A former director of a care home charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice appeared in court today.

A Former Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Marines who now runs a Gloucester charity home for the mentally-ill has denied assaulting his deputy manager at a heated staff meeting.

Elderly care services could go from “bad to worse” unless the government provides more money and overhauls the system, a charity has warned.

The government says it will recruit 4,000 extra midwives in England by 2012 to relieve pressure on overstretched maternity services.

Police searching a former Jersey children’s home where a child’s remains were discovered have said they are investigating six more sites.

The remains found at Haut de la Garenne on Saturday were detected by a sniffer dog through several inches of concrete.

The search is part of an ongoing police investigation into alleged abuse on the island dating back more than 40 years.

Jersey’s Chief Minister rejected claims there had been a cover-up and said the find “shocked the island to the core”.

Senator Frank Walker told the BBC: “One of the big questions has to be: how could a child disappear without anyone being aware of it?”

Former Jersey Health Minister Senator Stuart Syvret, who was sacked from his post last year, has urged anyone who was at Haut de la Garenne to come forward.

Parts of a child’s body have been found by police in a former children’s home in Jersey.

Police believe more bodies may be found at Haut de la Garenne in St Martin, which is at the centre of an inquiry into alleged child abuse.

The remains are thought to date from the early 1980s. Police have not said whether they are male or female.

The investigation involves the abuse of boys and girls aged between 11 and 15, since the 1960s.

Jersey police began investigating allegations of abuse in November last year.

The excavation of Haut de la Garenne, involving a sniffer dog and ground radar, started on Tuesday when information emerged from the police inquiry.

Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler, faces spending the rest of his life in prison when he is sentenced today for murdering five Ipswich prostitutes during a six-week killing spree.

His conviction, on forensic evidence, last night reignited the debate on the rapid expansion of the national DNA database, which holds the profiles of at least four million people in Britain.

Ministers, police and prosecutors praised the database for providing the breakthrough evidence that led to the arrest of Wright after his DNA was found on the body of his third victim.

His profile was stored in 2003 when he was convicted of stealing £40 while working as a hotel barman to fund his addiction to sex with prostitutes.

Martin Salter, a Labour member of the House of Commons Home Affairs select committee, said that a compulsory DNA database was the “logical extension of biometric passports”.

The Director of a Gloucester home for the severely mentally ill assaulted his deputy manager during an angry staff meeting, a court heard.

Three nurses yesterday admitted wrongly administering drugs at a Birmingham care home where 27 patients died in a year.

Ministers are promising services for dying children in England will be transformed by the first-ever palliative care strategy.