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A flagship database intended to protect every child in the country will be used by police to hunt for evidence of crime in a "shocking" extension of its original purpose, The Daily Telegraph has learned. ContactPoint will include the names, ages and addresses of all 11 million under-18s in England as well as information on their parents, GPs, schools and support services such as social workers. The £224 million computer system was announced in the wake of the death of Victoria Climbié, who was abused and then murdered after a string of missed opportunities to intervene by the authorities, as...

She says she was just trying to put her baby to sleep, but a mother's method got her arrested at the state fair. The sheriff's department in Jefferson County says Kathryn Bowen bought a cup of wine at the horse show at Freedom Hall, but Bowen apparently didn't intend to drink it, or drink all of it. Two police officers were watching nearby. "The deputy and the corrections officer observed her remove the bottle from a bag, uncap the bottle, place the contents of the glass into the bottle and then handed it to the baby who then proceeded to...

Judge: Valley mom starved daughter to death, gets lifetime probation Reported by: Trevor Ravenscraft Last Update: 8/13 11:20 am PHOENIX -- A judge sentenced a west Phoenix woman to lifetime probation Tuesday after she admitted to starving her 2-year-old daughter to death. Eboni Perri, 26, had earlier pleaded guilty to charges of attempted child abuse. Her daughter, Nakeisha Walker, was pronounced dead at a Phoenix hospital on March 5th, 2005. She weighed only 14 pounds at the time. After Nakeisha's death, police searched Perri's apartment near 27th Avenue and Indian School Road. Officers found no baby formula, cups, plates or...

They fought a landmark legal case for the right to keep their youngest child after the forcible adoption of their first three children in what has been described as ‘an appalling miscarriage of justice.’ Now Mark and Nicky Webster are celebrating learning that Nicky is pregnant once more. The news comes as the couple prepare to launch their Appeal Court bid to be reunited with their three oldest children, who were all under the age of five when they were removed from their care by Norfolk County Council four years ago.

The announcement this week from the Local Government Association that Social workers will consider taking 'dangerously overweight' children from their parents and placing them into care is guaranteed to tie all decent people in a veritable Gordian knot of conflicting liberal impulses. On the one hand we all abhor the idea that children might be so packed full of high-calorie low-nutrition takeaways and convenience food by uncaring or ignorant parents that they are effectively crippled by their own bulk. On the other hand we Britons have long rather fancied ourselves to be a more than averagely tolerant bunch, and the...

Andrea and Daniel Kelly of Philadelphia filed a lawsuit claiming their city and state caused the wrongful death of their poor, bedridden daughter, Danieal. The federal suit seeks upward of $50,000 for medical bills, funeral costs and other expenses, not for the Kellys, mind you, but for their eight surviving children. So how did city and state kill Danieal? They left her in the care of the Kellys, who starved her. Danieal, 14, who had cerebral palsy, died Aug. 4, 2006, "while lying in her own feces, with flies buzzing around her mouth and maggot-infested bedsores ravaging her skeletal back,"...

A Longview mother remained in the Gregg County Jail on Thursday after police said she had her 12-year-old daughter drive her to a bar on the woman's birthday. Jennifer Lynn Rosenburg, 35, was arrested Wednesday night at Leon's Steak House after an officer stopped her daughter on a traffic violation as the child was turning into her home's driveway. The woman's last name was spelled Rosenberg on a police report, but Rosenburg in jail records. Longview Police Officer C.E. Davis stopped a blue minivan in the 400 block of 15th Street after the vehicle turned into a residence without using...

Parents Of Starved Teen Suing City OfficialsPHILADELPHIA (CBS3/AP) ― The parents charged along with city workers in the starvation death of a bedridden teenager have sued Philadelphia officials in her death. A prosecutor blasts Andrea and Daniel Kelly for trying to profit from their daughter's August 2006 death. Andrea Kelly is charged with murder in the death of her 14-year-old daughter, Danieal, who suffered from malnutrition and severe bedsores. The father, Daniel Kelly, is charged with endangerment. Kelly, who suffered from cerebral palsy, was found starved to death in a sweltering, filthy West Philadelphia home in August 2006. "It's absurd,...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Injuries are the leading cause of death among children after the first year of life, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a new study, a University of Missouri professor found that children living in households with unrelated adults are six times more likely to die of maltreatment-related unintentional injuries, compared to children living with two biological parents. The risk of maltreatment death is double for children living with foster or step-parents, or other related adults. However, the risk is not higher for children living in households with a single biological parent and no...

