A solicitor”embellished” claims for legal aid in child welfare cases with false details of sex abuse to fraudulently obtain nearly £2 million, The Scotsman can reveal.

Terminally-ill patients are experiencing a lottery in care with wide variations across Scotland in home support in their final months.

{mosimage}Some health boards offer patients an average of 140 hours with specially trained nurses, while those in other parts of the country receive only an average of 40 hours.

The figures from Marie Curie Cancer Care, the first time the charity has released them publicly, also show that demand for its home care nurses often bursts the budget agreed by NHS managers.

Research has shown that 75% of the public would choose to die at home, but only 23% of people are able to fulfil this aim.

Aileen Eland, Scotland nurse manager for the charity, indicated cash shortages and the low priority given to end-of-life care were behind the problem.

She said: “Every manager I meet with wants to have the best for their patients, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind about that, but they are constrained. What they would like to do and what they can do are two different things.”

Violent crime in Scotland has increased by more than a third in two years, figures revealed yesterday. Minor assaults accounted for the bulk of the increase – unlike in England and Wales where the level of violent crime has remained constant.

Scotland’s most senior judge yesterday launched an unprecedented attack on the Lord Advocate, accusing the country’s top prosecutor of undermining the independence of the judiciary in the wake of the World’s End trial collapse.

A campaign to end the “carnage and crime” on Scotland’s streets caused by the country’s booze and blades culture has received a £1m boost.

Sentence has been deferred on a former postal worker from Peebles found with more than 1,000 indecent images of children on his computer.

Some abused or neglected children in Edinburgh are being left in high-risk situations instead of being removed from their homes, inspectors have said.

The cost of saving Scottish accident and emergency departments came under the spotlight yesterday with warnings that the move will cost millions and require hundreds of extra doctors.

Record numbers of young people are being put on the child protection register in Scotland, with an increase of 13 per cent in a year, a new report has revealed.

Protesters against plans to merge Scotland’s four neurosurgery units are to deliver a 22,000-name petition to Holyrood, amid growing fears that the move would cost lives.