Daily roundup 25 January: Apprenticeships, low-risk paedophiles, and playground death

The government's new apprenticeship levy is yet to increase the number of people being trained, according to official figures released on Thursday. The BBC reports that there were 114,000 apprenticeship starts reported so far for the first quarter of the 2017/18 academic year. That compared with 155,600 for the same period in the previous academic year - a 27 per cent drop.


Prosecutions of low-risk paedophiles are clogging a court system already failing rape and sexual assault victims desperate for justice, a police chief said. The Times reports that Simon Bailey, who leads the National Police Chiefs' Council on child protection, told an inquiry that police cautions and treatment should be considered instead to relieve the pressures.


Tower Hamlets Council will not face manslaughter charges after a five-year-old girl died when play equipment collapsed on her in a park. The BBC reports Alexia Walenkaki was playing on a rope swing in Mile End Park on 17 July 2015 when a tree trunk holding the swing fell on her.
The CPS said no fault was identified with the trunk during inspections before and after Alexia's death.


The parents of a toddler found in a bedroom strewn with rubbish and faeces have avoided jail because of their own "troubled upbringings". The Daily Mail reports that Kerry Rybak, 27, and Darren Stanley, 26, were each handed a 16-month sentence suspended for two years on Tuesday after pleading guilty to child neglect at an earlier hearing.