Hundreds of unaccompanied asylum seeker children are in line to be housed in Scotland to ease pressure on English local authorities, The Herald has learned. The Home Office is consulting on proposals to find other homes for about 3000 children who arrive alone in the UK each year and claim asylum, after complaints from London and south-east England that they take too many of the youngsters.

Six weeks ago Jack McConnell drove to a farmhouse in South Lanarkshire to visit six female heroin addicts undergoing a controversial withdrawal treatment. Yesterday, the First Minister welcomed the same women into his official residence in Edinburgh, Bute House, and found them transformed.

Victims of domestic abuse are being forced to represent themselves in court or travel to the central belt for legal help because solicitors in Inverness can no longer afford to cover some civil legal aid cases.

A sex offender who threatened to rape his victim was jailed for two years yesterday. Security guard William Lafferty, 26, stalked his victim after she walked past him to buy a late-night takeaway meal.

Racism in Scotland is a “cancer” that is getting bigger every day, it was claimed yesterday, as new figures revealed a large rise in attacks on members of ethnic- minority communities.

The first company in the UK dedicated to tackling antisocial behaviour will employ a dozen CCTV vans and innovative audio-visual technology in its battle against low-level crime.

One of Scotland’s best-known oil industry entrepreneurs promised a £20m bonanza for charity after he and relatives netted £135m by selling shares in the company that he chairs.

Five of Scotland’s most respected doctors have raised new concerns over the building to replace the country’s biggest children’s hospital.

Street pastors could soon be helping to tackle antisocial behaviour in Perth after eight volunteers signed up to join the pioneering project.

A Perth councillor believes that cuts to the local authority’s childminding service are “short-sighted” and will have a wide impact. Perth and Kinross Council has decided not to renew the contract of a senior childminder and will not be extending their service level agreement with the Scottish Childminding Association.