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Police and social workers were last night accused of failing to investigate an Asian paedophile gang for fear of being perceived as racist, allowing them to prey on up to 50 young white girls. The nine men from Rochdale were yesterday convicted of abusing five vulnerable teenagers after plying them with alcohol, food and small sums of money in return for sex. However, the true number of victims, who were "passed around" by the gang, is likely to be nearer to 50, police have admitted. Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have now apologised after they failed to...

A DOUBLE killer who had a sex swap and was moved to a women’s jail is divorcing the lesbian murderess he wed behind bars. Deranged strangler Douglas Wakefield, who had the sex change at taxpayers’ expense and changed his name to Tai Pilley, married fellow lifer Thelma Purchase. But now the relationship is over after the married couple had a violent bust-up over 47-year-old Purchase’s close relationship with another female inmate at New Hall prison near Wakefield, West Yorks. Prison bosses moved mum-of-three Purchase to a prison in the South of England and now Wakefield, who became best pals with...

Is London about to elect a mayor who has been accused of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism? Until last week, former mayor Ken Livingstone was trailing the incumbent Boris Johnson in opinion polls by as much as six points. But now, only days before the election on Thursday, May 3, the two are neck-and-neck, separated by just two percentage points, according to pollster YouGov

In a public letter, the influential members of the Anglican Church claimed that “God’s grace” was at work in allowing same – sex couples to marry. The group, including members of the General Synod, the CoE’s governing body, dismissed “mistaken” impressions that church leaders were “universally opposed to an extension of civil marriage”. Instead, they argued that same-sex couples who wanted to “embrace marriage should be a cause for rejoicing in the Christian Church”. They wrote: "Recent statements by church leaders past and present may have given the mistaken impression that the Church is universally opposed to the extension of...

The largest university in London plans to impose a ban on the sale of alcohol on campus to accommodate the "cultural sensitivity" of its Muslim students. London Metropolitan University's Vice Chancellor, Malcolm Gillies, says it would be unwise to "cling" to a "nostalgic" view where the vast majority wants alcohol to be available. Instead, he says that he believes the university should take account of diverging views, namely those of Muslims, who now comprise 20% of the university's 30,000 students. "Many of our students do come from backgrounds where they actually look on drinking as a negative. We therefore need...

The Government is on a fresh collision course with public sector workers over its controversial pension reforms after more industrial action was called by civil servants and NHS staff. The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union and Unite announced that their members will take action on May 10, the day after the Queen's Speech, which is expected to include a Parliamentary Bill on the pension changes. The PCS said the May walkout will kickstart a programme of action, with another strike at the end of June and industrial action across the civil service, health and education sectors. Co-ordinated, targeted industrial...

Surgery bans elderly patient over her carbon footprintAn elderly woman was ordered to find a new GP because the “carbon footprint” of her two-mile round trips to the surgery where she had been treated for 30 years was too large. By Daily Telegraph Reporter 11:48PM BST 03 Apr 2012 Avril Mulcahy, 83, was told to address the “green travelling issues” over her journeys from her home in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, to the West Road Surgery. The surgery wrote to Mrs Mulcahy, telling her to register with a new GP within 28 days. The letter said: “Our greatest concern is for your...

 I want to live in a surveillance state. Big Brother, come cast your watchful eye over me and mine. I love you, bro. Seriously, when I saw the outcry over Government plans to gain access to telephone, email and internet, my initial reaction was: “You mean they can’t do that already?” I assumed, somewhat stupidly, that everything we said, typed or viewed was routinely monitored, and then filtered by some giant, super-secret computer tucked away in a heavily guarded subterranean basement of GCHQ: “Hodges has just said he wants to shoot another Liverpool player, sir.” “Oh, he’s always saying that, Jones....

Making houses and cars smokefree is the only way to protect children from second-hand smoke, according to a new government campaign in England. The TV and radio adverts show how pervasive invisible second-hand smoke can be. Breathing it in can damage lungs and cause cancers, research has shown. Snip The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said it wanted to see smoking in cars made illegal, when children are present. "I have no doubt an outright ban on smoking in cars would have the same positive results [as banning drink-driving]” - Prof Terence Stephenson Royal College of Paediatrics &...

It's an eye opening experience for a Brit returning to her hometown to witness firsthand the growing muslim extremism in Britain.

