‘Romeo and Juliet’ clause exempts consensual teenage relationships from child abuse reporting in England

Teachers will not have to inform on sexually active teenagers under a new legal duty to report child abuse after a novel “Romeo and Juliet” exemption received cross-party support.A new crime and policing bill obliges professionals in England, including teachers and healthworkers, to report suspicions of child sexual abuse to the police or local authority in an attempt by the government to prevent cover-ups.There will be dispensation, however, when it comes to teenagers in consensual sexual relationships, including when it involves a 17-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl, after Harriet Cross, a Conservative whip, indicated that her party backed what she described as “a Romeo and Juliet exemption”.The age of sexual consent in the UK is 16 and, unlike in other countries such as Australia, there is no exemption allowing sexual activity between under 18s, even when the two minors are in a consensual relationship.The crime and policing bill introduces the concept of such a close-in-age exemption by asking professionals to use their judgment when it comes to whether they need to report cases involving teenagers found to be sexually active, inciting each other to engage in such activity or engaging in it in front of a child

ASA bans Brazilian liquid butt lift ads from six UK cosmetic treatment providers

The Advertising Standards Authority has reprimanded six cosmetic treatment providers for pressuring customers, exploiting women’s insecurities or trivialising medical risks after an investigation into adverts for liquid Brazilian butt lifts (BBLs).The cosmetic procedure, which involves injecting fillers into the buttocks to enhance their shape and size, is unregulated in the UK and can carry significant health risks, not least from potentially life-threatening infections.Hundreds of women have contracted infections after paying for liquid BBLs in the UK, with many requiring hospital treatment for sepsis or corrective surgery to repair tissue damage.The ASA took action against the UK companies after its artificial intelligence-driven monitoring system flagged numerous Facebook and Instagram adverts for liquid BBLs and similar procedures.Adverts from Beautyjenics, Bomb Doll Aesthetics, CCSkinLondonDubai, EME Aesthetics & Beauty Academy, Rejuvenate Academy, trading as Rejuvenate Clinics, and NKD Medical, trading as Dr Ducu, were found to have breached the code and the companies were told the ads must not appear again

Muslim prisoners in England more likely to be subjected to force, charity finds

Muslim prisoners are disproportionately subjected to force including pain-inducing techniques by jail staff, according to new data.Freedom of information requests found that in eight out of nine prisons with high Muslim populations, Muslim men were more likely than the average inmate to be confronted with batons, made to wear rigid bar handcuffs, or deliberately held in a painful position.The figures have been disclosed amid demands for a crackdown on Muslim gangs within the prison estate, after claims they are effectively running some prisons.In one incident, the Manchester Arena bomber Hashem Abedi attacked three officers with hot cooking oil and homemade knives, leaving two of them in hospital.Maslaha, a social justice charity, requested data from nine prisons with higher than average Muslim populations

UK supreme court to rule on legal definition of a woman

Equalities campaigners in the UK are braced for a supreme court ruling that could have a significant impact on the rights of transgender people to use single-sex services.Five judges on the UK supreme court will rule on Wednesday morning whether or not the definition of woman in the Equality Act 2010 includes transgender women with gender recognition certificates (GRC).The court’s decision is expected to lead to calls for the act to be rewritten, and could have a profound effect on the rights of transgender women to take places on public boards reserved for women, and to use spaces and services intended for women.The case against the Scottish government was brought by the gender critical campaign group For Women Scotland after judges in Edinburgh ruled that ministers were right to say that trans women with a GRC could sit on public boards in posts reserved for women.FWS, which is partly funded by the writer JK Rowling and has support from the campaign group Sex Matters, argues that the Equality Act’s definition of woman is limited only to people born biologically female

How UK court definition of ‘woman’ could affect sex-based rights

The UK supreme court is to rule on how a woman is defined in law, the culmination of a long-running challenge brought against the Scottish government by the gender-critical campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS). The judgment could have a major bearing on how sex-based rights are applied through the Equality Act in Scotland, England and Wales.The narrow point of law on which the court has been asked to rule is who counts as a woman under the UK’s Equality Act, and whether that legal definition includes transgender women possessing a gender recognition certificate (GRC).Although the court battle began in Scotland, the ruling, expected on Wednesday, could have significant implications for how single-sex spaces and services are run across England, Scotland and Wales and galvanise calls to amend the 2010 act.The issue has challenged politicians and policymakers in recent years as concerns about the clash between women’s rights and trans rights have grown; it was used as a political weapon towards the end of the previous Tory government

British hospitals introduce treatment for heart failure that cuts deaths by 62%

People in Britain with heart failure are being given larger doses of drugs at the start of their treatment after a global study found that this led to a huge fall in deaths.Experts say the new approach could mean those with the potentially fatal condition start receiving their ideal amount of medication within two weeks of diagnosis rather than after many months.Evidence from other countries that have already used the treatment found it cut deaths from heart failure by 62% and lowered their risk of ending up back in hospital by 30%. Those were among the key findings of the Strong-HF trial involving 87 hospitals in 14 countries.About 1 million people in the UK have heart failure, which is incurable