A hearing into the conduct of a registered social worker who worked in the Brigend area will be held between 14 and 16 March 2007 by a Care Council for Wales Conduct Committee. The hearing will take place from 10am at the Royal Hotel in Cardiff.

Councillors have attacked their own council for spending more than £4.5m last year on agency staff. An investigation by a scrutiny committee of Flintshire County Council says reliance on temporary staff by other councils does not excuse Flintshire’s “laissez-faire approach” to using such staff.

Fears have been expressed that the creation of a new “super agency” covering all equality issues could result in Welsh input being downgraded. In October, the Commission for Equality and Human Rights will be launched, taking over from three existing bodies – the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission.

A man accused of ordering his mistress to stab his wife to death had sexual fantasies about knives and having his blood tasted, a court heard yesterday.

Welsh patients will lose out because the new recruitment scheme for junior doctors is in “meltdown”, the British Medical Association (BMA) Wales has warned.

A woman who helped her boyfriend make a getaway after he kidnapped and raped a teenage girl from Wrexham has been given a 12-month suspended sentence.

Like any newly-married couple, Kelvin and Sarah Wagstaff lovingly show off their wedding rings. But behind their display of affection is an act of defiance, as the bride vows to stand by her paedophile husband. Speaking at the end of their first full day as man and wife, Sarah said she will support him even if he goes to prison for his vile crimes.

A Muslim teaching assistant who was suspended and later sacked for refusing to remove her veil in the classroom yesterday appealed against a tribunal decision which supported her school’s action.

Research by Welsh scientists has for the first time linked autism to genes associated with timing and biological clocks. The disability is recognised as having hereditary origins, but the study by the University of Wales, Bangor, identifies two new genes not previously thought to have been associated with the condition.

A man whose 85-year-old mother died after spending 29 hours on a hospital trolley his described the treatment she received as “totally unacceptable”. Betty Morgan died in December last year after being admitted to the trauma unit at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff suffering from severe arthritic pains.