Thousands of elderly people are dying unnecessarily early because ‘despicable’ age discrimination in the NHS is denying them treatment for cancer, a charity has warned. A lack of treatment or insufficient treatment is contributing to 14,000 deaths a year in people over the age of 75, Macmillan Cancer Support has found, in what it called an ‘unacceptable act of discrimination’. Deaths from cancer are reducing in most age groups but at a slower rate in those aged 74 to 84 and are increasing in people aged 85 and over, the report said. The report, The Age Old Excuse: the under...

Scrapping the Trident nuclear missile system would save £83.5bn and many of the jobs at risk could be transferred to alternative defence projects, according to an authoritative study published on Wednesday. An average annual saving of £1.86bn would be made until 2062, it says. The study, commissioned by senior figures from all three main parties, points out that the savings would not be available immediately because cancellation and decommissioning costs would have to be taken into account. The report, by Professor Keith Hartley, a leading defence economist, is published by a commission set up by the British American Security Information...

“Best friend bans” — apparently, they’re a thing. Educational psychologist Gaynor Sbuttoni said the policy has been used at schools in Kingston, South West London, and Surrey. She added: “I have noticed that teachers tell children they shouldn’t have a best friend and that everyone should play together. “They are doing it because they want to save the child the pain of splitting up from their best friend. But it is natural for some children to want a best friend. If they break up, they have to feel the pain because they’re learning to deal with it.” Russell Hobby, of...

Reforms to allow same-sex marriage will see the words husband and wife removed from official forms, it was revealed last night. Tax and benefits guidance and immigration documents must be rewritten so they no longer assume a married couple is a man and a woman. And private companies will be told to overhaul paperwork and computer databases containing the words. New versions of documents will‘replace references to husband and wife with the more neutral terms spouses and partners’. The cost of the red tape revolution demanded by the ‘Equal Civil Marriage’ plans will run into millions, according to an official...

Most people thought they knew what marriage meant, namely the union of a man and a woman. In 2004, when the Civil Partnership Act was passed to provide legal protections for homosexual partnerships, Parliament was led to believe by the government of the day that this did not affect the established institution of marriage. But barely eight years later, political fashion has changed. More recently, though, familiar words such as “husband and wife” and “mother and father” are disappearing from the statute books in the small minority of countries that have begun the experiment in social engineering.(edit) In Canada,...

The Church of England is facing a damaging rift over the appointment of gay bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has given his backing to a deal intended to prevent a split between the Church’s traditionalist and liberal wings, by effectively preventing openly gay clergy from becoming bishops. However, last night the proposed Anglican Covenant stood on the brink of failure, after worshippers and clergy rejected it in votes up and down England. Two bishops voted against it. Supporters of Dr Williams said that a defeat would be a “devastating” blow to him after he staked so...

The Church does not "own" marriage nor have the exclusive right to say who can marry, a government minister has said. Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone said the government was entitled to introduce same-sex marriages, which she says would be a "change for the better". Her comments come as ministers prepare to launch a public consultation on legalising gay marriage next month. Traditionalists want the law on marriage to remain unchanged.

London, England-In yet another outrageous piece of social engineering from our coalition government, pensioners will be encouraged to downsize to smaller properties allowing local councils to rent their homes out as council houses and manage the tenancy. Local authorities will ‘help’ older people move from their homes into ‘more suitable accommodation’. Grant Schapps, the Housing Minister, who is a conservative member of parliament claims the scheme will solve a so-called ‘housing crisis’ as well as creating a system that will ‘permit access to various sources of wealth’ that are currently not being used to pay for care. Read that as...

A pensioner could be sent to prison after admitting illegally possessing guns and ammunition. Percy Hermitage, of Mead Court, Cannons Mead, Stansted, pleaded guilty to possessing an automatic-loading pistol with a barrel of less than 30 centimetres; a Saxby and Palmer .177 self-contained gas cartridge air pistol and a .22 double action revolver, without authority. The 85-year-old further admitted possessing a Victor .22 calibre rifle, two .22 calibre rounds of ammunition, as well as a hollow-point bullet without permission. Hermitage claimed to have had the weapons since the 1960s and although the offences attract a minimum five-year prison term, the...

Six children in Britain will be given jabs to delay the puberty on the NHS because they are convinced they were born the wrong sex. The injections - to be administered monthly - will postpone the physical changes of adolescence giving them more time to make decisions about their identity. It will also make any sex-change operation far easier should they decide to permanently swap gender. They suffer from a rare condition called gender-identity disorder (GID) that affects 1 in 4,000 Britons.