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IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE TAGGED, WEAR A SKIRT
A teenager charged with GBH who failed to comply with the conditions of her bail escaped being tagged after convincing magistrates that the electronic device, worn on the ankle, would look "stupid" with her skirt. The Crown Prosecution Service demanded she be tagged but her lawyer argued it would be visible, look strange and "affect her dress sense". Magistrates agreed, and she walked from the court, minus the tag.

SOMEONE ELSE WHO LIVES ON ANOTHER PLANET
The Commission on Families and the Wellbeing of Children, chaired by an eminent child psychiatrist, said parents should be banned from inflicting even the mildest of smacks on their children because they often do it out of anger and "social stress" rather than as a "considered disciplinary measure". Under the law, mild smacking is allowed but parents who hit children hard enough to leave a mark face up to five years' imprisonment.

The report said under-12s should never be held responsible for their crimes, no matter how serious. Critics said this meant half a million burglars and drug dealers would only rarely be brought before the courts. The commission called for the Government to issue clear guidelines on the age when children could be left by themselves and the minimum age at which a child could act as a babysitter. (Source: Daily Telegraph)

WHY BOTHER?
A police officer who saved a young man threatening to jump out of a second-floor window was reprimanded because he did not use a Home Office-approved "hold" when he grabbed him. Officers in the Cambridgeshire forcereceived a complaint from the would-be suicide's father. Three officers were called to a disturbance at a house in Peterborough. They found a man in his early twenties acting violently and intoxicated by drink and drugs. He then threatened to jump from a window but one of the officers managed to grab him despite being assaulted. The man's father came in as the officer was holding his son down. He lodged a formal complaint, although his son raised no objections to the way he was treated. (Source: Daily Telegraph)

NURSERY IS TOO NOISY
The Jigsaw Nursery has been forced to keep youngsters indoors after a council threatened it with legal action following a complaint about the noise its children made. Children will only be allowed outside for two half-hour periods, the Wendy house must be carpeted to reduce noise, and games such as What's the Time, Mr Wolf? can no longer be played outdoors. If the nursery fails to comply, an order can be imposed which can lead to fines of up to £20,000.

For 50 years children have gathered at the Memorial Hall in Locks Heath, Hants, but the future of the nursery is in doubt after a nearby resident, Jim Habens, objected to the noise coming from a new outside play area built with donations from parents. Mr Habens said, "I have complained because I have human rights as well as anyone else." His wife Barbara said, "We are very pleased with the way the council has dealt with this."

A council spokesman said it had a duty to investigate. "We think 30 minutes a session is a way forward. It is all about management." Brian Bayford, the borough councillor with responsibility for environmental issues, said, "It is unfortunate when it's just one neighbour. But if anyone is causing a noise nuisance, and it is unacceptable or above a certain limit, this is the process. Laws get made and it is the responsibility of the council to take action on that."

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY
A boy of 10 was blinded in one eye as he watched a partial eclipse of the sun from his school playground. Conor Howard had perfect 20/20 vision but now has severely restricted sight. Conor was at morning break in the playground of St Nicholas School in Cranleigh, Surrey, when a friend shouted for him to look at the eclipse. Closing one eye, he looked directly at the sun with the other. After playing football, he looked at the eclipse again and later went blind in his right eye.

Conor went home complaining that his eyes were misty. Three days later he was struggling to see the largest letters on an optician's test card. A hospital examination revealed that the eye had been burnt and the damage was permanent. Mrs Howard said she wanted schools to have to be aware of the dates of eclipses by law. She said, "It was the duty of the school to warn the children of the dangers. They could have changed the break time or kept them indoors."

Catherine Reynolds, the head teacher at St Nicholas, said, "Conor was present in an assembly two weeks earlier when the dangers of the sun were spelled out to children. We shall look to see if any lessons can be learned in the future." Keeping pupils indoors would not prevent them looking out of the window and no matter how many warnings are given, some people will continue to ignore them. (Source: Daily Telegraph)

BRITS PAY FOR COCK-UP
Taxpayers and asylum seekers were overpaid £4billion in a Whitehall scandal. Now British-born people have been told to pay it back but no cash is being recovered from the 4,500 foreigners, who got up to £16,000 a year for two years. They were even sent a letter of apology. The cock-up paid out too much in child and working family tax credits. Revenue and Customs officials claim Brits should have spotted the error. Now they will have to fight their cases individually and spend up to five years clearing the debt. The blunder came after tax changes in 2003 led to the Inland Revenue being swamped by applications. An insider said staff were told to cut corners by issuing National Insurance numbers to immigrants without checking if they were eligible. The NI numbers enabled asylum seekers, immigrants on expired visas and foreign students to claim credits. (Source: The Sun)

DOUBLE STANDARDS
Chief constable Terence Grange who is campaigning against round-the-clock drinking has applied for his police club to open 24 hours a day. Mr Grange said, "It is the police who have to deal with the problems created by heavy drinking. If you want a long-term fix you have to ask yourself what kind of society we've got. That's what government are supposed to do. But what they are doing is opening pubs for 24 hours."

Staff at the Dyfed-Powys force's Carmarthen HQ in West Wales want a longer licence for occasional late-night social functions at their club, especially over Christmas. It now opens 7pm -11pm four nights a week. Dyfed-Powys police said, "We believe there has been a clerical error. We only wanted to extend the licence from 10am until 2am. We will not be open 24 hours and the hours will not normally be extended under new legislation except for special occasions." (Source: The Mirror)

TOTAL PLONKERS
Museum bosses replaced the historically-accurate initials "BC" with "BP" to avoid reference to Christ. They feared the term "Before Christ" could be irrelevant to people of other faiths and used "Before Present" instead. The 'Cheddar Man And The Cannibal' exhibition at the Cheddar Caves Museum in Somerset, charts the development of humans from pre-history to the present day. But all the prehistoric dates are given as "BP" instead of the commonly used "BC". Museum curator, Bob Smart, said using "BP" was a more accurate way of measuring dates and exhibition director, Hugh Cornwall, said many people don't understand what "BC" means anyway. But as one museum visitor said, "The whole point of "BC" is that it's a specific point in time that never moves and everyone knows what it means. But "BP" has no meaning and if it means 'the present day' then it's always moving. It really is a completely nutty idea."

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