured in the shooting. Lt. Mark Weissman of the Fontana Police Department told the Press Enterprise Ms suter was ‘a little shook up’ by the attack.

Officers reportedly found at least two pellets near a news van that was also shot at.

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How a mother who fled to Ireland to save her baby was caught on her return.

The best-known of dozens of English mothers who have fled abroad to avoid their babies being seized by social workers is Vicky Haigh, a former racehorse trainer. After her flight to Ireland three months ago, her baby is flourishing and Irish social workers seem entirely happy that she is an excellent mother. Less happy, however, is the outcome of another case I reported last year. This involved a 17-year-old girl, five months pregnant, who fled to Ireland with her parents, after receiving a letter from a social worker she had never met to say her baby would be seized the moment it was born.
After the birth, all seemed to go well, despite relentless efforts by the English social workers to persuade their Irish counterparts to return the baby to England. They blackened the family unmercifully, pointing out that the grandfather once, many years ago, served a brief prison sentence after a pub fight, while the young mother had, in her early teens, twice been given an Asbo. After a series of interviews with the family, the Irish social workers were satisfied that the baby was in good hands and that there were no grounds for further intervention.

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Meet the 17-year-old tanning concierge, whose job is to make sure bronze glows are even

It must rank as one of the best summer jobs in the world.

While his friends work the usual babysitting or retail circuit, Harrison Anastasio, 17, is a tan concierge at the James New York Hotel in SoHo.

His remit? Alongside supervising the four-foot deep pool, handing out towels to minimally-clad guests and shuffling sun loungers for optimum sun or shade exposure, the Brooklyn boy makes sure sunbathers tan evenly.

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Almost all parents would be happy for their children to be looked after by male nursery workers, new research shows.

There has been a “sea change” in attitudes since a survey six years ago found that only 55 per cent of parents accepted the idea of men working with their children.

The latest study, carried out on behalf of the major day nursery groups, found 98 per cent of mothers and fathers were in favour of men caring for children between the ages of three and five. Currently, less than three per cent of nursery staff are men.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-School Learning Alliance, said: “Parental attitudes have long been held to be a barrier preventing men working in childcare. Our survey suggests this is no longer the case. The vast majority of parents and female childcarers want more men as trained professionals.

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A schoolboy who murdered a former girlfriend for a free breakfast went online just hours after the killing to sympathise with her mother and to highlight the “normal” evening he was having, it has emerged.

Joshua Davies, 16, can be named for the first time today after being found guilty of murder by a jury at Swansea Crown Court.

He lured Rebecca Aylward, 15, to a secluded wood and then used a rock the size of a rugby ball to smash her skull with at least six brutal blows to the back of the head.

Davies then went to a friend’s house where he drank tea and bragged about what he had done. That evening, he created an alibi by posting messages on social networking site Facebook claiming he was “chilling out with friends” while watching Strictly Come Dancing.

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A 16-year-old boy who battered his former girlfriend to death has been publicly named for the first time after being found guilty of her murder.

Rebecca Aylward, 15, from Maesteg, was lured into a wood in Aberkenfig, near Bridgend, in October 2010.

Swansea Crown Court heard Joshua Davies “sometimes” hated Rebecca and a friend offered to buy him breakfast after suggesting that he “get rid of her”.

Davies denied murder blaming his friend but will be sentenced in September.

An order banning the identification of Joshua Davies was lifted after he was convicted by a 10-2 majority verdict following the trial.

Rebecca’s family clapped and shouted “yes” as the verdict was delivered after 19 hours and 55 minutes of deliberation, which began last Friday afternoon.

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A sixth former was so distraught about being given her first detention that she collapsed and had a heart attack.

Tabatha McElligott, then 17, was caught by a teacher after sneaking out of school with friends to buy chocolate.

And her fear caused an undiagnosed rare heart condition to kick in.

Teachers dialled 999 and an emergency first aider arrived at Westcliff High School for Girls in Essex within three minutes.

He was able to restart her heart in the playground with a defibrillator before an ambulance arrived.

