A foster carer has been jailed for four years for beating girls she looked after and her husband has been given a three-year jail term for sexual abuse.

Some English hospitals should be stripped of doctor-led maternity care and specialist children’s services, a government adviser says. Dr Sheila Shribman, the children and maternity tsar, calls for regional super-centres instead.

On-the-spot fines for drunken patients who abuse casualty staff have been hailed a success by trust bosses. A three-month pilot was carried out at the Royal Bolton Hospital in Greater Manchester to curb misbehaviour and will now be extended indefinitely.

Media criticism of Essex social workers has created recruitment problems for the service, a chief officer admitted this week. Doctor Carey Bennet, recently appointed head of the county council’s new schools, children and families service, told the Yellow Advertiser the press coverage made it harder to recruit social workers.

Mentally-ill patients and their families need more protection under the Mental Health Bill, MPs and peers have said. The Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) said the Bill, currently with the House of Lords, needs amending.

An independent inquiry has been demanded into the handling of a child abuse case that has disturbing echoes of the Victoria Climbie scandal. A four-year-old with cerebral palsy was handed back to her parents by social workers despite foster carers’ grave concerns.

Over seven weeks from 1 February to 18 March last year she suffered the worst abuse experts said they had seen.

{mosimage}Kimberley Harte, 23, and Samuel Duncan, 26, kicked their daughter repeatedly in the groin and locked her in a toilet for 49 days, only weeks after she had been allowed home by Westminster City Council social services.

The Maida Vale couple, who forced her to eat her own faeces and take cold baths, have been found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and this week face possible life sentences.

Today Labour councillors in Westminster demanded a full independent inquiry into the council’s handling of the case.

Labour group leader Paul Dimoldenberg said: “The full circumstances of the council’s decision to let the child return home need to be investigated thoroughly so that, if mistakes were made, they can be avoided in the future.”

The former RAF Base at Coltishall, near Norwich, is being transferred to the Home Office as part of our efforts to expand detention capacity.

Three men who used an internet chat room to hatch a plot to rape two young sisters have been jailed. They made “chilling references to the Soham murders” on a free website, Southwark Crown Court heard.

{mosimage}David Beavan, 42, of Bransgore, Hants, Alan Hedgcock, 41, of Twickenham, and Robert Mayers, 42, of Warrington, were found guilty of conspiracy to rape.

They were given indeterminate sentences with an 11-year tariff for Beavan and eight-year tariffs for the other two.

Jurors heard how the men, who had never met, came across each other in an incest chatroom where Hedgcock told Beavan he wanted to abuse two sisters, aged 13 and 14.

Beavan said he was interested in the plan, which involved pouncing on them as they walked through woods to school.

Mayers was later recruited via the internet.

Passing sentence on Monday Judge Geoffry Rivlin QC said the chatroom logs of their discussions about the plan were “most lurid and disgusting”.

A Government race adviser with close links to Cherie Blair is at the centre of a major investigation into an alleged illegal immigrant employment racket. Police and Immigration Service officers stormed the £3.5million home of Nighat Awan on Friday night as part of a nationwide swoop on Indian restaurants, including those owned by her and her husband.

{mosimage}A total of 70 men were arrested in the raids.

Mrs Awan, 51, spoke to police while they carried out a search of her home. Documents and computer equipment are believed to have been removed by officers later.

The raids are a major embarrassment for Labour. Mrs Awan, one of Britain’s richest businesswomen, was last year appointed head of a Department of Trade and Industry-backed group to support black and ethnic minority businesses.

She is a close ally of Jack Straw, the Leader of the House of Commons. In 2004 she was awarded an OBE for her export and overseas charity work.

Three years ago, Cherie Blair was guest of honour at a garden party thrown by Mrs Awan at her former home in Cheshire. The businesswoman and her family have also toured Downing Street.

Two heroin addicts taking part in a new drug addiction treatment have hailed the therapy as “life changing”. The former drug users have this week been taking part in the first pilot trial of Net – Neuro-electric therapy – hailed by addiction charities as a potential alternative to methadone.