A Roman Catholic teenager has brought a landmark legal action against a council for sending her to live with Protestant foster parents. The young woman, identified only as “AR”, is seeking damages of £70,000 from Highland council for housing her with two sets of Protestant foster parents after she was taken into care aged 8.

Church and family groups expressed fear for children growing up in broken homes yesterday after figures revealed a soaring divorce rate, a fall in the number of marriages and the highest ever number of children born out of wedlock.

The number of ambulances covering Highland Perthshire is to be reduced from two to one, it emerged yesterday. The decision sparked claims that lives will be put at risk and treatment will be delayed by the move.

Scientists in Glasgow have devised a new method of attacking cancer cells. A team of experts from the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research gave mice a chemical which caused cancer cells to “commit suicide”.

Two old folks homes will be demolished and two council depots sold off to make way for a £15million development bringing 138 new affordable houses to central Peebles.

A doctor who sent home a schoolboy asthma sufferer who later died will have to serve a three-month suspension. Three appeal judges upheld a serious professional misconduct ruling against Dr Julie Mallon, from Stirlingshire.

The father of murdered Tayport teenager Karen Dewar has condemned Fife Council for choosing not to sever links with the residential school which was criticised over failings in its handling of his daughter’s killer.

MSPs are expected to give final approval to a bill which will tighten disclosure rules for those working with children and other vulnerable groups. A new central barring unit is to be set up to ensure disqualified adults do not slip through the net.

A childminder who sent explicit mobile-phone texts to a boy of 13 escaped a prison sentence yesterday after a sheriff said there were no sex-offender programmes for women behind bars.

Every child has the right to be safe from neglect and abuse. Where there is a concern that this is not the case there are a number of steps commonly taken by support services.