Doctors discovered that Miss McElligott, from Leigh-on-Sea, was born with ‘anomalous left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery’, which could have killed her at any time. The congenital condition causes her body to pump blood around her heart the wrong way.

Only 10 per cent of sufferers survive if they are not diagnosed by their first birthday.

‘I’d never really been in trouble at school, so I was mortified when we started getting shouted at and my heart obviously couldn’t cope with it,’ she said yesterday.

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Inspections without notice and more observation of child protection work in practice are needed, Ofsted suggests

Child protection is not an easy job, but it is a vital one. So it is right that we all continually strive to keep children safe by improving the way we work.

Eileen Munro’s recent review of child protection recognised the importance of rigorous, independent inspection. She recommended that inspection should be carried out without giving local authorities prior notice. She also suggested that it should examine the effectiveness of the contributions of all local agencies and track how well children are supported through every part of the system.

Taking this on board, Ofsted is launching a consultation on 27 July on a new way of inspecting child protection that will put the child’s experience at its heart. We are proposing that every local authority will receive an unannounced, no-notice, two-week, on-site inspection of its child protection services to fully assess the contributions of local services to the protection of children. This compares with present arrangements in which a two-week notice period is given. It will also make sure our inspectors see what is really happening on the ground.

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Mohammed and Nafisa Karolia switched babies to cover up injuries to seven-month-old girl who later died

A couple who repeatedly deceived health professionals by swapping their twin babies to cover up unexplained injuries that led to one daughter’s death have been convicted of child cruelty.

Mohammed and Nafisa Karolia, of Blackburn, Lancashire, had denied abusing the seven-month-old baby girl, who died in June 2009. But they were convicted at Preston crown court following a five-week trial after jurors deliberated for less than six hours. Mr Justice Irwin, the trial judge, warned them they should expect a considerable jail term when they are sentenced in October.

The court heard how the couple attempted to cover up the baby’s unexplained injuries to social services and health visitors by swapping the babies when they called at the house. Neither child can be identified for legal reasons.

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A six-year-old girl died after crawling inside a large, old-fashioned microwave in the backyard of her home.

Rebecca Maria Herrera, from San Antonio, went missing for several hours on Saturday and police and dozens of volunteers spent hours looking for her until she was found in the microwave.

A helicopter was also dispatched.

San Antonio police believe she climbed inside the microwave and somehow became trapped. They said they are investigating the case as an accidental sudden death.

Rebecca is the daughter of John Herrera, an officer for the San Antonio Police Bike Patrol. He was in Florida at the time.

Lt Randy Smith said: ‘The whole neighbourhood was helping search. It’s a tight community.

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The deaths of 17 London women during childbirth since 2009 could have been prevented with better care, it was claimed today.

An independent inquiry into a rise in maternal deaths, commissioned by NHS London, shows a lack of midwives directly affected the care of some women.

Researchers discovered that some London trusts’ maternity wards had a damaging shortage of midwives with one in five posts vacant. The unpublished report, seen by BBC’s Panorama, investigated 42 deaths over 18 months from January 2009 and found substandard treatment was a major factor in 17 cases.

Barnet Hospital had to close its doors more than any other in Britain last year – 102 times.

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The first of an occasional series where Cassandra Jardine answers your parenting questions.

This is going to be tricky. I leapt at the Weekend editor’s idea of responding to readers’ parenting dilemmas because I like nothing more than doing so in the course of normal life. Whatever else is happening, I will stop and listen, riveted, if a fellow parent wishes to share a juicy problem. Usually I have one of my own to swap.
Summer is often a rich source of parental dramas. For months, the whole family has been looking forward to the end of term/exams and a break but, when the holidays start, it is often an anticlimax. At the moment, I am struggling to keep my cool as my children mooch about being bored when I am as busy as ever. As for the family holiday, you would think I was suggesting toenail extraction when I first floated the idea of one. With the planned departure still a few weeks off, various members of the family are still arguing that their presence depends upon bringing a friend. But where will we put them all?

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A grizzly bear that was with her cub attacked several teens participating in a survival skills course in remote wilderness in Alaska, badly mauling two in the group, state troopers said Sunday.

