Chatroom Dangers

Millions set to benefit from new UK Tax Credits

Parents across the UK should put the 6 April in their diaries as the Government will be introducing two new tax credits which could mean more people than ever will be entitled to up to £93.30 per week to help raise their children, says accountants and business advisors, PKF.

Those with a joint income of up to £58,175 (£66,350 in the year of birth of a child) may be able to claim the new working tax credit and child tax credit that will replace the old working family tax credit, disabled persons credit and children's tax credit. Depending on their circumstances, parents may be entitled to between £10.40 and £93.30 per week.

The new child tax credit will be of particular interest to those with children of school age and below. Those who give birth to a new baby in 2003 may also receive additional support. The credit will be paid into the main carer's bank account.

To receive full entitlement for the first year, it will be necessary to file a claim with the Inland Revenue by 6 July 2003. Not knowing the extent of your income for the year is not an acceptable excuse for missing the deadline. In those circumstances, it will be necessary to submit a protective claim to ensure you do not miss out.

Catherine Vernalls, tax advisor at PKF said, "The old style tax credits were only introduced three years ago and many people will find it difficult to tackle a whole new set of rules. The Government is still producing the legislation governing the new scheme so the tax credit guide issued with the forms is already out of date - however, we would urge parents to spare the time to battle their way through the paperwork as they may find a very pleasant surprise at the end of it.

"Those employees who received the old credits through their pay-packets will now need to supply the Revenue with details of their income and the credits will be paid into their bank account. For taxpayers that already file tax returns, a second set of forms will need to be submitted to the Revenue with details of their own and their partners' income. There are also subtle differences between what is classed as income and deductions for tax credits and the amounts that are entered into your tax return, so caution must be exercised."

Claimants will need to fill in the new form TC600, which can be obtained by calling the freephone helpline on 0800 500 2222 or if you have access to the internet you can make a claim online at www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/taxcredits or email catherine.vernalls@uk.pkf.com for professional advice.

Hot Cross Buns Banned for Fear of Offence

Four councils have removed hot cross buns from school menus to avoid offending children from non-Christian religions.

Tower Hamlets, Liverpool, York and Wolverhampton have stopped serving them for fear that they could provoke protests from Muslim, Hindu or Jewish students or their parents. It is the first time that councils, rather than individual schools have taken steps to ensure that hot cross buns are not served to pupils.

Tower Hamlets, in East London, acted after objections to pancakes being served on Shrove Tuesday. A spokesman said that the council was moving away from a religious theme for Easter. "We can't risk a similar outcry over Easter like we had on pancake day. We will probably be serving naan breads instead." More than a third of the population of Tower Hamlets is Bangladeshi, the highest in Britain. Liverpool council said that the symbol of the Cross has "the potential to offend" so ithad banned the buns.

Ann Widdecombe, the Conservative MP, said: "It's not as if eating a hot cross bun automatically makes you a born again Christian."

The controversy follows a Head Teacher's decision this month to ban books containing stories about pigs in case they offended Muslims. Barbara Harris removed the literature, including The Three Little Pigs" from under-sevens classes at Park Road School in Batley, West Yorkshire.

The Muslim Council of Britain has asked the school to end its "well intentioned, but misguided" ban.

Thanks to Jim Clayton for this story from Chris Johnston of The Times 17.3.2003

Italy: Police Probe 399 in Child Pornography Sweep
By Reuters, 11/3/2003

ROME (Reuters) - Italian police launched a huge overnight raid on a suspected child pornography Internet ring, placing 399 people in 53 towns under investigation in an operation dubbed ''Eurololitas,'' officials said on Tuesday.

The surprise sweep apparently led one 25-year-old man to commit suicide, leaping from his bedroom window in the apartment he shared with his parents, one of the chiefs of ''Operation Eurololitas'' told Reuters.

''He threw himself from the fourth floor this morning at about 6:30 while our men were going up after having called on the intercom,'' Carlo Lavinia said.

More than 1,000 police carried out hundreds of searches as part of the operation centered in the northern town of Asti. Those under investigation, aged 25 to 40, are suspected of acquiring and distributing child pornography over the Web.

Police did not immediately say how many arrests were made.

''Some of our men infiltrated the Internet pretending to be buyers and intermediaries, working through various pay sites,'' Lavinia said.

They discovered that the suspects often used the software WinMX, used to trade music files, to swap the child pornography.

The children exploited were estimated to be between the ages of two and 10.

Mystery of the eight missing babies

A MOTHER facing a police investigation into allegations that seven of her children died under the age of two was rushed to hospital yesterday after apparently attempting to take her own life.

