The UK’s biggest Rastafarian temple was turned into a major drug dealing centre where hundreds of people went to buy cannabis and crack cocaine every day, detectives said yesterday.

A heroin addict accused of trying to quieten her baby by giving him methadone admitted the child’s manslaughter at a court hearing yesterday.

{mosimage}Gemma Fennelly, 24, changed her plea on the day her retrial over the tragedy in Hartlepool two years ago was due to start, after earlier proceedings were stopped to allow forensic tests on fresh scientific evidence for the defence. She was released on bail by a judge at Teesside crown court, to return for sentencing at the beginning of May for “allowing and/or failing through gross negligence to prevent” 22-month-old Mitchell Bate from taking a lethal dose of the drug.

The child died in September 2005 after collapsing from enough methadone to kill an adult, allegedly built up by successive doses.

More than half of doctors suffer from low morale at work and many blame NHS reforms, a survey suggests. A survey of more than 1,400 doctors found that 69% would not recommend a career in medicine. The same number said morale fell in the last year.

Doctors providing out-of-hours care are being replaced with less qualified staff such as nurses in some areas, a poll suggests. Pulse magazine found 19 out of 50 primary care organisations it surveyed had replaced doctors with cheaper alternatives in some areas.

Council spending cuts could see many elderly and infirm people moved out of the county, and away from their loved ones, the Oxfordshire Care Home Association claims.

Seven new specialist enforcement teams will tackle poorly performing care services, under new proposals agreed by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI).

{mosimage}The move reflects CSCI’s commitment to improving services and stamping out bad practice wherever we see it. 

While much progress has already been made, there is still more to do. 

Based in each of CSCI’s seven regions, the enforcement teams will be led by highly experienced senior inspectors – called Regulation Managers – supported by specialist inspectors and support staff.

The teams will work closely with CSCI’s lawyers to improve the speed, quality and consistency of enforcement activity in England. 

CSCI will also inform local councils, who purchase services for local residents, about poorly performing care services in their area, and the legally binding ‘requirements to improve’ placed upon services by CSCI inspectors.  

Britain’s largest specialist schoolwear retailer has expanded its range of outsized uniforms for sale “off the peg” in response to growing demand from parents who are struggling to find clothes to fit their overweight children.

The Home Office’s headline-generating plan to test a version of “Sarah’s Law”, aimed at alerting the public to paedophiles, was found last night to be a limited pilot scheme offering little different to present arrangements for disclosure of information on sex offenders.

Britons are increasingly likely to live in single-parent families, stay at home for longer, marry later and struggle to afford a house, official figures say.

The Home Office last night disowned plans to pilot a British version of Megan’s Law aimed at sex offenders, after a barrage of criticism from child protection agencies.