A new, single Family Court has been formed to replace the three-tiered system currently in place in England and Wales, with ministers agreeing that the welfare of the children involved should be at the very core of the system. Family Courts deals with adoption cases, child abduction, divorce, legal guardianship of a child and parental responsibility, and there are around 270,000 new cases spanning these cat ...

In the first of its kind programme, Derby College in the East Midlands is raising awareness and fighting back against forced marriage and so-called honour crimes. The college is working with Karma Nirvana, a charity set up by former student Jasvinder Sanghera that is dedicated to helping the victims of these situations and has campaigned to make forced marriage a crime in the UK. The aim of the programme is ...

In a trial of almost 700 heroine addicts, shopping vouchers for supermarkets will be awarded if the user is able to stay clean or if they complete a course of vaccinations. The trial follows a smaller study from the King’s College London that suggests financial incentives encourage drug users to do just that. Although hepatitis B (HepB) isn’t considered very common in England, about a fifth of users who inj ...

In a triumphant move for conservationists seeking to protect whales from unnecessary threat, Japan has been banned from whaling in the Southern Ocean until their programme has been redesigned, by the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ is made up of 15 judges, as well as the Presiding Judge Peter Tomka who read out the Court’s 12-4 ruling against Japan’s ‘scientific’ whaling. In 19 ...

In a triumphant move for anyone who has ever received a nuisance telephone call from a company trying to sell them something they don’t want or need, or when the ‘person’ on the other end of the line says nothing at all or even just hangs up, the government is consulting on heavier fines for these cold callers and making it easier to fine them, too. At the moment, firms who make unsolicited, or cold, calls ...

A man who has been on Death Row in Japan for the last 48 years for a crime he may not even have committed finally has his freedom. Iwao Hakamada holds the Guinness World Record for the person to have served on Death Row for the longest, ever in history, and has now been released after DNA tests indicate he probably wasn’t the culprit after all. Hakamada, a 30-year-old former professional boxer and worker in ...

Atos Healthcare works on behalf of the government, and its job is to determine whether or not a disability claimant is actually fit to work, or will be in the future. Although there is no direct evidence, the company is thought to be responsible for forcing some of these claimants into work when they were not well enough, through their “fit-to-work” assessments. When a person wants to apply for Employment a ...

A regulation that was brought in November of last year that prevents books being sent to prisoners in jail may end up being thwarted by an outcry that appears to be led by some of Britain’s most famous authors. The rule doesn’t completely ban prisoners from reading - the prisoners will be able to buy books using credits that are awarded for good behaviour as part of the Incentive and Earned Privileges schem ...

Could the cogs be in motion for the legalisation of cannabis? Campaigners seem to think so as the battle for a cannabis café in Britain has begun waging once again. Councillor Ian Driver of Thanet District Council’s Green Party in Kent has said that this week marks the beginning of the search for possible venues for a cannabis café in Margate or Ramsgate, both in Thanet. In fact, in anticipation of a change ...

There is much talk of how overfilled our courtrooms and prisons are, yet thousands of people appear in court every week for not having a TV license - some even end up in jail. But now a bill is going to be put before Parliament proposing that non-payment of the licence should no longer be a criminal offence. North West Leicestershire Tory MP Andrew Bridgen recently suggested that not paying your TV licence ...