One In 10 Five-Year-Olds Has A Mobile Phone

Nearly one in 10 children has a mobile phone by the time they are five years old, according to a new study.

On average, youngsters are bought their first handset at the age of 11, soon after starting secondary school.

However, some 9% of parents said they bought their children a phone when they were five.

The study by comparison site uSwitch.com also found that mums and dads spend an average £125 on their children's gadgets - and around £246 on their own mobiles.

But despite the cost, 42% said they did not pay close attention to their children's phone bills.

Only a quarter capped their youngster's contracts, while just 3% said they disabled the data function on their phones so that they could only be used for making calls or sending text messages.

Children spend an average £11 per month on their mobiles - less than parents who spend £19.

However, more than one in 10 (11%) of youngsters spends more than their mother or father, the research showed.

The study - of 1,420 parents with children aged under 16 - also revealed that parents were likely to spend more money on their first-born's phone and bills than on those of any younger siblings.

Ernest Doku, a telecoms expert at uSwitch.com, said: "As well as arming kids with mobiles for emergencies and peace of mind, I'd imagine that many parents have bought their kids smartphones just to stop them commandeering their own when bored."

He suggested parents cap their children's mobile bills, adding: "Make sure that when they're at home, your kids are browsing the web using wi-fi instead of consuming data by connecting to the internet via 3G or 4G."

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Cardinal Keith O'Brien Halted Sex Abuse Probe

Disgraced Cardinal Keith O'Brien blocked an independent inquiry into cases of historic sexual abuse a year before resigning over his own inappropriate sexual conduct.

The Bishops' Conference of Scotland commissioned a report into allegations of abuse in 2011 but it was halted the following year when Cardinal O'Brien, then president of the conference, withdrew his support.

He stepped down as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh in February after three priests and a former priest made allegations of inappropriate behaviour against him.

He issued an apology, saying "there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me".

Cardinal O'Brien's opposition to an inquiry into Church-related abuse allegations was revealed by the retired Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, in a letter to the Catholic newspaper The Tablet.

Archbishop Conti wrote: "It was the intention of all but one member of the Bishops' Conference to commission an independent examination of the historical cases we had on file in all of our respective dioceses and publish the results, but this was delayed by the objection of the then president of the conference; without full participation of all the dioceses the exercise would have been faulty."

The Cardinal has admitted his conduct fell beneath "the standards expected"

A Church spokesman said: "This refers to a decision taken in 2011 by the Bishops' Conference of Scotland to commission an independent academic analysis of statistics relating to abuse and allegations of abuse over a 60-year period from 1952 to 2012.

"This project, with the co-operation of each of the eight dioceses in Scotland, started and ran until 2012, at which time, the then president of the conference, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, withdrew from the project.

"Without the participation of all the dioceses a 'national audit' was not possible so the analysis was stopped."

Following his resignation Cardinal O'Brien, 75, stated that he would play no further part in the public life of the Catholic Church in Scotland and has since left the country for a period of "spiritual renewal and reflection".

Monsignor Leo Cushley, who formerly worked on the Vatican's diplomatic team, was last month appointed his successor.

At a meeting in June, the Bishops' Conference of Scotland agreed to publish audits relating to the Church's eight dioceses since 2006.

The reports, to be published in the autumn, "will detail any complaints made about clergy, church workers, volunteers or anyone else and how these complaints were dealt with", the Church said.

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Dave Lee Travis Faces Sex Charges In Court

By Tom Parmenter, Sky News Correspondent

Broadcaster Dave Lee Travis has appeared in court over 12 alleged sexual offences.

The 68-year-old is charged under his real name of David Patrick Griffin and faces 11 indecent assault charges and one of sexual assault.

As he arrived at court he rebuffed repeated questions from journalists and said that if he wanted to elaborate he could talk for "three hours about it".

He sat in the dock during the short hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court in central London, where he confirmed his name and address.

Travis was again faced by a media scrum as he left court, and said little apart from a reference to the blood sport of hare-coursing.

He said: "I am supported by my wife and my friends.

"My wife is not here today, and the reason she's not here today is because I detest hare-coursing."

The charges Travis faces span from 1977 to 2007 - the youngest of the nine alleged victims was 15-years-old.

The DJ has consistently denied any wrongdoing since he was first arrested at his home near Leighton Buzzard in November 2012.

During a long career in broadcasting, Travis was perhaps best known as the host of the BBC Radio One breakfast show between 1978 and 1980.

The broadcaster famously resigned from the station while on air in 1993.

Recently, he worked for the Magic network of radio stations but has not been on air while the police investigation has been taking place.

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NHS Hospitals Aim To Start Clinics In India

By Thomas Moore, Health Correspondent

As many as 20 NHS hospitals are making plans to open lucrative clinics in India, according to a former health secretary.

