Single father fighting to get autistic daughter back
This report tells part of the ongoing story of Ayn van Dyk, who was seized from her home, which she shared with her father and two brothers, after briefly going missing. She has severe autism although academically, she was (at least before being traumatically taken into care from school) close to her age group. The local authorities do not claim that Ayn was in danger from her father, Derek Hoare, but simply that her care was too much for him to manage along with two other children, one of them also autistic. They are still living with him. (Their parents split up some years ago, and she still sees all of the children, and has visited Ayn in care - the article explains why her father has not.)
Recently, there has been much coverage of an inquiry, known as the Leveson inquiry after the presiding judge, into improper practices at a number of British popular newspapers. This started when it was revealed that the News of the World had employed private investigators who tampered with the voice-mails of not only celebrities but also victims of prominent crimes and other ordinary people, a practice which had gone on for decades, which in one case led the parents of a murdered schoolgirl (Milly Dowler) to believe she was alive when she in fact was not. Recently, a number of those whose lives have been damaged by press malpratice have been giving their testimony.
In the days since Col Gaddafi was killed, I have noticed that the western media are obsessed with ensuring that Libyan officials answer to western courts for things the régime did in the 1980s in Europe, such as the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher in 1984 and even the Lockerbie bombing (in which their involvement, and that of Abdul-Baset al-Megrahi who is currently terminally ill, are heavily disputed). People have expressed huge regret that Gaddafi was killed, rather than taken to answer before a court for his crimes. The latter has been expressed by Libyans as well, particularly given that his death would stop him exposing the crimes of those who defected to the new régime during the war, but coming from westerners it always seems to refer to their involvement in international terrorism, not their repression and mass murder against Libyans.
I recently received my copy of the conference DVDs from Invest in ME, which had its 
My favourite radio station is BBC London. I’ve been listening to it for years, and while there are a fair few presenters I don’t like, there are some highly interesting programmes about local issues and local interest, like Robert Elms’s show on weekday afternoons, which have kept me listening for a number of years, particularly during the time I’ve spent driving for a living in London. A recent proposal by the BBC’s trust, which is aimed solely at saving money as the licence fee is to remain at £145.40 for the next five years, to pay for the Welsh language broadcaster S4C as well as the World Service as well as its current responsibilities, would see localised programming ended for much of the schedule, and would no doubt see a number of much-liked programmes disappear for good.