In the News

Children are kept waiting in foster care for months and even a year or more because of councils’ “wholly unacceptable” misuse of law, the country’s most senior family judge has said.
 

Sir James Munby castigated social services for what he called their “misuse and abuse” of laws that were aimed at providing short-term accommodation to children who needed a safe home. In the case before him, two children were waiting in foster care for 18 months, which could “no longer be tolerated”, the president of the High Court family division said.

The law gives local authority chiefs power to place a child in foster care — in circumstances where it has been “lost or abandoned” or has no one with “parental responsibility”. However, Sir James suggested that too often children were unfairly kept in foster placements for long periods — not knowing where they would live in the long term. “It is, in my judgment, and I use the phrase advisedly and deliberately, a misuse by the local authority of its statutory powers. It is a wrong; it is a denial of the fundamental rights of both the parent and the child; it will no longer be tolerated and it must stop.”

A doctor who admitted that an abortion he was offering was tantamount to "female infanticide" has been struck off by a medical tribunal for three months.
 

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service ruled that Dr Palaniappan Rajmohan lied about the reasons he carried out the termination.
 

The General Medical Council convened the disciplinary panel to rule on Dr Palaniappan Rajmohan's fitness to practice after he was recorded by The Telegraph offering to arrange an abortion for a woman who said she wanted the procedure because the baby was a girl.
 

The GMC dropped its investigation into Prabha Sivaraman, a second doctor, who was recorded telling a woman: "I don't ask questions. If you want a termination, you want a termination." The regulatory body began inquiries into both doctors after a Telegraph investigation into so-called sex selective abortion.
 

Acting on specific information, undercover reporters accompanied pregnant women to nine clinics in different parts of the country. In two cases, doctors were filmed offering to arrange terminations after being told the woman did not want to go ahead with the pregnancy because of the sex of the unborn child.

"Numbers are my thing", says Gary Grant, the founder of toy shop chain The Entertainer.
 

He doesn't really need to say it. In an hour in his company, the conversation is peppered with numbers: How many shillings make a pound, how old he was when something important happened in his life and the dates of historic occasions. When he can't remember a number, he keeps interrupting himself, returning back to the original topic, until he does.
 

To a non-maths person it's exhausting, but it's an insight into how Mr Grant's mind works. Dyslexic, he wasn't interested in school at all, but says maths was "easy peasy". He failed his 11-plus exam and hence went to what he calls the "failures' school", which he left at 16 with just one qualification - O-level maths.

Drawing on our collected evidence, we have identified eight key equality and human rights challenges for Great Britain over the coming years:

1. Improve the evidence and the ability to assess how fair society is.

2. Raise standards and close attainment gaps in education.

3. Encourage fair recruitment, development and reward in employment.

4. Support improved living conditions in cohesive communities.

5. Encourage democratic participation and ensure access to justice.

6. Improve access to mental health services and support for those experiencing (or at risk of experiencing) poor mental health.

7. Prevent abuse, neglect and ill-treatment in care and detention.

8. Tackle targeted harassment and abuse of people who share particular protected characteristics.