Patricia Hewitt, who now chairs the UK India Business Council, said between 10 and 20 NHS trusts are in talks with local healthcare providers about opening branches in the country.

The NHS has strong brand recognition in India and UK hospitals hope selling their expertise abroad could generate new income.

"Our ambition is to get as many (NHS trusts, health companies and charities) there as we can," Ms Hewitt told the Health Service Journal.

The Whittington Hospital NHS Trust in North London is in early negotiations with the MIOT Hospital in Chennai to help run a screening programme for the fatal blood disorder thalassemia.

Other NHS organisations, including the Royal Free and King's College hospitals and the London Ambulance Trust, travelled to India in May as part of a delegation led by Cabinet minister Kenneth Clarke.

Patricia Hewitt at a summit in India this January

Ms Hewitt said income from overseas clinics could help the NHS plug a funding gap that is expected to hit £30bn in 2020.

Trusts are allowed to profit from non-NHS services.

India, along with the Middle East, China and Brazil, are being targeted by the cross-government unit Healthcare UK, which acts as a matchmaker for British organisations and possible clients overseas.

The growing middle class in emerging economies are demanding world-standard healthcare that Britain excels at.

King's Heath Partners, a group that includes three London hospital trusts, has signed contracts to open clinics in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The Department of Health said: "NHS patients will always come first, but we should help and support the health service to compete internationally for the benefit of its patients in England.

"Under no circumstances will the quality of NHS services at home be compromised by the sharing of NHS expertise abroad.

"We have no intention to send NHS patients to India for treatment."

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Speaking Clock Costs Ministry of Defence £40k

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has spent more than £40,000 calling the speaking clock in the last two years.

Officials blamed a "technical error" for the spending after a ban on the famous number was not properly enforced.

The MoD told staff last year that they had to stop calling the clock on 123 and gave them information about websites where they could check the time instead.

But even with the ban, the final bill for 2012 was £18,804 and more than £6,000 was racked up this year before the problem was spotted.

When added to the £15,162 already spent in 2011, this comes to more than double the annual salary paid to a private soldier.

It means staff have made more than 130,000 calls to the line, which now cost 31p each, during the last two-and-a-half years.

The Ministry of Defence blamed a 'technical error'

The waste is embarrassing at a time when the Government is trying to make drastic savings to help rebalance Britain's finances.

An MoD spokesman said: "A ban was introduced to our newest telephone network, but due to a technical error with an environmental monitoring system there has been some inadvertent spending on the speaking clock which has now been stopped."

The speaking clock gets its time from the atomic clocks at the National Physical Laboratory and is accurate to within five thousandths of a second.

Run by BT, the number still receives tens of millions of calls each year despite people now having access to the time on numerous gadgets.

The clock announces the time every 10 seconds.

It was first introduced in Britain in 1936, when it was voiced by London telephonist Ethel Jane Cain who had won a competition.

Initially it was an electro-mechanical device. This was replaced with a magnetic drum in the 60s and then digital time in 1984.

Some of the famous voices who have been heard as clock include Gary Barlow, Chris Moyles and Cheryl Cole, who all took part for charity.

A Freedom of Information request reported this April revealed employees at the Palace of Westminster called the clock more than 2,000 times in the past year.

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Half Of Seven-Year-Olds Not Exercising Enough

Half of all seven-year-olds do not get enough exercise - with girls far less active than boys according to new research.

Only 51% of all seven-year-olds in the UK achieve the recommended hour of exercise every day.

The figure breaks down to just 38% of girls hitting the target, compared with 63% in boys.

Half of this age group is also sedentary for an average of 6.4 hours or more every day, experts have found.

The research, published in the online journal BMJ Open, found that children of Indian origin and those living in Northern Ireland are among the least physically active of all seven-year-olds.

Experts from the University College London's Institute of Child Health examined data for 6,497 children.

The youngsters wore an accelerometer to measure exercise levels which was attached to an elastic belt round their waist. It was only removed when bathing or when the children went to bed.

In total, the experts were able to record 36,309 days of data based on the children wearing the accelerometer for at least 10 hours a day over the course of a week.

Girls were more sedentary and less active than boys while only one in three (33%) children of Bangladeshi origin met the recommended daily exercise minimum.

Among the four UK countries, children in Northern Ireland were the least active, with just 43% managing the recommended 60 minutes, while children in Scotland were most likely (52.5%) to achieve the target.

Around 52% of all children in England managed the 60 minutes but there were regional differences.

The researchers wrote: "The results of our study provide a useful baseline and strongly suggest that contemporary UK children are insufficiently active, implying that effort is needed to boost physical activity among young people to the level appropriate for good health."

