A multiple sclerosis sufferer won permission yesterday to bring a High Court challenge to clarify the law on assisted suicide.

A dossier of abuse of the human rights of children and young people in Britain will be presented to United Nations inspectors today in a joint submission from the four children’s commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

They will report widespread infringements of the UN convention on the rights of the child (UNCRC) that have denied hope and opportunity to many of Britain’s 14 million children and adolescents. The most serious defects include:

· A punitive juvenile justice system;
· Public attitudes that demonise teenagers;
· Lack of protection against physical punishment in the home;
· One of the highest levels of child poverty in Europe.

The commissioners will submit their complaints to a UN review of children’s rights in Britain, which is due to examine whether any improvements have been made over the past five years.

A disabled man was murdered in his bed by his former care worker so she could obtain a £60,000 inheritance, a court was told.

Thelma Purchase is said to have recruited her son Lance Rudge, and his friend, Shane Edge, both 20, to murder Gregory Baker because she “wouldn’t wait” for the money he had promised her in his will.

Mr Baker, 61, was found suffocated at his cottage in the village of Alton, Staffordshire, by a carer paying a routine visit on June 16 last year.

The court heard how childhood polio left Mr Baker with weakness in his left arm and right leg, and he later developed muscular dystrophy, so carers would visit his cottage three times a day to help him with daily tasks.

Ms Purchase had been his main care worker, and remained his friend after she stopped working with him some years ago, jurors were told.

Thousands of vulnerable people are going without food and heating to pay the soaring costs of homecare services provided by local authorities, a coalition of 18 charities says in a report out today.

The charities found that charges for assistance with dressing, washing and eating have more than trebled since 1997 as cash-strapped councils try to limit growth in the social services budget.

Many disabled people and fragile pensioners had cancelled help because they could no longer afford to pay. Others were going short of food or fuel to pay for home care or transport to a day centre.

The charities – representing disabled people, older people, people with long-term medical conditions and carers – said councils had wide discretion about how much to charge. In some areas services were free, but in others the cost could be up to £17.30 an hour. Only the poorest households were exempt.

Councils should be forced to spend a set amount of their funding on buying services from charities and social enterprises, the care services minister, Ivan Lewis, said today.

A new Alzheimer’s research centre has opened in Newcastle. The Newcastle University’s Institute for Ageing and Health campus is based in the city’s general hospital, reports the Newcastle Journal.

Tens of thousands of migrants are working with vulnerable elderly people in care homes without undergoing full criminal record checks, The Times has learnt.

Senior police officers have alerted Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, to the scale of the problem in a report detailing the impact on the UK of migration from Eastern Europe. The introduction of a watchdog next year to vet care workers will not address the problem, they add.

It is estimated that about 400,000 elderly people are being looked after in care homes. This figure is expected to reach 750,000 by 2031 as more and more people live longer. Many of the homes would be unable to operate without employing foreign workers, as British workers are unwilling to take the jobs.

Ms Smith has been told that tens of thousands of migrants are being employed in care homes and other areas of social care without being fully checked because the authorities cannot access foreign criminal records.

The mother of Victoria Climbie, who was tortured and murdered in 2000, says she is “shocked” that lessons from the case have still not been learned.

The cost of caring for people with mental health disorders is expected to spiral, a report says. This is due to a predicted rise in the number of people in England with dementia, the King’s Fund study argues.

Children in divorce and separation cases are being left at risk of abuse because of serious failings by social workers dealing with their cases, according to a watchdog.

A report seen by The Times discloses how a backlog of cases is leaving children vulnerable, particularly in family breakdowns involving domestic violence and abuse.

An Ofsted inspection of the service, set up to to ensure that children’s views were represented in family courts, uncovered a catalogue of failings in the South East region. It found a waiting list of 150 cases, delays of six months for some families, inadequate assessments of the impact of domestic violence in most cases and a failure to refer cases to local authorities where there were concerns for the child’s welfare.

A separate report identified “serious failings” in another part of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass) in the East Midlands region in February.