Management at a care home where one resident allegedly sexually assaulted another have been branded “neglectful”. Managers and staff at Camphill Blair Drummond, a Stirlingshire home for disabled young adults, took three days to phone the police after the incident in June last year.

Four people have appeared in custody at Paisley Sheriff Court charged with arranging sham marriages to avoid immigration laws. Derek Burns, 27, of Glendower Way, and Maureen Campbell, 26, of Morar Drive, Foxbar, both Paisley, were charged with offering to arrange marriages.

The latest research from Capability Scotland’s 1 in 4 Poll on voting intentions suggests that over 90% of disabled Scots and their carers are set to vote in the Scottish elections on May 3rd 2007 – bucking the predicted low turnout for the electorate as a whole. 

A ban on the sale of 10-pack cigarettes is among a range of tough measures recommended in a report to protect children from the “tobacco trap”. The British Medical Association report also called for a rise in the cigarette purchase age to 18 from 16.

Engineers were fighting to stem the flow of millions of gallons of untreated sewage into the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh last night as a health alert was issued for ten miles of coastline.

A new computerised cancer screening system planned for Scotland is unreliable and “dangerous to patient care”, according to GPs. Doctors are calling for the cervical cancer screening system, which is due to be launched in Scotland on May 28, to be delayed so technical issues can be ironed out.

Scotland’s justice system is failing to protect the growing number of women who are victims of stalking, an investigation by The Scotsman can reveal. Ten years after a specific law on stalking was introduced south of the Border, Scotland still has not introduced an equivalent piece of legislation.

Doctors are demanding a halt to a new computerised cancer screening system amid fears it undermines patient care. A national, paperless programme for cervical cancer tests is due to be launched in Scotland in five weeks.

As the spring sunshine arrives to awaken us from our winter gloom, Scottish scientists have finally clocked on to why the changing seasons affect our state of mind. Researchers from Edinburgh University have identified a part of the brain which co-ordinates the annual biological clock.

The number of British soldiers, sailors and airmen caught using Class A drugs such as crack cocaine, heroin and ecstasy jumped to 56.9% of those who tested positive for illegal drugs last year, The Herald reveals.