Roberta Bibby, 61, was said to be in a serious but stable condition after apparently taking a drugs overdose as it emerged that she was at the centre of a wide-ranging inquiry into her family history.

Detectives are examining claims that seven of her children died in the 1960s and 1970s, when she lived in Edinburgh, West Lothian and the north of England. Police were alerted by a psychiatrist, who reported that Mrs Bibby had made a series of claims during her outpatient counselling for a mental illness.

The investigation centres around claims that she had seven children who all died within months of birth. Mrs Bibby, who is disabled and lives with her third husband, Peter, in Livingston, raised doubts about the deaths two years ago in remarks she made as she began having psychiatric treatment at St John’s Hospital in the town.

A doctor alerted managers at the hospital, suggesting she may have suffered from Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy, a psychiatric illness which in extreme cases can lead to sufferers harming children to gain attention. A report was submitted to the procurator fiscal at Linlithgow, who decided not to take action, but the case was reopened last month after he received fresh information.

Mrs Bibby is expected to be interviewed by detectives along with the psychiatrist who has been treating her.

Before an ambulance was sent to take her to St John’s Hospital in Livingston yesterday, Mrs Bibby denied killing her children. "You never forget losing your kiddies and I still think about them all every day of my life. But I can tell you one thing: I’m no killer and I didn’t harm my babies," she was reported as saying in the Daily Record.

When asked if she had confessed during therapy to killing her children, Mrs Bibby replied: "Absolutely not."

She added: "I had psychiatric treatment about five years ago, but I was never in such a state that I didn’t know what I was doing.

"I am absolutely gobsmacked to be told the police might be investigating.

"They were hard times when I had the children, but I didn’t kill them. I can’t believe anyone would think I have done anything wrong. I want to find out where all this is coming from."

Mrs Bibby has been known by a variety of names. Her maiden name is thought to be Blake. She married her first husband, William Cunningham, an Edinburgh bus driver, in February 1961, when she was 19.

Their first son, Brian , died at the age of two months in 1962, with the cause of death certified as bronchial asphyxiation.

Her second marriage, reportedly to John Delaney, was in Hawick in 1969, and she married her third husband, Peter Bibby, in 1978. It is understood she has lived in several areas of Scotland, including Dumfries and St Andrews, and also lived in Leeds and had homes in at least two other areas in the north-east of England.

Mr Bibby was quoted in the Daily Record as saying: "I’ve got absolutely no idea where this is coming from. I don’t know what to think at the moment.

"I knew she had lost a couple of children to cot deaths and that was it. But that was before I met her.

"She doesn’t have any children, although for a long time she used to carry a photograph of a little girl. She used to carry it all the time and told me it was her daughter who had died.

"I can’t see how anything like that could have gone on that long and then suddenly come up like this," he added. "It seems completely ridiculous. Certainly, I knew she had a history of psychiatric treatment, but she has been perfectly all right for 20 years.

"She was seeing a psychiatrist again two or three years ago, and the doctors were treating her for depression. I wasn’t there, so I’ve got absolutely no way of knowing what she might have told the psychiatrist.

"She has always been very secretive about her past. I am hoping she is innocent."

Mr Bibby told the Daily Record that his wife took an overdose when details of the police investigation emerged.

He added: "I found a couple of tablets on the floor in the kitchen. She had said she was going to lie down so I went to the bedroom and tried to wake her and saw more tablets on the floor."

Neighbours at the couple’s cul-de-sac home in Ladywell, Livingston, where they have lived for nearly five years, were astonished to learn of the police investigation into Mrs Bibby’s past.

One neighbour said: "She’s a disabled lady and often uses an electric wheelchair to get around and, to be honest, seems to be in the care of her husband most of the time. He does all the shopping and most of the talking whenever they are out together.

"She is the last person you would expect to be at the centre of a major police investigation.

"There were rumours that she took an overdose last year. The entire neighbourhood has been speaking about this investigation and I know a lot of local parents have been very upset by the publicity it has already gathered, especially as it is the kind of thing that can play on young children’s imaginations. "

A team of Lothian and Borders Police officers, led by Detective Superintendent Alan McNally, is working on the case at Livingston police station. One of their first tasks is to establish whether Mrs Bibby has had seven children and that they all died. Police are searching archives for the relevant birth and death certificates and medical records before they move forward with the inquiry.

Officers believe the investigation may last as long as a year as detectives seek to unravel Mrs Bibby’s complex family history.

A spokeswoman for the Crown Office said: "The fiscal at Linlithgow instructed police to investigate the deaths of a number of babies after information came to his attention.

