A care home firm was ordered to pay £145,000 today after a disabled teenager was fatally scalded in a bath. Paraplegic Yelena Hasselberg-Langley, 18, suffered ”excruciating agony” after being lowered into the hot water at a supported living centre in Owens Way, Oxford.

THE Sue Ryder care home in Ely is set to close its doors for the final time at the end of January.

Two young brothers who attacked and tortured two other boys and left them for dead in wasteland near the South Yorkshire pit village of Edlington were today given indeterminate sentences for a crime which shocked the nation.

AN investigation into childcare at a Taunton nursery was cut short after the owner withdrew their OFSTED registration, the County Gazette can reveal.

Barnardo’s chief executive Martin Narey is calling for tough targets to address the slow progress of children in care cases through the courts.

A PAEDIATRICIAN who treated children in care is accused of a string of misconduct allegations – including misdiagnosing vulnerable children and tricking NHS patients into seeing him privately.

Ofsted has been beset with “a lack of strategic expertise and practitioner expertise” in its inspection of council children’s services departments, watchdog MPs have been told.

Social services bosses will next week meet voluntary organisations to see if any charities might be prepared to take over the running of two Norwich day centres threatened with the axe.

Social services are again in the political spotlight as more details emerge about the terrifying attack on two children in Doncaster.

A SOCIAL worker stole £33,000 over a year from a mentally ill man she was supposed to be looking after.