Sunday, June 11, 2006

BRITISH "HUMAN RIGHTS" MADNESS AGAIN



A yob who spent all day on a roof lobbing bricks at cops was "rewarded" with a KFC takeaway. Police gave him the meal because of his HUMAN RIGHTS as the suspected car thief staged his second rooftop siege in seven months.

Last night, furious locals blasted his soft treatment. One, Leanne Roberts, 19, said: "It's disgraceful. People are starving while he is served like a king."

And John Swatton, 74, added: "If I was in charge I'd shoot him down with a rubber bullet. Public funds are being wasted molly-coddling him."

Neighbours in the road -- which was closed -- in Gloucester city centre identified the man as Barry Chambers, 26. He scaled the three-storey house early yesterday after allegedly stealing a car and leading police on a high-speed chase. Up to 50 cops with riots vans were said to be at the scene. After cops were bombarded by bricks from a chimney for 12 hours, the food and cigarettes were sent up by crane.

A police spokesman said: "He demanded various things and one was a KFC bargain bucket. We have to look after his human rights."

He finally came down just before 10pm after 19 HOURS. Neighbours said Chambers climbed on a roof near a police station last November -- and came down after he got food.

Source



PA PARENTS NOW DICTATED TO OVER FOOD

First the kids and then the parents

Parents who visit their children at lunch would be required to eat school food rather than bring the children fast-food lunches under a proposed wellness policy in the Palmyra Area School District. That doesn't set well with some parents. Lori Swisher, who has three children at Forge Road Elementary School, agreed the schools don't need soda machines or daily doughnuts, but bristled at "one more government restriction." Swisher said she occasionally has brought pizza or a sub to her kids at school. "I like to think I serve mostly healthy meals, but when all three have sports, sometimes fast food is the option," she said.

The school board will vote June 15 on the guidelines, which Collene Van Noord, director of curriculum and instruction, said is part of a nationwide effort to combat childhood obesity by teaching healthy eating and exercise habits. Proposed changes include limiting the selection of a la carte treats in the cafeterias and encouraging healthier treats for classroom holiday parties for Valentine's Day and Halloween. "We're not saying no cupcakes and birthday treats," Van Noord said, but veggies and fruit will be encouraged.

Source



U.K.: VICTORY OVER STEREOTYPING OF MALES AS PREDATORS

A male nurse yesterday won a case of sex discrimination brought against an NHS trust that refused to allow him to carry out routine procedures on female patients without a chaperone. Andrew Moyhing, 29, from London, had complained that the policy, which applied only to male nurses, was unfair as it was based on the stereotypical assumption that he would represent a danger to women because he was a man.

The case arose during Mr Moyhing's third year of training three years ago, when he was told that a female member of staff would have to chaperone him while using an electrocardiogram machine on a female patient. He complained that female staff were allowed to conduct the same procedure on male and female patients with no chaperone present. His initial claim of sex discrimination against Bart's and the London NHS Trust was unsuccessful, but yesterday an Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled in his favour.

The tribunal held that while not all male students would have objected to having a chaperone imposed, Mr Moyhing did, as it made him feel that he was considered untrustworthy. As that was not an unreasonable reaction to the situation, the trust's policy constituted discrimination.

Mr Moyhing, who left nursing over the issue to work in financial services, said he hoped that the decision would herald the beginning of an era when nursing could draw equally on the skills of both male and female students. "Male nurses are still seen as a bit of an oddity simply because there are so many more women in the profession than men, despite the fact that so many doctors are male. "I believe that ultimately if male students are treated more equally, those such as myself who abandon nursing as a career will stay on and the numbers will start to equalise," he said.

Mr Moyhing, whose mother was also a nurse, declined to accept an award of 750 pounds compensation because he said he did not want to divert resources from the NHS. "I hope that the NHS will look at its policies on the chaperoning of male nurses and develop them in the light of this judgment," he said.

Jenny Watson, chairwoman of the Equal Opportunities Commission, which supported Mr Moyhing's case, said that the trust's chaperoning policy had been based on lazy stereotyping and the assumption that all men are sexual predators. "This type of discrimination against men based on misconceptions about their behaviour does nothing to help ensure patient safety," she said.

The case had raised important issues about the segregation of male and female professions. EOC research showed that more than a quarter of boys in school are interested in caring work, yet only 1 in 10 nurses is a man, as is only 1 in 50 childcare workers. "This disconnect between levels of interest and the tiny numbers of men entering the caring professions won't be closed until we challenge our assumptions about the type of jobs that modern men should do," Ms Watson said.

Charlie Sheldon, deputy director of nursing at Bart's and the London NHS Trust, said the fact that the award to Mr Moyhing was only 750 pounds showed that the tribunal considered the harm done to him was minor. It implied that Mr Moyhing had "displayed an exaggerated and unduly sensitive reaction to being chaperoned", he said. In the process, the idea that male nurses were second-class citizens had been "soundly rejected".

Source



Rare sense from an Australian judge

Attempt to blame other people rejected

Parents are on notice to properly supervise children after the Court of Appeal ruled on a personal injury case involving a young girl injured at a sports ground. The case examined where parental control should take over from the duty of care that sports associations owed to those using their grounds. In its ruling on Friday, the court did not suggest the child's mother, who was watching her, had been negligent. Rather it was determined that the mother had been in the best position to judge if her daughter was in danger.

In the District Court last year the child's parents, on her behalf, sued Central Queensland's Belyando Shire Council and the Moranbah Hockey Association for personal injuries. The court was told that on August 22, 1998, the girl, then three, was playing with other children near a gate on a ground owned by the council and used by hockey players. The girl's left thumb was caught in the gate as other children swung it open and shut. Her thumb was crushed and required surgery. The child's mother was watching her while her husband, the child's father, played hockey.

The hockey association did not deny the gate was usually locked but had been left unlatched after deliveries to the canteen earlier in the day. It also did not deny it had a duty of care to those using its facilities. However, it argued the child's mother was supervising her and was in a better position to judge any hazard. The trial judge dismissed the claim and found, while it was negligent not to lock the gate, the association was entitled to rely on parental supervision to protect the child from harm.

Lawyers for the child appealed, arguing the judge's initial finding - that the gate should have been locked - was correct and the association had breached a duty of care. But in a unanimous judgment, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. Justice John Jerrard said the association's responsibility was to conduct sporting events rather than caring for children.

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