The Butlins trip is the first big incentive although other rewards have

The Butlins trip is the first big incentive, although other rewards have included trips to local leisure centres and milkshakes at McDonald's.. WORKERS BLAMED for causing Britain's worst postwar industrial accident were almost certainly wrongly accused, say experts called in to re-examine the 1974 Flixborough disaster. "I hope they have fun, I hope they laugh a lot and I hope they experience the joy that children are entitled to."The project is a pilot scheme funded by the Government and Portsmouth City Council, and its success is being monitored by Portsmouth University It has been running since last August. "Almost all of them have not had the opportunity to go out as a family and enjoy something that most families take for granted."It's about giving them a fun time together with family members and rewarding them for the extreme efforts they are making," she said. Organisers say the pounds 5 trip to Butlins in Bognor Regis is an incentive for the youngsters to stop committing crimes. Children taken to the camp were referred to the project for offences including burglary and theft. But all those chosen for the trip have either stopped offending or have "drastically reduced", said Rhona Lucas, the project co-ordinator.The youngsters were carefully chosen and will be supervised, Ms Lucas said. The Persistent Young Offenders Project in Portsmouth is taking 25 children and 52 relatives and helpers to the holiday centre.

PERSISTENT OFFENDERS as young as seven are to have a day at Butlins as a reward for quitting crime. Once the family had arrived in Devon, the child was seen by two GPs before being admitted to the intensive care unit at the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital, suffering from a disease of the central nervous system consistent with meningitis, which had passed the treatable stage.After the hearing, Mr and Mrs Simpson said they were "very aggrieved" at how the medical establishment dealt with their child.. Joan Simpson, an only child, died on 30 December last year from pneumococcal meningitis - described by a doctor at her inquest in Exmouth as an "aggressive and wicked infection". Mrs Simpson and her husband, Robin, from Birmingham, were spending Christmas with family in Cockwood, Devon. The coroner, Richard Van Oppen, heard how Joan, eight months, was seen twice at Birmingham hospital before coming to Devon and had been given an antibiotic for an ear infection The antibiotic was stopped because it caused a rash. "It was pointed out to us that we were in breach of human rights, although nobody on Sark felt that at the time.". A CORONER recorded a verdict of death by natural causes yesterday on the baby daughter of Judy Simpson, a former Olympic athlete and Gladiators television star.

A leading member of the Chief Pleas, elected deputy John Carre, said sexual discrimination on the island had been taken away."It was just a step that needed doing," said Mr Carre. THE WOMEN of Sark were given equal rights yesterday, after a feudal law was swept away after four centuries. The right of male primogeniture on the Channel Island was ended, giving women equal rights of property inheritance, largely thanks to pressure from Frederick and David Barclay, millionaire publishers who bought the neighbouring island of Brechou in 1993. The island comes under Sark law and the brothers wanted to ensure that the pounds 60m castle they have had built there would be inherited jointly by David's three sons and Frederick's daughter.Last night's vote has opened the way for even more far- reaching reform on the island, where the constitution allows men to beat their wives as long as they do not draw blood and requires landowners to have muskets ready for defence against foreign invaders.Yet the island's belated step into the 20th century was taken not by a new democratic government, but by 52 landowners who make up the Court of Chief Pleas, Sark's governing body. If they can't guarantee that, they can forget about it," he said.. Proposals for enhancing the east coast main line were the subject of negotiation, he said.Under the negotiating process other companies had expressed an interest in taking franchises, but Sir Alastair refused to confirm that these included the three franchises currently up for negotiation. Decisions are to be announced next summer and negotiations for a second group of franchises will begin early next year.