Elderly victims of crime will be allowed to give evidence via video links from home, prosecutors said yesterday as it emerged that up to 500,000 older people a year could fall victim to abuse and neglect, bogus traders or street crime.

{mosimage}There is a huge under-reporting of crimes against older people, due to fear, embarrassment and a lack of access to trusted people to whom they can report their worries. One study, published this year, found that only 6% of elderly victims had reported abuse to the police.

The Crown Prosecution Service said it was increasingly concerned about the abuse of society’s most frail and vulnerable, particularly by those in positions of trust. It said special measures such as video links between courts and the homes of victims, and the potential admissibility of hearsay evidence, could help to increase the number of successful prosecutions.

Prosecutors will also monitor offences for the first time, flagging up abuse and neglect against victims aged 65 or over and also those crimes aimed at older people due to their perceived vulnerability.

Yesterday Sir Ken MacDonald, the director of public prosecutions, said tackling such offences should be a priority. Introducing a public consultation on policy towards older people, he said he wanted it known that the CPS understood the serious implications of the crimes:

Construction on a centre for victims of sexual assault in Gloucestershire will soon begin. It is hoped the Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) will improve conviction rates for rape in the county.

A 19-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder following the deaths of two residents at a nursing home in Leicester.

People who balance work with caring for old or disabled relatives, providing help with activities including house repairs and gardening, should be entitled to tax breaks, a group of leading employers will today tell the prime minister.

{mosimage}The companies, which include BT, John Lewis and IBM, say employees with caring responsibilities should be able to receive part of their salary as tax-free care vouchers, which they could then spend on services to help with the care.

The scheme, which might encompass extra home care, chiropody and a range of other health-linked services to assist relatives, could be modelled on a similar one introduced by the government to help parents meet childcare costs. Parents can choose to be paid partly in vouchers, and users of the scheme pay no tax or national insurance on this part of their earnings.

A similar care vouchers scheme would help employers support staff with care responsibilities, according to a letter from the employers to Gordon Brown and to the chancellor, Alistair Darling. It states: “Our reasons for supporting this proposal are both economically sound and community minded.

We feel that, as is the situation with new parents, employers and government have a duty to support individuals in this way. However, we also recognise that demographic changes are creating the need to find innovative ways to support staff with their caring roles, older and female workers in particular.”

A Health and Social Care Bill will give tough powers to a new regulator, the Care Quality Commission, with the aim of driving up the standard of health care and social services.

A former care worker who fraudulently claimed more than £4,000 in benefits has been given a conditional discharge.

An adoption service has called for more black and ethnic minority families to come forward to take on children in Bristol.

The government announced a bill to improve services for vulnerable children and young people in today’s Queen’s speech.

A frail pensioner was battered with a walking stick by another resident at her Liverpool care home. Alzheimer’s sufferer Dorothy Taggart, 70, who weighs only six stone, suffered a broken nose, cheekbone and badly cut face in the attack by the other woman.

A children’s nursery worker was arrested yesterday as police smashed an alleged network of North African terrorist cells which recruited suicide bombers.