Child sex offenders should be encouraged to seek treatment rather than be threatened with jail, the police’s child protection chief says. Jim Gamble, of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), said it was a practical way of dealing with the scale of the problem.

A coroner called yesterday for an urgent review of the use of restraint on young offenders after a jury returned a suicide verdict on a vulnerable 14-year-old who hanged himself with his shoelaces at a privately-run secure unit.

A police child protection chief has been criticised for arguing that paedophiles convicted of looking at child pornography should not necessarily go to prison. Jim Gamble of the Child Exploitation

Speaking to the National Pensions Convention in Blackpool, Paul Snell, CSCI’s Chief Inspector, paid tribute to the valuable role the NPC fulfils in raising the profile of older people and the issues that matter to the older generation.

Complaints to the city’s social care services rose by 20 per cent last year, according to a new report. City of York Council dealt with 111 complaints between April 1, 2006 and March 31, 2007.

A prescription-only pill to help people quit smoking has received draft approval for use on the NHS. Varenicline (Champix) is the first non-nicotine drug developed specifically to help smokers give up, and was licensed in the UK in 2006.

Female-dominated caring professions are being undermined by “pocket money” pay rates and high staff turnover, a report has warned. The Equal Opportunities Commission said services such as childminding and caring

Security guards will be able to search pupils for knives at the school gates without their consent under government guidance to be published today. Schools will also be able to use security arches and metal detector wands when they search pupils for violent weapons.

{mosimage}Legislation passed last year giving teachers power to search pupils for knives and other offensive weapons without consent comes into effect today. But guidance to headteachers from the Department for Education and Skills, published for the first time today, shows how schools can use the new powers. It makes plain that screening and searching can be carried out by professionally trained security staff, as well as teachers. However, it adds that where there is any risk to safety, police should be called.

Security guards would be asked by headteachers to do the work if they felt it necessary. They would have to be vetted with checks by the Criminal Records Bureau, the department said. Guards would also be able to search pupils without their consent. Under the plans, parents would be told annually by schools that a searching policy was in place.

Education department officials insisted last night that the problem of knives in schools was not a large one, but that the powers were needed to deal with the small minority of serious cases.

Up to a million households struggling with rising living costs and lured by offers of easy credit will face court action over their debts this year.

Britain’s leading fertility expert condemned the IVF industry yesterday, saying that it had been corrupted by money and that doctors were exploiting women who were desperate to get pregnant.