"That information suggested the circumstances of some of the deaths might be suspicious."

by DAN MCDOUGALL AND PAUL GALLAGHER - The Scotsman 7.3.2003

Days out

From the Jorvik Viking Festival to junior karting, Sally Varlow tells you how to keep the children entertained

The latest addition to the Museum of British Road Transport in Coventry is the Spirit of Speed gallery built around two amazing cars, ThrustSSC, first to break the sound barrier on land in 1997, and Thrust 2, which brought the world land speed record back to Britain 20 years ago. An audiovisual show gives the background to each car, then the screen rolls up to reveal the real thing. But the gallery's highlight is the simulator where you ride in a reconstruction of ThrustSSC's cockpit, bumping over the Nevada desert, feeling the jolts as it kicks up to 763 mph. Allow an hour if you want to linger in ThrustSSC's back-up trailer for all the design and technical data. And two hours more for the rest of the museum - Britain's biggest on road transport, with hundreds of motor vehicles, bicycles and a quarter of a million model vehicles.
Museum of British Road Transport, Cook Street, Coventry (024 7683 2425, www.mbrt.co.uk). Open daily 10am-5pm. Entry free.

Flirting with Feathers is the theme of half-term events at the National Wetlands Centre Wales, near Llanelli. From next Saturday to February 23 a discovery trail will reveal the mating habits and facts of life of wildfowl. There is also a print workshop to help you create pictures inspired by the birds - and Mega Messy Art Sessions where you don't have to clear up your own mess (presumably inspired by the birds, too).
National Wetlands Centre Wales, Carmarthenshire (01554 741087, www.wwt.org.uk). Open daily 9.30am-4.30pm; £5.50 adults, £3.50 for children four and over ( £3.75 including activities), family ticket £14.50. The website lists events at all Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust centres, such as Welney on the Ouse Marshes, where special winter Floodlight Swan Evenings continue until February 28, at 6.30pm daily except Monday and Tuesday.

York's annual Jorvik Viking Festival comes up with something fresh each year. The forthcoming Jolablot (end-of-winter celebration) runs from next Friday to February 23 and includes a lecture by The Time Team's Nick Ashton (February 20, £3.50 adult, £2.50, children and concessions) and a Traditional Viking Family Evening (next Saturday) with themed food, storytelling and a Norse-ballad singalong ( £8 adult, £6 children/concessions). Old favourites include free Viking combat training daily in Coppergate Square, the longships river challenge and (on February 22) a York invasion re-enactment. There's a guided Viking walk around the city on February 16, 20 and 23 (adults £3, children/concessions, £2), a torchlight procession and on February 23 the finale, Death in the Dark (adults £5, children £3.50).
Festival booking line 01904 543403, www.vikingjorvik.com.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is running a photographic Creativity Week, Snap Happy Days, for all ages from next Saturday to February 23. Various photographic workshops are planned, and works by participants will be exhibited in the museum. You can drop in for an hour or stay all day to take pictures using two special photobooths (with a photobooth artist on hand to help out) or instant Polaroid snaps (again with a specialist photographer to give advice). Alternatively you can borrow a 35mm Lomo camera and take it on a tour through the galleries (museum staff will print the film).
V & A, South Kensington (020 7942 2000, www.vam.ac.uk). Open daily 11am-5pm, last camera loans 4pm (museum hours 10am- 5.45pm). Entry free, but a deposit such as a credit card or driving licence is required if borrowing a Lomo camera.

Wild About Bugs days (February 25-27) at Marwell Zoological Park near Winchester, Hampshire will give the lowdown on spiders, ants, stick insects, scorpions and all sorts of invertebrates. Throughout each day (11am-3pm) there's a beetle-drive trail, rock pool exhibit, storytelling with Madeleine the stick insect, insect face-painting, pond-dipping - and children can adopt an ant to support the resident leafcutter colony.
Marwell Zoological Park, near Winchester (01962 777407, www.marwell.org.uk). Entry £9.50 adults, £7 for three-14 years, including activities. Zoo open daily, 10am-4pm.

The visitor centre at New Lanark World Heritage Site, on the banks of the Clyde, has two very different half-term events. Family Science Circus (next Saturday and Sunday, 12pm-5pm) explores light and sound, using exhibitions and hands-on displays. Genealogy Day (February 23, 11am-4.30pm) is a chance to get help from local Family History Society members to trace your ancestors. Whichever you choose, leave time to explore the rest of the beautifully preserved 18th-century cotton mill village, and walk up the valley to the cascading Falls of Clyde.
New Lanark World Heritage Site, South Lanarkshire (01555 661345, www.newlanark.org). Open daily, 11am-5pm. Half-term events cost £1 children, £1.50 adults; but are free with New Lanark Passport costing £4.95 adult, £3.95 children, family tickets from £12.95, which covers all village attractions, including Robert Owen's house, workers' cottages, stores, school, and mill exhibitions).

