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Daily roundup 20 June: Mobile phones, medical cannabis, and airport detention

1 min read
Culture Secretary calls for schools to confiscate mobile phones from children at the start of the day; government announces review of medical use of cannabis; and report finds more than 1,000 children detained at Heathrow Airport last year, all in the news today.

Children should have mobile phones confiscated at the start of the school day, Matt Hancock, the Culture Secretary, has said. The Telegraph reports that Hancock wants more head teachers to "follow the lead" of colleagues who ban phones during school hours because the devices can have a "real impact" on academic achievement.


The use of medicinal cannabis is to be reviewed, which could lead to more prescriptions of drugs made from the plant, the Home Secretary has said. The BBC reports that the decision was prompted by recent high-profile cases of children with severe epilepsy being denied access to cannabis oil to control seizures. But Sajid Javid stressed the drug would remain banned for recreational use.


More than a thousand children were detained at Heathrow Airport last year, including babies and unaccompanied minors who spent more than 10 hours in holding rooms. The Independent reports that in its annual report on the short-term holding facilities at the airport, the Independent Monitoring Board reveals that 1,043 were detained in the year to December 2017, of whom 211 were unaccompanied minors.


The Home Office has broken the law by failing to protect a child trafficking victim who subsequently went missing, a court has ruled. The Independent reports that in a landmark case, a Court of Appeal judge said the government had breached human rights law after a child believed to have been trafficked to the UK from Vietnam was released from immigration detention, with no measures put in place to protect him.


Two boys aged 13 and 15 have been arrested over a triple stabbing that has left one man seriously ill. The BBC reports that police said three men were attacked after a row over van keys stolen in Westfield Avenue, Liverpool, on Tuesday evening.

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