Senior author Professor Carol Dezateux, from the Institute of Child Health, called for policies to promote more exercise among girls.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "We have committed to giving primary schools £300m of ring-fenced funding to improve PE and sport, and help all pupils to develop healthy, active lifestyles, and have invested a further £3m to extend Change4Life School Sports Clubs to areas with the highest childhood obesity."

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North Wales Care Home Abuse Inquiry Arrests

Detectives investigating historic sex abuse at children's homes in North Wales have arrested a man and woman on suspicion of indecent assault.

Officers attached to Operation Pallial, the investigation into recent allegations of historical abuse in the North Wales care system, arrested the pair at an address in Seaford, East Sussex.

The offences are alleged to have been committed between 1975 and 1976 against an 11-year-old  boy.

The suspects, aged 63 and 60, have been taken to a police station in Sussex where they will be interviewed by officers from Operation Pallial.

The latest arrests are the sixth and seventh in the inquiry. One person has been charged.

Detectives are looking into 140 allegations relating to 18 care homes between 1963 and 1992.

The former Bryn Estyn Children's Home has been at the centre of claims

A report published in April outlining the first stage of the inquiry revealed the alleged victims were aged between seven and 19.

It said 84 people - 75 male and nine female - had been named by complainants.

Of these, 16 were cited by more than one alleged victim and 10 could now be dead.

In 2000, the Waterhouse Inquiry was established to study claims linked to homes in the former council areas of Gwynedd and Clwyd since 1974.

Following Waterhouse, eight people were prosecuted, seven of whom were convicted.

In July, another damning report which revealed 'extensive' child abuse in North Wales care homes was finally published.

The report claimed police officers and other professionals could have been identified as potential "perpetrators of assaults" 17 years earlier.

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Millions To Share £1.3bn Bank Compensation

CPP Mis-Selling Scandal Q&A

Updated: 11:27am UK, Thursday 22 August 2013

As the UK's battered financial services industry prepares to tell seven million people they may have been the victim of the latest mis-selling scandal, here are some answers to common questions.

:: Why is this happening?

Regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has found widespread mis-selling of card protection and identity protection policies which were provided by CPP and sold by several banks, credit card issuers and directly by the firm.

Products offered by banks and card issuers were often sold when customers called to register or activate a debit or credit card.

Customers were given misleading and unclear information about the policies so they bought cover that either was not needed, or to cover risks that had been exaggerated.

:: Which banks and credit card issuers have agreed to the compensation scheme?

Customers bought and renewed about 23 million policies from CPP, a bank or credit card issuer.

The 13 companies which have signed up to the redress scheme are Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Canada Square Operations (formerly Egg Banking), Capital One, Clydesdale Bank, Home Retail Group Insurance Services, HSBC, MBNA, Morgan Stanley, Nationwide Building Society, Santander, RBS and Tesco Personal Finance.

The involvement of the banks and credit card issuers reflects their involvement in introducing customers to CPP's products and so they must share responsibility for putting the situation right.

:: What sort of sum are those entitled to compensation likely to receive?

The total compensation bill could be up to £1.3bn, with redress per customer depending on the type of policy or policies owned and the length of time they were held for.

If you are entitled to compensation you will have the premiums you have paid since January 14 2005 returned to you, less any sums paid out under the policy, plus 8% interest on the amount owed.

This date in 2005 has been chosen because it is the date that the sale of general insurance products came under the scope of FCA regulation.

Card protection costs were around £30 a year and identity protection costs were about £80 a year.

:: What do customers need to do to get their compensation?

Nothing at this stage and they will not have to pay a claims management firm to chase compensation.

CPP is going to write to affected policyholders from August 29 to explain how the compensation scheme will work and what they need to do next.

:: How will the compensation scheme work?

Compensation payouts are expected to be made from next spring and there are several approval hurdles which will need to be cleared first.

After policyholders have received their initial letter from CPP, they will be invited as the scheme's "creditors" to vote on whether they want it to go ahead. This process is a legal requirement.

If the vote goes in favour of the scheme, the High Court will be asked to approve it. If the scheme gets the green light from the High Court, CPP will write to policyholders again to ask whether they want to be considered for compensation.

This would include a claim form that must be completed, signed and returned to CPP before a specified deadline.

Customers who voted against the scheme going ahead would still be able to submit a claim for compensation.

If a customer does make a claim, their policy will be cancelled - even if their claim is rejected.

The FCA advises customers to therefore think carefully about whether they find some features of the product useful before they make a claim.

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Jermain Defoe Cousin's Pool Death A 'Mystery'

The mother of England footballer Jermain Defoe's cousin, who was electrocuted in a hotel swimming pool in St Lucia, has begged to be told the "truth" about her daughter's death.

