Daily roundup 21 December: False accusations, coroner warning, and children's homes

Innocent people were arrested and had their children taken away after police errors meant they were wrongly accused of being paedophiles. The Telegraph reports that the mistakes emerged in a report by Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Stanley Burnton who analysed a series of blunders by officers handling phone and internet data. It meant blameless individuals were arrested, saw their homes and electronic devices searched, and had their children taken into care as a result of serious errors.


A coroner has warned drunk parents about sleeping with their babies after a newborn child was found dead in his "smashed" mother's bed. The Daily Mail reports that  Amy Leigh Howell, 30, admitted she had been drinking at home in Bolton, Greater Manchester, last December when she put her two-and-a-half month-old son Teneil into a Moses basket in her bedroom at 11pm. Bolton Coroner's Court heard she and partner Blessing Mayo continued drinking before going to bed, but when the couple woke the child was lying motionless between them.


Two children's homes featured in an ITV programme where undercover reporters claimed to have filmed abuse and restraint of some of the ‘most vulnerable children in society' are to be investigated by Shropshire County Council. The Shropshire Star reports that the local authority has launched a "thorough and complete" investigation into the claims raised by the Who Cares? documentary, which aired last week.


An ultra-Orthodox Jew who left her community to start a new life as a woman has won the right to have her case reviewed in the high court after an earlier ruling that she should have no direct contact with her five children. The Guardian reports that yhe court of appeal has decided to refer back the case of the woman, known in court as J, who has not seen her children since leaving the tight-knit Haredi community in Manchester in 2015.