Daily roundup 18 April: CSE, primary places, and teenage murder charge

Taxi drivers in South Ribble in Lancashire were allowed to sexually assault children as young as five, it has been claimed. The Daily Mail reports that analysis by South Ribble Council found that at least 44 taxi drivers were allowed to drive without proper background checks.


The poorest children are missing out on places at the best primary schools in England, according to research. The BBC reports that the least wealthy families have less than half the chance of the wealthiest families of sending a child to a top-rated school, according to Teach First's analysis of Ofsted school rankings across England.


Two 14-year-olds are to appear in court charged with murdering a mother and her teenage daughter found dead in their Lincolnshire home. The Telegraph reports that the bodies of 49-year-old Elizabeth Edwards and her 13-year-old daughter Katie were found at a property in Spalding, Lincolnshire, on Friday. The two accused teenagers are due to appear at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court today. ?


At least 239 unaccompanied refugee children permanently disappeared from care facilities in the UK in 2015, according to a joint investigation by BBC 5 Live and Buzzfeed News. The Independent reports the figure represents a 75 per cent rise in the number of lone asylum-seeking children going missing from care.


Ofsted will decide within the next month whether children’s services in Northampton have improved sufficiently to move the authority out of special measures. Northamptonshire Council launched an improvement strategy in 2013 after Ofsted rated children’s services “inadequate”, and council leaders are confident provision has improved significantly since then, reports the Northampton Chronicle.


More than 65 children a day in the North East of England are dependent on foodbanks, according to latest data from the Trussell Trust. The charity handed out 23,962 three-day food parcels to children in the Tyneside area last year. However, the region’s busiest foodbank, Newcastle’s West East Food Bank, is concerned it will not be able to cope with demand following a £75,000 funding cut, according to the Newcastle Chronicle.


The Scottish National Party (SNP) is to offer new parents in Scotland a free “baby box” of clothes, nappies and toys, with a built-in mattress allowing the box to be used as a baby’s cot, in an effort to tackle infant poverty. The baby box is one of the proposals – along with greater investment in free childcare and health visitors – in the SNP manifesto for May’s Scottish Parliament elections, reports the Guardian.