Hannah Defoe, 20, was killed after diving into the water while on holiday on the Caribbean island last summer - just three weeks before her 21st birthday.

Hope Defoe, 50, clutched a picture of her daughter as she told an inquest relatives had been fobbed off with '"excuses" from St Lucian authorities for more than a year.

She wept as she described how relatives had battled for more than an hour to rescue her daughter from the electrified water.

In her quest for answers Mrs Defoe emailed an official in the island's tourism department.

She wrote: "You were all so kind and gracious when we were in St Lucia, promising to help us, but we have been abandoned.

"We haven't even been told if anybody has been charged. Look your daughter in the eye and then imagine her electrocuted and lying in a pool, at the bottom, for an hour and a half while you and others are suffering electric shocks as you try to rescue her.

"Now imagine nobody tells you how or why that happened but fobs you off with polite excuses."

Jermain Defoe

Ms Defoe, an aspiring actress, was on holiday as a reward for her hard work during her first year at the Performers College in Essex when she was killed.

Tottenham Hotspur striker Defoe was on the club's pre-season tour of America when he was told about her death. He was allowed to return to the UK to be with his family.

Hannah's parents, who travelled to St Lucia the day after the tragedy, were assured by senior officials that a full and proper investigation would take place.

They were told the electricity board had previously informed the hotel owner of the existence of a fault but that it had not been fixed

But the findings from any investigation by authorities in the Caribbean have not been disclosed to the Defoe family.

The coroner adjourned proceedings until next March to await the receipt of vital documents from St Lucia.

The student's death is one of a number of losses suffered by footballer Defoe, 30.

He flew home from England's Euro 2012 camp in Poland last June following the death of his 49-year-old father Jimmy from throat cancer.

In 2009 his half-brother Jade, 26, died after falling into a coma following a street attack in east London.

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MSP Bill Walker Guilty Of Domestic Abuse

An MSP has been convicted of a string of domestic abuse charges against his three ex-wives and a step-daughter.

Bill Walker, 71, from Alloa, Clackmannanshire, was found guilty of a catalogue of attacks on the women between 1967 and 1995.

The Independent member for Dunfermline, who denied all the allegations against him, was convicted following a two-week trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

Walker faced 23 charges of assault at addresses in Edinburgh, Stirling, Midlothian and Alloa, and one charge of breaching the peace.

He was convicted of all of the charges during the 28-year period.

Sheriff Katherine Mackie, who heard the case without a jury, found Walker guilty of assaulting his first wife Maureen Traquair on three separate occasions in the 1960s and 1980s.

On one occasion, he punched her in the face two weeks before their wedding day in January 1967, giving her a black eye.

The MSP was also found to have assaulted his second wife Anne Gruber 15 times at various addresses in Edinburgh and Midlothian between 1978 and 1984.

The attacks included punching her on the head and body, slapping her in the face, throwing a bottle at her, kicking her and spitting on her face.

He also brandished an air rifle at her house, committing a breach of the peace, the court found.

The politician was convicted of four assaults on his third wife Diana Walker, three of which involved slapping or punching her on the face.

The attacks happened between June 1988 and January 1995.

Mrs Walker said he "whacked" her with full force before their wedding, "thumped" her in the face, threw a tray at her and slapped her repeatedly.

The court heard he also made her sign an agreement saying she would do all the shopping and cleaning.

Walker was also found guilty of assaulting Mrs Gruber's daughter Anne Louise Paterson by repeatedly striking her on the head with a saucepan during a row over a trifle in 1978.

Mrs Gruber told the court: "He turned on her and whacked her repeatedly over the head with a yellow saucepan that was so badly broken up it was put in the bin.

"He battered her so hard she was down on the floor. Her head was bleeding and she was bruised."

The politician had claimed he acted in self-defence after being assaulted by Ms Paterson, who was then 16.

His behaviour was described by the prosecution as being "violent, domineering, controlling and relentless". Procurator fiscal Les Brown said he had acted like a "caveman".

He engaged in "systematic physical and emotional abuse" towards the women over a prolonged period of time, the court was told.

The MSP had alleged he was being smeared and this his ex-wives were colluding in an attempt to "score some points".

But Sheriff Mackie said she did not find him a credible witness and rejected his claim the evidence was fabricated.

Walker, who will return for sentencing on September 20, was tight-lipped as he left court with his solicitor but a short statement was read on his behalf.

Russel McPhate said: "Mr Walker is obviously disappointed to be convicted of all the charges today. The verdicts, in particularly the comments of the sheriff, will be very carefully considered.

"In the meantime, he'd like to thank his wife, his family, his colleagues, his staff and his friends, who have supported him throughout this ordeal, which of course has lasted since March last year and is not over yet."

Mrs Gruber and Mrs Walker were both in court but left without making any comment.

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