The teens were among seven students participating in a 30-day back country course by the National Outdoor Leadership School when the attack occurred Saturday night in the Talkeetna Mountains north of Anchorage. They were rescued early Sunday.

The teens told troopers the attack occurred as they were lined up in front of each other for a river crossing.

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Amy Winehouse’s goddaughter Dionne Bromfield performed at a festival in Pontypridd just two hours after news broke of the singer’s death.

The 15-year-old, who was mentored by Grammy-winning Winehouse, took to the stage at Ponty’s Big Weekend to support boy band The Wanted.

Winehouse, 27, was discovered dead at her north London home on Saturday.

Despite her grief, Bromfield sang for 20 minutes, only slightly short of the scheduled half-hour set.

Music promoter Orchard Entertainment said there was “no pressure” on Bromfield to perform.

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Police are concerned for the safety of a teenager and her baby son who have not been seen since an assault on a man at their caravan site.

Natalie Foster, 18, and seven-month-old Robert, have been missing since the “serious and violent” incident on Friday, North Yorkshire Police said.

A spokesman said a 43-year-old man was seriously assaulted at 5pm at the Seamer Caravan Site in Stokesley, where the mother and baby live.

Two men from Middlesbrough, aged 30 and 20, have been arrested in connection with the assault and remain in police custody.

Officers are trying to trace one other man, Mrs Foster’s 22-year-old husband Robert, who is from the Southbank area of Middlesbrough.

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Teenagers on the holiday island of Utoya had to ‘swim for their lives’ and hide in trees when the gunman fired indiscriminately at them.

Around 700 had gathered on the island for a meeting of the youth wing of the ruling Labour party.

Witnesses said the man in police uniform who opened fire, who has now been named locally as Anders Behring Breivik, beckoned several young people over before shooting at them.

He told them to ‘come here’. Other witnesses said they heard him saying: ‘This is just the beginning.’

One teenager who was caught up in the attack said: ‘Suddenly, we heard lots of shooting. People had to run and hide. We have been told to get off the island.’

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Rebecca and Lucia delivered at just 30 weeks

‘When surgery comes about inevitably one will die,’ says hospital spokesman. Doctors in Italy have revealed details of Siamese twins born sharing the same heart – one of whom will have to die in order to save the other.

The girls, Rebecca and Lucia, were born three weeks ago at the Sant Orsola Hospital in Bologna and are joined at the chest and abdomen.

They were born at 30 weeks and are sharing the same heart, but although they both have individual livers these are also fused together.

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Teenager Natasha MacBryde was found dead on a railway line hours after receiving an abusive and threatening message on the Formspring social networking website, an inquest was told.

Worcestershire coroner’s court heard that Natasha MacBryde, a 15-year-old grammar school pupil, had also used the internet to research methods of suicide in the run-up to her death.
Natasha, who had suffered multiple injuries, was found dead by a train driver 150 yards from her home in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, in the early hours of Feb 14 this year.
Speaking after the inquest, Natasha’s parents said they feared that lyrics to one of her favourite songs — Grenade by the American Bruno Mars — may have also encouraged her to take her own life. The song contains the lyrics: “I’d jump in front of a train for ya.”

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A coroner yesterday condemned ‘vile and disgusting’ internet ‘trolls’ who hijack memorial pages to mock the dead.

Geraint Williams spoke out at the start of an inquest into the death of public schoolgirl Natasha MacBryde.

He was told she threw herself under a train hours after she was sent an abusive message by an anonymous bully on a social networking website.

The site, called Formspring, allows users to post messages or questions anonymously, and has previously been linked to the suicide of an American student.

The inquest heard yesterday that 15-year-old Natasha had also been teased by members of an all-girl clique at her £10,000-a-year school in the weeks leading up to her death.

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Three children accidentally shot in the St Louis area in little over a week

A boy aged ten has accidentally shot and killed his five-year-old brother with a gun he found at his home in Belleville, Illinois.

The brothers were being looked after by a male babysitter while their parents were out at the time of the shooting.

