A 12-hour brain operation was cancelled moments before it was due to start after doctors noticed surgical tools were not sterile. Alan Paterson, from Torphins, Aberdeenshire, was already lying on a trolley and wired up to monitors when surgeons noticed the three sets of non-sterile equipment.

Hundreds of unaccompanied asylum seeker children are in line to be housed in Scotland to ease pressure on English local authorities, The Herald has learned. The Home Office is consulting on proposals to find other homes for about 3000 children who arrive alone in the UK each year and claim asylum, after complaints from London and south-east England that they take too many of the youngsters.

Six weeks ago Jack McConnell drove to a farmhouse in South Lanarkshire to visit six female heroin addicts undergoing a controversial withdrawal treatment. Yesterday, the First Minister welcomed the same women into his official residence in Edinburgh, Bute House, and found them transformed.

A bid to scrap Scotland’s controversial “not proven” verdict was launched yesterday. Labour MSP Michael McMahon said the three verdict system caused confusion. He wants to return to the old Scottish two verdicts system – proven and not proven.

The Home Office has agreed to review the cases of 1,000 asylum seeking families in Scotland, First Minister Jack McConnell has said. The Scottish Executive asked the UK Government to look again at long-running cases involving children who have grown up in Scotland.

Police are urging more victims of forced marriages and domestic abuse within black and ethnic communities to come forward for help. A conference is being held in Glasgow to raise the profile of the culturally sensitive support available.

A potential breakthrough treatment for asthma sufferers has been unveiled by British scientists. Researchers have found that treating severely affected patients with bronchial thermoplasty, or specially-heated air fed into the lungs, leads to “significant” improvements.

A male nurse has been struck off after being found guilty of forcing a pensioner with Alzheimer’s to slap his own bare chest while making the sound of Tarzan’s call. Andrew Finlayson, 53, was also found guilty of telling the 70-year-old man, a former professional footballer, to “go and play on the f****** motorway.”

Victims of domestic abuse are being forced to represent themselves in court or travel to the central belt for legal help because solicitors in Inverness can no longer afford to cover some civil legal aid cases.

A sex offender who threatened to rape his victim was jailed for two years yesterday. Security guard William Lafferty, 26, stalked his victim after she walked past him to buy a late-night takeaway meal.