A young man who rose from an inner-city background to become a youth worker and a promising horse rider has been shot dead, the 17th teenager to be murdered in the capital this year.

The government says it is making dementia a top priority as it calls on experts to find ways to reduce its spiralling burden on society. There are 560,000 people with dementia in England, each costing the economy £25,391 every year.

The number of patients leaving Health Service hospitals suffering from malnourishment has risen by two-thirds in the past five years.

The current child protection system is still not working effectively, an expert has said. Mark Williams-Thomas said a national computer network will not be working fully until 2010, and people can still get around criminal record checks.

{mosimage}His comments come on the fifth anniversary of the abduction of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham.

The Home Office said the computer system could bring benefits by 2009 and criminal checks are “highly accurate”.

Mr Williams-Thomas, a former police detective who runs a child protection consultancy, has spent 15 years in the field, including working on the Sarah Payne and Jonathan King inquiries. He said the computer network allowing material to be shared between police forces is running three years late.

The development was one of the recommendations of the Bichard Inquiry, set up to investigate how Ian Huntley secured a job as a school caretaker despite a string of sex allegations against him.