It’s the third time in little over a week that a child in the St Louis area has died after picking up a gun they found in the house.

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When Daniel Findon unscrewed the dust cap from a friend’s bicycle and threw it in a ditch, it was meant to be a childish prank.

But the boy’s mother contacted police who raced to the area within minutes and frogmarched 15-year-old Daniel home.

His stunned mother, Debbie Chamberlain, was then told he faced a criminal record for theft unless she arranged for the 12-year-old ‘victim’, who lives near their home in Haverhill, Suffolk, to receive a written apology and a new dust cap Fearing a refusal would stop her son being able to get a part-time job, she agreed.

But yesterday she said she was in ‘utter disbelief’ about her son’s treatment and criticised police for wasting time on disputes among children.

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A student was so badly hacked by a sword-wielding gang that he had to be treated by a team of Army surgeons.

Sajakat Hussain, 19, had his leg partly severed and serious arm injuries when he was set upon by a masked group, armed with at least two swords.

He was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital, Birmingham, where army medics performed life-saving surgery.

Police said that without their rapid intervention they would have been dealing with a murder inquiry.

He also suffered from serious chest injuries when he fell to the ground following the attack in the Aston area of the city.

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A 16-year-old boy who was questioned by police yesterday on suspicion of having links to an international computer hacking ring could face extradition to the United States.

The teenager was arrested in south London amid a new wave of internet attacks. He remained in custody last night.
Police believe he is connected to the notorious hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec which have been blamed for a string of attacks on organisations including the CIA, the US Senate and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).
The teenager, who was held under the Computer Misuse Act, reportedly goes by the online user-name Tflow.

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A South London teenager thought to have links to cyber activism groups Anonymous and LulzSec was arrested today as part of a global sting, police have confirmed.

The specialist e-Crime unit within Scotland Yard made the arrest under the Computer Misuse Act yesterday and the teenager is in custody, police said. The raids, carried out in the UK; the USA and in the Netherlands, were linked to the attack on PayPal in December last year, as well as other attacks. PayPal was allegedly targeted after the payment service stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks.

In all, nineteen suspected so-called “hacktivists” were arrested across the world and US police officers secured search warrants related to the inquiry.

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A schoolboy who was stabbed to death with a broken golf club outside his school gates was the victim of mistaken identity, it has been claimed.

Sixteen-year-old Adil Basharat was killed outside the gates of Kingsbrook School in Deanshanger, Northamptonshire, last November.

He and two friends were set upon by four men wielding a golf club, a screwdriver, and a metal bar, Northampton Crown Court heard.

The golf club broke and the sharp end of it was thrust into his pelvis, severing the main artery.

The teenager, from Milton Keynes, died two days later in hospital.

Freddy Wilson, Adam Moore and Daniel Anderson, all 20, and Jake Batten, 22, all deny murdering Adil on November 21. They also all deny a charge of violent disorder on November 19.

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A teenager in Florida has been accused of posting a Facebook invitation for a house party, killing his parents with a hammer and then hosting dozens of people while the adults’ bludgeoned bodies were locked in the master bedroom.

The bodies were discovered by police early on Sunday, and 17-year-old Tyler Hadley has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Police believe his parents were struck on their heads and torsos the previous day some time after their son posted on Facebook to tell friends about the party.

Investigators believe Blake and Mary-Jo Hadley were attacked outside their master bedroom and the bodies were moved into the bedroom and the door locked.

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The Government has come under attack for the way it introduced a new bursary scheme designed to help the poorest teenagers stay in education.

Ministers also faced criticism from the Education Select Committee over the way the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) was scrapped.

The EMA, a weekly payment of between £10 and £30 given to the poorest teenagers to help them stay in education, was controversially scrapped by ministers earlier this year.

In a new report on 16-19-year-olds in education an training, the cross-party group of MPs said a change to financial support for this age group was “inevitable”.

The report says it is difficult to assess the benefits and improvements in pupils staying in education due to the EMA, but adds: “We would have welcomed a more measured and public analysis by the Government before it took the decision to abolish the EMA.

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