After a lifetime of “respectability”, a wealthy rural property developer now faces dying in prison after being found guilty yesterday of a sudden spate of sinister crimes against children – including sexual abuse.

Anti-social behaviour complaints in a Clackmannanshire trouble hot-spot have been cut by more than half following tough action in the area, police said. They claimed a dispersal order enforced in the village of Sauchie had seen a vast improvement in residents’ lives. The area had been plagued by teenage gangs involved in vandalism, fighting and drinking.

Huge increases in charges for day care and meals on wheels for pensioners in Shetland have been dropped after councillors backed down from an earlier decision. The move was greeted with delight by pensioners and disabled groups who were facing hikes of 172.7 per cent for day care and 81.8 per cent for meals on wheels.

With more than two in five nurses and one in three doctors experiencing physical or verbal abuse at work in the last year, the Royal College of Nursing and the British Medical Association in Scotland have joined forces to deliver a strong message to Scotland’s politicians – that all healthcare workers have the right to work without the fear of abuse or violence.

The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) has been recognised as an Investor in People after achieving the Standard on the 29 November 2006.  The prestigious award is given to organisations that have been formally recognised by Investors in People (IiP) as having a commitment to being progressive in supporting the training and development of their employees.

While Laura Lee was working as an oncology nurse at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, she met a patient who was to change her life. Maggie Keswick Jencks, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, was to become the inspiration for a radical new way of supporting patients.

A Scottish jail is so awash with heroin that visitors use it like a “drugs supermarket” and turn up to buy their fix, a court was told yesterday. Expert witness William Percy said drug users living around Castle Huntly prison, near Dundee, often buy heroin from dealers within the jail.

{mosimage}In a report to Perth Sheriff Court yesterday, Mr Percy said: “Some institutions, such as Castle Huntly, have such an abundance of diamorphine [heroin] that local drug users are entering the grounds to purchase drugs from the inmates.”

Clive Fairweather, the former chief inspector of Scotland’s prisons, last night blamed the prison service for becoming “soft on drugs” – something they were warned about four years ago.

“The prison service started to allow inmates to use methadone, the heroin substitute. That was a bad idea. They turned their back on the zero-tolerance approach to drugs and this is the result.”

Hospital patients are being asked to become hygiene inspectors under plans announced by a health board. NHS Lothian is rolling out the new “patient environment monitoring teams” following successful pilots. The teams will be made up of staff, an infection control manager and a patient nominated from the hospital patient representative group.

Offenders given community service orders are being turned away because there are not enough supervisors, it was claimed last night. Staff shortages mean some offenders are escaping their due punishment while missing out on rehabilitation. One staff member who spoke to The Herald said the most serious violent and sexual offenders spent their time “colouring-in and drawing” because there were too few social work staff to oversee the programme, a claim disputed by officials.

Three staff members at a north-east nursery have been suspended amid allegations of abuse against children, it emerged last night. Police and the Care Commission are investigating the allegations at Wee Rascals Nursery, at Kintore, Aberdeenshire.