<p>A city agency that was faulted by a grand jury in connection with the death of a teenage girl in its care is working to repair systemic problems that have led to other fatalities, its new commissioner said Friday.</p> <p>Nine people were charged on Thursday in connection with the girl’s death, including two social workers for the city agency, the Department of Human Services.</p>

Starved, disabled girl was failed at every turn By KATHY MATHESON, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 2 minutes ago PHILADELPHIA - For days before Danieal Kelly died in a fetid, airless room — made stifling hot by a midsummer heat wave — the bedridden teenager begged for something to drink until she could muster only one word: water. ADVERTISEMENT Unable to help herself because of her cerebral palsy, she wasted away from malnutrition and maggot-infested bedsores that ate her flesh. She died alone on a putrid mattress in her mother's home, the floor covered in feces. She was 14 but...

Part One: The Feral Child PLANT CITY — The family had lived in the rundown rental house for almost three years when someone first saw a child's face in the window. A little girl, pale, with dark eyes, lifted a dirty blanket above the broken glass and peered out, one neighbor remembered. Everyone knew a woman lived in the house with her boyfriend and two adult sons. But they had never seen a child there, had never noticed anyone playing in the overgrown yard. The girl looked young, 5 or 6, and thin. Too thin. Her cheeks seemed sunken; her...

DERBY — The mother of a 7-month-old girl who died from an overdose of cocaine and cold medicine has been given probation. Lois Tremblay, 41, was sentenced yesterday to three years of probation and must perform 100 hours of community service.

Abuse shelters are the domestic violence industry's Holy of Holies. Their ministrations are shrouded in mystery, the High Priestesses unnamed, their locations often kept secret. There abused women can become purified of the patriarchal demon and begin life anew. Of course if you're an abused man, don't bother to ask for help. They're likely to claim you are harassing them and call the police. And abuse shelters don't seem to be very interested in helping the youngsters, either. Although abuse shelters claim to serve the children of abused women, what passes for child care may be a gum-chewing, tattoo-adorned teenager...

In the debate over gay marriage, strikingly little attention has been paid to the impact on children. Some question the wisdom of having children raised by two homosexuals, but the best they can seem to argue is that serious flaws vitiate the literature defending it. Almost no attention has been devoted to what may be the more serious political question of who will supply the children of gay "parents," since obviously they cannot produce children themselves. A few will come from sperm donors and surrogate mothers, but very few. The vast majority will come, because they already do come, from...

Salem, MA--We wrote last week about the case of 8-year-old Jeremy Fraser, whose mother Kristin LaBrie made international news after being charged with child endangerment for stopping the boy's life-saving cancer treatment while she had primary custody. To read more, click here. We have since spoken at length with father Eric Fraser, who now has custody and who is preparing for Jeremy's likely death from leukemia. According to the doctors, Jeremy’s illness was curable until his mother allegedly delayed and obstructed his chemotherapy. Meanwhile, Eric was allegedly kept at arm’s length by Kristin’s accusations, aggressiveness and conflict-seeking behavior. Now it...

A disabled foster child whose liver is failing has been removed from a Central Florida hospital's organ-transplant waiting list because hospital administrators fear the state's shaky child-welfare system cannot ensure he has a permanent home in which to recover. Shands Hospital in Gainesville removed the boy, 15, from a waiting list for organ recipients after administrators determined the boy's unstable living conditions make him a poor candidate for a transplant, said Nick Cox, the Department of Children & Families regional administrator in the Tampa Bay area, where the boy lives. The state's next move: appeal to Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital,...

Josh Raykin had never spent even a night away from his parents. That is, until Arapahoe County snatched the 8-year-old from his home after an abuse allegation that social workers dragged their feet investigating. The ordeal began while Josh was playing outside one day before dinner in April. A neighbor knocked on the door to tell his dad that police had come to take Josh away. The strawberry-blond kid with pale blue eyes was born in 1999 after Michael and Melanie Raykin tried for 15 years to conceive. Michael, a courier, and Melanie, a hairstylist, work extra hours to send...

Schleicher County, home of the Yearning For Zion Ranch, doesn’t feel it should be responsible for the enormous costs of April’s raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound. Kerr County agrees. This week, Kerr County commissioners approved a resolution in support of Schleicher County that asks the state to pick up the tab on the Child Protective Services investigation against the polygamist sect. “We are asking the state to indemnify our county,” said Schleicher County judge Johnny Griffin. “Not one person from my county was involved, other than the sheriff who received the initial...

In what Sacramento police describe as a "miracle,'' a 2-year-old boy survived on cat food for up to six days on his own and was found Thursday after his mother died in their North Sacramento home. The child - whom Sacramento County Child Protective Services identified as Noah - and his mother were discovered at 10:39 a.m. after police forced their way into the home in the city's Hagginwood neighborhood, police Officer Konrad Von Schoech said. A CPS worker had gone to check on the family that morning because the mother suffered from chronic illness, Von Schoech said. No one...