Junior Karting sessions at Castle Combe Motoring Centre near Chippenham in Wiltshire on February 16 and March 2 (and first and third Sundays each month) are for 10- to 15-year-olds - with a minimum height of 4ft 8in, so that they can reach the pedals. Training sessions (maximum 30 drivers) last three hours and include briefings, safety drill and four laps of the 370-yard track. It usually takes four training sessions before you qualify for an afternoon race session. Wear jeans, trainers and thick gloves. Helmets, overalls and rainsuits are provided but your feet get soaked when it's wet, so take spare shoes.
Combe Karting Junior Racing School (01249 783010, www.combe-events.co.uk). Training begins 9.30; £30 per driver. Pre-booking essential.

The Medieval Gross-Out at Warwick Castle from next Saturday to March 2 promises the smelliest, most sick-making experiences you can imagine. Four medieval castle inmates will be lifting the lid on the disgusting details of daily life in the huge castle. In the castle courtyard, a cook will discuss a medieval menu of foul food, including delicacies such as sheep's feet, while the saw-happy surgeon explains why maggoty leeches were man's best friend. To cap it all, the castle toilet cleaner, known as the "gong farmer", will reveal the hidden dangers of his profession. Demonstrations take place regularly between 11am and 4pm.
Warwick Castle (0870 442 2000, www.warwick-castle.co.uk). Open daily 10am-5pm. Entry £12.50 adults, £7.50 children, £34 families.

Dulwich Picture Gallery's exhibition of classic children's illustrations by Arthur Rackham continues in south London until March 2, with two half-term talks by present-day illustrators. Quentin Blake reveals "What an Illustrator Thinks About" (February 26, 5pm, book in advance), while Jacqueline Rizvi talks and draws in "Lines and Stories" (February 20, 12.30pm). Rackham's pictures, often of fairies, goblins and gnarled trees, have a haunting and humorous quality that appeals to the Harry Potter generation.
Dulwich Picture Gallery, Gallery Road, Dulwich (020 8693 5254, www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk). Open Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm, weekends 11am-5pm. Entry £7 adults, children free. Book tickets for Quentin Blake on 020 8299 8709; children £5, adults £10.

Telegraph

Chatroom Dangers

A £1m advertising campaign to teach children about the dangers of internet paedophiles is being launched by the UK government.

The television and radio messages, which are being broadcast throughout January, aim to make parents and youngsters aware of how to surf the web safely.

They coincide with a new set of guidelines for internet service providers who offer chat and instant messaging services.

The government wants to see more measures such as clearly written and easily accessible warning information and report buttons.

The aim is to discourage attempts by paedophiles to 'groom' youngsters online, and help children to tell chatroom providers about inappropriate contact or abusive incidents.

It is claimed that the guidelines, called The Models of Good Practice and drawn up the government's internet child protection taskforce, are the first of their kind in the world.

Advertising campaign

An estimated five million youngsters under 16 have private access to the internet and nearly half of 16-year-olds use chatrooms, according to research published last year.

The advertising campaign will mark the first time such advice has featured on television and radio.

Tips for parents

Keep the computer near you

Talk to your child about what they do online

Keep a 'favourites' folder of agreed sites

Ask your ISP about safety features

It follows a successful newspaper campaign a year ago and recent moves to tighten the laws on "sexual grooming" online.

Online advertising will also run on teen websites and chat rooms from January to the end of March.

The Home Office hopes the campaign will give parents the skills and confidence needed to address the issue without demonising the internet.

Last year's campaign, according to the government, resulted in an 11% increase in awareness among children to not give out their personal details online.

Trust abused

Home Office Minister Hilary Benn said: "The internet has opened up a new world for children which is educational, informative and, most of all fun.

"But we are aware of the potential for paedophiles to misuse modern technology to abuse the trust that children place in them by attempting to 'groom' them through chat rooms.

"We want to encourage parents to help their children protect themselves so they can surf safely."

Tips for young surfer

Never give address or phone numbers to strangers

Do not meet a stranger alone

Tell your parents if exposed to anything you dislike

Nicholas Lansman, Secretary General of the Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA UK) said: "Just like the offline world, the online world has its hazards.

"ISPA and its members want to make the UK Internet as safe as possible for younger users."

The guidelines and awareness drive follows recent proposals outlined in the paper 'Protecting the Public' for a new offence of sexual grooming.

There could also be a new civil order intended to protect children from inappropriate sexual behaviour by adults.

BBC 6 January 2003